Preview
Circa Date
1887
Transcription
111
Tough & elastic, every inch of him, undiseased as a sunbeam. Dim unobtrusive in color like the bark of the trees, busy active belligerent pugnacious comic in size threatening intruder vigilant telling endless stories of inner fire well called Lightning Sq scolding grimacing
At distance of ½ inch like
(Falls)
Broad white fleeces of foam nearer as sheets & strips of embroidery [of] in which the sunbeams revel revealing endless variety of pattern
(Birds)
Asleep beneath the matted dwarf pine tassels, breast of feathers puffed over toes while the wind falls rough & chill from the icy crags overhead & the nights seem long
(hunters)
Jim, what ya goin’ to do this winter, hunt or plow. What’s plow
$25 a month & no meals a month. Milk in coffee yes but that’s just about nothin’ when you come to look at it. You can count to a cent all you could possibly [have] in 100 years & it wouldn’t be much No chance for fortune. But in huntin’ there’s everything. The hunters of the Sierra are a quiet, slow-going keen eyed set stealthy & deliberate as cats with no romantic blowing of horns & baying of hounds. No going forth to greenwood of a merry morning to ding the dun deer down. But just calm killers [mostly] [or chance] for meat & money [food] Killing now a deer for everything & fun & freedom & fresh air. Meat & money mines now a grouse or a woodchuck if no better game is to be had. All have an eye to gold & do more or less prospecting trying to believe that there is a mine & fortune for them waiting somewhere. Some go afoot carrying beside
112
their rifle & ammunition a few pounds of flour bacon & coffee but most lead a horse or mule with saddle bags are emptied of provision they are fitted with rock specimens from many a ledge. Where deer is killed, they make a central camp & explore the adjacent country while the meat lasts. Also kill a bear or two per season, [In] some of the meat They become more & more deliberate as the years go by seldom get excited after a 1000 disappointments as to the main object there are [ ] by finding much good unsought for some even enjoy [scenery] & like to gain ridge & mountain top for the sake of the view. The joys of the game destroyer not his to any great extent.
# (Squirrel)
The brightest most vigorous beast of his inches in ○ [world]
Small whiskered hero Lord of the evergreens abiding winter & summer all the year. Enduring all kinds of weather like trees bold in snow seems to like it needs no pity. One would as soon think of pitying a quartz crystal. How he works when the cones are ripe. Not a lazy hair on him. His life all pure wildness of finest mettle. What a track he makes! As full of curious loops & swirls & glinting gliding glancing hither thither motions as (the course of) a (merry) brook ono a rocky hillside. Never old or young all seem in their prime
06474
Resource Identifier
MuirReel33 Notebook01 Img058.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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