"I like that, too; like to hear hunting story, always, much," added Tomah, with a glistening eye.
"Well, no particular objection as far as I am concerned," responded the trapper, seriously; but adding, with his old waggish gleam of the eye: "that is, if you will take what I give, and swallow it as easily as you did Phillips' fish story. But let Carvil, who must be the youngest, go on with his story first; I will follow; and Phillips shall bring up the rear."
Carvil, after making a few excuses that were not suffered to avail him, commenced his narration, which we will head
THE AMATEUR WOODSMAN'S STORY.
"I call myself a woodsman, and a pretty good one, now; but, four years ago, I was almost any thing else but one of any kind. I should have then thought it would have certainly been the death of me to have lain out one night in the woods. And I had no more idea of ever becoming a hunter or trapper, to remain out, as I have since done, for weeks and months in the depths of the wilderness, with no other protection than my rifle, and no other shelter than what I could fix up with my hatchet for the night, where I happened to be, on the approach of darkness, than I now have of undertaking to swim the Atlantic. And, as the circumstances which led to this revolution in my opinions and habits, when out of the woods, may as much interest you, in the account, as any thing that happened to me after I got into them, I will first briefly tell you how I came to be a woodsman, and then answer your call by relating a hunting incident which occurred to me after I became one; which, if not very marvellous, shall, at least, have the merit of truth and reality.
"I was brought up rather tenderly, as to work; and my parents, absurdly believing that, with my then slight frame, any employment requiring any labor or physical exertion would injure me, put me to study, and assisted me to the means of entering college at eighteen, and of graduating at twenty-two. Well, I did not misimprove my opportunities for knowledge, I believe; but, instead of gaining strength and manhood by my exemption from labor, I grew feebler and feebler. Still, I did not know what was wanting to give me health and constitution, nor once think that a mind without a body is a thing not worth having; and so I went on, keeping within doors and studying a profession, until I found myself a poor, nervous, miserable dyspeptic, and threatened with consumption. It was now plain enough that, if I would avoid a speedy death, something must be done; and, by the advice of the doctors, who were about as ignorant of the philosophy of health as myself, I concluded to seek a residence and livelihood in one of the Southern States. Accordingly, I packed up and took stage for Boston, timing my journey so as to get there the day before the ship, on which I had previously ascertained I could find a passage, was to sail for Savannah. But, the morning after I arrived, a severe storm came on, and the sailing of the ship was deferred till the next day; so, having nothing to do, knowing nobody to talk with, and the weather being too stormy to go out to see the city, I took to my solitary room in the hotel, where, fortunately, there were neither books nor papers to prevent me from thinking. And I did think, that day, almost for the first time in my life, without the trammels of fashionable book-theories, and more effectually than I had ever done before. I had a favorite classmate in college, whose name was Silas Wright, who had a mind that penetrated, like light, every thing it was turned upon, and who never failed to see the truth of a matter, though his towering ambition sometimes prevented him from following the path where it led. In recalling, as I was pacing the floor that gloomy day, my old college friends and their conversation, I happened to think of what Wright once said to me on the subject of health and long life.
"'Carvil,' said he, 'did you know that we students were committing treason against the great laws of life which God has laid down for us?'
"'No.'
"'Well, we are. Man was made for active life, and in the open air.'
"'But you, it seems, are not observing the theory about which you are so positive?'