“What a chance to make sugar!—build the camp at the bottom of the hill, and haul the sap down. Wouldn’t apple trees grow here! you better believe it!”
His attention was now arrested by the sound of running water. Turning around, he came upon a broad, deep brook, with water of a reddish tinge, running very swiftly, leaping over logs half imbedded in the soil, till, with a broad mouth, bordered by enormous basswood trees, composed, as is often the habit of that tree, of many trunks springing from a common root, it met the sea at the base of the cliffs of the south-western point.
“How handsome these trees must look in blossom! and the water is deep enough at high tide to sail right into the mouth of this brook, and under the trees: won’t I do it some time?”
He now perceived, at a distance, something glancing white through the mass of foliage.
“I’ll see what that is when I come back. I want to see what is on the height of land.”
Proceeding up the ascent, he beheld a level surface of apparently a light loam.
“Here,” said he, “is some black wood, at least.” There were clumps of large white pines and spruce, with red oak, but no continuous growth of pine, as on Elm Island. “Here is corn, grain, and potato land. What a splendid farm this would make! so many kinds of land, and no waste land.”
Going farther, he again came upon the brook.
“I shall get lost. I’ll follow the brook, and see what that white thing was.”
Looking through the trees into a broad opening, he saw a bear with two cubs, picking blueberries.