CHAPTER XVI.
IN THE WOODS.
Forgotten medicine and renewed health--An excursion planned--A gun wanted, but denied--Setting out on a long tramp--Swamps--Upland--Brooks--How Brookdale got its name--Cutting canes--Birch and beech--How to crook the handle of a cane--The philosophy of it explained--The cigars--Fine groves--Stopping to rest--The forest described--Birds and guns--Other game--Jim Oakley's strange animal--Moose--The man who met a bear--A race--Mysterious disappearance of the bear--The probable cause of his visit--The boy who killed two bears--Oscar's courage--Prospect Rock--A fine view--The rabbit--The woodchuck's hole--Crossing a swamp--Mosquitoes--The pond--The hermit's hut--Some account of "Old Staples"-- Buried treasures--Making a fire--Baking potatoes and toasting cheese--Drinking pond water--Dinner--Hunting for the hermit's money--What they meant to do with it--A bath proposed--Smoothing over the matter--Going Into water--Drying their hair--Going home--Lost In the woods--Arrival home--One kind of punishment for wrong-doing..