ive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our
buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose. There
was a large, and what farmers would call handsome, barn, part of whose
boards had been sawed by a whip-saw; and the saw-pit, with its great pile
of dust, remained before the house. The long split shingles on a portion
of the barn were laid a foot to the weather, suggesting what kind of
weather they have there. Grant's barn at Caribou Lake was said to be still
larger, the biggest ox-nest in the woods, fifty feet by a hundred. Think
of a monster barn in that primitive forest lifting its gray back above the
tree-tops! Man makes very much such a nest for his domestic animals, of
withered grass and fodder, as the squirrels and many other wild creatures
do for themselves.

There was also a blacksmith's shop, where plainly a good deal of work was
done. The oxen and horses used in lumbering operations were shod, and all
the iron-work of sleds, etc., was repaired or made here. I saw them load a
_bateau_ at the Moosehead carry, the next Tuesday, with about thirteen
hundred weight of bar iron for this shop. This reminded me how primitive
and honorable a trade was Vulcan's. I do not hear that there was any
carpenter or tailor among the gods. The smith seems to have preceded these
and every other mechanic at Chesuncook as well as on Olympus, and his
family is the most widely dispersed, whether he be christened John or
Ansell.

Smith owned two miles down the lake by half a mile in width. There were
about one hundred acres cleared here. He cut seventy tons of English hay
this year on this ground, and twenty more on another clearing, and he uses
it all himself in lumbering operations. The barn was crowded with pressed
hay and a machine to press it. There was a large garden full of roots,
turnips, beets, carrots, potatoes, etc., all of great size. They said that
they were worth as much here as in New York. I suggested some currants for
sauce, especially as they had no apple-trees set out, and showed how
easily they could be obtained.

There was the usual long-handled axe of the primitive woods by the door,
three and a half feet long,--for my new black-ash rule was in constant
use,--and a large, shaggy dog, whose nose, report said, was full of
porcupine quills. I can testify that he looked very sober. This is the
usual fortune of pioneer dogs, for they have to face the brunt of the
battle for their race, a