A Busy Year at the Old Squire's

by C. A. Stephens

I brought in one of the hares. I had an idea that we might add a bunch of them to our load for Portland; but it and the others that we had knocked over were too lank and light to be salable.

For an hour or more hares by the dozen continued to leap past the camp. We repeatedly heard lynxes, or other beasts of prey, snarling at a distance, as if following the mob of hares. Where all those hares came from, or where they went, or why they were traveling by night, we never knew. That is a question for naturalists. The next morning, when we went out to look for witches' brooms, there was not a hare in sight, except those that Addison had killed.

The witches' brooms were plentiful in the fir swamp along the stream; and as they were usually high up in the tree tops and not easily reached by climbing, we began to cut down such firs as had them. At that time and in that remote place, a fir-tree was of no value whatever.

Firs are easy trees to fell, for the wood is very soft, but they are bad to climb or handle on account of the pitch. We cut down about fifty trees that day, and left them as they fell, after getting the one or more witches' brooms in the top. Of those, we got eighty-two, all told; with the green fir boughs that went with them, they pretty nearly filled the rack. All were sear and dry, for they were just a densely interwoven mass of little twigs, but they contained a great many yellow flakes of dried pitch. In two of them we found the nests of flying squirrels; but in both cases the squirrels "flew" before the tree fell, and sailed away to other firs, standing near.

Altogether, it was a day of hard work. We were very tired—all the more so because we had slept hardly ten minutes the preceding night. But again we were much disturbed by the snarling of lynxes and the uneasiness of our horses at the ox camp. In fact, it was another dismal night for us; we hitched up at daybreak, and after a fearfully rough drive over bare logs and stones, and several breakages of harness, we reached the old Squire's, thoroughly tired out, at four o'clock in the afternoon.

The girls, however, were delighted with our lofty load of witches' brooms. In truth, it was rather picturesque, so many of those great gray bunches of intermeshed twigs, ensconced amid the green fir boughs that we had cut with them. A hall or a church would look odd indeed thus decorated.

Cheered by a good supper, we made ready to start for Portland the next morning. During the night, however, the weather changed. By daybreak on the twenty-third considerable snow had fallen, and we were able to travel this time on snow again. We had the rack piled higher than before, with the Christmas trees and the boxes of lion's-paw in the front end, and all those witches' brooms stacked and lashed on at the rear. The load was actually fourteen feet high, yet far from heavy; witches' brooms are dry and light. A northwest wind, blowing in heavy gusts behind us, fairly pushed us along the road. We got on fast, baited our team at New Gloucester at one o'clock in the afternoon, and by dusk had reached Welch's Tavern, eleven miles out of Portland.

Here we put up for the night; as our load was too bulky to draw into the barn, we were obliged to leave it in the yard outside, near the garden fence—fifty yards, perhaps, from the tavern piazza.

We had supper and were about to go to bed, when in came three fellows who had driven up from the city, on their way to hunt moose in Batchelder's Grant. All three were in a hilarious mood; they called for supper, and said that they meant to drive on to Ricker's Tavern, at the Poland Spring.

There was a lively fire on the hearth, for the night was cold and windy; the newcomers stood in front of it—while Addison and I sat back, looking on. The cause of their boisterousness was quite apparent; they were plentifully supplied with whiskey. Then, as now, the "Maine law" prohibited the sale of intoxicants; but this happened to be one of the numerous periods when the authorities were lax in enforcing the law.