"
One day we went 'cross lots after spearmint for jelly for the table
at Woodchuck Lodge, and an abandoned house near the mint-patches
recalled to Mr. Burroughs the first time he had heard the word
"taste" used, except in reference to food. The woman who had lived
in this house, while calling at his home and seeing his attempt at
drawing something, had said, "What taste that boy has!" "It made me
open my eyes--'taste'!--then there was another kind of taste than
the one I knew about--the taste of things I ate!"
At a place in the road near the old stone schoolhouse, he showed me
where, as a lad of thirteen, perhaps, he had stopped to watch some
men working the road, and had first heard the word "antiquities"
used. "They had uncovered and removed a large flat stone, and under
it were other stones, probably arranged by the hands of earlier
roadmakers. David Corbin, a man who had had some schooling, said,
as they exposed the earlier layers, 'Ah! here are antiquities!'
The word made a lasting impression on me."
[Illustration: View of the Catskills from Woodchuck Lodge.
From a photograph by Charles S. Olcott]
One of our favorite walks at sunset was up the hill beyond the old
home where the road winds around a neglected graveyard. From this
high vantage-ground one can see two of the Catskill giants--Double
Top and Mount Graham.
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