The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1921-10-10
SALT SPRINGS
Salt Springs, Fla, Oct. 8.

Cdil OpTiuSo1 4 ldss OIIs o.
Dear Star: I've been communing
with Nature the past half a dozen
days. Nature, the grammarians, or
perhaps it is the biologists, both be-
ing remarkably scarce among the
writer's / deal with, say that Nature
is impersonal; which fact you can't
fully understand until you go to light
your supper fire in the vast wilder
ness and realize with gasp of horror
that your last box of matches is wet.
1t is a fixed habit of mine to take
vacation every decade. / entirely skip
ped the last decade, so decided to take
two during this one. Even at that,
had to run over year and three
quarters waiting for the time, the op-
portunity and the coin. / borrowed
all three.
Even with these, | couldn't have
made the rifle, but for the aid of my
brother I'M half a dozen orders and
clubs, j. D. Wilkes. Friend Wilkes
has a fordobile, tent and other APP
purtenances of camping outfit. l
bought Cor had charged) bushel of
canned goods, bunch. of tin table
ware, gaudy percolator to make
coffee in, and various other things. /
had an alcohol stove about as big as
one of the union station restaurants
coffee cups, and to feed it | carried
two quarts -of wood alcohol. On the
bottle containing the same had Doc
Carlisle paste many gruesome labels
and grim deaths so that if some too
festive person was found dead near
my tent + could produce good alibi.
A certain charitable NJ. D., who was
with the A. E. F., loaned me a SUBJ
stantial army cot, which / thought a
marvel Of Yankee ingenuity until l
found a decidedly Teutonie name in
scribed thereon. | guess Docs outfit
was too swift for the Fritzies some
time when they were burning the
supplies they couldn't carry away.
No, / won't tell his name; | might
want to borrow that cot again.
Wilkes and set sail. or rather
began to burn gasoline, about 1890
Monday morning and were soon In
that large and valuable part of the
county generally referred to in 0caia
as cover the River" I'll be pretty well
satisfied if l find as good place to
stay in when l go "over the river"
The scenery along the right of
way was part of that terrible country
referred to in most of Florida's daily
press as the "open range" which was
dotted with specimens of what the
long, lean, stringy, ticky beef cattle. "
All the bovines in sight that morning
were in fair condition rolling fat,
but their frames well covered with
good, firm meat. Many were close to
the road, and no ticks were discernible
on them. Some of the editors who
write narrowing stories about cattle
they never see are punished for their
sins by paying for the meat at pack
inghouse prices as western beef, in
hotels and restaurants all over the
state. It is a safe bet that if a Texas
steer and Florida steer stood side
Ly side the majority of Florida news
paper men couldn't tell to which state
either belonged
We drove for miles across corner
of the forest reserve, which was burn
ed over last spring. Nature had al
ready begun to repair the damage
green foliage growing up amid OF
covering the blackened ground an6
bushes. was interested in the thou
sands and thousands of small deae
trees blackjack and dwarfed oak
Il was the biggest collection of stove
wood ON the hoof | ever saw.
We went on until we saw Uncle Net
WilliaInson's coy home nesting OF
the sunny hillside to the right, and /
little further on, on the hill top, tn,
lone soldiers grave, which hasn't an.
fence around it, and yet a little fur
Their. emerging from patch of forest