wolves, panthers, and
bears unmolested in the green depths and following the same runways
which their species had trodden for centuries. Here also lurked the
red man, suspicious and cautious and ever ready to revenge on the
white man the wrongs of his race.

In this beautiful spot lived the boy, James Fenimore Cooper, in the
family mansion built by his father and named Otsego Hall, the starting
point of the now famous village of Cooperstown. It was a fitting home
for the boy who was hereafter to immortalize the Indian race in the
pages of fiction. His life was almost as simple as that of the Indian
lads who roamed through the forest fishing and hunting and knowing no
ambition beyond.

The little hamlet lay far away from the highways of travel. The
nearest villages were miles distant and only to be reached on foot or
on horseback through miles of unbroken forest. A visitor was rare,
and meant perhaps a warning that the Indians were on the war-path.
Occasionally a new settler drifted into the little valley, and the
village grew slowly through the lad's boyhood, Otsego Hall keeping its
dignity as the Manor House. Sometimes a visitor of note brought news
of the great political troubles in Europe, and thus Cooper met many
men of distinction whose visits seemed to bring the great world very
close to the little settlement. This glimpse of a broader life, with
attendance at the village school and an intimate companionship with
nature, made up his early education. It was not bad training for the
future novelist. The acquaintanceship of celebrated men widened his
horizon and fed his imagination; his daily life kept his mind fresh
and active with the spirit that was fast turning the uninhabited
regions of the frontier into busy settlements; and the familiar
intercourse with nature kept pure the springs of poetry that lie in
every child's heart. He learned wood-lore as the young Indian learned
it, face to face with the divinities of the forest. He knew the calls
of the wild animals far across the gloomy wilderness. He could follow
the deer and bear to their secluded haunts. He could retrace the path
of the retreating wolf by the broken cobwebs glistening in the early
sunlight; and the cry of the panther high overhead in the pines and
hemlocks was a speech as familiar as his own tongue. When he was
thirsty he made a hunter's cup of leaves and drank in the Indian
fashion. When fatigued he lay down to rest with that sense of securi