THE HOME FIRESIDE

Weeks ago the camp-fire shed its last glow in the deserted camp, its last thin thread of smoke was spun out and vanished in the silent air, and black brands and gray ashes were covered in the even whiteness of the snow. The unscared fox prowls above them in curious exploration of the desolate shanty, where wood-mice are domiciled and to whose sunny side the partridge comes to bask; the woodpecker taps unbidden to enter or departs from the always open door; and under the stars that glitter through the net of branches the owl perches on the snowy ridge and mopes in undisturbed solemnity.

For a time, camping-days are over for the sportsman, and continue only for the lumberman, the trapper, and the merciless crust-hunter, who makes his secret lair in the depths of the forest. In the chill days and evenings that fall first in the interim between winter and summer camping, the man who makes his outings for sport and pleasure must content himself by his own fireside, whose constant flame burns throughout the year.

Well may he be content when the untempered winds of March howl like a legion of wolves at his door, snow and sleet pelt roof and pane with a continuous volley from the lowering sky, or when the chilly silence of the last winter nights is broken by the sharp crack of frozen trees and timbers, as if a hidden band of riflemen were besieging the house. Well may he be content, then, with the snug corner of his own hearthstone, around which are gathered the good wife, the children, and his camp companions, the dogs.

Better than the camp, is this cosy comfort in days and nights such as these, or in those that fall within that unnamed season that lies between winter and spring, when, if one stirs abroad, his feet have sorry choice between saturated snow and oozy mould,—a dismal season but for its promise of brighter days, of free streams, green trees, and bird songs.

Better, now, this genial glow that warms one's marrow than the camp-fire that smokes or roasts one's front while his back freezes. With what perfect contentment one mends his tackle and cleans his gun for coming days of sport, while the good wife reads racy records of camp-life from Maine to California, and he listens with attention half diverted by break or rust spot, or with amused watching of the youngsters playing at camping out. The callow campers assail him with demands for stories, and he goes over, for their and his own enjoyment, old experiences in camp and field, while the dogs dream by the fire of sport past or to come,—for none but dogs know whether dog's dreams run backward or forward.

Long-used rod and gun suggest many a tale of past adventure as they bring to mind recollections of days of sport such as may never come again. The great logs in the fireplace might tell, if their flaming tongues were given speech, of camps made long ago beneath their lusty branches, and of such noble game as we shall never see,—moose, elk, deer, panther, wolf, and bear, which are but spectres in the shadowy forest of the past. But the red tongues only roar and hiss as they lick the crackling sinews of oak and hickory, and tell nothing that ordinary ears may catch. Yet one is apt to fall dreaming of bygone days, and then of days that may come to be spent by pleasant summer waters and in the woods gorgeous with the ripeness of autumn.

So one is like to dream till he awakens and finds himself left with only the dogs for comrades, before the flameless embers, deserted even by the shadows that erstwhile played their grotesque pranks behind him. Cover the coals as if they were to kindle to-morrow's camp-fire, put the yawning dogs to bed, and then to bed and further dreaming.