Morning journal and courier., 1891-10-01
SEAL HARBOR-MT. DESERT.


 old Folks and Young Folks-Good Cheer and Merry Ttmes-Fire on the Mountains-A Kraken, Sea Urch1ns, Holothurians and Sea Anemones.
 And now we are back at Seaside house again. And think my reader will not be- grudge me few words about the pro- prietor and the house, and etc. The old people are really old. Old Captain Jim my" used to go codfshing on the Banks in his younger days. A real old salt is he, very genial and entertaining in his seafar- ing yarns or phrases. His good old wife is the house mother, familiarly known as Aunt Abby. If anyone happens to need 8 little more than usual care, she knows something about the old time remedies and methods of household medicines, and of her kindness I had personal experience and owing not little to her many valua- ble qualities. This house grew from small beginnings long ago to it's present size, and James. jr., is there the year round, John and Charles are near, Ambrose comes down from Belfast during the season, and whatever is needed from Portland or Bos- ton he will see to it that the guests have great variety and plenty of good fare. The dining hall is large and the house kitchen commodious and separate affair from the family kitchen and dining room. There's good old-time fireplace in the office and another in the near long parlor, and another in the large double parlor of the newer building, and so cool are the evenings even in September those fire places are very cheerful and great de- light. All the rooms are good and nice, furnishings ditto, table linen and all, nice, clean. Plenty of nice Maine girls there intelligent, bright, teachers and others who come from different parts of the island to earn some money during the season. Not only is their serbice intelligent and cheer full, but one does not get any such service in city hotels, however large and expen- sive.
 Did we have bill of farea Yes. Printed and written, and changed continually, from day to day and meal to meal. Ii anything, after all my varied experiences, was surprised, not simply by the good ness of the cooking, but the continued va of the island, but woman of experience None of your French cooks; live Yankee cook If anybody thinks French name 1 makes anything taste better, let theu think so. English suits me. like the Anglo Saxon. I am of Yankee stock, and | know the Yankee women are hard to beat You don't know about it? Possibly not My mothers mother was New Haver girl of good old colonial family, and what she and her daughters did not know | about cooking was hardly worth knowing You may smile! But have lived about | where I could observe these things in { ] sufficiently large way, and whenever praise the Connecticut women I must also | praise those kindred folk who live "dowr east"
 I would not give the idea that I live tt l eat Not my idea at III eat to live-ant | if anybody does not know that the process of living for many years depends yer, much on the variety of suitable food, stil more upon it's proper preparation, it. | worth knowing we are an over mucl | dyspeptic people, instead of taking s' much medicine, why not have suitabl food that can be digested, and have it tn | year round.
 You go away from home for health, ant it may be you come back worse off thai you went, what did you eat Shall we evel learn before it is to late some of the frs principles of living. "A physician or
 fool at forty" but we must learn to | ouI oWu Puy t1uu uOCLOIS dl0 DOL l to take little medicine.
 Now if anybody thinks to get such foo and service in great over-crowded sum mer hotel with great name it is his loo out. Give me house like Sea Side house peopled by guests who are not fond o shams, and I am contented. Did we hay any music there? A good piano. Tn guests did not find it to sound like til pan. A modern piano. Such an instru ment is resource anywhere, especial evenings. The young folks can make thei own music and do their own singing Wha a jolly evening I remember when tn young ladies constituted themselves into court of high sessions and arraigned som of their young men folks for misdemeano1 Throwing green apples in at their win meanors. Judge and jury and law yers they were. We lockers on in the well filled parlor, nearly split ou sides at the laughableness of the charges the testimony, the arguments, the plea and counter pleas. The regular irregular ity of the proceedings, with lively bev of bright young women sometimes talkin at once, gave the offenders little chance o being heard. Off riding, or tramping, 0 boating all day and then go on that wa through the evening. Were we ever youn ourselves, as gay as they and as lively Let those dance who wish to dance. l looks entertaining. But I like to SC minds at play, the ready wit and repratee to hear the merry laug ghter and ringin peals, the shouts of the merry makers owe the good points scored. Strange to sa the young men were acquitted.
 ] Among other pictures of interest
 should not forget to mention one that in terested us several days and nights-viz fire on Greene mountain, probably occs stoned by a spark from the locomotive tha goes up that steep incline from Eagle lake The fire worked up the west side an crossed over and went down toward Ba I Harbor on one side and toward Otter eli on another. We heard that men at thos places had to go out in force to fight il Some of our own up on their mountai tramp four or five miles away found it be set their path and got their clothes singe little before they could get beyond il Those long lines of fire on a mountain a night do look interesting and somewha remind me of the prairie fires
 used to see in Illinois in m youth. By day caught the smoke an cloud effect produced by the fire on tn mountai in one of my color studies, an like it for the peculiar haze induced there by. I suppose those mountains have al been fire swept. The large old whitene' and blackened trees that remain in isolate' positions incline me to think heav ] growth once stood where moses and bushe and young trees have reasserted thei right to adorn the otherwise great bleal masses; and on the lower slopes the youn spruces and birches make rapid growth It would be easy for you to get lost il some of these young forests, so thick ant painless, even between the mountains an, Seal harbor. w hat nice photo I have o the Sea Side house proprietors and thei help, as a group, with the spruces ant white birches for 8 background. In al about eighteen of them. A pleasant sou venir to me. w. L. B.