LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVfMITV OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 The Latchstring
 
 THE REAL BOLD COASTS OF THE ATLANTIC
 
 -7 
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 TO 
 
 MAINE WOODS AND WATERS 
 
 BY WALTER EMERSON 
 
 With Illustrations 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 1916
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY WALTER C. EMEKSON 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published May tqib
 
 By Way of Preface 
 
 MAINE is a mosaic of bright spots in life, in- 
 laid with more genuine, worth-while, health- 
 giving pleasure places than any other State in 
 the Union, and framed between the most pic- 
 turesque mountain range in eastern America 
 and a seacoast, in beauty and utility, unequaled 
 in any country in the world. 
 
 That is a long sentence and bears some re- 
 semblance to the habitual exaggeration of an 
 enthusiast. But it will stand analysis. And if 
 you will but come here with eyes open, and a 
 mind prepared for impression, you will criticize 
 its awkward length, perchance, but not its 
 statement. 
 
 The precarious calling of politics in the last 
 twenty years has taken me many times into 
 every county of the State, and into hundreds of 
 its towns. And since the average common sense 
 of all the people, as Mr. Reed used to call it, 
 can always be trusted to express itself at the
 
 By Way of Preface 
 
 polls, I have invariably had time after election, 
 not only to consider how it happened, but to 
 appreciate what I had seen. 
 
 There are many who could depict better, but 
 few who have seen more. I have written herein, 
 not history, for that remains for the future, and 
 it should not be far off. All of the accredited 
 historians of Maine cut us off years ago at a 
 point where struggle ended and development 
 began. The ancient dominions have been often 
 done, and well done, the modern Common- 
 wealth not at all. What is needed is a con- 
 nected, textbook story from the beginnings to 
 the present year of Maine grace. This is be- 
 hest, not a threat. Not description herein. The 
 photographer has done so much better. Nor 
 literature. I have simply loitered through parts 
 of the State and pointed here and there to some 
 of its realities and possibilities, in the hope that 
 others may see us as some of us who appreciate 
 see ourselves. 
 
 Maine is in the making quite as much as any 
 new and far-off Western State. We have idled 
 [vi]
 
 By Way of Preface 
 
 too much and grown not enough. Initia- 
 tive and courage among our own people have 
 been too conspicuously absent. The scarecrow 
 of taxes is in every field and the six-per-cent 
 motto on every wall. We have stared at op- 
 portunity and let it pass. But as sure as to- 
 morrow's sun the awakening is at hand. For 
 you cannot cover up, and keep covered up, 
 mines of health and wealth when once dis- 
 covered. 
 
 And because these mines are richer, and 
 deeper, and more accessible than any others of 
 their like, the world is making a beaten path 
 to the door. The latchstring is out. 
 
 WALTER EMERSON. 
 
 PORTLAND, MAINE, 
 May i, 1916.
 
 Contents 
 
 I. EASTWARD HO! . . . . I 
 
 II. THE OPEN DOOR . . . -15 
 
 III. AND THIS WAS MAINE . . 36 
 
 IV. KITTERY TO SAIL ROCK . . -44 
 V. THE GAME-FISH PEERAGE . . 76 
 
 VI. SHOTGUN AND RIFLE . . .114 
 
 VII. CAMP AND CANOE . . . 140 
 
 VIII. FOREST, FIELD, AND FACTORY . 179 
 
 IX. BY WAY OF CONCLUSION . . 2O3
 
 Illustrations 
 
 The Real Bold Coasts of the Atlantic . . Frontispiece 
 
 Two Kinds of Summer Life . . . ' . . . 4 
 
 Banked on the Northwest .8 
 
 Bounded on the Southeast 12 
 
 Big Nature, Silent, Inspiring 16 
 
 " In celebration of a good crop" 20 
 
 Last of the Covered Toll-Bridges 26 
 
 Lewiston Falls: Type of Developed Power . . 30 
 
 Ripogenus Gorge: Undeveloped 34 
 
 "Sailing with the International Brotherhood" . 40 
 
 A Disappearing Rig 44 
 
 The Scarboro Marshes 50 
 
 A Seiner on the Maine Coast 54 
 
 In Quiet, Quaint Wiscasset 58 
 
 Monhegan's Great Industry ...... 62 
 
 Monhegan's Great White Way 62 
 
 Coast-Line Contrasts 66 
 
 A Southern Senator's Northern Home ... 7 
 
 Bar Harbor, where Art dares play with Nature . 72 
 
 Sail Rock, Tip End of the United States ... 74 
 
 Boothbay Harbor, Refuge from every Storm . . 80 
 
 Maine Trout 80 
 
 The Fighting Land-Locked Salmon .... 80
 
 Illustrations 
 
 Bass-Fishing at Belgrade 84 
 
 "As for me, kind sir, a musical brook" ... 86 
 
 Frye Lodge at Rangeley 94 
 
 Echo Bay and Little Kineo, Moosehead Lake . . 98 
 
 Moosehead in Angry Mood 104 
 
 Roads like this to the Hunting Regions . . . 1 14 
 
 The Old-Time Stump Fence 122 
 
 Maine Moose Swimming a Lake 132 
 
 Camps like this all over Maine 142 
 
 Virgin Waters in Virgin Forests 148 
 
 Lunch at an Old Logging-Camp 156 
 
 The Gardiner Mansion, in Gardiner, built in 1754. 164 
 Canoe Trips like this on the Penobscot . . .168 
 
 Type of Abandoned Farm 1 80 
 
 An Aroostook Potato-Field in Blossom . . .186 
 
 Made in Maine: The Reid, Fastest Vessel in the 
 
 United States Navy 190 
 
 The Rapids of Grand Lake Stream .... 194 
 
 Montreal Melons in Maine 200 
 
 The County Fair Pulling-Match 208 
 
 Fort Knox, on the Lower Penobscot . . . .216 
 
 Ice-Racing on a Maine Lake 222 
 
 All Kinds of Winter Sports at Poland . . . 226
 
 The Latchstring
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 EASTWARD HO! 
 
 LOYALTY to locality, like necessity, is often 
 the mother of invention. National, state, and 
 municipal pride often too often, perhaps 
 beget superlatives. Too much invention, es- 
 pecially of superlatives, smacks of bombast and 
 leads the offspring of loyalty and pride to 
 trouble. Meaning by this incipient bit of philos- 
 ophizing if that is what you call it that, 
 while I have great and everlasting pride in my 
 State, I shall try to avoid the magniloquence 
 of the man with the megaphone. My endeavor 
 shall be to guide you through Maine and let 
 you see, and hear, and smell, and taste for 
 yourself. If I can do this, and keep the tempta- 
 tion to boast within me, I have no fear of the 
 result. You will come again.
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 A citizen of Chicago not long ago escorted a 
 distinguished French traveler and essayist from 
 New York to that great and interesting cave of 
 the winds. On the way, doubtless over the 
 coffee and cigars of a Twentieth-Century din- 
 ner, the successful, opulent, and always genial 
 cave dweller lost no opportunity to blow. 
 
 "Why, man alive, the day you were born, 
 Chicago was n't even a chicken farm. Now 
 look at her. She's the biggest, best, and busi- 
 est metropolis in all the world. In a generation, 
 my man, a generation." And then, as they 
 shot the streets of Syracuse: "In that time we 
 have had the biggest fire ever known, and we 
 built her up again built her up bigger and 
 better than before." 
 
 At Buffalo there was something about the 
 tallest buildings and quickest elevators. At 
 Cleveland he awoke the tired Frenchman to 
 tell him about the biggest drainage canal that 
 science ever imagined. "Makes your Victor 
 Hugo's sewer pipe look like a cambric needle." 
 At South Bend, over the waffles and Vermont 
 
 [2]
 
 Eastward Ho ! 
 
 maple syrup, there was more about the longest 
 street in the world. 
 
 Now the foreigner, refreshed as much as pos- 
 sible in one of Mr. Arnold Bennett's bouncing 
 berths, ventured a word himself. 
 
 "Ah, but you Americans," he said, "you 
 Americans who * match with destiny for beers' 
 you boast so much." 
 
 "Boast! why, we Chicagoans never boast 
 
 never." 
 
 But the Frenchman protested, and not only 
 protested, but wagered, that he would not be 
 in Chicago thirty minutes before some other 
 breezy Westerner, whom he had never seen be- 
 fore, would boast, and twice boast. 
 
 As they were taking a cab at the station he 
 was introduced by his escort to a prominent 
 fellow citizen. 
 
 "Glad to meet you, sir. I claim you for to- 
 morrow morning at ten. Will call in my car. 
 Take you to the stockyards, sir. Biggest in the 
 world." 
 
 As they were registering at the club, exactly 
 [3 1
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 sixteen minutes after the arrival of the train, 
 he met another fellow citizen. 
 
 "Glad to know you, sir. First time in Chi- 
 cago, eh? Well, well. Come with me for a spin 
 along the avenue. Greatest boulevard in the 
 world. Of course, you have your Mediterranean 
 shores, and Nice, and all that, but no city in the 
 world has any water-front like this. Here, boy, 
 bring us one of those longest cigars. Can't buy 
 'em in any other town on the globe." 
 
 The French traveler and essayist looked at 
 his watch and then at his escort. 
 * "Ah, my friend, you see I win. I have no 
 doubt I shall like your biggest city, and your 
 largest sewer, and your longest street, and your 
 greatest stockyards. But not so fast, not so 
 fast. I would much rather you would let them 
 what you call it sink in." 
 
 And he viewed Chicago all that was big- 
 gest and best in the world without any 
 speed limit and with alien and prejudiced eyes. 
 All quite human and according to the funda- 
 mentals of psychology. Most of us like to dis-
 
 TWO KINDS OF SUMMER LIFE
 
 Eastward Ho ! 
 
 cover some of the biggest things for ourselves, 
 and when we do, they are just about the big- 
 gest that ever were, and more lasting in im- 
 pression. 
 
 Therefore, come with me. Let Maine sink 
 in. You, gentle traveler, will supply the super- 
 latives. Use them to your heart's content and 
 I shall delight to hear them. 
 
 You will be struck first of all with the na- 
 turalness of the people and their environment. 
 There is not much of the made-to-order in 
 Maine, but a great deal of the made-by-nature. 
 This impression comes upon you from one end 
 of the State to the other, in all the seasons, from 
 its remarkable coast-line, its lakes and moun- 
 tains, its rapid rivers, streams, and brooks, from 
 all the infinite variety of its scenery. There 
 has been a disposition to let Nature take her 
 course for one reason and another. Probably 
 our Chicago friend would say from lack of en- 
 terprise, just as he would say of Venice, that 
 "she is lacking in public spirit because she ain't 
 had any kind of a boom in a hundred years." 
 [5 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Go up into the hunting and fishing wilder- 
 ness to-day and you will find the same condi- 
 tions and customs, and all the primitive charm, 
 described so minutely by Thoreau and by the 
 other pioneer tourists of sixty and seventy 
 years ago. Quite true, instead of the remains of 
 an Indian camp, ashes, cow-moose skull, and 
 hornstone arrowhead, you may now and then 
 run into a limousine or a white tiled bath. But 
 ten rods away and you are in the wilds again, 
 and fish, and game, and solitude are yours. 
 Nature is all about you everywhere. It sinks in 
 with its quieting influence, and noise and nerves 
 are no more. Where better can a man get his 
 money and his neurasthenia away from the 
 possibilities of panic, and wars, and rumors of 
 wars, than here? And even as a matter of 
 business, what pleasanter or safer harbor for 
 the sincere capitalist in all kinds of financial 
 weather, fair to foul? It is the recreation State 
 of the nation, and that is business and pleasure 
 combined. The State that catches first the 
 gentle breezes of prosperity, just as it catches 
 
 [6]
 
 Eastward Ho ! 
 
 first the sunlight; the State that is shaken last 
 by stress of financial gale because Nature has 
 placed it on solid rock. More than this, Na- 
 ture is our only partner and down in Maine 
 there is no bottom to Nature's pocket. Still 
 more than this, the most generous partner in 
 all the world, for does she not furnish all the 
 capital and give to us all the dividends ? 
 
 Maine is more than a State of potentialities, 
 it is one of vivid realities. It arrived centuries 
 ago and is still here. And here it ever will be, 
 with its one great asset undisturbed by fluc- 
 tuations in Wall Street, independent of the legis- 
 lation of a great nation, unaffected by the rise 
 or fall of any party. A stock-ticker would look 
 very strange on the shores of Parmachene, 
 and no election can ever take the tonic out of 
 the salt sea air. Give me a humble worm and 
 a shady pool, or a fair breeze with everything 
 set, and I count the rest of the world well lost. 
 
 Those of us who have remained at home and 
 grown up with these realities have often failed 
 to appreciate their full value. A lake, or a hill, 
 [7]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 or a beautiful valley, or a bay, or a harbor, like 
 a prophet, is not without honor save in its own 
 country, and he who goes away, even for a few 
 months, gets a perspective of his State, swells 
 with pride, gets homesick, and calls for the 
 time-table. When we were boys we used to 
 fish some brook or pond, or shoot some cover 
 or piece of woods, all unconscious of its beauty, 
 never dreaming that it contained health and 
 rest. Go away, and you come back in manhood 
 to find a chain of lakes and forests, not only 
 with health and rest, but with real revenue- 
 producing capital. When we were boys we 
 shot in and out of harbors and bays innumer- 
 able in dories, and catboats, and sloops, with 
 never a thought of what they possessed. Now 
 the welcome summer visitor has marked them 
 forjiis own. When we were boys we sat idly 
 by and watched the rivers rush on unharnessed 
 to the sea. Now they turn millions in machin- 
 ery, move our cars, light, and will sometime 
 heat, our houses. Some expert figured out the 
 other day that the millions of horse-power in 
 [81
 
 Eastward Ho ! 
 
 the rivers and streams of Maine were more 
 valuable than the coal mines of Pennsylvania. 
 They can turn every wheel in New England and 
 furnish the motive power for every railroad. 
 And the end is not only not yet, but is uncal- 
 culated. We are now capitalizing snowstorms 
 in Maine, and winter visitors are coming for 
 winter sports. 
 
 You will next be struck with the cleanness 
 and freshness of it all. Once here there is a 
 sort of well-I-breathe-again feeling, and your 
 desire is to do something and do it right away. 
 Of course, those of us who were born here and 
 grew up with the State and its wonderful cli- 
 mate that is, some of us get indolent, 
 inactive, and lazy just the same as any one 
 else. Human nature operates much the same 
 in the long run at Molunkus and at the corner 
 of Forty-second Street and Broadway. But 
 if you come from New York, or Philadelphia, 
 or especially from Chicago or Pittsburg, all 
 the way down to Molunkus, or Wytopitlock, 
 or Chesuncook, you will get the full effect of
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 a decidedly changed atmosphere full of one 
 hundred per cent efficiency. And may I also 
 suggest, the actual existence of unsmooched 
 white houses and clean lace curtains will both 
 surprise and refresh. 
 
 Although indigenous to the soil, many times 
 have I caught the visitor's feeling going down 
 East. A day of travel through the eastern part 
 of the Middle West, Pennsylvania and New 
 Jersey, with their dark-brown, lonely, hard- 
 wood trees, with their barren-looking red soil 
 and smoky back doors, a rather stuffy night 
 on the train, and then a glide from Portland 
 down through the fresh Maine morning air 
 if you will but open the windows in and out 
 of evergreen groves, across clean fields and clear 
 and swiftly running streams, among the well- 
 kept houses of village and farm, always white 
 with their cool, dark-green blinds; and then 
 some camp or hotel, inland or on the rugged 
 and picturesque coast, this, and who can 
 say that you have not entered a new life in a 
 new world? Yours all yours but for the 
 [10]
 
 Eastward Ho! 
 
 inclination, the slightest of efforts, and a modest 
 price. 
 
 We did this by way of Boston before the 
 Maine trains came on direct from New York. 
 And had I all the money that has already been 
 spent in this useless war, I would still have 
 ignored the cabs and have taken the Elevated 
 from the South to the North Station just to 
 catch that glimpse of salty T Wharf with its 
 smacks, and bankers, and seiners, now lazy in 
 the morning sun, but full of the real romance 
 of the deep. I 'd like to see Jim Connolly again, 
 just to tell him how much he has helped me 
 while waiting for trains out in Crawfordsville, 
 Indiana. The merest glimpse do you get of 
 this hardy sailoring, but it puts you on edge 
 for Maine, and you wish you had taken the 
 8 o'clock instead of the 8.55. Not the least of 
 your comforts is a fresh, clean train to carry 
 you across the corner of New Hampshire, and 
 then home. 
 
 This little journey is quite as satisfactory 
 to many more so if taken in the winter,
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 for then the delight of the contrast is all the 
 greater. The sociable and cozy pines and 
 spruces stand out against the snowy hills in 
 fine relief, and there is an invitation all its 
 own in the wood-fire smoke curling from the 
 chimneys. 
 
 Up on the Western Promenade in staid, 
 sedate, and delightful old Portland, stands a 
 little cast-iron negro boy whose slavery was 
 unaffected by Lincoln's Proclamation. Before 
 the war, and night and day since the war, he 
 has served his masters in the capacity of hitch- 
 ing-post on the curb in front of one of Maine's 
 finest residences, not far from the statue of the 
 great Reed. I remember, years ago, seeing a 
 little Southern child, for the first time in the 
 North, and far away from home, run up and 
 kiss the shining iron cheek, a rather touching 
 scene of childish ecstasy and loyalty. I have 
 much the same feeling for any scrubby little 
 spruce, wherever and whenever I find it. 
 
 Banked on the northwest by that magnifi- 
 cent Presidential Range, snow-tipped from 
 [ 12]
 
 Eastward Ho ! 
 
 early October to May, bounded on the south- 
 east by the deep, cool waters of the Atlantic, 
 Maine has the most stimulating climate of any 
 State in the Union. One can see Mount Wash- 
 ington from some point in half the towns of 
 the State. Sir George Weymouth, and other 
 early voyagers to the Maine coast in the seven- 
 teenth century, speak in their records of see- 
 ing these mountains from Monhegan. Mem- 
 bers of the Maine Historical Society were in 
 debate many years as to whether or not they 
 could really have seen the White Mountains 
 from this island so far out at sea, quite a hun- 
 dred miles to the nearest peak as the bird flies. 
 Finally, Dr. Henry S. Burrage, an officer of 
 the Society, went to Monhegan, and, waiting 
 for an exceptionally clear day, saw Mount 
 Washington without the aid of a glass, verified 
 the ancient records, and settled the dispute. 
 
 On the other hand, from the hills in many 
 towns far back from the coast-line one can get 
 glimpses of the ocean, and wherever you are 
 in the State you always feel the near presence
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 of mountain and sea. Besides the tonic of the 
 air, there is a rest-giving effect in all this that 
 brings health to body and brain, peace and 
 pleasure to the senses. 
 
 And here have I, boasting I ne'er would 
 boast, boasted.
 
 II 
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 MORE than seventy years ago, people came 
 here for recreation and rest. There seems to be 
 no accurate account of the real beginnings of 
 the resort industry in Maine now the great- 
 est in the State. Thoreau was doubtless the 
 first of those mentioned in the "society col- 
 umn" as prominent people "summering" in 
 Maine. And so we might call him the pioneer 
 of some five hundred thousand visitors who 
 now not only summer here, but spring, fall, and 
 winter here as well. "On the 3ist of August, 
 1846, I left Concord in Massachusetts, for 
 Bangor, and the backwoods of Maine." This 
 was the trip to the summit of Mount Katahdin, 
 the tip-top of the State, and he came for mild 
 adventure, nature studies, and recreation. At 
 least he may be called the first regular "re- 
 sorter," for he came again in 1853, canoeing the 
 [ IS ]
 
 Latchstring 
 
 lakes and streams north of Moosehead, and 
 again in 1857, to the Allegash. But even he 
 speaks of "tourists" who had preceded him, 
 and among his discoveries was a well-ordered 
 hotel at Mount Kineo, though he fails to men- 
 tion such modern conveniences as electric 
 curling-irons and house detectives. 
 
 People in New England began their "tour- 
 ing" by making short trips to the White 
 Mountains, in the early days called the "White 
 Hills," and to the "shore" for fish dinners. 
 These became annual migrations among the 
 wealthy and well-to-do in the fifties and six- 
 ties, and out of these grew the summer cottage 
 and hotel life, now so extensive and charming 
 in Maine. I well remember with what child- 
 ish interest and awe and great curiosity we 
 looked on the people who came from other 
 States merely for pleasure. Us boys I must 
 say "us boys" just once more us boys 
 especially could not understand it; for pleasure 
 was to be found, not by such a dull thing as a 
 brook or a pond, but in Washington Street and 
 [ 16 1
 
 BIG NATURE, SILENT, INSPIRING
 
 The Open Door 
 
 Broadway, known to us only by tradition and 
 rumor. 
 
 One joyous summer spent in the little town 
 of Salem, in Franklin County, in Uncle Rufus 
 Blake's fine old brick farmhouse, right at the 
 foot of three-peaked Mount Abraham, stands 
 out in bold relief in the memories of bovhood. 
 
 9 
 
 The great event of that season was a trip up 
 old Abraham, and a night spent on the highest 
 peak. All the neighbors and their visitors were 
 invited, and fifty or sixty care-free, shouting 
 children, old and young, made up the expedi- 
 tion, undertaken, of course, just after haying, 
 as a sort of celebration of a good crop, and a 
 bit of outing for the tired harvester. Although 
 it was midsummer, we all slept on pine and 
 spruce boughs, in a circle about an immense 
 bonfire, which, they afterwards told us, could 
 be seen in towns for miles around. There were 
 no nights in Arabia like this of course. It 
 was all so weird and wonderful. Such songs, 
 and helloings, such stories of bears, and moose, 
 and wolves. And one of the older men, not to
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 be outdone, drew on his imagination for a 
 cougar pronounced cow-jer, if you please, 
 yes, sir, cozv-jer, he knew which he had 
 seen just beyond that big boulder down on 
 the number two level. And such a supper and 
 breakfast, with hot coffee made over the coals, 
 and raspberries picked on the way, and flap- 
 jacks made by Aunt Amy, with honey; and then 
 that Washington pie those Washington pies 
 rather brought by the Dud Briggses from 
 over across the stream! Ah, that was many 
 years ago, and much has happened, but the 
 vivid memory of that Washington pie those 
 Washington pies rather lingered long after 
 the first skates were forgotten. There was 
 much to interest a small boy, and sink in, on 
 that eventful night. I had never before slept 
 under the stars, and everything impressed me 
 because I was for the first time in the com- 
 plete environment of big Nature, silent, ex- 
 pansive, inspiring. But in the final analysis, 
 which I was compelled to make under inquisi- 
 tion at home, I found I had been most deeply 
 [ 18]
 
 "The Open Door 
 
 impressed by the sight of summer boarders 
 from a neighboring State, who had come down 
 to Maine for a vacation, and made up part of 
 the mountain party. For weeks afterwards I 
 made every excuse to go over to the boarding- 
 house, the pioneer resort of the region, just to 
 get a glimpse of the visitors, and some idea 
 of the customs, dress, thoughts, and general 
 atmosphere of folks who had come from far 
 away Massachusetts. And I was not un- 
 like other boys. At first we laughed a little 
 at them. Then they laughed at us. Now, 
 when they come to Maine half a million of 
 them every year we laugh together at the 
 rest of the world. 
 
 The shore houses and small hotels along 
 the gentle and picturesque water-front of York 
 County, from the ancient town of York down 
 to Pine Point, were among the first in Maine 
 to take "regular summer boarders" from other 
 States. In the interior, the hill and lake region, 
 the hotel at Poland Springs was the first to go 
 into the resort industry on an extensive scale.
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 But the hanging sign of " Wentworth Ricker, 
 1797" swung to the winds and rains and snows 
 for more than half a century before the tourist 
 finally supplanted the stage traveler. Then it 
 was that Grandfather Ricker] found health 
 properties in the spring down on the side of 
 the hill, advertised it in the weekly papers, 
 sent the water away in barrels, and money, 
 boarders, and fame came back. The best exam- 
 ple I know of preaching a better sermon, writ- 
 ing a better book, or building a better mouse- 
 trap than your neighbor, and having the world 
 make a beaten path to your door, though you 
 have built your house in the woods "and on 
 a hill. The same philosophy applies to spring 
 water and country sausages, i 
 
 'Just before this an important international 
 sporting event took place, which in New Eng- 
 land attracted . attention to the western part of 
 Maine, and especially to the country hotels. 
 And you never knew of the great post-road race 
 from Portland to Montreal, with the sacred 
 English mail? Well, listen, my children, and 
 
 [20]
 
 The Open Door 
 
 you shall hear of the midnight, and midday, 
 ride of Hobbs, and Bodge, and Waterhouse 
 good, old-fashioned Maine names, and good, 
 old-fashioned Maine stage-drivers who did 
 things. I cannot find that the story of this 
 race was ever published, although mention 
 must have been made of it in the newspapers 
 of the time. I have picked it up, fragment by 
 fragment, from people now living along the 
 route, who have heard their fathers and mothers 
 tell of the event, and one man I found who not 
 only saw part of the great drive, but took care 
 of one of the horses Sewell Brackett, of 
 Poland, still hale and hearty at ninety, and with 
 memory unimpaired. While everybody whom 
 I saw seemed to know just ( what occurred, 
 nobody could tell just when it occurred. It 
 was midwinter, sometime in the forties. That, 
 at least, seems to be established. Mr. Brackett, 
 who was born in 1825, and is doubtless the 
 best living authority on the matter, says he 
 was more than fifteen years old at the time, and 
 is sure he was not twenty. By a process of 
 [ 21 ]
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 intricate mathematical deduction, having first 
 placed confidence in Uncle Sewell's retentive 
 memory, which, of course, we should, we 
 arrive at the conclusion that it was in the early 
 forties, and there the matter of date, which, 
 after all, is of inferior concern, must rest. 
 
 Then, as now, the winter port of Canada 
 was in the States, and Portland with her better 
 and nearer harbor was beginning to loom large 
 as a rival of Boston, in spite of the fact that the 
 latter was the larger city and more important 
 commercial center. The British Government 
 was concerned in getting the foreign mails to 
 Montreal in the quickest possible time after 
 they were landed by steamer on this side of 
 the Atlantic. Boston, as was Boston's way in 
 those days, said, "Why, our way, of course, 
 up across New Hampshire and northern Ver- 
 mont to the St. Lawrence." Portland offered 
 the Maine route, up through Cumberland, 
 western Androscoggin, and Oxford Counties, 
 across the northern wedge of New Hampshire, 
 then into the Province of Quebec to Montreal. 
 I 22]
 
 'The Open Door 
 
 They had a preliminary trial a sort of scor- 
 ing and Boston won. But this was because 
 the mails were delivered in Boston, where they 
 had a long start, due to the wreck of the East- 
 ern Railroad train which carried the bag to be 
 sent by way of Portland. Then the Maine 
 dander was up, and the real race was on. Bear 
 in mind that the transportation was by good, 
 old-fashioned horse-power along the established 
 stage routes. Portland contended that a fair 
 test required at least an even start. So it was 
 arranged that a small packet should take the 
 Maine bag from the English steamer somewhere 
 out in the Gulf of Maine, southeast of Cape 
 Elizabeth. Then the steamer was to proceed 
 to Boston, and the grand drive was to begin 
 under conditions more nearly equal. 
 
 Great were the preparations down here in 
 Maine. They went on for months. Morgan 
 horses were obtained wherever possible, and 
 they were trained to the hour. There were 
 relays from three to five miles, and in several 
 instances, according to the hills, the run for 
 [ 23 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 one horse was only two miles. For weeks all 
 along the route they were exercised and rubbed, 
 and rubbed and exercised. No thoroughbred 
 racer was ever more carefully prepared for the 
 Derby. The expenses of these preparations, 
 and the race itself, were paid by popular sub- 
 scriptions along the road, all the way from 
 Portland to Montreal. Everybody had native 
 pride in the affair. All were interested, many 
 excited. 
 
 Who could tell then when an ocean steamer 
 would arrive ? All that was known on this side 
 was the date on which she was expected to sail. 
 So the little packet tossed outside for days, 
 and up in the Portland Observatory on Mun- 
 joy Hill sat a lookout day and night, ready to 
 give a prearranged signal whenever the steamer 
 herself, or the packet coming in, should be 
 sighted. Well down on Congress Street were a 
 pair of horses and driver, ready to start out 
 along the route to notify the real participants 
 to hitch up and be ready, the mail had arrived. 
 As a matter of fact, there were two or three 
 [ 24]
 
 "The Open Door 
 
 relays of this notification committee, and they 
 reached Paris Hill before the racers themselves 
 caught up. 
 
 Selected to make this historic drive were 
 the three best stage-drivers on the roads from 
 Portland to Montreal Hobbs, and Bodge, 
 and Waterhouse. And in this order, for each 
 was chosen for the section which he knew best 
 Hobbs from Portland to Gorham, New 
 Hampshire; Bodge from Gorham to St. Hya- 
 cinthe; and Waterhouse from St. Hyacinthe 
 to Montreal. 
 
 Hobbs, and Bodge, and Waterhouse per- 
 sonages in those days. Of course there were 
 senators and governors, and the like, but they 
 were mythical, read about, never seen in the 
 flesh. But stage-drivers, ah, they were real 
 and important! And likewise, later, the rail- 
 road conductors, their successors in the onward 
 march of progress. How well I remember 
 Mister Bodge another Bodge and Mister 
 Barrel, the passenger conductors through our 
 town. Big men these. One of them spoke to 
 [25 ]
 
 T*he Latchstring 
 
 me once. And I was swollen with inordinate 
 worldly pride. He told me to get off the car 
 steps. I got, but had I not been addressed by 
 a greater than kings? And genial Johnny 
 Mace, now dean of the main-line men, is about 
 the only connecting link between the old- 
 school conductors and the new order. Always 
 cheerful, ever polite and helpful, it is a privi- 
 lege to hand over to him your ticket, and a 
 lesson in daily courtesy to see him assist the 
 feeble and inform the ignorant. He makes 
 traveling a pleasure. May his white pink ever 
 be fresh and fragrant, and his shadow never 
 grow less. I am glad of this bit of digression 
 to pay mild tribute to a public-service official, 
 who has served the public long, faithfully, and 
 well. 
 
 At last! The mail arrived. The signal was 
 waved from the Observatory to the waiting 
 outrider, who was soon away, and Hobbs, 
 with his Morgan thoroughbred and skeleton 
 sleigh, was in waiting at what are now known 
 as the Grand Trunk docks. The mail-bag was 
 [26]
 
 The Open Door 
 
 strapped to his back, so that in case of acci- 
 dent to the sleigh, he could jump on the horse 
 and ride on without delay, or, should accident 
 happen to both horse and sleigh, he could run 
 on himself to the next relay. And away dashed 
 the hardy Hobbs on his wild ride, probably 
 amid the cheers of the crowd. Up India Street 
 and out by Allen's Corner, where a fresh team 
 awaited him. It took less than a minute to 
 make the change, for along the road where the 
 warnings had been given, the horses were all 
 harnessed and ready for the run. There were 
 half a dozen changes between Portland and 
 Ricker Hill, Poland, one of which was at 
 Brown's Tavern, at Gray Corner, famous 
 among the early stage-road inns of Maine, 
 kept and tradition says well kept by the 
 father of the late J. B. Brown, who might him- 
 self be called the father of modern Portland. 
 The buildings are still standing. Hobbs had 
 the hardest part of the ride. A few days before 
 the start there was a good-sized snowstorm 
 along his section, and the country roads were 
 [ 27]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 in poor condition, some being badly drifted. 
 The race proceeded without any extraordi- 
 nary incident until the foot of Shaker Hill, 
 on the northern side, was reached. There the 
 horse plunged through a big drift. But the 
 sleigh stuck. The tugs and other parts of the 
 harness snapped, and the racer was soon clear 
 of the rigging. But not clear of the spry and 
 resourceful Hobbs, for he held to the reins, 
 jumped the dasher, pulled in the steaming 
 steed, mounted, and rode the long hill to the 
 Ricker House at a smart canter. Here he was 
 received with due ceremony by Sam Mills, 
 Wentworth Ricker's trusty horseman, who 
 had a fresh team in readiness. It seems that 
 Hobbs's mishaps were bunched in this short 
 section of the ride, for Sewell Brackett, who 
 stabled and rubbed down his horse, says that 
 on turning too sharply into the yard, the rider 
 was thrown and pitched into a big drift. As 
 before, he was uninjured, and little time was 
 lost. Meantime, the precaution of strapping 
 on the mail-bag had justified itself. 
 [ 28]
 
 The Open Door 
 
 Thus the ride went on, up and down the 
 hills of Oxford, with now and then a cheer at 
 the taverns and stores, and, so far as I can 
 learn, without untoward event. The going 
 got much better beyond Bethel, and Hobbs 
 crossed the State line and rode into Gorham, 
 New Hampshire, man and horse in good form. 
 Here Bodge took up the running, under much 
 the same conditions, except that he had to 
 wait for fresh teams to be harnessed, as there 
 was no means of sending word ahead after 
 the advance guard had been passed at Paris 
 Hill. Waterhouse caught on at St. Hyacinthe, 
 Quebec. He had the shortest of the three runs, 
 and the best roads, and rode in record time into 
 Montreal, where he was given the keys and 
 freedom of the city and all that goes with 
 them, which they tell me means much or 
 means little in Montreal, according to the ca- 
 pacity of the hero. Let us hope that he was 
 a modest hero, and bore the responsible bur- 
 dens of hospitality wisely and not too well. 
 The newspapers of Canada made much of the 
 [29]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 event, and the arrival of Waterhouse was 
 ceremoniously announced in the Canadian 
 Parliament in session at the time. 
 
 But what of the Boston riders? Hadn't 
 been heard of. Nobody seemed to know where 
 they were or cared. There's nothing quite 
 so uninteresting in Montreal or anywhere 
 else as a loser. The Maine route and the 
 Maine drivers had won, and won handsomely. 
 They were the fellows ! You will get some idea 
 of the extent of the winning when you appre- 
 ciate that at the moment when Waterhouse 
 delivered his mail-bag at the Montreal Post- 
 Office, the mail by way of Boston was some- 
 where between Newport, Vermont, and St. 
 Johnsbury. The distance by the carriage road 
 of those days from Portland to Montreal was 
 about three hundred miles. The run was 
 made in twenty hours, or an average of about 
 fifteen miles an hour. 
 
 I cannot say how much influence, if any, 
 
 this famous ride had on subsequent enterprises, 
 
 but within a decade the Grand Trunk Rail- 
 
 [30]
 
 The Open Door 
 
 way was completed from Montreal to tidewater 
 at Portland, and it nowhere runs far from the 
 roads taken by the three Maine stage-drivers. 
 Another not uninteresting result was the pro- 
 motion of Hobbs, Bodge, and Waterhouse to 
 the post of conductor on the new railroad, and 
 they are said by men who often traveled with 
 them to have enjoyed all the glory and promi- 
 nence that go with the great office. Whatever 
 else happened, certain it is that the event at- 
 tracted a great deal of attention in other 
 States, and who can say that it did not bring 
 us many a sojourner, who, curious and doubt- 
 ful, perhaps, came to scoff and remained to 
 play? 
 
 We know by actual figures the tremendous 
 possibilities of the water-powers of Maine. 
 We know by calculation what we are doing 
 and can do in manufacturing, what we are 
 doing and can do in agriculture, what the for- 
 ests produce. But we are only just beginning 
 to find out, by a process of calculation, crude 
 though it must necessarily be, that the resort 
 [31 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 business, to speak in plain business terms, is 
 to-day the greatest industry of the State as a 
 revenue producer to all classes of citizens. I go 
 beyond this. When you take into considera- 
 tion that, unlike any other industry, it brings 
 in entirely new money from out of the State, 
 and distributes it among all classes of people 
 in the State, from the lawyer to the guide, 
 philosopher and friend, not forgetting the 
 bell-boy, it bids fair in the future to exceed 
 any two industries combined. 
 
 In round numbers these are the values of 
 the annual products of the leading industries 
 in Maine: Shipbuilding, $3,000,000; foundry 
 and machine shops, $4,000,000; canning and 
 preserving fish, $4,500,000; boots and shoes, 
 $12,600,000; woolen and worsted goods, $17,- 
 500,000; cotton goods, $15,400,000; lumber 
 and timber products, $22,000,000; pulp and 
 paper, $22,900,000. I shall probably surprise 
 you when I say that the actual money value 
 of the resort industry in the State amounts to 
 more than the entire value of the product of all 
 [32]
 
 'The Open Door 
 
 the great pulp and paper mills, the greatest in 
 the quoted list. The experts in the transporta- 
 tion and hotel business have made this calcu- 
 lation from the best available returns. As best 
 they can, they keep account of the people 
 coming into Maine each year purely for pleas- 
 ure. This number in the last few years they 
 find has been between 450,000 and 500,000 
 for the months of June, July, August, and Sep- 
 tember. There must be added thousands more 
 who come for the early spring fishing, which 
 begins in April, and for the fall shooting, which 
 does not end until the last of December. It is 
 further estimated by these experts that each 
 visitor, from the time he crosses the State line 
 until he returns again, leaves at least $50 
 a low enough figure, indeed. Thus it will be 
 seen that a low estimate of the annual revenue 
 from this source is $25,000,000, and it is all 
 new money. While much of the profit of 
 Maine mills must be distributed in other 
 States, because other States furnish a large 
 part of the capital, the resort revenue comes 
 [33 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 from out of the State and is distributed and 
 circulated among our own people. There is 
 not a class that does not receive its share. For 
 instance, I know of one hotel alone that spends 
 among the farmers within a radius of fifteen 
 miles more than $40,000 each year for fresh 
 vegetables, cream, and eggs. And the farmer, 
 who looked at first with curiosity and then 
 with some aversion at the " resorter," now be- 
 gins to appreciate his value. 
 
 And did you ever realize that in this great 
 industry, instead of depleting the resources, 
 instead of destroying, we are actually increas- 
 ing and building up? A mine or a quarry or a 
 forest may be exhausted as it brings in revenue 
 to its owner, the price of the product may rise 
 or fall with the market, often the toy of 
 schemers. But here is the State of Maine, with 
 its 1600 lakes and ponds, its 5000 streams and 
 rivers, its grand hills and picturesque valleys, 
 its 3000 miles of seacoast, in bays, and harbors, 
 and delightful inlets, and here they will ever 
 remain, their intrinsic value always the same. 
 l34l
 
 RIPOGEN'US GORGE: UNDEVELOPED
 
 "The Open Door 
 
 I have spoken of climate. The doctors tell 
 us that wide variations in temperature are bad 
 for the human voice. And in the course of a 
 year, down in Maine, the temperature varies 
 to an extent of one hundred and fifty degrees. 
 Yet this State has produced three of the 
 world's great singers. Who will deny this title 
 to Annie Louise Gary, Nordica, and Emma 
 Eames? Who that has heard their voices will 
 ever forget them? 
 
 And here am I, boasting I ne'er would boast, 
 still boasting.
 
 Ill 
 
 AND THIS WAS MAINE 
 
 OPEN your geography at a map of the United 
 States and look it over. Then get into your 
 mind the very important question of summer 
 temperatures. You will find at a glance, and 
 on the briefest consideration, that the only 
 section of the country east of the Rocky 
 Mountains that gives complete and perennial 
 assurance of cool weather in the warm months 
 is the coast of Maine. 
 
 I have slept away forty-one summers on 
 Squirrel Island, at the entrance of Boothbay 
 Harbor, and am something of an amateur 
 thermometer crank. In all this time I have 
 never known the mercury to rise above sixty- 
 nine degrees between sunset and sunrise, dur- 
 ing the four months of June, July, August, 
 and September. Sometimes it goes down to 
 fifty-five, and in cool northers to fifty, but for 
 [36]
 
 And this was Maine 
 
 the greater part of the time it is in the sixties, 
 good sleeping temperature. The reason, of 
 course, is quite plain and simple, the temper- 
 ing influence of the deep salt water, never 
 above the fifties, always at work night and 
 day, always vital. 
 
 Here are the real bold coasts of the Atlantic 
 States. In hundreds of places, the conditions 
 of sea permitting, an ocean liner could run up 
 to the very rocks, make fast to a hardy spruce, 
 and land passengers and cargo without even 
 scratching the paint of her under-body. On 
 the other hand, still glancing at the map, you 
 will note that, with the exception of a few short 
 sections like the north shore of Massachusetts 
 and Newport, Rhode Island, the coastline 
 from western Maine way down to the tip end 
 of Florida is low, flat, sandy, and monotonous, 
 the water shallow, insipid, and warm. Of 
 course, on these endless beaches there is the 
 delight of salt bathing in waters of higher tem- 
 perature, but one can get this in western 
 Maine, where there are beaches good and 
 [371
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 hard beaches, to be sure, but not endless, praise 
 be. And besides, who would wear himself out 
 with bathing all the time? And when you have 
 said bathing, you have said the alpha and 
 omega and all the rest of the alphabet of the 
 other resorts reaching down to the south. 
 
 Think of it think of it, if you happen to 
 be reading this inadequate chapter in some 
 hot, stuffy room on a hot, stuffy night in 
 say Philadelphia or Washington. The weather 
 man, who is neither romantic nor aesthetic, 
 nor has he any cottage lots for sale, who 
 deals in the stern realities of cold figures, 
 the weather man tells me that the average 
 temperature for the coast of Maine in the last 
 forty-four years for the summer months of 
 June, July, and August was 65.7 degrees. And 
 this, mind you, taking into the account a few 
 days each year when the mercury runs up 
 into the nineties just to give pleasant con- 
 trast, days which you really enjoy because 
 you know that sundown will bring back the 
 refreshment of coolness and return to you the 
 [38]
 
 And this was Maine 
 
 vitality of the typical Maine atmosphere. The 
 mean temperature of the interior for the same 
 months is but little higher. At Greenville, up 
 in the Moosehead region, where the Govern- 
 ment maintains a weather station, the aver- 
 age is about the same, and at Poland, where 
 private enterprise keeps the record, not so far 
 back from the coast, but still quite typical of 
 the interior resorts, the average is about one 
 degree higher. 
 
 ( Sailing one season with the International 
 Brotherhood of Multimillionaires, I came 
 across in the good ship Queen Mab, Captain 
 Nathaniel Francis, from Vineyard Haven to 
 Mount Desert, in an outside race of some two 
 hundred miles which marked the wind-up of 
 the annual August cruise of the New York 
 Yacht Club for that year. I took on a new 
 pride in Maine, and, I feel quite sure, a new 
 lease of life. We had been drifting about the 
 Sound for a week, with never a sail-full and 
 ever a shift of fickle airs. Sheets were limp, 
 booms and blocks a-slat, what a fine ex- 
 [391
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 pressive word for the doldrums! Vision was 
 obscured by soft-coal smoke from stacks afloat 
 and ashore, hanging heavy and dull, low and 
 lifeless. There was everywhere a plethora of 
 inertness and insipidity. We just lolled. Few, if 
 any, even answered the call to arms when 
 the hot red ball of a sun crossed the yardarm. 
 Rounding Pollock Rip lightship at five 
 o'clock of an otherwise dull Saturday after- 
 noon, a gentle but steady southwester, origi- 
 nating somewhere in the vicinity of a Hoboken 
 gas plant, caught up with us. We set the spin- 
 naker, laid a course for Baker's Island Light, 
 something like "nothe-east by nothe" very 
 long, nasal o and let her splosh along through 
 the night. The rakish but good ship Corsair, 
 Captain J. P. Morgan, was the steam convoy 
 of the fleet. I remember with distinctness that 
 as night shut down, the good ship Sappho, 
 one of the big schooner class, Captain Thomas 
 B. Reed, First Mate Mark Twain, was only 
 about two hundred yards away on our port 
 quarter. Some one on board was laughing. 
 [40!
 
 And this was Maine 
 
 When we arose in the morning temporarily 
 to see the sun, still a red ball, come out of 
 the water, there was the Sappho still in the 
 same relative position, having neither gained 
 nor lost an inch. Some one on board was still 
 laughing and rather inordinately for a quiet 
 New England Sunday morning. We finished 
 the run at seven o'clock that evening, still 
 carrying the spinnaker, and without touching 
 a sheet or a halyard in twenty-six hours. When 
 we all came to anchor in a snug little berth at 
 the southern end of Mount Desert Island 
 there was still a bit of haze, and the last of the 
 craft to round the murky light and anchor 
 rode in on the death of the gas-plant breeze. 
 Gloomy we dined, and gloomy we smoked and 
 read and dozed, and gloomy we sought our 
 gloomy bunks. The spell of the flat waters of 
 the Sound was still abroad, and it was an 
 unambitious floating Brotherhood. 
 
 And then the morning ! And such a morning ! 
 No attempted amateur description is needed 
 for any one who has aroused himself and his 
 [41 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 shipmates under like conditions on a real 
 Maine coast morning. It is enough to say that 
 a stiff northwester, originating somewhere up 
 among the pines, where the air is one hundred 
 per cent pure, was blowing down through 
 Bluehill Bay, over Green Mountain, and push- 
 ing whitecaps out to sea. Captains, and mates, 
 and sailors, and poets, and multimillionaires, 
 and statesmen, and humorists, and mortals 
 were early astir and out on deck. There was 
 no stage sunrise that morning, deep breath- 
 ing was the only bracer, and " Steward, 
 breakfast on deck!" And there were fresh 
 tinker mackerel. 
 
 Now, it is very undignified to shout from one 
 good ship to another during a dignified cruise 
 of the dignified New York Yacht Club see 
 section 28 of the amended constitution. But 
 yachting decorum went to the northwest 
 winds, and poets, and statesmen, and the like 
 skylarked, and called to their friends, and ran 
 up and down the decks, a few were inspired 
 into the rigging, and somebody pushed some- 
 [42]
 
 And this was Maine 
 
 body overboard, and the good ship Sappho, 
 Captain Thomas B. Reed, First Mate Mark 
 Twain, no longer had a monopoly of laughter. 
 It takes cocktails and champagne to do this in 
 the Sound, but up here it's all in the air. 
 
 And this was Maine! And I was proud. So, 
 with single reefs, we beat it up by Schooner 
 Head and into Bar Harbor, as happy, care- 
 free, and boyish a lot of multimillionaires as 
 ever robbed a widow and orphan. 
 
 I wish to say now, before going back to 
 York Harbor to sail east closer inshore, that 
 there was money for Maine in that night's 
 shift of wind. For many a big yacht-owner 
 did I hear say this or something like this: 
 "Well, by George, this is great. I have been 
 wasting time west of the Cape. Me for Maine 
 in the good old summer time," in the good 
 old Brotherhood vernacular. And I've seen 
 him, and many of him, many times since en- 
 joying himself in the soft shore airs, not only 
 in his palace afloat, but in his palace ashore, 
 built afterwards as a permanent summer home.
 
 IV 
 
 KITTERY TO SAIL ROCK 
 
 THE only really reprehensible thing con- 
 nected with the coast of Maine is that rickety 
 old bridge from Portsmouth to Kittery. George 
 Varney, in his "Gazetteer of Maine," says it 
 was built in 1822. It looks it and rides it. 
 If you have time, go downstream and take the 
 little ferry. You will go only a little farther 
 and certainly fare no worse. Incidentally, you 
 will get a nearer view of a small projection of 
 land whose official but unchristian name is 
 "Pull-and-be-Damned Point." Go down even 
 if you have n't time. You will do your indi- 
 vidual part in serving justifiable protest and 
 hastening the welcome day of a new gateway 
 into the garden. 
 
 However, you may cross the harmless Pis- 
 cataqua any way you like. Once over, and you 
 have ridden, or walked, into the region of 
 [44]
 
 A DISAPPEARING RIG
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 "romantic interest, every inlet its history and 
 beauty." Here was the western theater of the 
 great Indian wars of colonial Maine, when the 
 hardy pioneer and the wily redman Ugh! 
 Why speak of wars now? Especially when 
 Williamson and Varney and the other his- 
 torians of this historic State were the last words 
 in Indian uprisings? Besides, are we not on 
 recreation bent? And have not Mr. Howells 
 and John Kendrick Bangs completely pacified 
 the shores of ancient York with charming 
 personality, gentle humor, and delightful writ- 
 ing? 
 
 If you go into the expensive navy yard at 
 Kittery, they will first of all point out the un- 
 pretentious stores-room where Russia and 
 Japan made their peace ten years ago, and then 
 tell you that the signing of the treaty was post- 
 poned half an hour because of the absence of 
 champagne glasses, an accident due to excus- 
 able thoughtlessness, of course, because the 
 ceremony was taking place on Maine soil where 
 people are not supposed to be thinking of cham- 
 [45]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 pagne. I should have been skeptical about this 
 historic international near-tragedy had I not 
 seen it and reported it in the journals of the 
 times. And may I quote: 
 
 "French champagne, or rather the absence 
 of American champagne glasses, played an 
 important, not to say humorous, part in the 
 conclusion of the Peace of Portsmouth. It is 
 a foreign custom to drink the health of the 
 sovereigns of the two countries concerned at 
 the conclusion of such a ceremony. It is al- 
 most never omitted, and the standard wine of 
 all the world is used. M. Witte, Baron Rosen, 
 Baron Komura, and Minister Takahira were 
 waiting in the anteroom for the Russian and 
 Japanese secretaries to finish the reading and 
 comparison of the four copies of the treaty. 
 Finally it was announced that they were ready 
 for the signatures, when the awful discovery 
 was made that, while the champagne neces- 
 sary for the conclusion of peace was in readi- 
 ness, the champagne glasses were not. The 
 indignity of drinking out of bottles would never 
 [46]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 do, so the ceremony of signing was delayed 
 while glasses were brought from Portsmouth." 
 
 It occurs to me now that they might have 
 been found hard by at the mansion of Sir 
 William Pepperell, who once led the soldiers 
 of the New England colonies. There are curi- 
 osities there of interest to the antiquarian, 
 and champagne glasses may be among them. 
 
 There are half a dozen different ways of go- 
 ing down the Maine coast we always say 
 "down," even down here. By any one of them 
 it is possible to get the full benefit and enjoy- 
 ment of its vitality and scalloped scenery. 
 Take the steam train and "stop off" all the 
 way down to Eastport and you can't go far 
 wrong. Nowhere in the world are the delights 
 of "trolleying" in summer any greater, and 
 with the exception of only one break you can 
 thus make the trip from Kittery to Old Town, 
 with scores of worth-while trolley detours. 
 And one can motor the coast by land or by sea 
 and miss nothing of its beauty. Then there 
 are two old-fashioned ways I suppose my 
 [471
 
 Latchstring 
 
 gasoline friends would call them primitive 
 sailing and walking. Each has its particular 
 charm and I advise the visitor who has the 
 time and the poetry not to overlook either. 
 Happy, careless days were those when we were 
 turned loose in catboats and small sloops 
 cruising Whittier's " hundred-harbored Maine." 
 I did this nearly every year in a twenty-foot 
 catboat from Cape Elizabeth to Frenchman's 
 Bay, from the time when I was twelve years 
 old till long after college days, scooting in and 
 out of the many rivers and harbors, lunching 
 ashore, now here, now there; or on board, now 
 here, now there, sleeping in the cockpit, the 
 sleep of the just and unterrined, with the sky 
 the limit. And there were sailors in those days ! 
 Some of our boys could make a cat or a sloop 
 do everything but sing and lecture on moral 
 philosophy. Ask Frank Houston. And some 
 day, at least, I hope, when the rush hour 
 has passed, when the craze for getting there 
 anyhow, somehow, but soon, has run its course, 
 the calm, gentle, meditative, and highly bene- 
 [48]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 ficial exercise of walking will come back. When 
 it does, and you can enjoy its measured delights 
 without being too much out of style, do as 
 much of the Maine coast as you can that way. 
 Do it a hundred times and you'll find a hun- 
 dred new attractions. 
 
 Northeast out of Kittery, and following along 
 the general direction of the coast-line, we come 
 to the group of royal Yorks, York Har- 
 bor, York Beach, York Cliffs, and, just inside, 
 York Village and York Corner. Quiet, restful 
 places these, with an air of refinement and 
 letters in both the cottage and hotel life. 
 There is gentle inspiration in the undulating 
 nature of York County, and no wonder some 
 of America's best thinkers, writers, and artists 
 find here congenial environment. And then 
 Ogunquit, with its good hotels, and Wells, and 
 the Kennebunks, Kennebunk Village, quiet, 
 peaceful, charming, with its tremendous La- 
 fayette Elm, its handsome old church, its clean 
 white houses, and its kitchen gardens bor- 
 dered with old-fashioned single hollyhocks and 
 [49 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 pink phlox, and down below, a delightful 
 drive or walk, the newer Port and Beach. 
 
 The grand sweeping curve of Old Orchard 
 Beach, from Biddeford Pool on the south to 
 Prout's Neck on the north, the scene of Wins- 
 low Homer's best work, where the waters are 
 bluer and the sandy shores harder than any- 
 where else, is world-famous. It was one of the 
 first of the big summer resorts of New Eng- 
 land and still holds its place in popularity. 
 
 Nature was both lavish and methodical in 
 preparing the entrance to Maine through 
 restful old York with its gently sloping shores 
 and hills. Beyond, the coast is steep and 
 rocky, in places mountainous, and the gradual 
 advance into rugged territory delights and 
 rests the traveler's eye with its slow but con- 
 stant changes. Nowhere more than on the 
 Scarboro marshes, just across the county line 
 in Cumberland, painted many times by many 
 artists in softest of greens and an atmosphere 
 of peace and complete rest. I have sat for 
 hours yes, days in ugly shooting-boxes 
 [ So]
 
 THE SCARBORO MARSHES
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 in the very center of these marshes, and won- 
 dered, with never a thought of a gun. It is 
 difficult to make either mental or verbal analy- 
 sis of this particular part of Maine scenery. 
 You feel it, but cannot describe it. And just 
 as well, for is there not content in Nature's 
 unsolved mysteries and is it not sometimes su- 
 preme? There is much the same feeling as you 
 come suddenly to the slight rise of land at the 
 very end of the street-car line on Cape Eliza- 
 beth, with the majesty and mystery of the 
 deep sea on the left, and immediately before 
 you, and on the right, the soft hazes of Spur- 
 wink, a continuation of the Scarboro marshes 
 a view that never becomes monotonous, 
 ever soothes and often inspires. 
 
 Standing one spring day on one of the Grand 
 Trunk docks in Portland, I saw one of the big 
 ocean steamers that make this port in winter 
 cast off, put to sea, and get into open water 
 in twenty minutes without assistance from a 
 tug, and without once having turned at right 
 angles. Where is there a deep-water harbor
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 so large, so well sheltered, so nearly perfect in 
 all the requirements of a harbor, that can 
 present a spectacle like this? Yes, my Chicago 
 friend, some harbor I can hear you say it. 
 And quite true. But I only mention it as a 
 mere matter of form just to get by. For 
 who that writes or speaks of Portland ever 
 omits to say that its harbor is the best in the 
 world? True, to be sure, but trite. Everybody 
 who knows harbors knows this. To expatiate 
 would be like persisting verbosely that Swit- 
 zerland is a hilly country. The real thing 
 about Portland is that it is unlike any other 
 American city. It has individuality, distinc- 
 tion. And these are all the time impressive. 
 Some of our newer and livelier municipal 
 neighbors may call it "oppressive," and the 
 individuality that of a refrigerator but, of 
 course, by way of jocularity and not in envy. 
 But even if in justice, have not refrigerators 
 their uses ? 
 
 With the exception possibly of a few periods 
 of strenuous upbuilding in the very early days, 
 [ 52]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 and the recovery from the great fire of 1866, 
 the City of Portland has not been guilty of 
 being a "boom town." It has never suffered 
 either the action or reaction of the "booster" 
 process which has seemed so necessary to the 
 existence of cities of corresponding size in the 
 West. It is enterprising on the best lines, 
 steady, not noisy. Its business life is conserva- 
 tive, sound, just, with the substance of gener- 
 ous and fair-minded men, not of great but of 
 modest wealth. Its social life is filled with the 
 charm and hospitality of genuine men and 
 women affected neither by restless ambition 
 nor foolish feelings of superiority. Its religious 
 life is broad-minded, as it should be, and not 
 hysterical, as it should not be. Billy Sunday 
 would get a hearing, but women would not fall 
 faint in the sawdust. Of course, there are no 
 statistics on which to make any accurate state- 
 ments, but I venture that there is no city in 
 the world that does more in the way of effec- 
 tive charity in proportion to its means. There 
 is real wholesomeness and dignity in the general 
 (53 }
 
 T*he Latchstring 
 
 life, and the city in its entirety always seems to 
 be conscious that Longfellow was its poet and 
 Fessenden and Reed were its statesmen. 
 
 I am tarrying a bit longer in Portland, not 
 out of any prejudice as a resident, but because 
 its people are characteristic of Maine people, 
 it is the metropolis of the State, and the dis- 
 tributing center and portal to its many pleas- 
 ure places. As a place of permanent residence, 
 where is its equal in America for him who pre- 
 fers the small city and who should not? 
 For him who enjoys the change of seasons 
 and who does not? For him who would com- 
 bine the delights of seashore and country life ? 
 for here they are, both in ten minutes. As 
 a resort in summer it is annually found most 
 satisfying to many thousands of people, while 
 visitors to the central and eastern Maine re- 
 sorts find it a convenient and entertaining 
 stopping-place both going and coming. And 
 where has America a seacoast city with such 
 outlooks as those from the Eastern and Western 
 Promenades, the one towering abruptly from 
 [54]
 
 O v
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 the harbor with the open sea and the whole of 
 Casco Bay in view, the other overlooking the 
 fields and forests and hills of western Maine, 
 on to the White Mountains, which on clear 
 days stand out as mighty sentinels of a chosen 
 land? An American city indeed unique, and 
 if in no other respect certainly in the wonder- 
 ful municipal organ and its great influence 
 for education and refined entertainment for 
 its own people and its guests. When the new 
 City Hall was built, a structure, by the way, 
 that represents the very highest conception 
 in New England architecture, Mr. Cyrus H. K. 
 Curtis, of Philadelphia, a native and summer 
 resident of the State, presented the city with 
 a grand organ which was built into the audi- 
 torium of the municipal building. It is one of 
 the three great organs of the world, and is now 
 regarded by musicians as the best in the world. 
 Under the direction of a music commission of 
 citizens, the municipality employs at an annual 
 salary one of the most famous of American 
 organists, and each Sunday afternoon a free 
 [55]
 
 Latchstring 
 
 concert is given to thousands, and at other 
 times during the week at popular prices. 
 Every afternoon during the summer months 
 an hour's concert is given, and these are largely 
 attended by summer visitors who come for 
 many miles for this musical welcome. 
 
 Every poet who has ever seen Casco Bay 
 and its islands has put them into verse, every 
 one a "gem." And why not? It is a beautiful 
 sheet of water and whether you sail down 
 among its hundreds of islands or view them 
 from the car line from Portland to Yarmouth, 
 called by many travelers the most pictur- 
 esque trolley ride in the East, you have 
 before you a placid and beautiful picture. 
 
 And now the Kennebec, guarded night and 
 day by somber Seguin, and then on to the 
 east where the shore-line, while growing more 
 rugged, becomes more deeply indented with 
 bays and inlets. There is quite as much excit- 
 ing history about the Kennebec and Sheepscot 
 River region as in any part of the State. But 
 now tranquillity reigns and they are visited 
 [56]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 every year by many thousands of people be- 
 cause of their calm and picturesque beauty. 
 Just around the quaint little fishing settlement 
 of Cape Newagen, famous in tradition and 
 story, is Boothbay Harbor and its charming 
 islands, first known as a resort more than 
 forty-five years ago. As a harbor, well shel- 
 tered and bold of shore, in size it ranks second 
 to Portland only. And in size it is not to be 
 ignored, for in the old days, prior to the uni- 
 versality of gasoline, in a grim northeaster I 
 have seen five hundred sail, seiners, bankers, 
 and coasters, every one in a safe and snug berth, 
 anchored all the way from Mouse Island to 
 the head of the harbor. 
 
 The most important breakwater for this 
 rather remarkable shelter is Squirrel Island, 
 known almost the world over as one of the 
 most beautiful on the New England coast. 
 Here it was in the early seventies that the 
 pioneer colony of "summer people" for this 
 center section of the Maine coast was founded, 
 led by Nelson Dingley, at that time Governor 
 [S7l
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 of the State. It originated as a seashore out- 
 ing-place for a few Kennebec and Androscog- 
 gin people, and has since grown into the sum- 
 mer home of people from almost every State 
 in the Union, altogether unique and one of the 
 most charming of the Atlantic Coast watering- 
 places. 
 
 Still a fine, interesting, old-fashioned town, 
 stores closed twelve to one, whose men 
 and women, unspoiled by new and false ideas, 
 are even yet of the old school, Boothbay Har- 
 bor is the center of a large summer popula- 
 tion varying more in character than any other 
 in the State. Here are kings of finance and 
 great scientists, artists, authors, shopgirls and 
 teachers, clergymen and chemists all bent on 
 getting health and pleasure out of Maine, with 
 "going t' the Harbor" one of the daily joys. 
 
 The shire town of this coast county is quaint 
 and quiet Wiscasset, a dozen miles up the 
 Sheepscot River, noted for its colonial archi- 
 tecture and one of the so-called Marie Antoi- 
 nette houses on the New England coast, pre- 
 [58]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 pared for her coming, but which she never 
 occupied. Just east of here are picturesque 
 Newcastle, one of the most beautiful of the 
 smaller towns of the State, and Damariscotta, 
 not unlike it, and where I have spent many 
 days in the cleanest, best kept, best provided, 
 and smallest hotel to be found in America. 
 
 Still proceeding down the coast from Booth- 
 bay Harbor, beyond the rocks of Ocean Point, 
 by Thrumcap and through the Thread-of-Life, 
 to Pemaquid, where the early English voyagers 
 exchanged rum for Indians, where some took 
 Indians without so much as suggesting ex- 
 change, Pemaquid with its overweight of a 
 very ancient fort where people now combine 
 history with pleasure. 
 
 In any complete book about Maine, be it 
 descriptive, historical, or romantic, Monhegan 
 Island, ten miles straight out to sea from 
 Pemaquid Point light, should have a chapter 
 by itself. A whole book would do no more 
 than justice. Artists have painted the giant 
 cliffs of its eastern shore and its gruesome fogs. 
 [591
 
 Latchstring 
 
 Writers of fiction have come here for the scene 
 of much fiction, and in some of it, with native 
 regret, I have noted an undue warping of char- 
 acter and a lack of fine appreciation of a really 
 fine people. Unique and picturesque are the 
 physical features of this always far-off island. 
 But they do not constitute the main attrac- 
 tion. The psychology of the island is the real 
 thing about Monhegan. If all people were 
 alike, the world would be a very monotonous 
 and unhappy place of existence. Individuality 
 is the spice of mundane life. Out on Monhe- 
 gan one can find real biting condiment. The 
 personnel of a colony of a hundred or more 
 interesting, insular people who seldom leave 
 their homes some have not been on the 
 main in years, some never is worth the atten- 
 tion of the deepest university philosopher. 
 They have a native pride all their own, are 
 fair and judicial, careful observers of the laws 
 of the State, their own home-made regulations, 
 and the rights of neighbors; friendly, helpful, 
 confirmed in religion and politics, with opin- 
 [60]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 ions of their own and ability to back them, in- 
 telligent in the worth-while matters of life, if 
 not up-to-date in those of lesser moment. I 
 know of no colony quite like this on the Atlan- 
 tic Coast. The principal industry just now is 
 the lobster fishery, and they have a local law, 
 a sort of colony agreement, that no catches 
 shall be made within three miles of the island 
 shores, except from January 15 to July 15. 
 They keep it to the letter and profit thereby. 
 Midnight of January 15 is an event in the 
 Monhegan calendar, and on the hour the dories 
 and motor smacks, piled high with traps, put 
 out of the little harbor and the six months' 
 fishing begins. During January and February 
 they find the top of the market in prices, and 
 net profits from $100 to $150 a day have been 
 made, but these, of course, are unusual. One 
 fisherman last year cleared $3000 for his sea- 
 son's work, a tidy little sum on Monhegan, 
 where the Great White Way is short and the 
 lurements for the spendthrift are neither 
 many nor varied. 
 
 [61 ]
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 The summer visitor is changing the archi- 
 tecture of the island little by little, and some 
 of the habits, customs, and styles that have 
 merely surface expression, but not the stoi- 
 cism of the natives. In fact, the native stoic 
 is slow to accept the newcomer, and when he 
 does, it is after no superficial overhauling. But 
 when once election takes place, the best is 
 none too good. There is a very pleasant cus- 
 tom of addressing the visitor by his first name 
 when he has finally been accepted, and this 
 even by the younger members of the colony, 
 who have been taught to consider it a mark of 
 respect. Robert Sewall, whose marines have 
 pleased so many an eye, and none more 
 than those of Monhegan, told me last fall 
 that one of the proudest moments of his life 
 was when the lightkeeper, who had been calling 
 him "Mister Sewall" for the first weeks of his 
 visit, at last greeted him with "Morning, 
 Robert. A leetle lowery." Among the summer 
 people there are still "Misters," who, after 
 several seasons, are still looking for Christian 
 [62]
 
 MONHEGAN'S GREAT INDUSTRY 
 
 MONHEGAN'S GREAT WHITE WAY
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 forgiveness as expressed by the use of the 
 Christian name. But the islander passes no 
 immature judgments, and withal, whatever 
 these are, whether of visitor or permanent 
 neighbor, be they gentle or harsh, there is at 
 the rock-bottom of the Monhegan character 
 a genuine human kindliness, a sort of help- 
 your-fellow feeling, be he friend or enemy, that 
 crops out in any time of crisis. Illustrated 
 quite well by the following quite human inci- 
 dent which I give currency from personal 
 knowledge : 
 
 For the purpose of this relation we will call 
 them Eb and Lew. Well, it so fell out that Eb 
 and Lew had not spoken to each other for years, 
 a quarrel, no doubt, over lot-lines, or shore- 
 front rights, or, what is more probable, lob- 
 ster traps, nobody knew just what. One 
 fall day a heavy norther came howling down 
 through the harbor and a lot of things afloat, 
 cars, dories, skiffs and larger craft, those 
 that did not fetch up on the two points, 
 were blowing out to sea. Eb was down on the 
 [63 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 beach, just lookin', secure in the comforting 
 thought that his little squadron had been 
 hauled out for repairs the day before and was 
 high and dry away from trouble. A glance 
 over the turbulent waters showed him that the 
 new auxiliary sloop of his old enemy Lew, 
 built up Bristol way in the spring, and a 
 good 'un, yes, sir, a good 'un, even if Lew 
 did own her, was laboring. 
 
 "Dragging by gum," says Eb to himself in 
 accumulating agitation. "Ain't half scope 
 enough to her moorin'-rope the dum fool ! 
 When that rock fetches up she's a goner, 
 sure's shootin'." 
 
 No forecast ever came more quickly true. 
 She soon stopped dragging, there was one sud- 
 den and mighty strain, the mooring-line parted 
 and away went the Winnie and Freddie 
 built up Bristol way last spring sideways 
 down the gale. 
 
 Enter now, left center, down the shore, Lew 
 in accumulated agitation. Eb thus broke the 
 silence of years : 
 
 [64]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 "Hi, Lew, up to my fish-house and git that 
 big coil of throat halyards. I '11 git a dory off. 
 We '11 git 'er yet!" 
 
 Both were soon in effective action. The big 
 coil produced, the dory tugged down, and off 
 went the ancient enemies on their common 
 errand of salvage, Eb, being a few years older 
 and of wider water experience, taking the 
 laboring oar and general charge of the expedi- 
 tion. The stern of the sloop caught on a rock 
 near the western entrance of the harbor. She 
 turned end for end, cleared, and was again sid- 
 ling down the increasing wind and out to sea. 
 But it gave them time. Eb's stroke was not 
 of the Charles Courtney sweep, but it arrived 
 in power and speed and soon landed Lew on 
 the bows of his sloop. 
 
 "Crank J er," he shouted, "crank 'er 
 quick." 
 
 "Ain't no gas," answered Lew, "an' she 
 won't spark." 
 
 "Take a hitch around the mast and git back 
 here. Quick." 
 
 [65 ]
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 It was beyond human effort to tow her in 
 all that wind, but by dint of Eb's hard pulling 
 they finally got her headed about toward the 
 big island shore at a distance they thought the 
 line would cover, and then rowed in, paying 
 out the big coil. At last, both breathing hard 
 and almost exhausted, they landed in the sea- 
 weed with just enough of the throat halyards 
 left to take a turn around a sharp rock. A 
 dozen or more of the neighbors who had come 
 down to watch proceedings, cheer on the men, 
 and give advice, now lent a hand, and the 
 Winnie and Freddie built up Bristol way 
 last spring was soon warped in under the 
 lee to safety. She had been caught just in time, 
 and but for the superhuman efforts of his old 
 enemy, Lew's big, new auxiliary would have 
 gone to sea and the bottom. Nine hundred 
 and seventy-five dollars without the engine 
 saved and Eb thar done it. And at a 
 cost of great energy and marine skill, a broken 
 oar and two thole-pins, a smashed gunwale, a 
 sprained wrist, and no pride at all. 
 f 66 1
 
 COAST-LINE CONTRASTS
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 The neighbors glanced at the two men 
 sitting on near-by rocks panting and spent, 
 cast knowing looks among themselves, and 
 then one after another walked quietly and 
 stiffly up the hill. Silence is best in the presence 
 of true heroism. 
 
 With elbows on his knees, his head bowed 
 down between his hands, Lew looked up and 
 over at Eb. Just looked. That was all. Eb 
 arose in the halo of an ultimatum. 
 
 "Dum it, Lew, give 'er more scope next 
 time. Born right 'ere on this island and don't 
 know more'n that." 
 
 And passed on, limping up the slimy rocks. 
 The old relations were at once resumed and 
 they have n't spoken since. 
 
 Have the boy call you at White Head if you 
 happen to be making for eastern Maine in the 
 comfortable Boston boat. An early morning 
 glimpse of Penobscot Bay and all the varied 
 picturesqueness up by Rockland Breakwater, 
 with its monster modern hotel and well- 
 [67]
 
 T*he Latchstring 
 
 groomed grounds, Camden, Belfast, and up 
 the river to Bucksport and Bangor will repay 
 the laziest sleeper. You will certainly be fully 
 awake and alive when you reach Bangor, for 
 it is quite the livest and most cosmopolitan 
 city in eastern America, and always interest- 
 ing whatever the season. Here you will find 
 the red-shirted lumberman and his employer, 
 who knows his Ibsen and his Strand, playing 
 pitch or pinochle in a spirit of equality and 
 friendly competition, and you feel that the 
 brotherhood of man is real and not a dream 
 of the idealist. 
 
 Once we sailed wing and wing up Penobscot 
 Bay in a big schooner yacht before a gentle 
 southerly, and played bridge out on deck all 
 the way to anchorage in Camden Harbor. 
 Quite the acme of outdoor delight and the rare 
 combination of beautiful scenery and fickle 
 chance. We even forgot luncheon and lunch- 
 eon's preliminaries. 
 
 Beginning at Rockland and Camden, we 
 come fairly upon the scenery of sea and 
 [ 68 ]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 mountain combined, with always here and 
 there a wooded island in the vision, and now 
 and then one of Maine's many lakes. These 
 shores of Penobscot Bay are a revelation to the 
 lover of natural phenomena. A friend of mine 
 who made the trip by automobile in a day last 
 summer, from Falmouth Foreside on Casco 
 Bay down through Lincoln and Knox Coun- 
 ties, along that wonderful road from Camden 
 to Belfast, through Searsport, across the Pe- 
 nobscot at Bucksport, and on to Bar Harbor, 
 told me on his return that he had never taken 
 a day's ride in his life more remarkable for the 
 wealth and variety of scenic beauty. 
 
 "And this, mind you," he said by way of 
 emphasis, "after motoring all last winter in 
 Southern France and along the Mediterranean 
 shores." 
 
 Meantime, coming in from the sea and up 
 the bays, "The mountains lift their green 
 heads to the skies," and viewed from any point 
 of the compass, the scenery never lacks variety 
 or stimulation. 
 
 [69]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Way up in the northwest corner of the big 
 bay, a few miles west of the mouth of the 
 Penobscot River, and at the head of a little bay 
 of its own, sleeps Belfast, a city with a busy 
 shipbuilding past, a quiet, restful present, and 
 a future full of summer hope and Maine-grown 
 tobacco. I was walking one soft summer's 
 day up one of her quietest streets with a 
 former United States Senator from the West, 
 when, all unsuspected, we came head on to a 
 former Senator from the Far South whom we 
 both knew, but had not seen in years. 
 
 "Well, you old rascal! And how came you 
 here? Who'd have thought it? Way up in 
 this corner! A far cry, Florida to Maine! By 
 George, I'm glad to see you." And a hearty 
 handshake, and a slap on the back, and more 
 "By Georges" all quite in the Albert J. 
 Beveridge spirit of cordiality and youthful 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "Well, well, I'm glad to see you all. If I 
 might quote our distinguished friend, delighted, 
 bully! Come now, right about, to lunch." 
 [70]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 And Senator Taliaferro led us down to the 
 handsomest and most charming summer home 
 in all New England, a rich seafarer's house of 
 the last century, groomed neither too much 
 nor too little, with all the fine old lines main- 
 tained, and landscaped according to the ideas 
 of a Southern gentleman who has respect for 
 dignified outdoor beauty and a Northern past. 
 Never a pleasanter hour in Maine than this, 
 with comfort and pleasure and all that is gen- 
 tle and true in hospitality administered by a 
 Southern menage ', moved North en masse, every 
 year for five months of real living. 
 
 Across the bay and southeast by Castine, 
 also heavy with history and named for that 
 romantic baron from the Pyrenees who here 
 married the daughter of Madockawando, sa- 
 chem of the Tarratines, you pass down through 
 the reaches and thoroughfares, a sail fit for 
 a king. And then on to Mount Desert Island 
 and Frenchman's Bay, the summer home of 
 many of the brave and the fair, where Art 
 dares play with Nature and "groomed sur-
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 roundings everywhere please the eye," noted 
 the world over and called by many an experi- 
 enced traveler the finest, most picturesque, 
 and most exclusive summer resort in the world. 
 
 I have tried feebly enough to tell you 
 something of the air. I find in one of Mr. 
 Henry van Dyke's delightful vacation vol- 
 umes, this description of the life there : 
 
 "There were the mountains conveniently 
 arranged, with pleasant trails running up all 
 of them, carefully marked with rustic but 
 legible guide-posts; and there was the sea com- 
 fortably besprinkled with islands, among which 
 one might sail around and about, day after day, 
 not to go anywhere, but just to enjoy the mo- 
 tion and the views; and there were cod and 
 haddock swimming over the outer ledges in 
 deep water, waiting to be fed with clams at 
 any time, and on fortunate days ridiculously 
 accommodating in letting themselves be pulled 
 up at the end of a long, thick string with a 
 pound of lead and two hooks tied to it. There 
 were plenty of places considered proper for 
 [72]
 
 BAR HARBOR, WHERE ART DARES PLAY WITH NATURE
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 picnics, like Jordan's Pond, and Great Cran- 
 berry Island, and the Russian Tea-House, 
 and the Log Cabin Tea-House, where you 
 would be sure to meet other people who also 
 were bent on picnicking; and there were hotels 
 and summer cottages, of various degrees of 
 elaboration, filled with agreeable and talkable 
 folk, most of whom were connected by occupa- 
 tion or marriage with the rival colleges and 
 universities, so that their ambitions for the 
 simple life had an academic thoroughness and 
 regularity. There were dinner parties, and 
 tea parties, and garden parties, and sea parties, 
 and luncheon parties, masculine and feminine, 
 and a horse-show at Bar Harbor, and a gym- 
 khana at North East, and dances at all the 
 Harbors, where Minerva met Terpsichore on a 
 friendly footing while Socrates sat out on the 
 veranda with Midas discussing the great auto- 
 mobile question over their cigars." 
 
 Poor man ! How he must miss his Maine this 
 summer, pegging away there in war-stricken 
 Europe! And why have not the war lords taken 
 [73 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 more to heart his charming outdoor books and 
 ere this softened to peace? 
 
 And, more recently from Mr. Gouverneur 
 Morris : 
 
 "Almost every step toward the summit of 
 Newport is worthy of a pause. From no other 
 mountain in this world, I think, is so beautiful 
 a view of ocean and bays, of wooded islands 
 and ships, and of other mountains so swiftly 
 and gloriously expanded. You should pick 
 champagne weather for the climb, and it should 
 not be any steadfast business with the nose 
 held to the path, but a long, delicious, upward 
 loitering. There should be childish feasts upon 
 blueberries, long silent sittings, ended on the 
 man's part by a sudden spring to his feet and 
 a confident stretching out to the girl of his 
 two hands. I wonder how many girls' minds 
 have been made up for them by a Bar Harbor 
 mountain. Was it his first visit to Bar Harbor? 
 Had he ever breathed such air? Was there 
 any other place where the mountains came 
 straight up out of the ocean, where, in short, 
 [74]
 
 Kittery to Sail Rock 
 
 mountain air and ocean air are combined? In 
 that climate real weariness is impossible. The 
 heart may bump and the lungs pump, but a 
 few moments' rest and the short way home is 
 the one thing you want to avoid." 
 
 These descriptions are so much better. All 
 you have to do is to get real writers to Maine. 
 They will do the rest. 
 
 Now, out to the eastward again and down 
 the jagged coast of Washington County, "the 
 southeast corner of the State of Maine, a happy 
 remnant of the ancient wilderness." Not for- 
 getting Cutler, of course, where Rufey and his 
 father sailed out of the harbor, across two 
 pages of the Coast Pilot and were lost in the 
 fog, but not to story and tradition. On and on 
 to Lubec and Eastport and then that little 
 bit, hardly big enough for a seal or a gull, Sail 
 Rock, the tip end of the United States of 
 America. 
 
 Surely, a remarkable coast. No country has 
 its superior, no State its equal. I have not de- 
 scribed it. Merely started you along the path.
 
 THE GAME-FISH PEERAGE 
 
 SOMEWHERE in the making of many fishing 
 books, of which there is no end, some one who 
 knows has said that the trout aristocracy is 
 to be found in the clear, cool waters of Maine, 
 particularly of northern Maine. Precisely the 
 same may be said of the salmon aristocrat 
 and the black bass aristocrat. These three 
 are the true game fish of the great Northeast. 
 Some sportsmen specialize on one, many be- 
 come expert in fishing for two, some enjoy 
 casting and trolling for all three, though I have 
 observed as an amateur that the trout and sal- 
 mon fishermen do not take kindly to bass, while 
 the bass fisherman, as a rule, holds to his own. 
 
 I presume the top-notcher of the finny 
 
 nobility, in the opinion of all who make angling 
 
 both a recreation and an aim in life, is the sea 
 
 salmon Salmo salar, to give the scientific 
 
 [76]
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 name, since we are speaking of real blue blood. 
 A lordly fish is this, both for game and for food, 
 found in Europe only in waters north of Spain 
 and in Atlantic America in waters north of 
 the forty-first parallel, now almost entirely in 
 Maine and the Maritime Provinces. The far- 
 famed Oregon salmon is of the same imme- 
 diate family, but darker in hue, and, my friend 
 the globe-trotting epicure tells me, less deli- 
 cate in flavor. The salmon waters there can 
 certainly be neither clearer nor colder. The 
 man or woman who has hooked and landed one 
 of these, especially in swift water, has not lived 
 in vain. This is not speculation. It is testi- 
 mony. Have you never heard one of those 
 stories? As for food, its delicate pink flesh, 
 with the first green peas, graces every Fourth 
 of July table in Maine as the piece de resistance, 
 not only of the dinner, but of the season. It 
 is an inglorious Fourth, indeed, when there is 
 no salmon. Without it the holiday would be 
 as colorless and void as a New England Thanks- 
 giving without a native turkey. 
 [77]
 
 The Latcbstring 
 
 The best sea-salmon fishing across the Cana- 
 dian line is to be found largely in sections of 
 rivers and streams privately controlled by 
 clubs and individuals. The waters of Maine 
 are free to all comers, and the most famous 
 sea-salmon pools in the East are those at Ban- 
 gor on the Penobscot and at^Calais on the St. 
 Croix River, where in April every year there 
 congregate the most skillful and persistent of 
 amateur and professional anglers to try their 
 luck with the gamiest of all game fish in their 
 spring migration from the sea. The first Pe- 
 nobscot salmon taken at the Bangor pool each 
 year marks an event in the Maine calendar. 
 Sometimes it goes to the White House, some- 
 times to the market. If the latter, it usually 
 brings a dollar and a half a pound. The access- 
 ibility and other conveniences of these two 
 pools, for the big city man who wishes to get 
 away for a few days of early fishing, are not the 
 least of their attractions. They are said to be 
 the best free sea-salmon waters within easy 
 distance from the great centers. 
 [ 73 ]
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 Time was when these salt-water royalties 
 were taken in large numbers all along the 
 Kennebec, but either on account of the saw- 
 dust or other waste matter from the mills, or 
 because of some mysterious whim of a fish 
 whose idiosyncrasies the scientist has not yet 
 completely learned, they no longer frequent 
 these waters. This is one of the piscatorial 
 mysteries because the conditions of the Kenne- 
 bec waters are not unlike those of the Penob- 
 scot and St. Croix. History relates that the 
 founder of Gardiner, for whom the city was 
 named, located his colonial estate at the junc- 
 tion of the Kennebec and the Cobbosseecontee 
 stream because the salmon spearing was so 
 good there. This grand mansion, built in 1754, 
 still stands on the west bank of the river. The 
 whole place is maintained by the descendants 
 in a manner befitting its history and dignity, 
 and the estate is not only the oldest of its kind, 
 but one of the most beautiful in Maine. Among 
 the old municipal records is an original con- 
 tract with the laborers in which they covenant 
 [79]
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 to work for the owner and his interests, pro- 
 vided they are not compelled to have salmon 
 more than twice a day. Apparently the market 
 quotation in those days did not reach the 
 three figures of these. 
 
 Illustrating the persistency and other forces 
 of habit in the gastronomical departments of 
 large cities, you will note even to-day in the 
 fish courses of the great restaurants of New 
 York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, even of 
 Boston, these two words, cryptic to the man 
 from Maine: "Kennebec Salmon." I do not 
 wish to destroy the illusion of any metropoli- 
 tan steward who daily makes up this interest- 
 ing literature, but true chronicle compels the 
 statement that salmon have not been taken 
 from the Kennebec in many years, certainly 
 not in anything approaching market quantities. 
 
 Anent the mysteries of sea salmon I remem- 
 ber one exciting May morning about twenty 
 years ago on Damariscove Island. The little 
 fishing colony there numbers two or three men 
 and has not grown in two decades. It was the 
 [ 80 1
 
 BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Rl 
 
 MAINE TROUT
 
 E FROM EVERY STORM 
 
 THE FIGHTING LAND-LOCKED SALMON
 
 "The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 custom then, as now, to set nets at the southern 
 end of the island for deep-sea fish for the sum- 
 mer people, but never earlier than the first 
 of July. This particular year, for some reason, 
 a big net was put out one day early in May. 
 Next morning, much to the surprise and profit 
 of the fishermen, some forty handsome salmon, 
 weighing from ten to thirty-five pounds, were 
 taken. This end of Damariscove points out 
 into the ocean midway between the Sheepscot 
 and Damariscotta Rivers, while the entrance 
 to the Kennebec is less than seven miles away. 
 It is easy to understand that the fish were on 
 their spring way up these rivers, but why they 
 have never been taken there since, in numbers, 
 although many early nets have many times 
 been put out, remains one of the deep mys- 
 teries of the deep-sea salmon. 
 
 But fishing in Maine, in the popular accept- 
 ance of the sport, is pursued in inland waters 
 and very largely for trout and land-locked 
 salmon. More sportsmen come here for these 
 than for any other fish, both for casting and for 
 [81 ]
 
 Latchstring 
 
 trolling. Maine trout are of the true variety, 
 the handsome speckled brook trout, which 
 pass down from the brooks and small streams 
 into the ponds and lakes as they grow in size, 
 the real peers of the family, the most popular 
 and most sought game fish in all the world. 
 The land-locked salmon distinguished by 
 their Latin name Salmo sebago are first 
 cousins to the sea salmon, and both because the 
 cool waters of the Maine lakes seem to be their 
 natural home and because in the last few years 
 propagation has been general all over the State, 
 sportsmen who have made a study of the 
 geography of game fish now assert and the 
 assertion stands undisputed that in no other 
 waters of the world are these fish found in 
 such large quantities and size. These two 
 the first-family trout and the agile, crafty, 
 leaping, ever-fighting, land-locked salmon 
 these two constitute the inland fishing glory 
 of the best fishing State in the Union. They 
 abound in hundreds thousands of streams 
 and lakes all over Maine, and the true angler 
 [82]
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 he who has earned what Mr. Henry P. Wells 
 calls the title of nobility comes here for this 
 king of sports. And in the far north, still within 
 the confines of the State, there are scores of 
 small lakes and brooks that have never yet 
 been whipped, or even explored, virgin 
 waters in virgin forests. 
 
 There are five great geographical divisions 
 of the sport: The Sebago Lake region, which 
 includes all the waters of western Maine, with 
 the big lake as the center of operations, radiat- 
 ing into York County on one side, Androscog- 
 gin on the other, and north to historic and 
 charming Fryeburg, through Oxford to Upper 
 Kezar Pond and the cold streams that play 
 in and out of New Hampshire and feed both the 
 Saco and Androscoggin. The wonderful chain 
 of Rangeleys, and embracing on the north 
 Kennebago, Parmachene, the Chain Lakes, 
 and many ponds. The Belgrade Lake region, 
 the home of the black bass, taking in, on the 
 south, Cobbosseecontee, the Winthrop ponds, 
 and all the central Maine watershed of the 
 [83 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Kennebec River. The wild, primeval, expan- 
 sive Moosehead division, covering all the great 
 game-fish waters of Northern Somerset, Pis- 
 cataquis, and Penobscot Counties, and all of 
 Aroostook. And then the Grand Lakes of 
 Washington County, bordering the New Bruns- 
 wick line, where sports the battling ouananiche 
 of the land-locked salmon tribe, respected, and 
 highly valued, and much sought, by sportsman 
 and epicure for remarkable qualities both of 
 game and food. 
 
 A wide expanse of fishing territory this! 
 And all, by reason of a progressive and ad- 
 mirably operated transportation system, which 
 makes a specialty of looking after its fish and 
 game patrons, quickly, easily, and most com- 
 fortably reached. You can arrive at much of 
 it in fact by far the larger part in a sleeper 
 or chair car, in a night's or a day's ride from 
 Boston, the rarest combination of genuine 
 sport and accessibility to be found in the 
 country. Yes, superlatives again. And why 
 not? 
 
 [84]
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 Your scientist, the veteran who begins in 
 January to look over his rods, his book of flies 
 and left-over leaders, and what better sport 
 in January, will tell you, with no little show 
 of ceremony, that he never wets a line until 
 the fish begin to rise; that the only real fishing 
 is fly fishing; that no gentleman will kill a 
 trout or salmon by any other method. And 
 so forth, through a long category of anathema 
 for the simple hook-and-line man, and ever 
 with a smug air of superiority and condescen- 
 sion. Your troller, the man who finds pleasure 
 in this kind of fishing when casting is out of 
 the question, will extol the beauties of both 
 and wax convincing. 
 
 But as for me, kind sir, given a trusty bam- 
 boo of medium weight, a bait-box of worms 
 from behind the barn, a small creel, a large 
 lunch, the favorite brier and special mixture, 
 a book in the pocket for an hour of nicotine 
 and mental cultivation, a half-dozen miles of 
 musical brook, and the day before me well, 
 and indeed, moreover, albeit, whereas, and by 
 [85]
 
 *The Latchstring 
 
 George what more? A day that scores in 
 the long calendar of diversified human in- 
 terests! You have settled some problem for 
 yourself. What is better, for some one else. 
 You can always do that. If possessed of a 
 smattering of botany, you have had wild 
 flowers at first hand all day. If a student of 
 birds, they have been with you all the time, 
 Wilson's warbler to the hermit thrush, singing, 
 and repeating for the minutest analysis. These 
 by way of avocation. Nature in all her moods 
 has been yours, with always the quest of the 
 many spotted trout as the main objective; 
 always the gamble so much a human in- 
 stinct as to whether he is in this pool or 
 that, in this bit of rapids or under the rock 
 below, and if anywhere, what size. And then, 
 as the sun tips the hills, back to the farm, with 
 a wealth of that happy, contented, outdoor 
 tired feeling, to a good supper and an oppor- 
 tunity to tell of the day. Indeed, again, and 
 what more? 
 
 Well, possibly this, if you would paint the 
 186]
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 lily and sometimes one can : I would also 
 have awaiting me at the day's end three auc- 
 tion-bridge players ready to shuffle, cut, deal, 
 bid, and play immediately after the coffee and 
 during the pipe. At supper you have exhausted 
 your day's wandering. At least three times 
 with variations have you told how you got the 
 big one just above the footbridge under the 
 overhanging roots of the big yellow birch, how 
 you lost another one and bigger, too 
 much bigger down by the black boulder. 
 And alas, so have the other fellows. There 
 remains the lamplight period between seven 
 and eleven, full of interesting possibilities. 
 Once we had this conjunction of all the delights 
 it is sure to happen once in life up at 
 Charles Chandler's, on Cold River, under the 
 brow of old Baldface. "A clear fire, a clean 
 hearth, and the rigour of the game." With 
 the purist's pardon, Sarah Battle had nothing 
 on us. 
 
 It was at the end of a good day on the stream 
 and soon after "setting in" we ran into a card 
 [87!
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 situation that marks an epoch in auction de- 
 velopments. If I may be permitted to digress : 
 My opponent on the right dealt and bid no 
 trumps. My holdings consisted of seven clubs 
 headed by the ten, three small spades, two 
 small diamonds, and the deuce of hearts a 
 hand as dead as an Egyptian mummy. So I 
 passed. Likewise my opponent on the left, 
 and my partner. It was game all, and the other 
 side had an advanced score of twenty. Rubber, 
 of course. I led my fourth-best club. Dummy 
 exposed the queen and nine, the nine being 
 played. My partner covered with the knave 
 and the dealer, fourth hand, took the trick with 
 the ace, still holding the king. His long suit 
 was seven hearts headed by the knave, ten. 
 The ace, queen, and a small one showed in 
 dummy. The king was against him, but hav- 
 ing control of every other suit, he could well 
 afford to take the finesse, which he did. My 
 partner took with the king. Then, an acci- 
 dent that often happens in the best of bridge 
 families, fully intending to lead my suit, 
 [ 88]
 
 Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 he pulled the wrong card and led his one re- 
 maining heart, the nine. The dealer, thinking 
 that a club had been returned to me, played 
 his king of that suit in a fit of complete absent- 
 mindedness. I followed with a small spade, and 
 then the most unheard-of thing happened. 
 The dealer, in continuing abstraction and still 
 thinking that clubs were called, reached for 
 and played from dummy the queen. My 
 partner's nine of hearts had taken the trick. 
 It was turned and quitted. He now led his 
 small club, and the suit in this strange manner 
 having been cleared I took with the ten, ran 
 off six tricks in that suit, set our opponents a 
 hundred, and saved the rubber. But ere this 
 the dealer had come back to his senses, and 
 endless discussion began. It is still going on. 
 Both he and his dummy had revoked on the 
 heart led of my partner. But one of the unal- 
 terable rules of the game is that dummy can- 
 not revoke. Meanwhile, had either my partner 
 or I called attention to this, it would also have 
 exposed the revoke of the dealer, which he 
 [89]
 
 "The Latcbstring 
 
 could then correct in time, but which we were 
 perfectly justified in claiming. After an hour 
 of fruitless but friendly argument, carried over 
 into the preparations for the next day's fish- 
 ing, we finally threw out the hand for some 
 less prejudiced and more authentic settlement. 
 Hereby respectfully referred to Mr. Work and 
 Mr. Denison. 
 
 At least two hundred hopeful fishermen are 
 in camps, farmhouses, and small hotels on the 
 north and west shores of Sebago Lake on the 
 morning of April I, waiting for sunrise. The 
 law is off and the ice is out. These are the out- 
 riders and advance guard of an army of wel- 
 come invaders all over the State who sound 
 no retreat until the law goes on in September, 
 when lines are reeled in and the fishing season 
 hibernates in pleasant memory until spring. 
 Very few of the early fish are taken with a fly, 
 and the sport at Sebago is almost entirely 
 bait-fishing. Here the troller has his day and 
 is inclined to lord it over the man who only 
 casts. For, says he, he must not only possess 
 [90!
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 all of the fly fisherman's knowledge, but more. 
 Will they be taking live bait, or will a phan- 
 tom do? A silver soldier or a blue-back? A 
 single hook or an archer with many hooks? 
 There are a dozen or more artificial lures, and 
 he has to apply book learning and experience 
 to his selection. Where are the smelts running 
 to-day, where to-morrow? Shall we try the 
 mouth of the Songo or over toward Jordan's 
 Bay? These and many more questions must 
 he decide, meanwhile cultivating neck and 
 neck with his skill the fisherman's great essen- 
 tial patience. 
 
 The salmon at Sebago are now becoming 
 the record fish of Maine waters. Catches, 
 though not many, are made each spring weigh- 
 ing from ten to eighteen pounds. Mr. Charles 
 K. Bispham, of Philadelphia, a skillful and 
 persistent angler, who for fifteen years has 
 made a study of Maine game fish and will fish 
 nowhere else, tells me that he has seen on the 
 spawning beds Sebago salmon weighing thirty 
 pounds and more. 
 
 [91 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Up in the great Rangeley region, more than 
 fifteen hundred feet above the sea level, you 
 will not only strike the largest square-tailed, 
 red-spotted trout in the world, but you will 
 run into waters where game-fish history in 
 Maine really begins. For more than a genera- 
 tion men and women have fished these lakes 
 for sport. The older natives can hardly re- 
 member when "some one from away" was not 
 fishing in spring and summer at the Middle 
 and Upper Dams. 
 
 And Captain Fred Barker, who as a boy did 
 chores and in a small way guiding around the 
 lakes, and who grew up with the fishing country, 
 is historic in himself. Now he is a great landlord 
 and transportation magnate. And an author. 
 Rangeley would not be Rangeley without him. 
 And Elliott Russell, too, one of our old guides 
 of the olden days, I wonder where he has taken 
 his interesting and picturesque personality, 
 and his Kossuth hat and his home-made knick- 
 erbockers. Seems to me some one told me he 
 had listened to the siren voice of the Great 
 [92]
 
 "The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 West and been lured beyond the Hudson. 
 Wherever he is, whatever doing, there's a man. 
 Here's to him! And Percy Ripley, big-boned, 
 big-muscled, the most powerful and enduring 
 human I ever saw, who could tramp the woods 
 all day and all night, half the time carrying a 
 canoe and part of the luggage. Some one has 
 put him on canvas in oils, standing erect, alive 
 and strong, on a big rock with a big kit on his 
 back. It's a classic. And Jim and Archie 
 ah, but these pages are too short. Big citizens, 
 characters, personages, these and their like. 
 Guides can make or break the holiday of a 
 whole party. The breakers have gone pretty 
 much on the rocks. Elimination has left a 
 hardy race of real men. So long, and good luck 
 to those companions of the woods and lakes 
 and streams who have shared our beds and 
 board, and tobacco, and have made livable, 
 useful, and bright many days in the wilderness. 
 Live they long and prosper! 
 
 Way back in 1868 the Oquossoc Angling 
 Association, among the first and most notable 
 [93 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 of the fishing clubs of the country, was formed 
 and located at Indian Rock on the north shore 
 of Mooselookmeguntic. George Shepherd Page, 
 of New Jersey, was its first President, and 
 Louis B. Reed, of New York, its first Vice Pres- 
 ident. The late Senator William P. Frye, who 
 loved the sport of fly fishing and for more 
 than half a century made it his one recreation, 
 always at Rangeley, was one of the 
 charter members. His log camp stands on a 
 huge rock directly across from the Oquossoc 
 Club on the Cupsuptic Straits, and although 
 one of the oldest on the lakes is still a model of 
 modern convenience and comfort and an excel- 
 lent example of a fisherman's paradise in the 
 Maine woods. 
 
 Mr. Frye would leave any debate in the 
 Senate or any committee hearing for an oppor- 
 tunity to tell of his capture of that ten-and-a- 
 half-pound square-tail which stood as the 
 record for many years, not only for the Range- 
 leys, but for the State. How many a time 
 have I heard him tell it to interested audiences 
 [94]
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 of senators, cabinet ministers, and other states- 
 men and always with fine, eloquent descrip- 
 tion, worthy of his best campaigning days 
 and there were none better. How, standing 
 early one morning on the boat landing in front 
 of his camp, he spied the big fellow sunning 
 himself just under the big rock which you will 
 note in the picture; how, deciding that his 
 tackle was not strong enough for this whale of 
 a trout, he sent his guide nine miles away to 
 Rangeley town for a special rigging; how, after 
 waiting all day for the trout did not move 
 ten feet away and watching, and selecting 
 the psychological moment, he cast and hooked 
 him just before sundown; and then straight 
 out into the lake to give him play; how, after 
 an hour's hard battle, taxing an active sena- 
 torial mentality and the angler's limitless skill, 
 he finally landed him in the twilight, put him 
 in a tank at the camp, and sent him alive to 
 Washington to prove to the Government of 
 the United States that the biggest and liveliest 
 and otherwise best trout in the world were to 
 [951
 
 The Latcbstring 
 
 be found in the Rangeley Lakes. A famous 
 tale, and best of all so true. There were the 
 guide, the scales, and the Government of the 
 United States to prove it. 
 
 Perhaps the most noted trout pool in the 
 east is to be found at the Upper Dam, and 
 thus Dr. van Dyke described it sixteen years 
 ago: 
 
 "The Upper Dam at Rangeley is the place, 
 of all others in the world, where the lunacy of 
 angling may be seen in its incurable stage. 
 There is a cozy little inn, called a camp, at the 
 foot of a big lake. In front of the inn is a huge 
 dam of gray stone, over which the river plunges 
 into a great oval pool, where the trout assemble 
 in the early fall to perpetuate their race. From 
 the tenth of September to the thirtieth, there 
 is not an hour of the day or night when there 
 are no boats floating on that pool, and no 
 anglers trailing the fly across its waters. Be- 
 fore the late fishermen are ready to come in at 
 midnight, the early fishermen may be seen 
 creeping down to the shore with lanterns in 
 [96]
 
 "The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 order to begin before cock-crow. The number 
 of fish taken is not large, perhaps five or 
 six for the whole company on an average day, 
 but the size is sometimes enormous, 
 nothing under three pounds is counted, and 
 they pervade thought and conversation at the 
 Upper Dam to the exclusion of every other 
 subject. There is no driving, no dancing, no 
 golf, no tennis. There is nothing to do but fish 
 or die." 
 
 Both before and since then there has been 
 great drain on all these waters, the summer 
 home of many hundreds of veteran experts, 
 but apparently without the slightest diminu- 
 tion. 
 
 Dr. Henshall, in his interesting contribution 
 to fishing literature, "Book of the Black Bass," 
 calls the small-mouthed black bass, "inch for 
 inch and pound for pound, the gamiest fish 
 that swims." And if this is your game, the 
 Belgrade Lakes, Cobbosseecontee, Marana- 
 cook, and other waters of Kennebec County 
 are your destination. Square-tailed trout are 
 [971
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 also found here in fair numbers and size, and 
 big pickerel and perch, but the region is best 
 known as the home of the black bass. The 
 remarkable accessibility of these waters, with 
 such places as Augusta, Waterville, and Win- 
 throp, with modern and comfortable hotels, 
 as centers of radiation by trolley and motor 
 car, places them among the most popular and 
 frequented big ponds of the State. 
 
 And now up the old Somerset to magnificent 
 Moosehead, and the more remote and wilder 
 lakes of northern Maine, Attean, Chesuncook, 
 Chamberlain, Millinocket, and hundreds more 
 smaller in size and larger in name. So many 
 apparently that civilized and Christian names 
 gave out. One, way up in the far north, labors 
 under eighteen letters Chemquasabamticook. 
 And sometime my curiosity will take me up to 
 Stink Pond to see if it is really so. 
 
 Moosehead is the king and queen, the prince 
 
 and princess, of New England's inland seas. 
 
 It is Maine's great big scenic pride. It seems 
 
 to have been a revelation to no less an observer 
 
 [98]
 
 I
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 and traveler than James Russell Lowell, for in 
 1853 he came, saw, was conquered, and wrote: 
 "On all sides rose deep-blue mountains, of 
 remarkably graceful outline, and more for- 
 tunate than common in their names. There 
 were Big and Little Squaw, the Spencer and 
 Lily Bay mountains. It was debated whether 
 we saw Katahdin or not (perhaps more useful 
 as an intellectual exercise than the assured 
 vision would have been), and presently Mount 
 Kineo rose abruptly before us, in a shape not 
 unlike the island of Capri. . . . We pushed 
 on. Little islands loomed trembling between 
 sky and water, like hanging gardens. Gradu- 
 ally the filmy trees defined themselves, the 
 aerial enchantment lost its potency, and we 
 came up with common prose islands that had 
 so late been magical and poetic. The old story 
 of the attained and unattained. . . . The sun 
 sank behind its horizon of pines whose pointed 
 summits notched the rosy west in an endless 
 black sierra. At the same moment the golden 
 moon swung slowly up the east, like the scale 
 l99l
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 of that Homeric balance in which Zeus weighed 
 the deeds of men. Sunset and moonrise at 
 once. Adam had no more in Eden except 
 the head of Eve upon his shoulder." 
 
 But who knows ? There are doubtless modern 
 Moosehead Eves, and many a Huldy, and no 
 better setting for a romance. 
 
 "'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look 
 
 On sech a blessed cretur, 
 A dogrose blushin' to a brook 
 Ain't modester nor sweeter." 
 
 It was here, too, that Lowell found inspira- 
 tion for his "To a Pine Tree" indeed, the 
 tree itself, for: 
 
 "Far up on Katahdin thou towerest 
 
 Purple-blue with the distance and vast." 
 
 Entering this great lake wilderness by either 
 of the main highways, through Greenville at 
 the foot of the lake, or Kineo Station midway 
 its length, and uninformed about its true 
 grandeur, a man's first thoughts are far from 
 fish and game. The prospect all about is wild, 
 magnificent. There is everything new, 
 
 ioo ]
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 sometimes it is weird, always awesome, to 
 catch and hold the unaccustomed eye; the 
 dark waters of a picturesque inland sea bor- 
 dered by endless, trackless forests whose big 
 evergreens edge the shores and cast far out 
 their mysterious shadows; infrequent clearings, 
 green, or brown, or white, according to the sea- 
 son, to give the necessary relief and no more; 
 and then all about, near and far, one above the 
 other, the mountains, and one, Kineo, of 
 course, raising its flinty, hornstone head seven 
 hundred and sixty feet right out of the center 
 of the lake. Reading this morning from the 
 anonymous English gentleman who lives in 
 "The House of Quiet," I find that it is tran- 
 quillizing to the dweller in a hilly land to cool 
 and sober the eye occasionally with the pure 
 breadths of a level plain. So, too, does the eye 
 of a dweller on the plains, and especially the 
 monotonous brick prairie of a large city, find 
 rest and sobering coolness in a mountain pros- 
 pect, and through this there come new health 
 and stimulation to the fagged brain.
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 If you happen to be coming in by the Kineo 
 Short Line, you leave the Belgrade Lake region 
 at Oakland and pass up through Norridgewock, 
 almost directly over the Sophie May home- 
 stead, through busy paper-making Madison, 
 the Ansons, Bingham, a popular trout-fishing 
 center, by Mike Marr's, and along the Upper 
 Kennebec, where the river winds in and out 
 among the hills and the real scenery of north- 
 ern Maine begins. You are put down at a small 
 clearing on the shores of the lake at its nar- 
 rowest part, about equal distance from either 
 end and directly opposite Mount Kineo, the 
 ancient landmark of the greatest fishing and 
 hunting wilderness in eastern America. This 
 in a night and less than half a day from Broad- 
 way and less than a day from Beacon Hill. 
 And if, as you alight, Moosehead happens to 
 be in angry mood, as the photographer has 
 caught it, you have one of the grandest, most 
 superb views to be found in any fresh-water 
 country. I landed here one early fall after- 
 noon with an erudite gentleman from Wash- 
 [ 102 T
 
 "The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 ington who had never before been in Maine. 
 As we left the train fop the boat, he turned to 
 me sharply and said : 
 
 "And all these years I have known you, and 
 you never told me about this! What are you 
 Maine people, selfish? You can't keep that 
 mountain and that lake under a bushel. Strikes 
 me all in a heap." 
 
 Next morning to the summit of Kineo and 
 then a week of swift-water fly fishing in Moose 
 River and the West Outlet. Now he's an 
 annual. 
 
 Kineo is Abnaki for high bluff, and years 
 ago it was a resort for Indians of many tribes 
 who came here, even from far-off Old Town, 
 for the hard rock to make into spears, arrow- 
 heads, and other implements less warlike and 
 more domestic. The view from the top of the 
 mountain is regarded, by seekers for scenic 
 wonders, as the most magnificent in New 
 England, grander even than that from Mount 
 Washington, because the waters of the lake, 
 stretching out in great arms in almost every 
 [ 103 1
 
 The Latch string 
 
 direction, add variety not found in unmixed 
 mountain scenery. 
 
 Extending south into the lake, from the 
 base of this monster rock, is a rather broad 
 tract of groomed land on the point of which 
 is located the modern marvel of northern 
 Maine, and the wonder of landlords, the lar- 
 gest, best-appointed, and most luxurious in- 
 land-water hotel to be found on the continent, 
 as complete in its necessary and comfortable 
 interior details as Chicago's Blackstone, and 
 with all the outdoor accessories that go with 
 the present-day country club. There are a golf 
 course up and down the side of the mountain 
 to test all the resources of a Ouimet or a Var- 
 don; tennis courts worthy of the skill of a 
 McLaughlin or a Brooks; a yacht club, alive, 
 up-to-date, and well appointed; rifle ranges, 
 riding trails, everything that makes for out- 
 door recreation ; and always big and little game 
 and big and little game fish within easy dis- 
 tance; and no doubt electric curling-irons and 
 house detectives, which Thoreau failed to find, 
 [ 104 ]
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 and which, with other luxuries and pleasing 
 frills, would surely open the eyes of Orren 
 Darren, the first Kineo landlord of many, 
 many years ago. In the very center of a 
 lake and forest wilderness, otherwise untouched 
 by the hand of man, and, strange as it may 
 seem, quite unaltered in its wild and primeval 
 aspects by this great public estate ! 
 
 If you were to go around the corner from 
 Louis Martin's and tumble into a trout brook 
 bordered by alders, small birches, skunk cab- 
 bage, and all, and tumble out again to the sad 
 music of a genuine whip-poor-will, you would 
 not run into a greater contrast. It is something 
 to experience, remember, and tell about to 
 lie in the luxury of an electric-lighted, hair- 
 mattressed, soft-sheeted, and otherwise mod- 
 ern bed, after calling for the stock reports and 
 dismissing the valet, and listen to a real moose 
 call. It is also something to sleep wet and 
 bedraggled on a rainy night under a birch 
 canoe and know that to-morrow you can have 
 a Turkish bath and cultivated mushrooms. 
 [105]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 You step out of the peacock alley of a begin- 
 ning-of-the-century hotel, where you have 
 just enjoyed the tremendous importance of 
 being paged, into the hands of a red-shirted 
 Indian guide, indigenous to the soil, a real not 
 a stage character, and the transition is easy and 
 natural, the contrast altogether pleasing and 
 satisfactory. Now a skunk-cabbaged trout 
 brook would not suit the general scheme of 
 Times Square at all. But somehow this metro- 
 politanly appointed hotel seems to fit the 
 Moosehead scenery quite after the manner of 
 my lady's glove. 
 
 Ah, but we had a-fishing gone! Well, they 
 are here, in numbers and of size, square-tailed 
 trout, somewhat smaller than those of the 
 warmer waters of the Rangeleys, land-locked 
 salmon, and big togue, the last named under- 
 rated by many fishermen, but with enough 
 sporting proclivities to give zest to any day 
 on the lake. There is no better fishing sport 
 in the world than casting a fly in the swift 
 waters of the rivers and streams that run in 
 [ 106]
 
 *The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 and out of this great lake. A paddle and pole 
 up Moose River to Brassua and back, for in- 
 stance, and you have put a bright-red mark 
 in your calendar of days of outdoor joy. 
 
 The Northeast and Northwest Carries, way 
 up at the end of Moosehead, while you might 
 think them the omega of Maine's angling 
 pleasures, are really but the portals of more 
 extensive and more wonderful wilds. From 
 the Northeast you reach the West and East 
 Branches of the Penobscot and the far-famed 
 Allegash, while the Northwest is the real start- 
 ing-point for the St. John River and the 
 Canada line. One remarkable thing about all 
 this region is that it is so vast that its rough 
 and primitive character is quite unchanged by 
 increasing travel and a multiplicity of public 
 and private resorts. And in this connection, 
 please bear in mind that over in Aroostook 
 County alone there are fifteen thousand 
 square miles of good fishing territory, an area 
 greater than the entire State of Massachu- 
 setts, or, as the guide-book tells us, equal to 
 [ 107 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 the Bay State, Rhode Island, and Connecticut 
 combined. 
 
 At one of the public camps in the Grand 
 Lake country of Washington County a record 
 of more than five thousand fish for a single 
 season is reported. This looks more like 
 slaughter than sport, but it is bringing into 
 prominence more and more each year a section 
 of Maine fishing territory well known and well 
 whipped by native anglers, but less famous 
 than the other Maine waters among visitors. 
 Being so much nearer the sea and particularly 
 under the influence of the Bay of Fundy fogs, 
 the ice leaves the lakes of Washington County 
 two weeks earlier than at Rangeley or Moose- 
 head, and then the trolling, largely with live 
 minnows, begins. The season for fly fishing in 
 Grand Lake Stream, the main outlet of the 
 lake, runs through the month of June, and this 
 is now called the best and most popular run- 
 ning-water sport in the State. The salmon of 
 this stream have all the fighting qualities and 
 so many of the other characteristics of the 
 [ 108]
 
 The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 ouananiche of the Province of Quebec that 
 experienced and much-traveled fishermen now 
 pronounce them not only of the same family, 
 but the same fish, the real circus man of the 
 game-fish class. 
 
 If you can, come down to Maine with all 
 kinds of tackle. If a thirty-third degree expert, 
 of course you will have a four-ounce fly rod in 
 the outfit, but do not omit heavier rods and 
 the strongest of rigging, for anywhere at any 
 time a record fish may surprise and give you 
 thrill. Bring all the trolling lures in the cata- 
 logue, especially the archer spinner, and all 
 the flies from the Parmachene Belle to the 
 Rooster's Regret. Then you will be ready for 
 anything, and anything is possible in Maine. 
 But who am I to give fishing advice to you 
 who may be reading this and already know 
 much better the time, the place, and the fly! 
 I will confine myself to simple injunction: 
 Make sure that you come, for here await you 
 health, joy, the best of all outdoors, and an- 
 gling galore. And lest you have, perchance, 
 [ 109 J
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 forgotten the exact time and some other things 
 of importance, let me refresh your memory 
 with a brief but official summary of the latest 
 regulations. 
 
 The open season for trout, land-locked sal- 
 mon, and togue is from the time the ice is out 
 of the pond or lake fished in the spring until 
 September 30. 
 
 Open season on white perch and black bass, 
 in lakes and ponds, from June 20 until Sep- 
 tember 30. The law provides, however, that 
 it shall be lawful to take black bass, with un- 
 baited artificial flies only, from the time the 
 ice is out of the lake or pond fished in the spring 
 until June 20 following. 
 
 Open season on land-locked salmon, trout, 
 and black bass in Sebago Lake and Long Pond, 
 Cumberland County, from April I to Septem- 
 ber 30, inclusive. 
 
 In Thompson Pond, in Androscoggin, Cum- 
 berland, and Oxford Counties, closed season 
 on land-locked salmon, trout, and togue is from 
 September I to January i, of the following year. 
 [ no]
 
 "The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 In brooks, streams, and rivers, open season 
 on land-locked salmon, trout and (sea) salmon 
 is from the time the ice is out of the brook, 
 stream, or river fished in the spring until Sep- 
 tember 15; on black bass and white perch, 
 from June 20 until September 30. 
 
 No land-locked salmon less than twelve 
 inches in length, or trout less than six inches 
 in length, or black bass less than ten inches in 
 length, or white perch less than six inches in 
 length can be caught, killed, or had in posses- 
 sion by any person; provided, further, that in 
 Great, Long, East, North, Ellis, McGraw, and 
 Snow Ponds, said ponds being part of the Bel- 
 grade Chain of Lakes, no trout less than ten 
 inches or black bass less than twelve inches in 
 length can be caught and killed at any time; 
 provided, further, that no person shall take, 
 catch, and kill in any one day more than six 
 black bass in either of the above-named ponds 
 or in Lake Kezar or in Lower Kezar Pond in 
 Oxford County. 
 
 It is unlawful for any person or party or the 
 [ in 1
 
 Latchstring 
 
 occupants of any one boat, canoe, raft, or 
 other vessel or conveyance propelled by steam, 
 electricity, hand, or other power, to catch by 
 still or plug fishing, so-called, more than four 
 trout and land-locked salmon in any one day 
 collectively, nor more than two trout and land- 
 locked salmon in any one day individually, 
 in Rangeley, Richardson, Mooselookmeguntic 
 and Cupsuptic Lakes, in Franklin and Oxford 
 Counties. 
 
 Land-locked salmon and trout may be taken 
 by artificial flies, until October I, in Moose 
 River between Moosehead Lake and Brassua 
 Lake, in Somerset County. 
 
 Daily limit on protected fish under the 
 general law : fifteen pounds (or not more than 
 twenty-five fish, provided they do not exceed 
 fifteen pounds in weight) or one fish. Sale and 
 purchase of land-locked salmon, trout, togue, 
 white perch, and black bass are prohibited. 
 
 The recreation of angling is simple and great, 
 seductive and innocent, delightful and useful.
 
 "The Game-Fish Peerage 
 
 Unless you thus dignify some of the very help- 
 ful and entertaining books of the Badminton 
 Library, it is the only sport that can really 
 boast a classic in literature. It lends itself to 
 good thinking, and many and many a time has 
 inspired fine writing, from Walton, who gave 
 to the world the classic, to William Black, who 
 was wont to give to some of the finer scenes 
 of his novels the technique of fine fishing. It 
 is the only outdoor amusement that makes 
 lethargy productive and solitude harmless. It 
 needs is worth a perfect setting. You will 
 find it in Maine.
 
 VI 
 
 SHOTGUN AND RIFLE 
 
 "!F any one asks you to go shooting down 
 South, take the next train for Moose River." 
 
 Thus wrote, last winter, my good friend 
 Trapper Higgins, of New York, who had gone 
 into the Carolinas a-hunting, to our good 
 friends Trapper Winslow and Trapper York, 
 of Maine, who had inclined to stay North and 
 let the hunting fever have its run at home. 
 
 From a moose, weight eighteen hundred 
 pounds, height at shoulder seven feet, to a 
 least sandpiper, length five and fifty one-hun- 
 dredths inches, is a far cry in the shooting 
 game. And when you take into the account 
 all that fills in between these extremes deer, 
 bear, fox, coon, rabbit, wild geese, every kind 
 of North American duck, except possibly the 
 redhead and canvasback, partridge, woodcock, 
 quail, curlew, all the plovers, and many other
 
 ROADS LIKE THIS TO THE HUNTING REGIONS
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 shore birds all shot in Maine, you will 
 appreciate that here there is a considerable 
 range of sport, and variety enough to suit 
 every inclination of the sportsman. What 
 wonder, then, the train for Moose River? 
 
 Once, but fully half a century ago, the hand- 
 some and wily caribou could be added to the 
 list, but now, for some mysterious reason, not 
 fully explained by the naturalist, they almost 
 never venture across the Canadian line, appar- 
 ently possessing an acute sense of definition 
 quite equal to the Ashburton Treaty. Many 
 the hunter and trapper and woodsman who 
 saw the last caribou in Maine. For instance, I 
 came across this only yesterday in one of the 
 daily newspapers, from an "old Kennebecker" : 
 
 "Close by me they passed, sixty or more, 
 crossing from Holeb Pond by the carry to 
 Attean. They held their heads high and looked 
 straight ahead, coming so close I could have 
 touched them. They traveled ten rods to my 
 one. That was the last herd of caribou ever 
 seen in Maine, fifty years ago, back in 1865,
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 the year the war closed, when we first lum- 
 bered in Jackman. Strong and compact as to 
 legs, much stronger than deer, and of great 
 endurance, Maine caribou were hunted too 
 much and they got starved out and left the 
 State. I think the herd I saw was traveling to 
 New Brunswick." 
 
 And many the hunter and traveler and 
 woodsman who insist they will come back if we 
 but wait long enough and keep the powder dry. 
 But at present Maine caribou are found only in 
 the game laws, which say they shall not be shot 
 at all under penalty of two hundred dollars. 
 
 In the above list I have excepted pos- 
 sibly you will note the redhead and can- 
 vasback, two ducks that belong more to pran- 
 dial literature than to any enumeration of game 
 birds. But I have no doubt that both have 
 been shot in Maine in considerable numbers, 
 though less than half a dozen have been offi- 
 cially reported to the department of natural 
 history of the State College. The mallard, a 
 tender, vegetable-feeding duck, and another
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 delight of the epicure, is often found here, 
 though its natural spring, summer, and early 
 fall home is much farther west, about the 
 Great Lakes. Ten of the sixteen counties of 
 the State report the mallard as a migrant in 
 various degrees of rarity. Mabel Osgood 
 Wright, in her intensely interesting and ex- 
 haustive "Birdcraft," without which no mod- 
 ern household is well ordered and complete, 
 lists the mallard only as a wandering visitor to 
 New England and the redhead and canvasback 
 as rare migrants. All three breed northward 
 from all the Northern States, and if mallard 
 so often in Maine, why not, now and then at 
 least, redheads and canvasbacks? 
 . But not every man a sailor who wears a 
 sailor hat. 
 
 Back in town again of a cold late fall night 
 and hungry, and dining somewhere any- 
 where in the vastnesses of that territory 
 between Tenth and Fifty-ninth, where dining 
 is not only an art, but an occupation, a phi- 
 losophy of existence, an aim, an ambition, a
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 life-work where the whole world seems al- 
 ways to be eating and drinking day and night, 
 especially night. And your waiter! You've 
 had him before. He knows you calls you 
 by name not in the social Monhegan way, 
 but always with the distant, dignified, and 
 very respectful "Mister." And if you happen 
 to have been on the Governor's staff, and thus 
 possess a title, he has divined that by some 
 secret waiter's code and uses it; and you are 
 otherwise welcomed as a man of importance 
 who knows what and a matter of quite as 
 much moment how to order. 
 
 "Yes, sir, good evening, sir. Rather cold 
 to-night, sir," by way of preliminaries. And 
 then, as you perfunctorily glance down the 
 menu: "That canvasback! Very nice to-night, 
 sir. Yes, sir, canvasback. And browned sweet 
 potatoes ? Very well, sir. Celery romaine 
 yes, sir. And what jelly with the duck? 
 White currant? Yes, sir, white currant." And 
 so on down through the cheese, coffee, and 
 cigars to "Very well, sir. Thank you, sir."
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 And you dine in state, and are satisfied 
 with everything. 
 
 But while the sweet potatoes are sweet 
 potatoes, and the celery celery, the romaine 
 romaine, the white currant jelly white currant, 
 and the cheese, coffee, and cigars, cheese, coffee, 
 and Cuban tobacco, a hundred to one, sir, the 
 canvasback is not canvasback at all, but a 
 black duck, which is not black at all but dusky 
 brown, and served to you in a sufficient degree 
 of running red rawness to command the price 
 without recalcitration. But a black duck, sir, 
 by any other name is just as good; always a 
 delicately flavored and satisfying bird on the 
 table, and in addition the favorite of all true 
 sportsmen; while the canvasback is mentioned 
 by bird historians only in its cook-book rela- 
 tion. Even in this it has its critics. "There is 
 little reason for squealing in barbaric joy over 
 this overrated and generally underdone bird," 
 says Dr. Coues. "Not one person in ten thou- 
 sand can tell it from any other duck on the 
 table and then only under the celery circum- 
 [ 119]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 stances." Meaning by the celery circumstances 
 that it is at its best to be more precise, good 
 only after feeding on wild celery, nothing 
 more than a tender species of eel-grass, which 
 any old duck will take when he can get it. 
 Certainly no self-respecting black duck was 
 ever known to fly so high as to pass it by. 
 
 The black duck is the standard water fowl 
 of all gunners in Maine, and although classi- 
 fied by the ornithologists as the most promi- 
 nent member of the sub-family of river ducks, 
 it is found in salt and fresh water alike, along 
 the bays and marshes of the coast, and in the 
 ponds, rivers, and streams of the interior 
 all the way from the end of Cape Porpoise to 
 Squapan and Madawaska. 
 
 And since we are speaking of dining and the 
 like and why not? in what State, pray, 
 has the gastronomer more, and more varied, 
 opportunity for the exercise of his peculiar 
 mental ability and powers of appetite and di- 
 gestion? For many years now I have been 
 bombarded with the statement at dinner parties, 
 
 [ 120 ]
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 at some dinners that were not parties, and at 
 some parties that were not dinners, on other 
 occasions grave and gay, by professional, 
 amateur, and traveling McAllisters, by hotel 
 stewards and club superintendents, that in 
 Baltimore was to be found the best market in 
 the world, because Baltimore was the metro- 
 politan center of a large producing area of 
 the greatest table delicacies. But times have 
 changed, and even travelers, and epicures, and 
 stewards, and superintendents have learned. 
 Among those who know, this center has moved 
 up to somewhere in the vicinity of the Wild 
 Goose Club on the shores of Moose Pond. 
 For there, or thereabouts, as you will note by 
 the map, is the center of the State of Maine. 
 
 With the exception, perhaps, of the oyster, 
 whose blood would be blue if he had any, we 
 have all that Maryland offers, and much more 
 and better conditioned. For instance, our 
 Maine sportsmen are first in the States to catch 
 the game birds in their fall flights to the South, 
 fresh from the clean, northern feeding-grounds. 
 
 [ 121 1
 
 The Latch string 
 
 Our resident delicacies, like partridge, wood- 
 cock, and venison, roam and feed over thirty 
 thousand square miles of wholesome territory, 
 two thirds of it forest land, much of it prime- 
 val. Our sea and inland fish are taken from 
 waters, cleaner, clearer, and colder. It is an 
 axiom, both of the kitchen and dining-room, 
 that the farther north any fruit or vegetable 
 can be raised and ripened, the better it is. Ask 
 the Texas farmer why he sends way up to 
 Aroostook for his Green Mountain and Cobbler 
 potato seed. Ask the grocer out in Seattle 
 what is the standard green corn of North 
 America. Who that has had his Cape Eliza- 
 beth strawberry for early breakfast in early 
 July, fresh with the morning dew, will say there 
 is any better or as good ? As for those wild 
 meadow mushrooms, up with the lark, per- 
 sonally picked in a down-east pasture, of a 
 crisp September morning, and stewed in fresh 
 cream, or broiled, and buttered, and salted, 
 and toasted it's a pleasant dream come 
 true. 
 
 [ 122 ]
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 Likewise a culinary axiom, that a young and 
 fresh Maine lobster taken from the deep, cold 
 waters of the coast, unspoiled by pound, car, 
 or transportation, has no superior in the world, 
 and no equal except in near-by Nova Scotia 
 where the shellfish conditions are identical. I 
 have seen many barrels of them on shore 
 steamers, barrels especially made with com- 
 partments for ice, marked for Cincinnati, 
 Chicago, Kansas City, and even for far-off 
 Denver. Poor Denver! Will she ever know? 
 And lest you should be in some doubt as to 
 exactly what she should know, let me call to 
 your attention that it is the consensus of all 
 great and well-tutored modern minds that a 
 lobster should be eaten right out of the water 
 and right out of the shell, and reaches its great- 
 est height, in fact the very pinnacle of perfec- 
 tion, only at one of Captain Free McKown's 
 clambakes close down to the water's edge. 
 
 There is no fish that improves with the hours 
 after taking unless it be the sea salmon, and 
 about that the great modern minds are in 
 [ 123 1
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 some" conflict, though there is no reasonable 
 contention that it is any better after a day out 
 of water. Nor is there any diversity of views 
 about the comparative merits of the sea sal- 
 mon taken from Maine waters. It brings the 
 highest price, is the delicate pink flower of the 
 whole salmon family, and gets a unanimous 
 vote from those who can qualify at the food- 
 fish polls. So does the down-east clam, and the 
 scallop now being found in quantities along 
 the Casco Bay shores and up the shorter salt- 
 water rivers. 
 
 There is no shad quite so good as that from 
 the Nonesuch, a small marsh river of Cumber- 
 land County. The fish are known in the mar- 
 ket by its name, and the most common method 
 of catching them is called "bump fishing," at 
 night. A long pole with a large round hoop 
 having a net attached is placed in the crotch of 
 a stick on shore. The outer end is lowered into 
 the water and the net sags with the tide. The 
 shad, coming in with the flood or going out 
 with the ebb, run into the net and the fisher- 
 [ 124 ]
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 man at once knows that he has a "bump." 
 Quickly turning the pole, hoop up, and using 
 the crotched stick as a fulcrum, he lifts the 
 net, swings it inshore, and the best of dinners 
 is his. This method is used both by profes- 
 sionals and amateurs, and during the shad- 
 running season in the spring the little river, 
 lighted by torches on either side for a mile or 
 more, presents a picturesque appearance. 
 
 And then suppose that your own particular 
 fondness in this particular department of life 
 happens to be for brook trout. Where can you 
 find higher quality, where more quickly, more 
 easily, or more pleasantly reach satiety? 
 
 "Let me fix one my way this noon," said the 
 guide to us one morning while we were having 
 phenomenal luck on one of the upper Penob- 
 scot streams. And he prepared a half-dozen 
 half-pound trout, taken from swift water, we 
 were four in the party, for a feast, Lucullian 
 in conception and execution, that not Mr. 
 Sherry, nor Mr. Delmonico, nor Mr. Oscar 
 could surpass or even duplicate. As guides 
 [ 125 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 will, in some mysterious manner, he produced 
 a hardwood plank and to this nailed the fish, 
 tails up. After spreading them liberally with 
 butter and salt, he placed the end of the plank 
 in a tin basin close up to the outdoor fire, on 
 the windward side, the basin being used to 
 catch the melting butter as it ran down over 
 the trout, to be served later as a sauce. Just 
 before the process of cooking was completed 
 he moved the plank around for a few moments 
 to the leeward side of the fire, "just to get 
 that smoky flavor," he explained, and then 
 served to us, with roasted potatoes and green 
 corn, a dish of planked brook trout which no 
 pen can describe and no billionaire's million- 
 aire chef ever imitate. 
 
 The only real, serious, downright, dyed-in- 
 the-wool professional epicure I ever knew, the 
 only man I ever met who seemed to be always 
 traveling or sending over the world for rare and 
 good things to eat, once told me that he con- 
 sidered the American golden plover the best 
 and most delicate game bird that ever graced 
 [ 126]
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 a table. Furthermore, that this was also the 
 opinion of all the other charter members of the 
 guild. Well, here is the American golden plover 
 to be bagged in Maine in all his glory. And 
 to have Win Pillsbury call them down to 
 trollers on the Scarboro marshes along with a 
 flock of winters, and later on serve them for 
 dinner, is a liberal education in good sport and 
 high living. If September, the usual month 
 of the plover's fall migration, happens to be 
 stormy, the golden variety are often found in 
 flocks on the Maine marshes and sandspits. 
 But if calm and pleasant, they fly south far 
 out over the Gulf of Maine and only the 
 stragglers find their way inshore. 
 
 There are three hundred and twenty differ- 
 ent species of birds officially reported as posi- 
 tively occurring within the limits of Maine, 
 and in the list all the worth-while North 
 American game birds. Many more than this 
 number have doubtless been seen, but unrecog- 
 nized and unclassified. Professor Asa Lane, 
 gentle soul, who not only had an unerring 
 [ 127 1
 
 "The Latchslring 
 
 instinct about birds and an abiding love for 
 their study, but was also thoroughly versed in 
 their habits and geographical distribution, once 
 told me that in the Belgrade Lake region in 
 June could be found the greatest variety of 
 feathered neighbors of any equal area in the 
 United States. Some of our coast counties 
 Knox, for instance report two hundred and 
 fifteen species, and Cumberland more than 
 two hundred. The State is the main highway 
 for all the shore migrants, and in addition the 
 most eastern meeting-point of both shore and 
 inland birds resident in Canada on the north 
 and in the warmer regions to the south. It 
 therefore has ornithological interest and im- 
 portance, and indeed reputation, quite up to 
 its other outdoor distinctions. 
 
 It is also rich in Northern flora, variety, and 
 quality, with its own temperate climate and 
 variety of soil, and possessing also, as in the 
 case of birds, part of the Canadian and Alle- 
 ghanian characteristics. It is the home, per- 
 manent and temporary, of many an amateur 
 [ 128 1
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 botanist, and even now, as I write this far down 
 on the eastern coast, do I see through my open 
 window two interesting and apparently much 
 interested ladies, one from the Far South, the 
 other from the Far North, with opera glasses, 
 bird-, flower-, fern-, and note-books, in the 
 useful and delightful quest of Maine rest and 
 health, and easily obtained natural education. 
 Big game is the big quarry of the late fall 
 hunter in Maine, and of course a moose, if 
 possible, is the capital prize. It is more than 
 possible, in many places almost a moral cer- 
 tainty. But moose are protected for the cur- 
 rent four years by a law of the last legislature 
 which is expected still further to increase their 
 kind. There are some public camps in the 
 State where, I am told, a moose has been "guar- 
 anteed" within five days after registering, and 
 others where two deer are still promised in 
 the same manner, the legal limit for a single 
 sportsman. This is quite the reverse of good ex- 
 ample in sport, and, fortunately, not common. 
 It smacks too much of royal drives abroad 
 [ 129 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 where game beasts and birds are sometimes 
 paraded to slaughter by kings and princes 
 without even a sporting chance for life. The 
 quest of bird, or beast, or fish, for food no 
 more is really the national game not 
 poker, not baseball. As a gambling proposition 
 it meets all the necessary chance requirements, 
 and as to skill ranks with the best. With 
 its all outdoors attachments it drives Wall 
 Street to the wall and a deck of cards into the 
 fireplace. I can well understand from a com- 
 mercial standpoint how a man can continu- 
 ously every deal sit behind four aces with 
 Christian resignation, but I cannot compre- 
 hend it as a game. I know a certain man not 
 far away who fishes a certain brook faith- 
 fully every year, never gets a bite there, and 
 never counts the day lost. If all one desires is 
 to be "guaranteed" venison, why not the 
 market? What does hunting mean, anyway? 
 
 The only thing good about the proposition 
 is that it can probably be fulfilled. For it is 
 a prevailing belief among experienced guides 
 [ 130 1
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 and other observers who have only scientific 
 interest in the subject that big game in the 
 eastern country is increasing and in places, 
 notably in the St. John River valley and along 
 the New Brunswick border, rapidly increas- 
 ing. The wisdom of Maine's restrictive laws 
 on large game becomes each year more and 
 more apparent. While caribou seem to be 
 possessed of some sort of boundary-line animal 
 instinct and a preference, for the present at 
 least, for the northern side, moose and deer are 
 roaming across from the Provinces in larger 
 numbers and adding greatly to the possibilities 
 of Maine sport. Meanwhile bear hunting in the 
 State is greatly on the increase and fast becom- 
 ing one of the standard big-game recreations. 
 More black bear were shot last year than 
 moose. They seem to be multiplying in almost 
 every wooded section of the State, reports of 
 the larger increases coming from the great 
 forest tracts north of Moosehead and in the 
 Grand Lake wilds of Washington County. 
 This is the official big-game report of the
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 State Commission for the last shooting season 
 when moose were included, the fall of 1914: 
 
 Deer reported killed and shipped 5296 
 
 Deer reported killed and not shipped 2140 
 
 Moose reported killed and shipped 95 
 
 Moose reported killed and not shipped 38 
 
 Bears reported killed and shipped 130 
 
 Bears reported killed and not shipped , 61 
 
 Thus making 7436 official deer, 133 moose, 
 and the surprisingly large number of 191 bears. 
 But official statements always fall short of 
 the complete story. They do not take account 
 of all the big game consumed in camp, and it 
 is quite likely to be among the human prob- 
 abilities that sporting exuberance and an am- 
 bition for records to tell about often lead to 
 forgetfulness in the matter of reporting to the 
 Commission. 
 
 Maine moose in summer and in the fall seem 
 to be animals of a different family so far as 
 wildness is concerned, as if they knew what 
 was open and what close time. This idea car- 
 ried to its logical conclusion, and we shall have 
 to drive them off the lawn before the four years 
 of protection have passed. They are easily 
 I 132]
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 found in the wanner months and often seen 
 by woodsmen on the edges of lakes trying to 
 shake off and drown out the insect pests by 
 which they are annoyed much more than 
 other big game; while in November and De- 
 cember they are wild and wary and run from 
 man as they try to run from flies in the sum- 
 mer. It is quite easy to understand, therefore, 
 that the photograph accompanying this chap- 
 ter was taken on the Fourth of July, which is 
 sure, in ninety-nine years out of a hundred, to 
 be the hottest day of the year in Maine. Dr. 
 Heber Bishop was able to get a moving pic- 
 ture of a moose swimming a pond under simi- 
 lar circumstances, the canoe, with the machine 
 and operator in the bow and an Indian paddler 
 in the stern, following the animal, apparently 
 not much frightened, to the shore. I saw this 
 film in exhibition last winter and thought it 
 one of the most remarkable and interesting 
 natural history reproductions that could be 
 shown. But for me it took away much of the 
 romance of the deep woods and some of the 
 [ 133 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 halo of fascinating mystery that always sur- 
 rounds big game. What next, I wondered! 
 Bagging birds from a monoplane, perhaps, or 
 taking colored photographs of Rangeley trout 
 from a submarine. Possibly torpedoing Eng- 
 lish sole. 
 
 Two methods of hunting moose have been 
 in vogue in Maine for many years, "calling" 
 and "walking down." The call is used in the 
 evening or early morning and is made through 
 a white birch-bark cone about two feet long 
 and five inches in diameter at the base. An 
 attempt is made to imitate the love call of the 
 female, and the antlered male monster is thus 
 lured to slaughter, a rather mean trick on so 
 noble an animal and a method now said to be 
 going out of fashion. Your true sportsman is 
 more and more coming to take game in a 
 sportsmanlike manner and the more difficult 
 method of "walking down" appeals to him. 
 
 The deer of Maine are almost exclusively of 
 the white-tailed variety and are found in every 
 county in the State, with special laws govern- 
 [ 134]
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 ing different localities. The naturalist renders 
 the opinion that nowhere do these deer grow 
 to larger proportions than in Maine and in no 
 other State are they found in such good condi- 
 tion in the fall. Deer hunting is the standard 
 big-game sport of Maine. 
 
 An epitome of the game laws of the State, 
 revised, and including all those passed by the 
 last legislature, is not out of place here : 
 
 Moose and caribou protected. 
 
 Deer : Open season in Aroostook, Penobscot, 
 Washington, Hancock, Piscataquis, Somerset, 
 Franklin and Oxford Counties, October I to 
 December 15, both days inclusive. Limit in 
 these counties, two deer to a person in one 
 season. 
 
 Special deer laws: Open season in counties 
 of Androscoggin, York, Cumberland, Sagada- 
 hoc, Lincoln, Waldo, Kennebec, and Knox 
 during the month of November. Limit in 
 these counties, one deer to a person in one 
 season. One person can kill only two deer in 
 all in Maine in one season. Deer cannot be 
 I i3S 1
 
 'The Latchstring 
 
 sold or given away to be taken out of the 
 State. 
 
 No closed season on bears, bobcats, loup- 
 cervier, Canada lynx, or weasels. Open season 
 on all other fur-bearing animals, November I 
 to the last day of February. 
 
 Rabbits: Open season, October, November, 
 December, January, February, and March. 
 
 Gray squirrels: Open season, October; per- 
 petual closed season, however, in all public and 
 private parks, and within the limits of the com- 
 pact or built-up portion of any city or village. 
 
 Bobcats, Canada lynx, and loupcervier: 
 Four dollars bounty on each of these animals 
 killed in Maine. 
 
 Sunday is closed season on all wild birds and 
 wild animals. Penalty, for unprotected birds 
 and animals, not less than ten dollars, nor 
 more than forty dollars, and costs for each of- 
 fense; for protected birds and animals, the 
 same penalty as for hunting during other closed 
 season. This law took effect April 15, 1915. 
 
 It is closed season on wild birds from sunset 
 I 136]
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 to sunrise of the following morning; and on 
 wild animals from one hour after sunset until 
 one hour before sunrise of the following morning. 
 
 The penalty for hunting unprotected birds 
 and animals at night is not less than ten dollars, 
 nor more than fifty dollars. 
 
 Penalty for hunting protected birds and 
 animals at night is the same as during other 
 closed seasons. 
 
 Partridge and woodcock : In Oxford, Frank- 
 lin, Somerset, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Aroos- 
 took, Washington, and Hancock Counties, 
 open season, September 15 to November 14 
 inclusive; in Androscoggin, Cumberland, York, 
 Kennebec, Waldo, Knox, Lincoln, and Saga- 
 dahoc Counties, October I to November 30, 
 inclusive. 
 
 Ducks, brant and geese: September I to 
 December 15, inclusive. 
 
 Black-breasted and golden plover, jacksnipe 
 (or Wilson snipe), and greater and lesser yel- 
 lowlegs: Open season, August 15 to Novem- 
 ber 30, inclusive. 
 
 [ i37l
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Rails, coots, and gallinules: Open season, 
 September I to November 30 inclusive. 
 
 Perpetual closed season on Hungarian par- 
 tridge, capercailzie, black game, all species of 
 pheasant (except ruffed grouse or partridge), 
 curlew, wood duck, and all shore birds (except 
 black-breasted and golden plover, Wilson or 
 jacksnipe, woodcock, and greater and lesser 
 yellowlegs), and on all other wild birds (ex- 
 cept crows, hawks, owls, English sparrows, 
 mudhens, kingfishers, loons, and blue herons, 
 which may be killed at any time). 
 
 Daily limit on game birds: No person can 
 kill, have in possession or transport in any one 
 day more than five partridges, ten woodcock, 
 ten ducks, ten snipe, and five plover. 
 
 Game birds cannot be sold or purchased at 
 any time. 
 
 Motor boats cannot be used for hunting sea 
 birds, ducks, or waterfowl in any inland waters 
 or in the Kennebec River below the Gardiner 
 and Randolph Bridge; or in Eastern River; 
 or in Merrymeeting Bay; or in Bluehill Bay; 
 [138]
 
 Shotgun and Rifle 
 
 or in Frenchman's Bay, or in Eggemoggin 
 Reach, in Hancock County; or in Saco Bay, 
 in Cumberland and York Counties. 
 
 Dogs must not be used in hunting deer. 
 
 Unlawful to use silencers on firearms. 
 
 I have given this somewhat extended sum- 
 mary of the game laws not only to render pos- 
 sible aid to the sportsman, but to give non- 
 residents a more comprehensive idea of the 
 care and thoroughness with which the State 
 of Maine is now fostering one of its great assets. 
 It seems to be the almost unanimous opinion 
 that these laws are wise. If there is any further 
 suggestion to make, it should be in the matter 
 of politics. The whole fish and game depart- 
 ment its personnel and its operation 
 should be removed from any kind of political 
 consideration, absolutely, permanently. In 
 this manner only can the best results be ob- 
 tained, best for the State itself, and best for 
 those whom we invite to enjoy its limitless re- 
 sources.
 
 VII 
 
 CAMP AND CANOE 
 
 Do you know the blackened timber do you know that racing 
 
 stream 
 
 With the raw, right-angled log-jam at the end; 
 With the bar of sun-warmed shingle where a man may bask and 
 
 dream 
 To the click of shod canoe-poles round the bend? 
 
 It is there that we are going with our rods and reels and traces, 
 
 To a silent, smoky Indian that we know 
 To a couch of new-pulled hemlock with the starlight in our faces, 
 
 For the Red Gods call us out and we must go. 
 
 KIPLING knew. And he seems to have caught 
 and transcribed in these few lines the spirit 
 of the deep New England woods far better 
 than the deep New England sea in all his 
 "Captains Courageous." 
 
 And my judicial friend from New York 
 knew years ago. For twenty-five Septem- 
 bers, without a break, he has spent his four 
 weeks in his own home-made camp on the 
 banks of one of those racing streams of the 
 wilderness that empty their trout and salmon 
 [ 140 1
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 into Moosehead Lake. For more years than 
 twenty-five has he listened annually to the 
 call of the Red Gods, and in one form and an- 
 other of outdoor indulgence got them out of 
 his system. 
 
 Who does not sometime during the year, 
 many times, perhaps, have the feeling that he 
 must kick over the waste-basket, hang up the 
 out-of-town sign, take to the woods, and enjoy 
 what Professor Phelps calls the process of de- 
 civilization ? It is the only way to make civili- 
 zation itself endurable. 
 
 ' Finally the judge, after trying out his vari- 
 ous inclinations for the open, settled down to 
 an annual and systematic camping-out vaca- 
 tion in the Maine woods. If I remember aright, 
 the coming September marks the quarter- 
 century anniversary. He lives, moves, and has 
 his being during the other eleven months in 
 an atmosphere of preparation and reminis- 
 cence. The days lead up to and go from Sep- 
 tember glorious, golden September, he calls 
 it. There is a smooth way of roughing it in a
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 rough country. The judge has it. And I can 
 do no better, perhaps, in trying to give an idea 
 of camp-life in Maine than to describe his vaca- 
 tion as he has described it to me these many 
 times, and which I once had the pleasure and 
 profit of actually seeing in full swing. 
 
 Camping in the open has been the main ob- 
 jective of all his plans. If fish come to his net 
 and game to his bag, well and good. But fish- 
 ing and shooting are incidents, so he says, and 
 matters of good food more than of good sport. 
 But it so happens, you will note, that in Sep- 
 tember his golden month he gets the 
 last of the trout and salmon fishing and 
 with flies this is likely to be as good as any in 
 the whole season and the first partridge 
 shooting, and the first is by no means the 
 worst. The living in camp is therefore good, 
 and his selection of September at least a happy 
 accident. He has two experienced guides and 
 a cook, all of whom have been with him since 
 the camp was established. He can even omit 
 any letter of notification, for they all know 
 [ 142 ]
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 that the time is September 1st, rain or shine, 
 and the place the old camp, of course, close 
 down to the swift river's edge, with good pools 
 above, below, and abreast, a small pond not 
 far away, and in among big trees whose over- 
 hanging branches give both protection and 
 charm. The camper's veritable fairyland! 
 He always comes in with the family, his wife 
 who knows and enjoys the best of outdoors, 
 and three husky boys, made so by this life in 
 the woods, who have as much zest for it and 
 get as much keen enjoyment and new strength 
 out of it as the father and mother. 
 
 And what is camp without a boy ? He 's the 
 life of it, this roving interrogation point of the 
 woods. It is here of all places in the world that 
 the boy justifies himself and becomes a thing 
 of beauty and joy forever to the guides even 
 to his parents. He asks questions from sun-up 
 to evening, and if there is anything that gets 
 by, from boiling water in a birch bark basin 
 to trapping a mink, it is his misfortune and 
 not his neglect. His unconscious enthusiasm 
 [ i43 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 for everything he sees and hears and does, his 
 constant, always-boiling joy at the big and 
 broad life about him, is educational, decidedly 
 and quickly contagious, and brings back youth 
 and activity to his elders. A boy who has not 
 known existence in a camp like this, or in one 
 rougher and less modern in its comforts, who 
 has not experienced and enjoyed all the seasons 
 in a country village or on a farm, starts with a 
 serious handicap in the great Marathon of life. 
 Always take a boy along when you can, for his 
 own sake and for yours. 
 
 When the judge and his wife and busy boys 
 arrive promptly on the eve of September I, 
 they find the little village of tents set up, a 
 good fire in the center of the hollow square, 
 which, by the way, is never allowed completely 
 to die out during the month, and a big supper 
 in the making. They have come in by train, 
 lake steamboat, and canoe, the last poled or 
 paddled up the river, or both, according to the 
 height of water. There are three sleeping- 
 tents, a kitchen tent, a dining-tent, and one 
 [ H4 1
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 used as a living-room and library stocked with 
 nature books of all kinds, the September maga- 
 zines, and a few of the late novels. Legal tomes, 
 briefs, books about war, and newspapers have 
 failed to pass the library committee. At one 
 end of this canvas living-room, which madame 
 always manages to keep homelike and attract- 
 ive with wild flowers and other native decora- 
 tions, is a stone fireplace, where burn almost 
 every evening yellow birch logs, the delight 
 and ambition of every man who knows just 
 what an open fire should be. The beds and 
 pillows are of fresh, gently yielding, sweet- 
 smelling fir boughs, on which the wildest- 
 turning neurasthenic can be induced to sleep 
 in five minutes. The dining-table is so ar- 
 ranged that it can be moved into the open for 
 al-fresco effect, or kept under cover if weather 
 requires. The kitchen is the model of the es- 
 tablishment, the creature of the judge's brain 
 and the apple of his eye. It is convenient to 
 the outdoor fire, where all the cooking is done, 
 and is so arranged in its relation to the trees 
 [ US 1
 
 The Latch string 
 
 and their limbs that nature and man seem to 
 have combined to make cooking an art and 
 dishwashing a pleasure. The tents stand on 
 three sides of the square, and by the open side 
 runs the little river, playing no unimportant 
 part in the picture. A month in a place like 
 that and life has its compensations! There is 
 never a dull moment, but ever something new 
 and unusual to see and do. And if I might once 
 more touch on gastronomies, something new 
 to eat, for once we had partridges cooked in 
 deep fat, and the tenderest meat of any kind 
 I ever tasted. 
 
 The judge's camp is far from any settle- 
 ment and miles from any farm or clearing. 
 The change from his office in Nassau Street 
 and his home on Riverside is complete and 
 satisfying. Quite sufficient to please a Tolstoy 
 who "dwells with especial fondness on the 
 sharp contrast between the frivolity, the tinsel 
 brightness, the tumult and vanity of the 
 worldly life and the sweet, holy calm enjoyed 
 by those who, possessing the soil, live amid the 
 [ 146]
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 beauties of nature and the pleasures of the 
 family." 
 
 Each year the whole camp, including the 
 guides and cook, takes up a new nature study. 
 They began several years ago with birds, and 
 followed with wild flowers, ferns, and animals. 
 The native guides contribute the results of 
 long observation of wild life, the family make 
 the textbook applications, and both get the 
 advantage of mutual assistance not often 
 found in outdoor education. When I was in 
 last fall they were all studying trees. 
 
 "What next?" I asked Mrs. Judge. 
 
 "Bugs." 
 
 The possibilities of places just like this in 
 Maine cannot be counted. They exist by the 
 sea, by the lakes, on the hills, and almost any- 
 where along the rivers and streams. The State 
 is known far and near as a paradise for those 
 who especially enjoy this kind of outdoor life. 
 And this kind of life can be enjoyed in every 
 season, only in midwinter the abandoned log- 
 ging-camp takes the place of canvas tents. 
 [ i47l
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Summer and fall, of course, find more camp- 
 ers in Maine than the other seasons, but 
 spring and winter are becoming more and 
 more popular each year. Right at my elbow 
 now stands a man who went into Parlin Pond 
 last March to pitch his camp, and he waxes 
 eloquent and pleasing on the beauties of the 
 young year in the Maine wilderness. 
 
 "There are four excursions," says Professor 
 Sharp, one of my New England nature instruc- 
 tors, "that you should make this spring: one 
 to a small pond in the woods; one to a deep 
 wild swamp; one to a wide salt marsh, or fresh- 
 water meadow; and one to the seashore to 
 a wild, rocky, sandy shore uninhabited by 
 man. There are particular birds and animals, 
 as well as flowers, that dwell only in these 
 haunts ; besides, you can get a sight of four dis- 
 tinct kinds of landscapes, four deep impres- 
 sions of the face of nature that are altogether 
 as good to have as the sight of four flowers or 
 birds." 
 
 As I read this in the morning lesson out 
 I 148]
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 under the silver leaves of the tree of the genus 
 popple (much-approved spelling), it occurred 
 to me at once that there are no States that can 
 afford this combination in such small areas as 
 can Maine in almost all of her coast towns. 
 And if one must live in one place during every 
 month of the year there is no more healthful 
 climate for the normal man, no greater variety 
 in natural life, and no keener interest in all 
 kinds of life. Even if you have no other inclina- 
 tion, the mere observation of the change of 
 seasons, here produced in strong contrast, in 
 all its wonder and glory, will give you reason 
 for living and zest in existence. 
 
 Sitting one day before the open fire in the 
 comfortable old Bangor House, kept at the 
 time by Captain Chapman, as fine an old-school 
 old gentleman as ever entertained a President, 
 I looked up in great astonishment to greet an 
 old friend who had slapped me on the shoulder 
 in brotherly but vigorous affection. It was like 
 shaking hands with a man who had come back 
 from the Great Beyond, for knowing that he 
 I i49 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 was ten years an invalid, and at the end of 
 that time desperately ill, we of his college class 
 had lost track of him and given him up. He 
 served as chaplain so runs the story of his 
 return to life in the Cuban campaign during 
 the Spanish War and came out a physical 
 wreck. After a series of years and many experi- 
 ences with all the great doctors from Boston 
 to Chicago, he went mentally on the rocks. 
 
 All kinds of operations were performed on 
 nearly all parts of his body, and finally one 
 of the famous Philadelphia physicians frankly 
 told him that science had done its best and 
 been exhausted. 
 
 "There is just one more hope for you," said 
 he to his patient. "Where were you born, and 
 where did you spend your early life?" 
 
 "Patten, Maine." 
 
 "Go back there at once, and live absolutely 
 and completely in the open for two years. Not 
 parts of two years, but twenty-four months of 
 two years. Sleep out of doors every night, eat out 
 of doors every meal. It is your last chance." 
 [ 150]
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 "And I followed this to the letter," said 
 the former invalid. "At the end of eighteen 
 months, after taking in this Maine air, and 
 never once sleeping indoors, I remember now 
 that the whole thing came to me as a revelation 
 while sitting on a log up in the woods. All of 
 a sudden it came to me that I was alive, and 
 going to live. I jumped with joy. A new man, 
 and here I am!" 
 
 There is every kind of inducement for every 
 kind of camp-life in the State, including the 
 old-fashioned camp-meeting, an institution still 
 extant in several counties. The spruce-bor- 
 dered salt-water shores, with all the natural 
 and some of the manufactured advantages of the 
 wealthier resorts, offer their special attractions. 
 In the early development of the vacation idea, 
 camping out on the coast was a common and 
 inexpensive method and the white tents which 
 dotted the shores in summer, each with its 
 tame crow for a mascot and pet, added pictur- 
 esqueness to the scenery. But now spruce and 
 pine boards have largely supplanted canvas, 
 [ 151 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 and the summer cottage of varying degrees of 
 expense is the prevailing vacation home at the 
 seaside. In the early days it could be produced 
 for a song. Now it takes a whole lot of songs, 
 and before the final bills are finally paid father 
 usually breaks out in an anvil chorus. But the 
 increased expense of construction has brought 
 with it more convenience and comfort, and 
 with these have come a much longer season. 
 The camping-out period of two weeks of years 
 ago has grown into three or four months, and 
 many families now come to the coast for five 
 and six months. In the interior, however, the 
 camper is still holding his own, and his location 
 is usually convenient to fishing and shooting 
 according to the season. Then there are the 
 mountain-climbers who pitch their tents here, 
 there, and everywhere in the hills, and pursue 
 their arduous recreation. 
 
 Camping in Maine can be made rough and sim- 
 ple, or luxurious and complicated, as you like, 
 or according to your bank account. You will 
 have a good time, anyway. The prime essen- 
 [ 152 1
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 tials of all equipment are an open mind, a dis- 
 position to put up with anything and every- 
 thing, and a determination to take all you can 
 from Nature's storehouse of health and knowl- 
 edge. And in the Maine woods, as everywhere 
 else, Nature is generous, exhaustless. Her 
 candle lights a million other candles and burns 
 on brightly and invitingly just the same. 
 
 As to physical outfit, it is interesting here 
 to noteThoreau's recommendations, made after 
 his three camping-out visits to Maine from 
 1846 to 1857. I quote from the appendix of his 
 volume, "The Maine Woods": 
 
 "The following will be a good outfit for one 
 who wishes to make an excursion of twelve 
 days into the Maine woods in July, with a 
 companion, and one Indian for the same pur- 
 poses that I did. 
 
 " Wear, a check shirt, stout old shoes, thick 
 socks, a neck ribbon, thick waistcoat, thick 
 pants, old Kossuth hat, a linen sack. 
 
 " Carry, in an India-rubber knapsack, with 
 a large flap, two shirts (check), one pair thick 
 [ i53 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 socks, one pair drawers, one flannel shirt, two 
 pocket-handkerchiefs, a light India-rubber coat 
 or a thick woolen one, two bosoms and collars 
 to go and come with, one napkin, pins, needles, 
 thread, one blanket, best gray, seven feet long. 
 
 " Tent, six by seven feet, and four feet 
 high in middle, will do; veil and gloves and 
 insect-wash, or, better, mosquito-bars to cover 
 all at night; best pocket-map, and perhaps de- 
 scription of the route; compass; plant-book and 
 red blotting-paper; paper and stamps, botany, 
 small pocket spy-glass for birds, pocket micro- 
 scope, tape-measure, insect-boxes. 
 
 "Axe, full size if possible, jackknife, fish- 
 lines, two only apiece, with a few hooks and 
 corks ready, and with pork for bait in a packet, 
 rigged; matches (some also in a small vial in 
 the waistcoat pocket); soap, two pieces; large 
 knife and iron spoon (for all) ; three or four old 
 neswpapers, much twine, and several rags for 
 dishcloths; twenty feet of strong cord, four- 
 quart tin pail for kettle, two tin dippers, three 
 tin plates, a fry-pan. 
 
 I iS4l
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 "Provisions, Soft hardbread, twenty-eight 
 pounds; pork, sixteen pounds; sugar, twelve 
 pounds; one pound black tea or three pounds 
 coffee, one box or a pint of salt, one quart 
 Indian meal, to fry fish in ; six lemons, good to 
 correct the pork and warm water; perhaps two 
 or three pounds of rice, for variety. You will 
 probably get some berries, fish, etc., beside. 
 
 "A gun is not worth the carriage, unless you 
 go as hunters." 
 
 This was many years ago and there have 
 been many improvements since, but the camper 
 of to-day who has the genuine back-to-nature 
 feeling, and a desire really to rough it, can follow 
 much of this advice with profit. It is difficult to 
 understand why Thoreau insisted on a "check" 
 shirt, but he probably had his reasons. A book 
 with this descriptive adjective is sure to be 
 found convenient. Tents have naturally been 
 greatly improved, and a grade of sea-island 
 cotton, sometimes known as "balloon silk," 
 light and compact, is now the common material. 
 Other modern improvements which Thoreau
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 would advise, if he were camping in] Maine in 
 these days, are: First of all, a decent respect 
 for the game laws, and next, a camera; then 
 paper blankets, light and warm; panchos for 
 wet weather, light duck duffel bags for cloth- 
 ing, and some of the new foods prepared with 
 reference to compactness and nutrition. These 
 last, however, only for emergency rations. Live 
 as much as possible off the country of your in- 
 vasion and very much is possible you will 
 find. Keep your own ingenuity and that of the 
 boys always at work. What you cannot learn 
 from the guides, invent. You can always teach 
 them something, not the least of the satisfac- 
 tions of the wilderness. 
 
 There are more than a hundred boys' and 
 girls' camps in Maine, and nowhere in the coun- 
 try has this comparatively new development 
 of summer life reached such a high standard. 
 Nowhere is there such a variety of conditions 
 adapted to this kind of outdoor education 
 and training. These camps are to be found 
 in every county, on the shores of all the larger 
 [ 156]
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 lakes and ponds, and, in smaller numbers, on 
 the seacoast. This form of outing for the youth 
 of the family, which combines the vigor of the 
 open air with light study, is becoming more and 
 more a feature of the annual vacation plan, 
 and the camps in Maine are fast increasing to 
 meet new demands. Many of these include in 
 the generous outdoor curriculum some sort of 
 observation or actual experience in farm life, 
 and there are few things in temperate climate 
 nature that cannot be studied at first hand. 
 The most common camp village has for its cen- 
 ter a general dining-room and meeting-place, 
 which is either a large tent or of log-cabin con- 
 struction, surrounded by smaller tents which 
 the boys or girls make their summer homes, 
 each containing from two to four cots. The 
 young students roam the fields and woods al- 
 most at will. There are all kinds of sports, and 
 the larger camps have the all-important ath- 
 letic instructor on the board, usually with swim- 
 ming as his specialty. At one of the boys' 
 camps on the shores of Sebago last summer I
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 found the most famous football player of his 
 year installed as one of the councilors. 
 
 This is probably an advertisement, but it 
 expresses so well the aims and actual accom- 
 plishments of these highly beneficial institutions, 
 that I am glad to copy and give it the circula- 
 tion of this volume, if it has any : 
 : "Give me your boy or your girl for a sum- 
 mer," says the manager of this new sort of 
 summer rendezvous. "Let me have them in 
 the care of myself and my trained assistants. 
 They shall have all the reasonable freedom they 
 could ask; be under watchful care every minute 
 of the day; study nature under specialists who 
 know its every secret; meet their comrades 
 from other cities, other States, other environ- 
 ments; share the friendship of cultured, college- 
 bred camp directors; be instructed, if you wish, 
 in some of the special studies which they have 
 not entirely mastered during winter schooling. 
 In the fall, they shall be returned to you, strong, 
 healthy, with that resourcefulness which only 
 life in the woods teaches." 
 [ 158]
 
 Some one who keeps the count reports that 
 five thousand canoes passed over the Northeast 
 Carry of Moosehead Lake last season. And 
 this is only one converging point of the great 
 canoe cruises of the State. They vary in length 
 from twenty to three hundred miles; in south 
 and north geography, from Kennebunkport to 
 St. Francis, and, west and east, Umbagog to 
 Lambert Lake; in topography, from a small and 
 harmless pond surrounded by gently sloping 
 fields to the far-famed but unfrequented Ripo- 
 genus Gorge; in character from a mild paddle 
 down a placid stream to an inland wind-swept 
 sea voyage of sufficient roughness to test all 
 the resources of an expert. 
 
 You can start right in at Camp Ellis at the 
 mouth of the Saco, and with few carries, none 
 of which is hard or long, make Upper Kezar 
 Pond through one of the most charming valleys 
 in New England, from tidewater almost to the 
 center of the White Mountain Range. Mean- 
 while you have had all the exercise that one 
 trip requires, for you have paddled up a rise of 
 [ 159]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 fifteen hundred feet above the level of the 
 river's mouth. The general elevation of the 
 Saco's basin is greater than that of any other 
 of the great water-power rivers of Maine, ex- 
 cept the Androscoggin. You have also passed 
 through scenery of great variety and a wonder- 
 ful beauty which Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 power to her eloquent tongue and pen is try- 
 ing her best to preserve. She appeared before 
 a "committee of the legislature last winter in 
 opposition to a bill giving rights to dam the 
 Saco at Hiram, near her home. 
 
 "I know I am not saying a single logical 
 thing," said she in a charming, illogical, wom- 
 anly way, " and I know I am talking from 
 sentimental reasons. I care nothing about the 
 loss in a financial way. But for twenty years 
 the women of that section have been trying to 
 make a better community of it. At one blow 
 the beauty of everything we have tried to do 
 will be destroyed if this bill passes. I can't 
 conceive of anything that would reconcile me 
 to life without the beauty of that river." 
 t 160]
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 But in spite of this argument, whose strength 
 lay in its feminine weakness, the bill passed. 
 
 You have also enjoyed the Fryeburg Bend, 
 where, starting near the village, you can canoe 
 twenty miles of the river and arrive at the 
 village again, not far from Dr. Gordon's fine 
 old colonial home. The Saco Valley seems to 
 possess great fascination for the New England 
 novelist. Thus does Howells open "A Modern 
 Instance," in his intimate, homely way, de- 
 scribing Fryeburg and its river as it twice 
 sweeps in and out of town, a mirror and classic 
 of a typical Maine village : 
 
 "The village stood on a wide plain, and 
 around it rose the mountains. They were green 
 to their tops in summer, and in winter white 
 through their serried pines and drifting mists; 
 but at every season serious and beautiful, fur- 
 rowed with hollow shadows, and taking the 
 light on masses and stretches of iron-gray crag. 
 The river swam through the plain in long 
 curves, and slipped away at last through an 
 unseen pass to the southward, tracing a score 
 [ 161 1
 
 Latchstring 
 
 of miles in its course over a space that measured 
 but three or four. The plain was very fertile, 
 and its features, if few and of purely utilitarian 
 beauty, had a rich luxuriance, and there was a 
 tropical riot of vegetation when the sun of July 
 beat on those northern fields. They waved with 
 corn and oats to the feet of the mountains, and 
 the potatoes covered a vast acreage with the 
 lines of their intense, coarse green. The meadows 
 were deep with English grass to the banks of 
 the river, that, doubling and returning upon 
 itself, still marked its way with a dense fringe 
 of alders and white birches. . . . 
 .- "Behind the black boles of the elms that 
 swept the vista of the street with the fine gray 
 tracery of their boughs, stood the houses, deep- 
 sunken in the accumulating drifts, through 
 which each householder kept a path cut from 
 his doorway to the road, white and clean as if 
 hewn out of marble. Some cross-streets strag- 
 gled away east and west with the poorer dwel- 
 lings; but this, that followed the northward 
 and southward reach of the plain, was the main 
 [ 162 1
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 thoroughfare, and had its own impressiveness, 
 with those square white houses which they 
 build so large in northern New England. They 
 were all kept in scrupulous repair, though 
 here and there the frost and thaw of many 
 winters had heaved a fence out of plumb, and 
 threatened the poise of the monumental urns 
 of painted pine on gatepost. They had dark- 
 green blinds, of a color harmonious with that 
 of the funereal evergreens in their dooryards; 
 and they themselves had taken the tone of the 
 snowy landscape, as if by the operation of some 
 such law as blanches the fur-bearing animals 
 of the North. They seemed proper to its deso- 
 lation, while some houses of more modern taste, 
 painted to a warmer tone, looked, with their 
 mansard roofs and jig-sawed piazzas and bal- 
 conies, intrusive and alien. 
 
 "At one end of the street stood the Academy, 
 with its classic facade and its belfry; midway 
 was the hotel, with the stores, the printing- 
 office and the churches; and, at the other ex- 
 treme, one of the square white mansions stood 
 [ 163 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 advanced from the rank of the rest, at the top 
 of a deep-plunging valley, defining itself against 
 the mountain beyond so sharply that it seemed 
 as if cut out of its dark-wooded side. It was 
 from the gate before this house, distinct in the 
 pink light which the sunset had left, that, on 
 a Saturday evening in February, a cutter, gay 
 with red-lined robes, dashed away, and came 
 musically dashing down the street under the 
 naked elms." 
 
 Another western Maine canoe cruise, which 
 combines rivers and small streams with large 
 and small lakes, can be started at the mouth of 
 the Presumpscot River just north of Portland, 
 and finished at the head of Long Pond in the 
 delightful old town of Harrison. It has all the 
 Maine varieties of scenery, takes you over the 
 length of Sebago Lake, and through the Songo, 
 a strange little river, always turning on itself, 
 and altogether the crookedest stream in the 
 United States, called "sinuous" for the twofold 
 purpose of accurate description and allitera- 
 [ 164!
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 tion. Then up through the American Bay of 
 Naples, in between the beautiful highlands of 
 Bridgton, to the foothills^ of the mountains. 
 You have carried around at Westbrook some of 
 the finest paper mills in the world, and, farther 
 down the Presumpscot, have passed one of the 
 most unique and beautiful summer and winter 
 outing-places for public entertainment that can 
 be imagined. The picturesque open-air theater, 
 where nothing but entertainments of the first 
 class are given, is worth paddling many miles 
 to see. There is an air of quietness and pleasant 
 refinement seldom if ever found in popular 
 resorts of this kind. And when any one tells 
 you that places like this cannot be made finan- 
 cially successful unless they have at least some 
 of the cheap, noisy, and gaudy attractions of 
 the big city resorts, take him to Riverton, just 
 out of Portland, on the banks of the little river 
 where the canoes are; morning, afternoon, and 
 evening; popular prices; bring the children. 
 It's a charming place. I wish^ Mr. Howells 
 could see it. 
 
 [ 165 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 For your trip through the Rangeleys, already 
 described, plan to take lots of time. The fishing 
 is so good. 
 
 And some year take your canoeing outfit 
 down into the Belgrade Lake chain, cruise all 
 the ponds, Messalonskee Stream to Waterville, 
 out into the Kennebec, and down to Augusta, 
 or even to Bath and Fort Popham, a hundred 
 miles or more of interesting territory. Going 
 up the Kennebec to Gardiner on the Boston 
 boat the other morning, I overheard this from 
 a man who looked a gentleman, a traveler, and 
 a good judge of landscape : 
 
 "Why, this beats the Hudson!" 
 
 There are the Washington County lakes and 
 streams which can be entered from the railroad 
 at East Machias and left at Princeton, or en- 
 tered at Princeton and left anywhere you like; 
 with all kinds of scenery, and especially land- 
 locked salmon scenery. Be sure not to omit 
 Wittequergaugum from the itinerary. This re- 
 gion is known more for its great fishing than 
 for camping and canoeing, but of late years it 
 [ 166]
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 has become very popular for all kinds of out- 
 door life. 
 
 There are no more famous canoe trips in the 
 world than those of the West Branch and the 
 East Branch of the Penobscot. Both begin at 
 the Northeast Carry of Moosehead and run on 
 together to Chesuncook Lake. Then if the West 
 Branch is your choice, turn southeast down the 
 lake and at its foot you run into the Penobscot, 
 over and around falls, rapids, and great gorges, 
 on to the Twin Lakes, where the cruise ends at 
 Norcross, a distance of about eighty miles by 
 water. This can be done in a week's time, but 
 two weeks are better, and if you wish to make 
 detours and enjoy Lobster Lake, the wonderful 
 trout fishing at Sourdnahunk, and a side trip up 
 Katahdin, you can easily use up a month. It 
 is said by the guides that more canoeists make 
 this trip than any other in the State. It is 
 particularly popular with novices. 
 
 The East Branch trip, also starting at North- 
 east Carry, but ending at Grindstone, has un- 
 usual attractions both for the novice and the 
 [ 167 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 veteran, and if the side line is a fishing line it 
 has more interesting and productive possibili- 
 ties than any of the others. It covers a hundred 
 and twenty miles of forest waterways whose 
 equal in variety and wild beauty is hard to 
 find in any country. Turn northeast at the 
 head of Chesuncook and paddle nine miles 
 through Umbazooksus stream to the lake which 
 struggles along with the same name. Then 
 back to the English language again at Mud 
 Pond, only a few miles away, where you fairly 
 enter East Branch waters. This cruise includes 
 Chamberlain, one of the larger and more pic- 
 turesque of the northern Maine lakes, and, 
 after leaving Webster, some pretty swift water, 
 especially at Grand Falls. If the river is high, 
 if you are inexperienced yourself, and not sure 
 of the guides, and if you are thinking of safety 
 first and dry clothes next, take out here and 
 tote to less turbulent waters. There are other 
 rapids below which you will do well to consider, 
 one in particular, known on the maps as the 
 "Hulling Machine" -probably intended for 
 [ 168]
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 "Hurling Machine." For its rapid succession 
 of rough and smooth water and many good 
 camping-places the canoeist will find no more 
 exciting and interesting trip than this. 
 
 A real man's size voyage is that farther up 
 north and down the St. John River. Its length 
 as usually taken is two hundred and thirty 
 miles, and it comes to an end way up on the 
 border at St. Francis. It can be extended down 
 the river to a total distance of three hundred 
 miles or more, if desired part of this exten- 
 sion in Canadian territory. This is the only one 
 of the big canoe trips of the northern country 
 that starts at the Northwest Carry, so known 
 in the old days, but in the modern called "See- 
 boomook," but whether for convenience or 
 euphony the geographers fail to relate. You 
 pass up the West Branch through lake and 
 river regions not unlike those of the other 
 northern trips. But once over into the St. 
 John, there is a clean water run with the cur- 
 rent of nearly ninety miles into Acadian St. 
 Francis. 
 
 [ 169!
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Last to be mentioned of these wonderful 
 waterway outings, but not least to be con- 
 sidered, and just now the most famous and 
 popular of all, is that from the Northeast Carry 
 to St. Francis and Fort Kent, two hundred 
 miles, known to all canoeists as the Allegash 
 route. It follows up through Chamberlain, 
 Churchill, and smaller lakes to the north, into 
 the Allegash River, down to its junction with 
 the St. John and St. Francis, and ends in a 
 fifteen-mile run to Fort Kent, the usual termi- 
 nus of this grand excursion. It has many inter- 
 esting detours, and you can use up a month 
 or six weeks of time without any feeling of 
 monotony. On the other hand, it has been 
 done in ten days with none of its beauty over- 
 looked. 
 
 Speaking of speed and endurance in a canoe, 
 I am just now reminded of the great astonish- 
 ment with which we regarded a very handsome, 
 agile, six-foot-six Indian one night at the West 
 Outlet camps. We had been fly fishing in the 
 morning about a mile below the dam when he
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 passed us in his light, Oldtown canoe, with a 
 rather stout lady, apparently past middle age, 
 as a passenger. When we returned to camp 
 about five o'clock that evening for supper 
 there he was at the landing patching his fragile 
 craft. In his day's trip he had paddled down 
 the length of the West Outlet and across the 
 head of Indian Pond, poled up against the 
 current of the East Outlet, and then, with 
 paddle again, worked seven miles up Moose- 
 head Lake against a fairly stiff northwester, 
 more than twenty miles in all. Without the 
 smallest sign of boasting he told us he had 
 made this same trip every day for a week. 
 
 He had no engagement, and would we like 
 to go to-morrow? 
 
 Of course, this was no record in actual dis- 
 tance covered, for they tell great stories up in 
 those regions, and most of them are true. But 
 when you take into consideration the condi- 
 tions of current and wind of that particular 
 day, gallantly saying nothing of the stoutness 
 of that particular lady, you will appreciate that 
 [ 171 1
 
 The Latckstring 
 
 that particular feat was something to cause 
 astonishment. I have ever since had great pride 
 in knowing that particular, silent, smoky 
 Indian. Muscular, wiry, powerful, resourceful, 
 keen of eye, quick of limb, you would travel 
 far in many countries before discovering a finer 
 physical specimen of any race, or a product of 
 the forest so nearly perfect: one of those rare 
 men who always and at once command com- 
 plete confidence. You have an instinct that he 
 will do exactly what he ought to do at exactly 
 the right time. His mental alertness and physi- 
 cal speed are especially impressive, and alto- 
 gether he fits to perfection Lardner's descrip- 
 tion of the Honorable Tyrus Raymond Cobb, 
 of Georgia and Michigan: "When the other 
 fast guys is thinkin' what they're goin' to do, 
 he's did it." 
 
 Northeast Carry is an interesting place. It is 
 what Edna Ferber calls Emma McChesney's 
 office a clearing-house for trouble. You 
 arrive by steamer and leave by canoe. In be- 
 tween the two you have forgotten the crossing 
 [ 172!
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 officer and his crowds; you have forgotten gro- 
 cer's bills and club bills, business engagements 
 and dinner engagements, the office boy and the 
 desk, tailor and valet, long arguments and Latin 
 prescriptions everything that smacks of the 
 complexity and turmoil of a big city and your 
 occupation everything but the blackened 
 coffee-pot and great days to come. Care must 
 be piled high at the Northeast, for there you 
 leave it behind. Before you, true sport, "not 
 as a dissipation for idlers but as a philosophy 
 of life, a bulwark against effeminacy and de- 
 cay." And in the far-off northern Maineland 
 where " still waves the virgin forest of the new 
 world." 
 
 Thoreau said other things about this region 
 of your joys : 
 
 "It is a country full of evergreen trees, of 
 mossy silver birches and watery maples, the 
 ground dotted with insipid, small, red berries, 
 and strewn with damp and moss-grown rocks, 
 a country diversified with innumerable lakes 
 and rapid streams, peopled with trout, with
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 salmon, shad, and pickerel, and other fishes; 
 the forest resounding at rare intervals with the 
 note of the chickadee, the blue-jay, and the 
 woodpecker, the scream of the fish-hawk and 
 the eagle, the laugh of the loon, and the whistle 
 of ducks along the solitary streams; at night, 
 with the hooting of owls and howling of wolves; 
 in summer, swarming with myriads of black 
 flies and mosquitoes, more formidable than 
 wolves to the white man. Such is the home of 
 the moose, the bear, the caribou, the wolf, the 
 beaver, and the Indian. Who shall describe the 
 inexpressible tenderness and immortal life of 
 the grim forest, where Nature, though it be 
 mid-winter, is ever in her spring, where the 
 moss-grown and decaying trees are not old, but 
 seem to enjoy a perpetual youth; and blissful, 
 innocent Nature, like a serene infant, is too 
 happy to make a noise, except by a few tink- 
 ling, lisping birds and trickling rills? 
 
 "What a place to live, what a place to die 
 and be buried in! There certainly men would 
 live forever, and laugh at death and the grave. 
 [ i74]
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 There they could have no such thoughts as are 
 associated with the village graveyard, that 
 make a grave out of one of those moist ever- 
 green hummocks! 
 
 "Die and be buried who will, 
 
 I mean to live here still; 
 My nature grows ever more young 
 The primitive pines among." 
 
 The primitive pines! Alas, they are going. 
 And on many a Maine hill, where flourisheth 
 the portable sawmill, deadly, unpoetic, and 
 commercial, they sough no more. But there is, 
 and for many generations will be, a wealth of 
 spruce of many varieties, with frequent white 
 and gray and yellow birches to relieve what 
 otherwise might be an evergreen monotony. 
 
 "The traveler and camper-out in Maine," 
 says John Burroughs, "unless he penetrate its 
 more northern portions, has less reason to re- 
 member it as a pine-tree State than a birch-tree 
 State." 
 
 There are still enough, however, and more, 
 to preserve the name. And up where you are 
 [ i75 1
 
 The Latch string 
 
 going in the canoe, with your rods and reels and 
 traces, you will sleep beneath the shelter of some 
 of the finest specimens in the East. 
 
 I note in reading the gentle and intimate let- 
 ters 'of Sarah Orne Jewett that she claims for 
 York, her home county, the real giants of the 
 pine-tree race: 
 
 "I went to see some large pine trees down on 
 the edge of Wells, on an out of the way road, 
 but I always knew these pines were the biggest 
 in the State and had a great desire to see them. 
 Oh, do go next summer to see the most superb 
 creatures that ever grew. I don't believe their 
 like is in New England; more than four feet 
 through their great trunks, and standing so tall 
 that their great green tops seem to belong to 
 the next world. In all my life I never was in 
 such glorious woods." 
 
 You may not find quite their like, up where 
 you are going in the canoe, but you will see 
 many of them, and hear them whisper an answer 
 to the click of shod canoe-poles round the bend. 
 
 In your outdoor wanderings in Maine, 
 I i?61
 
 Camp and Canoe 
 
 by canoe or any other means of travel, do not 
 pass heedlessly by the Country Store. Stop, 
 look, listen especially listen. You will always 
 learn. This ancient and honorable institution, 
 the farmer's forum, the villager's senate, is still 
 in our midst, in full development, in undimin- 
 ished usefulness and glory. Age cannot wither 
 its powers nor custom stale its daily sessions. 
 Thank Heaven! It is democracy's continuing 
 hope, the national safety-valve, humanity's 
 benefactor. Any harried President can average 
 up the common sense of any Country Store, 
 just after supper, accept it, act on it, do well, 
 and get reflected. Questions state, national, 
 and international are settled in an atmosphere 
 of molasses, kerosene, rock candy, and fly- 
 paper, and settled right. In an old-fashioned 
 setting, still there, of copper-toed-boot boxes, 
 peach-cans, mosquito netting, ready-made 
 pants, and mowing-machine advertisements 
 there is developed and expressed an old-fash- 
 ioned Abraham Lincoln sense of justice and 
 right that could be laid down as moral law in 
 I i77l
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 any parliamentary body in the world. The 
 board of strategy around the old stove seldom 
 goes wrong. May I repeat? Stop and listen: 
 participate. You will come out of this colli- 
 sion of Country Store intellects chastened and 
 learned.
 
 VIII 
 
 FOREST, FIELD, AND FACTORY 
 
 NOR is pleasure all there is in Maine. There 
 is business, much of it, and good. There might 
 be more, but it could not be better. 
 
 Maine is the one big raw material State of the 
 New England group. But while others imme- 
 diately on the west and south have grown in 
 population more than two hundred per cent in 
 half a century, this State has stood compara- 
 tively still. There are almost as many analyses 
 of the reasons for this as there are men with 
 curiosity enough to seek causes. They all lead 
 around in a circle, returning always to the un- 
 explained negative proposition that we neither 
 utilize opportunities nor apply intensive meth- 
 ods. No community ever completely realizes, 
 but the difference in Maine between what we 
 have and what we do is so great as to attract 
 attention from economical observers and ex- 
 [ 179]
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 perts in efficiency. For instance, in the matter 
 of its greatest natural asset, while Maine ranks 
 third in the Union in developed water-power, it 
 is at the foot of the list in proportion of devel- 
 opment to total possibilities. A catalogue of 
 sites undeveloped, many of which are even yet 
 unsurveyed, would include parts of every river 
 and stream in the State and disclose many an 
 unpronounceable Indian name. 
 
 No less a statesman than Gladstone, observ- 
 ing England's greatest rival, said that the 
 United States had the natural basis for the 
 greatest continuous empire ever established by 
 man. This State, wedged up into British terri- 
 tory one hundred and fifty miles, is one of the 
 great units. With a boundary line between its 
 northern counties and Canada four hundred 
 miles long, equal to that of the Empire State of 
 New York, it is altogether probable that the 
 great Premier found here part of the founda- 
 tion for his statement. The question of re- 
 source is not worth considering except in its 
 relation to development. In a climate more 
 [ 180 ]
 
 Forest) Field, and Factory 
 
 stimulating to human energy than any in the 
 United States, and at a time when the whole 
 country for very obvious reasons appears to be 
 entering on a new and still greater industrial 
 activity, what are we doing with the greatest 
 and most easily adapted of natural assets ? 
 
 The kind of New England conservatism, so 
 well illustrated by a sentence in the latest look- 
 ing backward book of Mr. H. G. Wells, in 
 which he speaks of new things making their 
 way into practice against a skepticism amount- 
 ing at times to hostility, has had its day and 
 for the most part disappeared. If it ever had 
 any influence in retarding development in 
 Maine, it was not important. The conservatism 
 that has operated unfavorably here, and to a 
 large extent is yet to be overcome, is due more 
 to a lack of belief in the value of home resources. 
 In some cases it is a lack of knowledge of what 
 the State really possesses. Local hesitation in 
 local investment is a natural result. 
 
 There have been inspiring individual in- 
 stances_of confidence followed by action, and 
 [ 181 ]
 
 T*he Latch string 
 
 they have produced far-reaching results. The 
 making of the two young manufacturing cities, 
 Rumford Falls and Millinocket, almost in the 
 heart of the wilderness and overnight, was 
 Napoleonic in conception and execution. Hugh 
 J. Chisholm, who was the founder of the Andro- 
 scoggin enterprise, and whose success was an 
 influence in attracting outside capital to the 
 great development on the Penobscot, was a 
 Maine man with a belief in Maine advantages, 
 and courage and energy to use them. His re- 
 markable spirit lives in the succession and the 
 whole State is a debtor to his faith and foresight. 
 A combination of qualities in which prophecy 
 and perseverance were important, added to the 
 keenest appreciation of surroundings, enabled 
 Franklin W. Cram, another Maine man with 
 faith in his State, to drive a steam railroad into 
 the primitive northland and bring thousands of 
 square miles of rich territory within the limits 
 of easy transportation and good business. He 
 saw Aroostook, a great commonwealth in itself, 
 with wonderful virgin soil, vast tracts of valu- 
 [ 182]
 
 Fore sty Field, and Factory 
 
 able timber, and water-powers without limit. 
 And to see was but to realize. He rediscovered 
 the Penobscot River basin, extending from the 
 St. John on the north to the Atlantic on the 
 south, from the Kennebec watershed on the 
 west to the St. Croix, Machias, and Union 
 River basins on the east; comprising 8500 
 square miles, more than a quarter of the total 
 area of the State; with a great and powerful 
 river having 1600 tributary streams running 
 down through its center 200 miles to the sea; 
 with 2,500,000 acres of forest lands having a 
 stand of 5,000,000,000 feet in spruce, 438,000,- 
 ooo in cedar, 153,000,000 in pine, and hemlock, 
 fir, and hard woods in abundance. Big, stag- 
 gering figures these. And to rediscover was 
 but to have faith and act. 
 
 Another example of business inspiration com- 
 bined with firm reliance on the State's advan- 
 tages is to be found at Poland Springs in quite 
 another sphere of activity. Here three brothers, 
 each a big man in his own individual capacity 
 and special work, all Maine-born, Maine-bred, 
 [ 183 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 and first of all for Maine, have consummated a 
 resort enterprise founded by their father in 
 such a manner and to such an extent as to make 
 it world-famous and to bring credit and distinc- 
 tion to the State as a whole. It is a standard of 
 excellence throughout the country, in general 
 and in detail. And no mention should be made 
 of its success without including the assistance 
 of loyal sisters, who, with equal faith and com- 
 mensurate energy and diligence, have added 
 no unimportant value to the establishment. 
 Meanwhile, all have been much interested, 
 prominent, and valuable factors in State devel- 
 opment, quite independently of their own im- 
 mediate properties, an example of community 
 spirit and devotion worthy of the widest emu- 
 lation. I say this with the greatest pleasure, 
 not because, with many other citizens, I have 
 felt the pride of personal friendship for many 
 years, but because I have had unusual oppor- 
 tunities at home and abroad to observe the 
 beneficial results to Maine as a State. 
 The story of the new Aroostook reads like a 
 [ 184!
 
 Forest, Field, and Factory 
 
 Holman Day romance. It is full of excitement 
 and education, and its lesson can be taken home 
 with profit by every man of Maine. The indi- 
 vidual examples of home faith are instructive. 
 This community example speaks volumes. The 
 county found itself only twenty years ago. It 
 was then straggling and struggling. Now there 
 is a piano in every parlor, an automobile in 
 every barn, and from every family a boy or girl 
 at college. Potatoes. Some one finally became 
 convinced of the special adaptability of the soil 
 for raising this important crop, and followed 
 out the conviction to its logical and money- 
 making conclusion. The neighbors looked on in 
 amazement. When they saw him pay the last 
 installment on the piano, subscribe to telephone 
 stock, and take the whole family to the Presque 
 Isle Fair, Aroostook County was made. They 
 wisely followed the example of specialization 
 and put all hands to the plough, the cultivator, 
 and the digger. To-day there are a hundred 
 thousand acres within the county lines given 
 over to potato-raising, with hay and grain as 
 I 185 1
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 rotating crops. If any one has anything to sell, 
 from a Panama Canal bond to something new 
 in graphophones, he strikes the trail for the 
 new El Dorado whose county seat is Houlton. 
 Quality first. It takes all the prizes at na- 
 tional fairs, is recognized as paramount in 
 North America, and a large part of the annual 
 crop goes to all parts of the country for seed 
 purposes. As to quantity, records have been 
 made with intensive methods of more than 400 
 bushels to the acre, but the average yield of the 
 county is 225 bushels. This is the story in 
 bushels of the growth of Aroostook in so short 
 a period as two decades : 
 
 1895 1,586,267 
 
 1896 2,371,847 
 
 1897 1,271,175 
 
 1898 2,567,808 
 
 1899 2,894,672 
 
 1900 3,043,879 
 
 1901 4,471,183 
 
 1902 3,112,460 
 
 1903 5,34i,73S 
 
 1904 6,694,071 
 
 [ 186]
 
 Fore sty Field, and Factory 
 
 1905 7,725,372 
 
 1906 12,329,010 
 
 1907 5,006,845 
 
 1908 1 1,796,506 
 
 1909 9,362,842 
 
 1910 11,587,632 
 
 1911 13,088,998 
 
 1912 12,045,135 
 
 1913 17,688,757 
 
 1914 (about) 15,000,000 
 
 1915 (estimated) 14,500,000 
 
 Aroostook, land of the morning sun, lives and 
 thrives on potatoes. This crop overshadows 
 everything else. There are two periods of ex- 
 citement in the existence of every farmer, and 
 all seem to have developed a wheat-pit spirit of 
 venture. What will be the yield, and what the 
 price? The new prosperity has brought the 
 county much fame and many settlers, and has 
 also brought out, more than ever before, its 
 great resources of timber and water and the 
 possibilities of general industrial advance. 
 Aroostook's lesson is valuable and timely. With 
 the same spirit and the application of the same 
 [ 187 1
 
 The Latcbstring 
 
 methods, its success can be duplicated in every 
 county in the State, and in many of them with 
 the same crop. 
 
 The interesting, historical city of Bath is re- 
 turning to its ancient glory because the home 
 faith, loyalty, and enterprise of John S. Hyde, 
 still a young man, has revived shipbuilding. 
 This is a story of industrial rediscovery whose 
 value to the State at large depends on the 
 extent of its application. There was no music 
 quite like the click of the caulking mallet on 
 the shores of the Kennebec. With the gradual 
 decline of wooden vessels and the coming of iron 
 and steel, these harmonious sounds one after 
 another died away, grass grew in the yards, and 
 decay set in along once busy water-fronts. 
 Blight settled down on one of Maine's great 
 industries in a night. It was more marked on 
 the Kennebec because here was the Chumming 
 center of the great business. Here, too, was the 
 place for revival, and Mr. Hyde in his home 
 city was its leading spirit. If wooden ships, 
 why not steel? He took over the legacy of his 
 I 188 ]
 
 Forest) Field, and Factory 
 
 distinguished father, revised, reorganized, and 
 reestablished, and today the label "Made in 
 Bath" is a mark of quality and speed on many 
 a Government ship, and any other that has the 
 right to wear it. It is a common sight to see a 
 new naval vessel steaming back into the river 
 after trial with mast-headed brooms to indi- 
 cate that she has exceeded contract require- 
 ments, another triumph of Maine confidence 
 and skill. 
 
 These are not all, to be sure, but they are 
 conspicuous and illuminating instances of what 
 can be done by men and communities when, 
 not content to rest on the potential, they act 
 and progress on the faith that is in them. They 
 come readily to the mind of any one familiar 
 with Maine's business past and present and 
 hopeful of the future. 
 
 "Two great resources of the State of Maine 
 stand preeminent: (i) Its water powers, which 
 are unrivaled in the United States, and (2) its 
 forests, which still cover vast areas." 
 
 This was the conclusion of Henry Albert 
 [ 189 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Pressey, of the United States Geological Sur- 
 vey, after completing in 1901 the only thorough 
 hydrographic investigation of the State that 
 has been made in what might be called modern 
 times. Please to note that an expert from the 
 Central Government, whose investigations have 
 taken him all over the country and whose spe- 
 cial knowledge of the special subject is com- 
 plete, says in an official report that the water- 
 powers of Maine are not remarkable, not 
 great, not the best but unrivaled in the 
 United States. And then consider that in the 
 very next sentence he expresses surprise that 
 so little has been done to study and protect 
 them. 
 
 "Many years ago," he continues, "it was 
 prophesied of Maine that as its industries de- 
 velop its water power must receive increased 
 attention. Up to this time, however, the stud- 
 ies of its water-power resources have been 
 meager and incomplete." 
 
 While other States, with less than half the 
 power developed and undeveloped have, of 
 [ 190 ]
 
 Forest) Field, and Factory 
 
 themselves and in cooperation with the United 
 States Government, been studying, surveying, 
 conserving, advertising, and otherwise exploit- 
 ing this great resource of Nature, Maine has 
 done little more than permit this to be carried 
 on by private enterprise, and by this only in 
 part. 
 
 A special Government census of the devel- 
 oped water-powers of the United States was 
 made in 1908, and at that time this State 
 ranked third with 343,096 horse-power. New 
 York, with the great Niagara power making up 
 a large part of the total, was first, having a 
 development of 885,862, and California second, 
 with 466, 777. The returns showed that in the 
 whole country there were 31,537 water-powers 
 in use, and of these only 602 were of a capacity 
 of 1000 horse-power or more. These develop- 
 ments were generating a total horse-power of 
 5,356,680, over 52,827 wheels; or an average 
 development per wheel of about 100 horse- 
 power. The six New England States had 5700, 
 generating a total of 1,032,427 horse-power, 
 I 191 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 over 10,325 wheels. These powers were thus 
 distributed : 
 
 States 
 
 Water- 
 powers 
 
 Wheels 
 
 Horse-power 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 807 
 
 icj.6 
 
 Il8 I4.C 
 
 Maine 
 
 1222 
 
 27Q7 
 
 J4.-I 006 
 
 Massachusetts 
 
 I"? 70 
 
 27J.Q 
 
 260,182 
 
 New Hampshire 
 
 876 
 
 I70Q 
 
 181,167 
 
 Rhode Island 
 
 IQI 
 
 187 
 
 77 rfiij 
 
 Vermont 
 
 1148 
 
 IO4.7 
 
 QO 672 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5700 
 
 10,325 
 
 1,032,427 
 
 A computation of undeveloped water-power 
 in Maine, potentialities running to waste, - 
 no man has made. There are no data on which 
 to base even a reasonable imagination. It has 
 been a common, if careless, saying for years 
 that the unharnessed waters of the State could 
 operate every steam railroad and every factory 
 in New England. While this is probably true, 
 no one knows how much more they could do. 
 Who, for instance, has ever calculated other 
 storage possibilities like those of the Union 
 Water-Power Company on the Androscoggin 
 and of the Great Northern Paper Company on 
 [ 192 1
 
 Forest) Field, and Factory 
 
 the Penobscot. All the estimates, however, 
 give to Maine more undeveloped water-power 
 than to any other State in the Union. A special 
 report made to the Boston Chamber of Com- 
 merce says : "There is one river in Maine that 
 will yield 200,000 additional horse-power when- 
 ever it is harnessed. This will mean something 
 like $12,000,000 added to the explicit wealth 
 of the State, every year. Compute the other 
 possibilities of the same character, and then 
 try and realize what the unused water-power 
 in New England means as a definite asset." 
 
 In accordance with an act of the legislature, 
 Walter Wells made an investigation of the 
 water-powers of the State and published a 
 report in the year 1869. This is all I can find 
 that Maine as a State has ever done on this 
 vital subject. It was undoubtedly a valuable 
 contribution to the knowledge of the time. But 
 this was forty-seven years ago, and much has 
 happened since then, including, you will please 
 bear in mind, the correlation of electricity to 
 running water. 
 
 [ 193 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 It is rare to find enthusiasm in a Government 
 report, usually made up of cold facts and figures 
 stated in unromantic calmness and with a pre- 
 cision in which neither prejudice nor sentiment 
 finds play. But Mr. Pressey goes still farther 
 in his conclusions on Maine as a power State, 
 and finds no territory in North America that 
 can be compared with it in potential water- 
 force. 
 
 "No other tract of country of the same ex- 
 tent on the continent" he says, "is so well 
 watered supplied with lakes and streams 
 well distributed as in Maine." 
 
 In addition to this main fact of tremendous 
 natural storage we find in supplemental reports 
 by other Government experts that geologic and 
 forest conditions, both great influences in water 
 resources, are as nearly perfect as can be for 
 maximum results. 
 
 Without taking into the calculation hundreds 
 
 of small lakes and ponds tributary to the rivers 
 
 and streams, there is in Maine one square mile 
 
 of inland water surface to each 14.3 square 
 
 [ 194 ]
 
 Forest) Field, and Factory 
 
 miles of land. Other facts of the State's lake 
 systems, quickly appreciated by the lay mind, 
 may be found in this interesting table : 
 
 Name of system 
 
 Num- 
 ber of 
 lakes 
 
 Aggre- 
 gate 
 area (sq. 
 miles) 
 
 Ratio of 
 lake sur- 
 face to 
 basin 
 surface 
 
 Average 
 area of 
 lakes (sq* 
 miles) 
 
 Saco 
 
 109 
 
 84 
 
 1 : 16.6 
 
 0.71; 
 
 Androscoggin 
 
 148 
 
 313 
 
 I : 17 
 
 1.41 
 
 Kennebec 
 
 Hi 
 
 4.1:0 
 
 i : I2.Q 
 
 1.44. 
 
 Penobscot 
 
 467 
 
 585 
 
 I : 14 
 
 I.2C 
 
 St. Croix 
 
 61 
 
 1 1O 
 
 I :6.5 
 
 2.QC 
 
 St. John 
 
 206 
 
 3 CO 
 
 i : 21. i 
 
 I.7S 
 
 Dennys, etc 
 
 22 
 
 38 
 
 I :o.8 
 
 1.72 
 
 Machias, East and West 
 
 56 
 
 68 
 
 i : 11.7 
 
 1. 2O 
 
 Narraguagus 
 
 38 
 
 2S 
 
 : 22 
 
 O.6iC 
 
 Union (not including islands) . . 
 St. George, Sheepscot, etc 
 Presumpscot 
 
 43 
 
 72 
 
 4<; 
 
 60 
 
 SO 
 
 Q7 
 
 :8 
 :i6 
 : "M 
 
 i-39 
 0.70 
 
 2.IO 
 
 Royal, etc 
 
 6 
 
 4. 
 
 : 4.2 
 
 0.66 
 
 Mousam 
 
 
 10 
 
 :26 
 
 0.7 1 
 
 Piscataqua 
 
 22 
 
 16 
 
 : 34 
 
 O.72 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 l62O 
 
 230O 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Mississippi River is 2800 miles long. The 
 altitude of its source at Lake Itasca is but little 
 greater than that of the Rangeleys, and the 
 Androscoggin, their outlet, is only 158 miles 
 long. Lake Superior, the source of the St. 
 [ 195 1
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 Lawrence, is 1800 miles from the sea, but its 
 elevation is only two thirds that of Moosehead, 
 the source of the Kennebec, which in all its 
 tortuous course runs only 160 miles to tide- 
 water at Augusta. 
 
 With a glance at this table of the elevations 
 of the larger lakes, you will at once appreciate 
 the tremendous water-force concentrated in 
 short distances : 
 
 Elevation 
 
 Name above sea 
 
 level (feet) 
 
 Moosehead Lake 1023 
 
 Wood Lake 1094 
 
 Attean Pond *94 
 
 Long Pond 1094 
 
 Schoodic Lakes 300 
 
 Sebec Lake 375 
 
 Baskahegan Lake 400 
 
 Pamalumcook, The Twins, and Milinokett Lakes 500 
 
 Ripogenus Lake 878 
 
 Chesuncook Lake 900 
 
 Cauquomogomoc Lake 930 
 
 Squapan Lake 580 
 
 Sebago Lake 247 
 
 Umbagog Lake 1256 
 
 Richardson Lake 1456 
 
 Mooselookmeguntic Lake 1486 
 
 Rangeley Lakes 1511 
 
 Mattagamon Lake 850 
 
 Chamberlain Lake 926 
 
 Pomgocwahem and Churchill Lakes 914 
 
 [ 196]
 
 Forest) Field, and Factory 
 
 Elevation 
 
 Name above sea 
 
 level (feet) 
 
 Allegash Lake 950 
 
 Eagle Lake 579 
 
 Square and Cross Lakes 587 
 
 Long Lake 603 
 
 Portage Lake 625 
 
 Fish River Lake 660 
 
 Chiputneticook Lake 382 
 
 Chiputneticook (Grand) Lake 449 
 
 The variation in the flow of Maine rivers and 
 streams Mr. Pressey found very small in com- 
 parison with the power waters in other parts of 
 the country. Considering the possibilities of 
 easy control at the outlets he says the uniform- 
 ity of discharge, so essential for continuous 
 power purposes, " is almost unparalleled." 
 
 As to the geologic conditions so important in 
 the matter of permanency, Mr. George Otis 
 Smith, United States Government geologist, 
 says: "The State is favored with rocks of a 
 hardness sufficient to make the present chan- 
 nels of the streams permanent, while the com- 
 plicated structure of the rocks and the conse- 
 quent alternations of beds relatively hard and 
 soft are the cause of some of the abrupt changes 
 [ 197]
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 in the grade of the rivers whereby falls and rips 
 succeed quiet reaches." 
 
 Another very important element in the pres- 
 ervation of the water-supply and the uniform- 
 ity of its flow is Maine's forest area, which fur- 
 nishes a great business in itself and constitutes 
 the second great natural resource of the State. 
 Of the 29,895 square miles of land surface, 
 21,000 are covered with forests, nearly one half 
 of which, it is estimated, will never be cut, thus 
 serving as a perpetual factor in water conserva- 
 tion. 
 
 The lumber industry has been for many years 
 one of the most important in the State, and the 
 manufacture of pulp and paper has now as- 
 sumed a position in the front rank. There are 
 thirty paper mills in Maine and as many pulp 
 mills, with a total investment of $30,000,000 
 and an annual product valued at $18,000,000. 
 The growth of timber in the State aggregates 
 between 600,000,000 and 700,000,000 feet each 
 year, so that at the present rate of cutting the 
 forests are nearly holding their own. By sys- 
 [ 198 1
 
 Forest, Field, and Factory 
 
 tematic cutting under forestry regulations, 
 however, the yield of the timber lands could be 
 greatly increased and the young growth be so 
 preserved and fostered that the yearly output 
 would be materially augmented. Whatever has 
 been done in this extremely important matter 
 has also been left largely to private enterprise. 
 The practical foresters of the great paper com- 
 panies are constantly studying the situation, 
 and their advice, based on the experience of 
 many years in the woods, could well be taken 
 by the State for the general good. Mr. Fred A. 
 Gilbert, of the Great Northern Company, has 
 already pointed out in a published pamphlet 
 that the annual loss to Maine through failure 
 properly to utilize its wealth of timber is more 
 than $10,000,000 on five of the common soft- 
 wood kinds, spruce, pine, fir, hemlock, and 
 cedar. He also points out the great danger to 
 the standing growth through waste and decay 
 and losses by fire and wind. 
 
 "We are apt to think," he says, "of the value 
 of timber as being the value to the owner of the 
 r [ i99l
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 land. As a matter of fact, competent authori- 
 ties estimate that for every thousand feet of 
 timber marketed there is a total average ex- 
 penditure of more than $16, of which but a 
 small part goes to the original owner. There 
 seems to be no good reason why the State 
 should not turn most of this annual waste of 
 650,000,000 feet of timber into $10,000,000 
 cash, to be expended in the State each year, as 
 interest, and at the same time retain its princi- 
 pal, the standing timber, unimpaired." 
 
 Meanwhile, if the Maine farmer would em- 
 ploy some, at least, of the intensive methods 
 which the Western farmer applies to his crops, 
 if he would make use of the experience of his 
 Aroostook neighbor, he might enjoy equal if not 
 better results. The climate and soil have been 
 found to be especially adapted to the growth 
 and maturity of hay, grain, potatoes, sweet 
 corn, apples, and all Northern vegetables and 
 small fruits. The State ranks first in the Union 
 in yield per acre and quality of three of these, 
 potatoes, sweet corn, and apples. The Maine 
 
 [ 200 ]
 
 MONTRKAL MKLONS IN MAINE
 
 Forest) Field, and Factory 
 
 farmer's fields and barns lie within a twelve- 
 hour transportation of seven million consumers, 
 while the great canning industry, in which 
 Maine was a pioneer and is still a leader, gives 
 him a market at his very door. And not the 
 least of his trade advantages is the near and 
 easy market made up of half a million visitors 
 who each year actually come to him begging to 
 buy. What more can he ask? The detail of 
 what can be done to add many millions to the 
 agricultural wealth of Maine would fill volumes. 
 The first great necessity is the cultivation of 
 appreciation; the second, the application of 
 efficient effort. 
 
 The development of steam and electric trans- 
 portation stands ready to meet the demands of 
 any industrial and agricultural advance. The 
 principal railroad system of the State, again 
 happily free from outside entanglements and 
 quite independent of speculative aviations in 
 Wall Street, is of Maine, for Maine, and by 
 Maine. Its operating management appreciates 
 and acts. Safety first, State development 
 
 [ 201 1
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 second. It is alive and full of ideas and effi- 
 ciency. Its hope is to see Maine come com- 
 pletely into her own. 
 
 Maine is a State of wonderful recreative reali- 
 ties. No less than these are its business oppor- 
 tunities.
 
 IX 
 
 BY WAY OF CONCLUSION 
 
 NOR are recreation and business all. 
 
 Having the run of the Speaker's office in 
 Washington in the great Reed days, as most 
 Maine men did, I happened to be reading a 
 Portland paper there one morning when the 
 card of an eminent Southern gentleman it 
 was John Wise was brought in. 
 
 "Show him in," drawled the Speaker, in one 
 of his happy, leisurely moods. 
 
 "Who's running this Government, anyway?" 
 blustered the Virginian, entering in great im- 
 portance and assumed indignation. 
 
 "The great and the good, John, of course. 
 Be calm." I can see the twinkle and hear the 
 twang even now. 
 
 "Well, the great and the good must all live 
 in Maine, then. Here I come up here on busi- 
 ness with the Secretary of State Mr. Elaine 
 [ 203 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 from Maine. I call to pay my respects to the 
 acting Vice-President Mr. Frye from Maine. 
 I wish to consult the leader of the United States 
 Senate Mr. Hale from Maine. I would talk 
 over a tariff matter with the chairman of the 
 Ways and Means Committee Mr. Dingley 
 from Maine. There is a naval bill in the House 
 in which I am greatly interested Chairman 
 Boutelle from Maine. I wish an addition to the 
 public building in Richmond Chairman Mil- 
 liken from Maine. And here I am in the august 
 presence of the great Speaker of the greatest 
 parliamentary body in the world Mr. Reed 
 from Maine." 
 
 "Yes, John, the great, and the good, and the 
 wise. The country is safe." 
 
 And they went out laughing to lunch with 
 the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States Mr. Fuller from Maine. 
 
 Men there were then. There were many be- 
 fore them, there have been many since. These 
 Maine gave to the nation, and they gave of 
 themselves freely to the public service. Big 
 I 204 ]
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 brains, natural, powerful leaders among men, 
 the easy product of the State. Just as Ohio fi- 
 nally settled down into the steady mother of 
 Presidents, so did great men become a habit in 
 Maine. The story of George Evans, William 
 Pitt Fessenden, Blaine, and Reed, in one book, 
 which should soon be written, would read like 
 the Atherton romance of Hamilton and present 
 a composite picture of great intellectual forces, 
 if not of great things done. 
 
 The men of Maine have been, are, and will 
 be its greatest asset. But to produce results in 
 their fullness at home, they must first appreci- 
 ate opportunity at home and then act with 
 commensurate confidence and courage. His- 
 tory and ancestry, both quite up to the natural 
 charm of the State, are great consoling influ- 
 ences, but they do not harness falling waters or 
 build trolley lines into the wilderness. They are 
 secure and nothing can subtract from them. 
 But they can be amplified, and thus can they 
 be best respected and thus only made useful. 
 
 Together with the other New England States, 
 [ 205 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Maine, after settling down, seemed content to 
 settle back. Her great potential forces remained 
 potential only, and development waited while 
 we gazed at the stars in Washington. Her great 
 men belonged more to the nation than to the 
 State. The others yielded to an inclination 
 toward inertia and existence by reflected glory. 
 If there were any who did not, they found scope 
 for their restlessness in the great West, and 
 pioneered new States. And of all the New Eng- 
 land impressions on the empire beyond the 
 Mississippi and they are many and pro- 
 nounced the Maine mark is not the least. 
 Therefore, seeing the great, the good, and the 
 wise of their own kith engaged in the laudable 
 and busy occupation of saving the country in 
 general and building up the West in particular, 
 it was natural for the plodders at home to lose 
 faith in their surroundings and powers. Hence 
 the halting process, and a dormant period 
 which would have been well-nigh fatal had not 
 nature asserted itself and opportunity become 
 blatant. Yankee ingenuity, even if unprompted 
 [ 206 ]
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 by thrift or necessity, cannot long sit complai- 
 sant and watch resources waste themselves. 
 Sometimes we get a jolt from without many 
 a man has come here to play and remained to 
 invest sometimes through travel and obser- 
 vation. It gave me more than pleasure to hear 
 this from a Maine bank president who returned 
 last fall from a tour of the Pacific States and 
 a visit to the two California expositions : 
 
 "When I see how little of real worth-while 
 substance they have out there, and how much 
 they do with it, and then realize how much we 
 have here in Maine, and how little we do with 
 it, I begin to think we are losing time and wast- 
 ing opportunity. Just before taking the train 
 at Los Angeles I asked a leading banker : 'What 
 keeps you going?' * Fruit and Eastern money/ 
 was his ready answer. It set me thinking, and 
 I 've been thinking ever since." 
 
 I wonder how many of our people realize that 
 our Maine-owned Maine railroad was the only 
 steam transportation company in New England 
 to earn and pay a normal dividend in 1915. 
 I 207 ]
 
 T'he Latchstring 
 
 Meanwhile, if you lay store by census figures, 
 and who does not consider that for the 
 sixty years from 1850 to 1910 the State of Maine 
 gained in population only 27 per cent, while 
 Rhode Island grew 268 per cent, Massachusetts 
 239 per cent, Connecticut 201 per cent, and New 
 Hampshire 36 per cent. Vermont alone showed 
 a smaller increase, 13 per cent. Taking State 
 areas into the account the figures are still more 
 eloquent. Maine has 29,895 square miles of 
 territory, and for this period grew in population 
 only 159,202. The other five States of New 
 England, with a total area of only 32,078 square 
 miles, grew 3,672,273. The table of "Popula- 
 tion per square mile" tells its own story and, 
 if unpleasant, is not uninteresting : 
 
 Population per square mile 
 
 1850 
 
 IQIO 
 
 Maine 
 
 20 
 
 2<; 
 
 New Hampshire 
 
 TC 
 
 48 
 
 Vermont 
 
 34 
 
 ?Q 
 
 Massachusetts 
 
 124 
 
 4IQ 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 76 
 
 2^O 
 
 Rhode Island 
 
 140 
 
 cic 
 
 
 
 
 208 1
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 Of Maine's total gain in population of 159,202 
 from 1850 to 1910, the cities of the State con- 
 tributed 123,549. The only counties to show 
 increase outside of the cities were Aroostook, 
 Penobscot, and Piscataquis. There was an 
 actual loss for the period, outside of the cities 
 and the three counties named, of 37,190. 
 
 All of which goes to show that if capital flies 
 out of the west window, men will not come in at 
 the door. Capital will, of course, seek the best 
 returns irrespective of geography and local 
 pride, and cannot be blamed. Local pride is 
 sentiment, and dividends, a living. On the 
 other hand, it should not be forgotten that a 
 good thing at home is better in the long run than 
 a better thing abroad, for it develops home re- 
 sources and increases the value of all kinds of 
 home property. Local pride should, at least, be 
 indulged to the extent of a hearing, thorough 
 investigation, and some preference, even if 
 things for the time being are not equal. 
 
 It is not a long way to the turn, nor is it dark. 
 Oftentimes we simply will not see. A small 
 [ 209 ]
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 example sometimes illustrates a tendency that 
 may be large and serious. 
 
 Last summer, in a brief and rather amateur- 
 ish tour of investigation, from the center of a 
 summer cottage and hotel population of at least 
 twenty-five thousand I drove a dozen miles 
 through a fairly good farming country, and 
 found not one farmer along the road raising 
 anything for this new and easy market. And in 
 July, August, and September the people of those 
 resorts were buying such vegetables as cucum- 
 bers and lettuce from Boston. While your so- 
 called thrifty down-east farmer sat on the shed 
 steps ruminating a straw and hard times. In 
 the published reports of the Boston Chamber 
 of Commerce on New England production, you 
 will find, for another small example, that, while 
 this section of the country is particularly well 
 adapted to raising poultry and eggs for ship- 
 ment to other markets, it actually produces 
 only about one fifth of its own consumption. 
 We often pay five cents for an Oregon apple, 
 and it is getting more difficult each year to buy 
 [ 210 ]
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 a native turkey for a New England Thanksgiv- 
 ing dinner. Other like instances in other lines 
 of Eastern production might be cited, but these 
 are enough. 
 
 There is something wrong somewhere in the 
 New England system of economy. The only 
 hopeful consideration about it is that the New 
 Englander is beginning to find it out. And not 
 the least of the influences in the process of slow 
 but sure awakening in Maine is the summer 
 visitor. He's a joy, a profit, and an educator, 
 and can't be treated too well. I would begin by 
 muffling the motor-boats. 
 
 I feel just like writing this this morning. The 
 subject ought to receive at least partial justice, 
 for I had my own personal experience with the 
 nonsense last night. It is not a topic entitled, 
 for fair treatment, to the perspective of either 
 time or distance, as all topics are all but this. 
 This is entitled to nothing. It is an enormity 
 that should be struck while the anger is hot and 
 at a time as near as possible to its committal. 
 With this inadequate foreword, let us proceed, 
 
 [211 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 lamely and mildly though it be, and even with 
 the certain knowledge that I shall fall far short 
 of framing any indictment to fit the hideousness 
 of the iniquity. 
 
 It was one of those calm, still, echoing nights 
 on the coast, when even the undertow to sleep 
 had gone; one of those nights made for com- 
 plete, unconscious rest, and that decent sleep 
 which Josie Sadler used to embalm in descrip- 
 tive song; a night when you either sleep on the 
 porch or open all the windows in order that the 
 boundless silence of all outdoors may make 
 more peaceful your peaceful slumbers. And we 
 were all awakened no less than a dozen times 
 by those senseless, criminal, exasperating, sput- 
 tering motor-boats which exhaust their gaso- 
 line engines above the water-line and without 
 mufflers. Some of the offenders, in apparent ef- 
 fort to outstrip their fellow offenders in offense, 
 run the exhaust pipe out at the side of the boat 
 and thus get the added effect of a sounding- 
 board. There are all pitches, from thundering 
 basses to high, metallic tenors. In order to 
 [ 212 ].
 
 By W^ay of Conclusion 
 
 avoid what the hypnotist calls the monotony of 
 stimulation, they "skip" at irregular intervals, 
 and this makes it certain that you do not even 
 doze for any considerable time. And on an 
 otherwise silent night, and all night, the whole 
 vicious, nerve-racking, sleep-killing fusillade 
 came ashore with gatling staccato and siege- 
 gun powers of destruction. I say criminal, be- 
 cause there is a law of the State against this 
 particular form of foolishness. But the con- 
 stable, or the sheriff, or whoever it may be 
 that should invoke it, seems loath to act be- 
 cause probably it might make trouble 
 for some of his neighbors, which at most could 
 only be putting the exhaust under water or 
 adding an inexpensive muffler to the equip- 
 ment. 
 
 Which reminds me of a hired man of our vil- 
 lage of years ago, in whose ancestry was a 
 grandmother who saw a man kill his wife and 
 put the body in a well. He used to brag about 
 this a good deal not the killing, but his 
 grandmother's seeing it. Nothing was ever 
 I 213 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 done about the murder, and one day some one 
 asked him what action she took. 
 
 "Oh, Lor'," he replied, "she just did n't do 
 nuthin'. She wa'n't no hand to make trouble." 
 
 But last night. After the lobstermen and 
 hake fishermen had exhausted this word in 
 two senses everybody's patience and sput- 
 tered home, the milkmen and vegetable ped- 
 dlers came pounding into the cove about half- 
 past four, and the tired little colony, seeking 
 rest and quiet from ceaseless metropolitan roar, 
 gave up in despair. 
 
 I thought I might be exaggerating in these 
 few heartfelt, morning-after words. But in 
 looking the situation over in calmer, saner mo- 
 ments, with a broader, more hopeful view of 
 life, with all kinds of charity and no malice at 
 all, I am impelled to make the revising insertion 
 that I have understated the case and that it 
 grows in enormity the more and more calmly 
 it is considered. 
 
 Two instances, one bearing on the public 
 health phase, the other purely commercial; dol- 
 [214]
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 lars and cents; bread and butter and cake; 
 one must have cake : 
 
 My neighbor, acting on his physician's ad- 
 vice, added to his cottage a sleeping-porch 
 large enough for the entire family of five. They 
 came earlier than usual in the spring, more on 
 account of this than anything else, and with all 
 the joys of anticipation. All thoroughly enjoyed 
 the new porch, for its novelty and freshness as 
 well as for its health-giving qualities. One of 
 the children, having suffered from a long illness 
 in the winter, began to pick up wonderfully, 
 and medicine bottles went to the scrap-heap 
 proper place. Then one calm and fatal night. 
 Then another, and another. It seemed like a 
 personal bombardment, like last night. The 
 joys and benefits of outdoor sleeping are no 
 more and the expensive porch is useless. The 
 beds have been moved in and a lot of whole- 
 some air has to be excluded with the noise. The 
 father argued with the boatmen and officers of 
 the village corporation. Nothing happened. 
 
 The owner of a large oceangoing steam yacht 
 [215]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 told me in New York last winter that he en- 
 joyed nothing in all his cruising quite so much 
 as the small but deep and picturesque harbors 
 of the Maine coast. One in particular, which he 
 named, he had frequented for years, and once, 
 and sometimes twice, each summer the yacht 
 would fit out there for cruises down the Nova 
 Scotia and Labrador coasts, spending never less 
 than a thousand dollars, and sometimes fifteen 
 hundred, for fuel and provisions. Now he never 
 comes to the harbor, and when asked why, he 
 replied with no little show of feeling : 
 
 "Your cursed motor-boats without mufflers. 
 Could n't any of us sleep nights, or have any 
 peace days." 
 
 Here was a matter of simple business for a 
 little town where a thousand dollars is a large 
 sum of money. The yacht-owner took pains to 
 make this known to the selectmen and the offi- 
 cers of the yacht club. Nothing happened. 
 
 I have dilated on this sidelight of Maine coast 
 life, because, while it seems inconsequential, it 
 is really becoming a very serious matter. Peo- 
 [216]
 
 By W^ay of Conclusion 
 
 pie who come to these shores and lakes and 
 the abuse is growing fast on the lakes have 
 tired nerves, and seek rest and quiet. Ninety 
 per cent of the men who own and operate 
 the disturbance are dependent on them for a 
 large part of their livelihood. It is more a mat- 
 ter of thoughtlessness and lack of realization 
 than anything else. And the remedy, you ask? 
 A consistent, persistent, unanimous agitation 
 in every suffering summer colony. Quote pleas- 
 antly but firmly Laurence Hutton's definition 
 of a gentleman, "A man who respects himself 
 and the feelings of others." This failing, the 
 law as it is and more if necessary, even at the 
 risk of "making trouble." 
 
 Maine ought to discover herself. And follow 
 discovery with initiative, faith with efficiency, 
 opportunity with intensiveness. These, and 
 the new spirit is here, industrial, agricultural, 
 social, and civic. These, and the new State is 
 established. By its wonderful resources of 
 Nature it will be observed. By its fruits only 
 will its men be judged. The summer visitor and 
 [ 217 ]
 
 The Latch string 
 
 the Philadelphia banker will not help those who 
 do not help themselves. 
 
 "Why, you Maine people don't seem to have 
 any idea what you have down here," said a 
 New Yorker at Bethel last spring. The war had 
 kept him from Europe; it was his first visit to 
 the State, and he came to recuperate from ill- 
 ness. "Why don't you shout about it?" 
 
 It is not necessary to shout, but we might 
 whisper it along the line. We read and hear 
 much about the potential future of States, and 
 cities, and other communities. A fine thing to 
 think about, but if we only think, a poor asset. 
 It is hard to borrow money on paper possibili- 
 ties, however logical the prospectus may paint 
 them. 
 
 But appreciation is a long and important 
 step. We have taken it, and there is ample 
 ground for the belief that the beginning of a 
 new era has come. More than this, we have 
 arrived at the stage where local minds are flexi- 
 ble and suggestion has value. 
 
 An automobile party of fifteen tired men and 
 [218]
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 women, in three big touring cars, turned up at 
 the Lafayette Hotel in Portland one evening in 
 the summer of 1912, and called for maps. They 
 had come on from New York for a tour of New 
 England, and planned to spend ten days in 
 Maine motoring through the lake country and 
 along the seacoast. That afternoon they had 
 experienced the road from Kittery to Portland, 
 the one highway used more than any other in 
 the State, and at that time for the most part 
 in all its prehistoric roughness. The maps they 
 requested were for the shortest route to New 
 Hampshire. Early next morning they took it. 
 Multiply this instance by hundreds, covering 
 the period of time which the State took to wake 
 up to good roads, and you will get some idea of 
 the loss of good business by bad economy. It 
 so happened in this case that the conversation 
 in the hotel office was overheard by a Maine 
 man with a flexible mind, State pride, initiative, 
 influence, power, and endurance in agitation. 
 The legislature the next winter appropriated 
 two million dollars for State highways, and 
 [ 219 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Maine is at last on the automobile map. You 
 can now motor from Kittery to Portland in joy 
 and comfort. Still in the momentum of com- 
 mon sense and good work the following legis- 
 lature provided for a fine avenue through the 
 wilderness from Jackman to Kineo. It taps the 
 main thoroughfare from Portland to Quebec 
 and makes the charms of Kineo and other 
 Moosehead resorts not only possible but con- 
 venient to visitors who would otherwise pass 
 them by. Consider that these sums, large for a 
 State like Maine, were appropriated by a legis- 
 lature made up of men who had hitherto seen 
 little or no business for themselves in other 
 people's pleasure, and you will find realization 
 in process. 
 
 It is time for a forest reserve. Maine could 
 make no better investment. It should be 
 bought, owned, and controlled by the Common- 
 wealth for the common welfare, for the business 
 of its own citizens and the pleasure of its guests. 
 To be sure, the real-estate transaction might 
 involve the payment of ten dollars an acre to 
 [ 220 ]
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 the very men who bought the same land from 
 the State at ten cents an acre, but it would be 
 good business even then, and the lesson worth 
 the money. At a time when outside suggestion 
 seems to be worth something because it is at 
 least considered, Maine can well follow the 
 example of the Central Government and of 
 other States and establish a reserve that in 
 years to come will yield tenfold. In view of its 
 greatest assets, their character and close rela- 
 tion to an institution of this kind, no State 
 in the Union could get such large proportional 
 returns. Four townships in the wild forest and 
 lake region, with a total area of 150,000 acres, 
 would be sufficient. The reserve could be used 
 for all kinds of forestry and farm experiment, 
 the propagation of game which should not 
 be hunted within the limits and fish. Its 
 direct money value to all classes of citizens can- 
 not be overestimated. If the expenditure of two 
 million dollars on good roads is a good invest- 
 ment, and it is, why not the expenditure of half 
 or three quarters of that sum on a state park 
 
 [ 221 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 which has equal advantages. Respectfully and 
 seriously referred to the Committee on Wild 
 Lands; hearing requested. 
 
 Also most respectfully and most seriously re- 
 ferred to the Committee of the Whole, with the 
 recommendation that the rules be suspended 
 and the bill pass at once, the financial possibili- 
 ties of Maine as a winter resort. Why hiber- 
 nate? In the State there is an establishment 
 for the comfortable entertainment of half a 
 million guests. Why should all this property 
 lie idle for ten months in the year, and all the 
 capital that produced it remain inactive five- 
 sixths of the time? There are four seasons here. 
 Each has its own distinctive glory, and all a 
 health-laden atmosphere. What could be more 
 beautiful than a snow-clad Mount Desert? An 
 old-fashioned Maine winter is worth crossing 
 a continent or an ocean to enjoy. It has zest, 
 sting, stimulation, recuperation, juniper, red 
 berries, sleigh-bells, and boundless possibilities 
 in financial development. Why not? 
 
 The winter before this inconceivable war 
 
 [ 222 ]
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 broke out little Switzerland, with less than half 
 the territory of Maine, had within her borders 
 500,000 tourists, as many as Maine received 
 during the following summer, the greatest sea- 
 son in its history as a national playground. In 
 the hotels of Lucerne alone 187,000 were regis- 
 tered. The Maine hills are not so high, but 
 there are more of them. There are 4000 square 
 miles of lakes and small ponds here, and they 
 are as sure to freeze to a skating, ice-boating, 
 and horse-racing thickness as Thanksgiving and 
 Christmas are sure to come. And ice-fishing 
 galore, a growing sport full of health and gentle 
 excitement, especially on skates. And maple- 
 tree tapping in March. The wondrous si- 
 lence of the first snowfall in the great Maine 
 woods is an experience of Nature worth hav- 
 ing. We have all the winter Switzerland has, 
 and more. 
 
 Half of the State is as far north as Montreal, 
 and Montreal has been a winter resort for forty 
 years. Besides, have we not Peary for a gen- 
 eral, all-round winter instructor? 
 [ 223 1
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 Times have changed, and, fortunately, the 
 family physician has changed with them. Ask 
 him the comparative restorative powers of 
 rugged outdoor treatment in a crisp, Northern 
 winter, and he will astonish you by saying they 
 are not comparative at all, but superlative. The 
 chemist has become more useful in externals, 
 less in internals. The common prescription 
 now, because it is the best, is for Maine ozone. 
 Get it filled at headquarters and take in double 
 doses. 
 
 The comfortable old Mansion House at 
 Poland Springs, whose proprietors for more 
 than half a century have been leaders in the 
 development of Maine as a resort State, has 
 made a substantial beginning. In a spirit of 
 enterprise that can be emulated with like re- 
 sults in almost any part of northern New Eng- 
 land, this hotel added to its already generous 
 equipment outdoor sports and other attractions 
 of the winter season and let the fact be known. 
 Mr. Hiram W. Ricker even went to far-off St. 
 Moritz for winter ideas. He found they could 
 [ 224 ]
 
 By TVay of Conclusion 
 
 be adapted to Maine, not only with profit to 
 Poland Springs, but to the great advantage of 
 the whole State. In the last three years the 
 winter business of that hotel has increased more 
 than fifty per cent, and before long it will be 
 necessary to open the big house in January and 
 February to accommodate the growing number 
 of winter health and pleasure seekers. 
 
 Mr. Arthur G. Staples, who with his pen has 
 accomplished much for the State of Maine, 
 never did anything more effective than when, 
 in an address to an astonished State Board of 
 Trade, he pointed out the tremendous possibili- 
 ties of Maine as a winter resort and convinced a 
 rather conservative body of business men that 
 a season hitherto regarded by them as a liabil- 
 ity could be easily and inexpensively converted 
 into a great asset. Among many other good 
 things he said: 
 
 "The whole State should be a winter resort. 
 
 But we can't expect business as such to do it all. 
 
 It is not altogether a commercial proposition. 
 
 The town officers and the city fathers, from the 
 
 [225 ]
 
 The Latchstring 
 
 sociological and civic side, must see the point 
 also. I know it may look difficult at first to 
 popularize winter sports, but I do believe that 
 if public ice-rinks were established by public 
 money and made the scene of festivals and 
 games, there would be a beginning in Maine of 
 public recognition of outdoor life that would 
 reconstruct winter into a season of better busi- 
 ness and fuller enjoyment. 
 
 "If there is anything which the weaver of 
 fancies can say of the Alpine winter that we 
 cannot say in truth of the winters in Maine, I 
 cannot discover it save in the attitude of the 
 people themselves. Through pure publicity, 
 they have made the bob-sleigh run at St. Moritz 
 famous throughout the world. They have done 
 all that capital and brains and a community of 
 interests can do and they charge you well ; 
 but they cannot beat our winter, and they have 
 nothing to surpass the glories of the hills, the 
 mountains, and the forests of our inland Maine. 
 This is the land of all the best of the white gods 
 of winter. It is for us to appreciate it; to foster 
 [ 226 ]
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 it; to spread about the truth concerning its 
 health-giving properties; to convert its ancient 
 liability and loss not only into a present asset, 
 but an increasing gain; to help it build up and 
 invigorate new races of men and women, who 
 shall stir and energize mankind. We must 
 learn to love winter, to talk of its beauties, when 
 we are at home or abroad, to describe truthfully 
 its poetry and its loveliness. Then, with big 
 and beautiful hotels, with civic sports, and 
 other increasing devotion to outdoor life, we 
 shall see winter do its proper share toward en- 
 riching us commercially, as well as physically 
 and spiritually." 
 
 Faith first. Works will follow. Eastward the 
 course of empire is returning. A thorough ap- 
 preciation that this, too, is a land of opportu- 
 nity, a little more courage, the cultivation of 
 a reasonable spirit of venture, and the world is 
 ours the whole year round. 
 
 "The people of Maine have inherited riches 
 of earth, and air, and water such as belong to 
 no other people under the sun," said Dr. 
 [ 227 ]
 
 "The Latchstring 
 
 Dingley forty years ago, in a spirit of wisdom 
 and prophecy which in riper years and more 
 righteousness still flourishes like the palm tree. 
 The great inheritance all of it is still 
 theirs, and accumulating. The charm of the 
 State a quality of such fineness that it does 
 not come within the limits of verbal descrip- 
 tion is as permanent as the green hills. What 
 her people do with it depends on the degree of 
 stimulation that can be given to belief and ef- 
 fort. Success can only follow trial. Fruition is 
 a result, not a prospect. 
 
 Her compliments to California. At a time 
 when one hemisphere was wallowing in the 
 worst war in history, when the other was doubt- 
 ful and timid in business, in two cities, one not 
 yet recovered from great disaster, this magnifi- 
 cent State set up monuments of peaceful enter- 
 prise which the whole world will ever admire. 
 The thought alone was success, the undertaking 
 a triumph. The pendulum will soon swing back 
 across the continent. The country is looking to 
 Maine coming to Maine. In the same spirit 
 [ 228 ]
 
 By Way of Conclusion 
 
 let us do with what we have, and do well. The 
 future is secure. 
 
 I have enjoyed writing this book. It was 
 easy to begin, difficult to stop. Because the 
 half has not been told. 
 
 THE END
 
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