It may have been, or may be, in Maine, or New Hampshire, or Vermont, or New York.

It was in the northern part of one of these States, and not far from the border of a wilderness, almost as deep and silent as any that can be found beyond the western limit of settlement and civilization.

The red man had left it forever, but the bear, the deer and the moose remained.

The streams and lakes were full of trout; otter and sable still attracted the trapper, and here and there a lumberman lingered alone in his cabin, enamored of the solitude and the wild pursuits to which a hardly gentler industry had introduced him.
Such lumber as could be drifted down the streams had long been cut and driven out, and the woods were left to the hunter and his prey, and to the incursions of sportsmen and seekers for health, to whom the rude residents became guides, cooks, and servants of all work, for the sake of occasional society, and that ever-serviceable consideration--money.
There were two establishments in Sevenoaks which stood so far away from the stream that they could hardly be described as attached to it.
Northward, on the top of the bleakest hill in the region, stood the Sevenoaks poor-house.

In dimensions and population, it was utterly out of proportion to the size of the town, for the people of Sevenoaks seemed to degenerate into paupers with wonderful facility.