HOLIDAY.

My trip to Lake Memphremagog was by the way, and was not expected to
detain me for more than twenty-four hours; but when I went ashore at the
Owl's Head Mountain-House, and saw what a lodge in the wilderness it
was, I said to myself, Go to, this is the place; Mount Mansfield will
stand for another year at least, and I will waste no more of my precious
fortnight amid dust and cinders. Here were to be enjoyed many of the
comforts of civilization, with something of the wildness and freedom of
a camp. Out of one of the windows of my large, well-furnished room I
could throw a stone into the trackless forest, where, any time I chose,
I could make the most of a laborious half-hour in traveling half a mile.
The other two opened upon a piazza; whence the lake was to be seen
stretching away northward for ten or fifteen miles, with Mount Orford
and his supporting hills in the near background; while I had only to
walk the length of the piazza to look round the corner of the house at
Owl's Head itself, at whose base we were. The hotel had less than a
dozen guests and no piano, and there was neither carriage-road nor
railway within sight or hearing. Yes, this was the place where I would
spend the eight days which yet remained to me of idle time.

Of the eight days five were what are called unpleasant; but the
unseasonable cold, which drove the stayers in the house to huddle about
the fire, struck the mosquitoes with a torpor which made strolling in
the woods a double luxury; while the rain was chiefly of the showery
sort, such as a rubber coat and old clothes render comparatively
harmless. Not that I failed to take a hand with my associates in
grumbling about the weather. Table-talk would speedily come to an end in
such circumstances if people were forbidden to criticise the order of
nature; and it is not for me to boast any peculiar sanctity in this
respect. But when all was over, it had to be acknowledged that I, for
one, had been kept in-doors very little. In fact, if the whole truth
were told, it would probably appear that my fellow boarders, seeing my
persistency in disregarding the inclemency of the elements, soon came to
look upon me as decidedly odd, though perhaps not absolutely demented.
At any rate, I was rather glad than otherwise to think so. In those
long days there must often have been a dearth of topics for profitable
conversation, no matter how outrageous the weather, and it was a
pleasure to believe th