The independent-reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1909-1955, 1910-11-10
A PLACE WHICH BOYS
LIKE TO VISIT
Owner Is Acquainted With Nature,
Books and Boys.

There is den in Skowhegan, be-
longing to Sewell Smith, where boys
love to visit, for they find there more
things of more kinds to look at than
they have dreamed Of The owner
began in his boyhood to gather up the
curious things that came in his way
and, as he grew older the boys of
succeeding generations whose friend
he has always been, have helped by
bringing him every strange thing they
found in this world of wonders.
Therefore in that long room ceiled
with white wood, you may find stuffed
animals bugs, mounted birds, snakes
in bottles and snake skins dried mud
turtles, box turtles, tortoise shells.
swapping turtles, varied collection
of shells and other sea wonders.
There are old dishes, old candle sticks
old lamps, curiously shaped bottles.
A flax wheel is in the corner A bay
onet borne by an ancestor at Bunker's
Hill is not far from saber of the Re-
bellion. There Is an old horse pistol
and a grape shot and bullet or two
with a story. Here. too, is a box of
flints such as were used in the old
flint-lock muskets. These were un-
earthed under the caves of an old shed
where they were placed when the an
eient church, the first built in Canaan,
was torn down. They were kept with
ammunition in the meeting house to
be ready in case the Indians attacked
the pioneers, There are arrow heads
in the museum, and other reminders
Of the red men; stone pestle, toma-
hawks and strings of bone and copper
beads. One necklace was taken from
the skeleton of an Indian. There are
mineral specimens and specimens of
different kinds of wood, and all these
are only few of the things collected
some valuable, some laughably worth
less, but each revealing some queer
little twist in the owners mind and
fancy.
Everywhere, where there is nothing
else, are books, covering most of two
walls and tucked in every corner
not books in artistic or aristocratic
bindings, but shabby, comfortable
looking volumes that have been read,
some of them, until they are dropping
to pieces.-books that have been init
mate friends of the family and have,
some of them. travelled over every
reighborhood in which their owner
has lived. He can show you some
curiosities in books also: The Young
Reader, The English Reader, old, old
volumes of sermons, books where (
and look just alike, Peter Simple"
and The Phantom Ship" in little
black leathern volumes, the Book of
Mormon, the Koran and the Arabian
Nights. He can unearth old newspa-
pers and show you a file of Somerset
Reporters completes for thirty-five
years. If you like such things, he
can show you, also, few choice coins
and stamps.
Most of the boys who visit this
place, exclaim, My! never could
make such a, collection" but they for
get that this is the work of life time,
helped out at various times by numer-
Gus boy friends. The chief value of
this collection lies after all in the
facts that, with the exception of a few
of the rarer shells, these treasures
represent no other outlay than OF the
qualities of observation and persever-
ance and, that the owner has acquired
something more valuable than the
articles themselves, an intimate ac-
quaintance with Nature and with boys
and books.