o about the neck, for wading; leaders and
leader-boxes and the other elementary necessaries of angling in the
northern woods. Of course such things were as A, B, C to Eddie. He had
them in infinite variety, but it was a field day and he bought more. We
were out of the place at last, and I was heaving a sigh of relief that
this part of it was over and I need give the matter no further thought,
when Eddie remarked:

"Well, we've made a pretty good start. We can come down here a lot of
times between now and June."

"But what for?" I asked.

"Oh, for things. You haven't a sleeping bag yet, and we'll be thinking
of other stuff right along. We can stay over a day in Boston, too, and
get some things there. I always do that. You want a good many things.
You can't get them in the woods, you know."

Eddie was right about having plenty of time, for this was January. He
was wrong, however, about being unable to get things in the woods. I
did, often. I got Eddie's.

Chapter Three

_Now the gorges break and the streamlets wake_
_And the sap begins to flow,_
_And each green bud that stirs my blood_
_Is a summons, and I must go._

Chapter Three

Eddie could not wait until June. When the earliest April buds became
tiny, pale-green beads--that green which is like the green of no other
substance or season--along certain gray branches in the park across the
way, when there was a hint and flavor of stirring life in the morning
sun, then there came a new bristle into Eddie's hair, a new gleam into
his glasses, and I felt that the wood gods were calling, and that he
must obey.

"It is proper that one of us should go on ahead," he argued, "and be
arranging for guides, canoes and the like at the other end."

I urged that it was too soon--that the North was still white and hard
with cold--that preliminaries could be arranged by letter. I finally
suggested that there were still many things he would want to buy. He
wavered then, but it was no use. Eddie can put on a dinner dress with
the best and he has dined with kings. But he is a cave-, a cliff- and a
tree-dweller in his soul and the gods of his ancestors were not to be
gainsaid. He must be on the ground, he declared, and as for the
additional articles we might need, he would send me lists. Of course, I
knew he would do that, just as I knew that the one and mighty reason
for his going was to be where he could smell the first breath of the
budding North