The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
When I awoke in the morning the weather was drizzling. One of the
Indians was lying outside, rolled in his blanket, on the opposite side
of the fire, for want of room. Joe had neglected to awake my
companion, and he had done no hunting that night. Tahmunt was making a
cross-bar for his canoe with a singularly shaped knife, such as I have
since seen other Indians using. The blade was thin, about three
quarters of an inch wide, and eight or nine inches long, but curved
out of its plane into a hook, which he said made it more convenient to
shave with. As the Indians very far north and northwest use the same
kind of knife, I suspect that it was made according to an aboriginal
pattern, though some white artisans may use a similar one. The Indians
baked a loaf of flour bread in a spider on its edge before the fire
for their breakfast; and while my companion was making tea, I caught a
dozen sizable fishes in the Penobscot, two kinds of sucker and one
trout. After we had breakfasted by ourselves, one of our bedfellows,
who had also breakfasted, came along, and, being invited, took a cup
of tea, and finally, taking up the common platter, licked it
clean. But he was nothing to a white fellow, a lumberer, who was
continually stuffing himself with the Indians' moose-meat, and was the
butt of his companions accordingly. He seems to have thought that it
was a feast "to eat all." It is commonly said that the white man
finally surpasses the Indian on his own ground, and it was proved true
in this case. I cannot swear to his employment during the hours of
darkness, but I saw him at it again as soon as it was light, though he
came a quarter of a mile to his work.
The rain prevented our continuing any longer in the woods; so giving
some of our provisions and utensils to the Indians, we took leave of
them. This being the steamer's day, I set out for the lake at once. At
the carry-man's camp I saw many little birds, brownish and yellowish,
with some white tail-feathers, hopping on the wood-pile, in company
with the slate-colored snow-bird, (_Fringilla hiemalis_,) but
more familiar than they. The lumberers said that they came round their
camps, and they gave them a vulgar name. Their simple and lively note,
which was heard in all the woods, was very familiar to me, though I
had never before chanced to see the bird while uttering it, and it
interested me not a little, because I had had many a vain chase in a
spring-morning in the direction of that sound, in order to identify
the bird. On the 28th of the next month, (October,) I saw in my yard,
in a drizzling day, many of the same kind of birds flitting about amid
the weeds, and uttering a faint _chip_ merely. There was one
full-plumaged Yellow-crowned Warbler (_Sylvia coronata_) among
them, and I saw that the others were the young birds of that
season. They had followed me from Moosehead and the North. I have
since frequently seen the full-plumaged ones while uttering that note
in the spring.
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