"I'm from the Kennebec River", said Micah, laconically.
"I am quite extensively acquainted in that region, but do not remember to have heard your name before. It is rather an uncommon one".
"I guess ye won't find many folks in them parts, ez is called Mummychog", said Micah, with a twinkle of the eye and something like a grin, on his sombre visage.
"You've a snug place here, Mr, Micah", said Mr. Norton, who, having found some difficulty in restraining a smi le, when repeating Mr. Mummychog's surname, concluded to drop it altogether, "but what could have induced you to leave the pleasant Kennebec and come to this distant spot?"
"Well, I cam' to git a chance and be somwhere, where I could jest be let alone".
"A chance for what, Mr. Micah?"
"Why, hang it, a chance to live an' dew abeout what I want tew. The moose an' wolves an' wildcats hev all ben hunted eout o' that kentry. Thar wa'nt no kind ev a chance there. So I cam' here".
"You have a wife, I suppose, Mr. Micah?"
"Wife! no. Do ye spose I want to hev a woman kep' skeered a most to death abeout me, all the time? I'm a fishin' an' huntin good part o' the year. Wild beasts and sech, is what I like".
"Don't you feel lonely here, sometimes, Mr Micah?"