and it was not nice to have to crawl out of my warm nest and run through
the keen cold air for a half mile or more to fetch some live coals,
before the morning light had broken in the east. My father usually kept
some bundles of finely split pine sticks tipped with brimstone for
starting a fire. With these, if there was only a spark left, a fire
could soon be made.

But little time was given to sport, although there was plenty of large
game. There was something of more importance always claiming attention.
In the winter an occasional deer might be shot, and foxes were sometimes
taken in traps. It required a good deal of experience and skill to set a
trap so as to catch the cunning beast. Many stories have I heard
trappers tell of tricks played by Reynard, and how he had, night after
night, baffled all their ingenuity, upset the traps, set them off, or
removed them, secured the bait, and away. Another sport more largely
patronized in the spring, because it brought something fresh and
inviting to the table, was night-fishing. When the creeks were swollen,
and the nights were calm and warm, pike and mullet came up the streams
in great abundance. Three or four would set out with spears, with a man
to carry the jack, and also a supply of dry pine knots, as full of resin
as could be found, and cut up small, which were deposited in different
places along the creek. The jack was then filled and lit, and when it
was all ablaze carried along the edge of the stream, closely followed by
the spearsman, who, if an expert, would in a short time secure as many
fish as could be carried. It required a sharp eye and a sure aim. The
fish shot through the water with great rapidity, which rendered the
sport all the more exciting. All hands, of course, returned home
thoroughly soaked. Another and pleasanter way was fishing in a canoe on
the bay, with the lighted jack secured in the bow. While there its light
shone for a considerable distance around, and enabled the fishers to see