Some Hermit Homes of California Writers [pp. 3-10]

Some Hermit Homes of California Writers
use the accompanying pictures of this
home he charged me to be sure and say
that the gun leaning against the big
chimney-jamb is not his. During all his
thirteen years' sojourn in the wilderness
he never used such a thing. He lived
among the birds and the beasts, but he
did not kill his neighbors. A bag containing bread he carried over one shoulder. A
packet of tea and an alcohol lamp traveled
in one pocket. These constituted his provision in the food line. A little melted
snow gave him water for his tea, the bread
satisfied hunger. His bill of fare seldom
men would regard his life, even when
toasting and working beside the ho,spitable fire that used to roar up the great
chimney, as that of a sybarite. The
world owes a great deal to that little hut
on the edge of the glacier. People do not
pilgrimage to it, as they do to the place
where Thoreau's cabin stood beside Walden Pond,-its site marked by an evergrowing heap of stones reared by visitors;
but it is as pleasant to think of Mr Muir's
tiny house with its big warm heart, up
there in the ice, as it is to remember Walden.
Interior of Mr. Muir's Cabin on Muir Glacier
varied during his long, hard tramps. He
had to travel light. There were seasons
when, so arduous were his labors, that he
could not carry on his climbing tramps
even the thin half-blanket which on more
luxurious journeys he sometimes took
with him. Then he was wont to make a
blanket of the soft snow, hollowing out
a bed from its white depths, in which,
with feet toward his camp-fire, he slept
the sleep of weariness.
In his glacier-bound storm-nest, however, he took his ease, or what he was
pleased to consider his ease, though few
I was reminded of Mr. Muir's remarks
about the gun when, some time ago,, Yone
Noguchli, telling me of his home and
friends in far-away Japan, said, "My
father has never heard any sound of
gun." Noguchi is about the only one left
to us of our hermit writers. He is still
upon his hill-top, mooning among the redwoods, and there I visited him recently.
He saw me from afar, as I did him, but
instead of coming to meet me he fled to
his cabin, hastily closing the do,or after
him. I stood without and laughed, knowing full well the cause of his panic, until,
5,