Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods by Isabel Hornibrook
page 98 of 263 (37%)
page 98 of 263 (37%)
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such it could be called. Luckily the campers of both nationalities, from
Cyrus downward, were without any element of snobbery in their dispositions. It seemed to them only a jolly part of the untrammelled forest life that man should go back to his primitive relations with his brother man; that in the woods, as Doc said, "manhood should be the only passport," and that titles and distinctions should never be thought of by guides or anybody else. They were well-pleased to be taken simply for what they were,--jolly, companionable fellows,--and to be valued according to the amount of grit and good-temper they showed. And they learned this morning to appreciate the pioneer courage and resolute spirit of the rugged settlers who had cleared a home for themselves amid the surrounding wilderness of forest and stream. Their roughness of speech was as nothing in comparison with their brave endurance of hardships, their deeds of heroism, and their free-handed hospitality. Lin led his visitors straight to a log cabin, before which his father, a veteran woodsman, who bore the scars of bears' teeth upon his body, was digging and planting. This old farmer, too, greeted Doc as a friend, and when the wagon was talked about, was quite willing to do anything to serve him. "But ye must have a square meal afore ye travel," he said. "Jerusha! I couldn't let ye go without eatin'. Mother!" shouting to his wife, who was inside the cabin. "Say, Mother! Ha'n't ye got somethin' fer these fellers to munch?" Forthwith a big, rosy woman, who had herself fought a bear in her time, and had shot him, too, before he attacked her farmyard, hustled round, |
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