The Savannah morning news., 1904-09-25
THE WOODS IN AUTUMN.
New Life and Red Blood Results
From an Outing in September.

new Life and Red Blood Results
From an Outing in September.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer.
There are signs of the waning of
summer. Along the roads the golden
rod shows yellow, the wild cherries
are ripe, the songsters are heard no
more in ticket and hedge row; and
fiocks Of birds are circling about, train
ing this years broods for their South
ern fight. There is an air Of lassi-
tude over everything. After a great
burst of energy which covered the
meadows with tall grasses, broke out
in waves of fragrant bloom and car
ried every shrub and treetop little
nearer to their source of life. Nature
seems to be resting before rousing
herself to another effort which will
bring all her growth and fruitage to
the ripeness of garnering time. The
days are perceptibly shorter and the
nights begin to have a touch of chilli
ness. If you have waited till now
for your outing why not go to the
Maine woods? Get away from shop
altogether, and go where there is balm
and vigor in the air. If you don't
care to rough it, it isn't necessary.
You can set down at a little station
twelve or fifteen hours from Boston,
whence you will be taken by stage or
boat, perhaps by both, through TWEEN
ty miles of veritable wilderness, to
the shores of a lake almost hidden
among the mountains. You will find
every comfort that a reasonable man
can ask. A snug log cabin with a
good bed to sleep in; large central
room, where all the campers meet for
wholesome, substantial meals, and
where at night, by a great log fire,
they hold easy converse and strain
each others politeness and credulity
to the utmost.
A camp is no place for loafing. The
spirit of doing something is in the
air. You may sit about and read on
rainy days, and there is nothing like
a pipe in the woods after you have
earned it, but you are there to be oc-
cupied and active, and you feel like
it. There is a guide and a canoe for
each two, and you may have one for
yourself, and the greatest fascination
and enjoyment are to be found on the
water. Once you learn to get into the
canoe nothing can be more delightful
than to sit and watch your brawny
oarSman as with easy, noiselesS sweeps,
he sends you gliding along the rocky
shores, in and out of the tree shad-
ows, where the fragrance of the pines
Sits down through the branches past
the little stretches of shiny, sandy
beaches and bits of green meadows,
where some singing brook flows into
the lake, till he pauses and bids you
look ahead, and there, standing to
their knees among the lily pads, are
a herd of deer. You have just round
ed a point, and they are perhaps an
eighth of a mile away, with the wind
blowing from them toward you. They
are intent upon feeding, and little by
little, almost without motion of the
paddle, you steal noiselessly upon
them. What a charming picture they
make--two or three bucks, with their
branching antlers thrown forward as
they pull the long stems from the
water, and a dozen does and fawns
grouped about them in easy, grace
full attitudes of perfect security! AS
you come almost near enough to reach
them with a paddle they suddenly look
up, stand for an instant transfxed,
then out they go onto the shingle, their
white tails erect, and crash into the
bushes and disappear Fortunately no
one has brought a gun, but there are
quick snapshots from the camera, and
you cannot but rejoice that it has not
been in your heart to slay anything
so beautiful and full of joyous, abound
ing life. Keep on around the lake, and
you may come two or three times upon
such groups, or perhaps see a great
moose, who has swum from the other
side, land and shake himself as he
throws back his head and dashes
away under the low hanging
boughs.
It is fairyland at night, when the
moon shines full and the weird spirit
of solitude and wildness possesses all
the scene Not a flutter of a leaf,
nor a ripple on the shore can you
hear as in ghostly silence you float
out into the white moonlight; nothing
but the gentle scraping of the water
grasses against the canoe as the noise
less paddle moves it slowly on. Then
a lonely owl sends his hooting cry
out into the night, and back across
the water comes the harsh laugh of
some wakeful loon. If there be any
where a toiling, rushing world, it is
far awav
No two days are alike. If the sea-
son be not over, you may angle and
there are the trout and bass and now
and then a land-locked salmon for the
skilIful fisherman, and there are glo-
rious tramps in the twilight of the
great trees, along half-hidden wood
roads and on, If you can climb and
scramble through steep glens and over
fallen trunks, on and UP, till you
reach some mountain top. disclosing
a boundless reach of Jagged peaks and
waving forest, murmuring in the wind
like a far off sea, and below, flashing
in the sunlight, the blue lake you hNge
left behind you. Not a sight or sound
of man, and not "a sign of his devast-
ing touch. But the half of the joy
and beauty and refreshment of 1t
cannot be told. Go for yourself and
see.
CURIOUS WAY To HEALTH.
~, Veil. rz;v,oa.