Adirondack Sketches, Part II [pp. 773-782]

A ADIRONDA CK SKE TCI-ES. S7
La Flamme stood in the doorway; the words smote his
heavy heart. "Aily! Aily!" he cried.
"Papa-mamma!" sobbed the child, as she fell in her fa ther's arms.
About a quarter of a mile from the village hostelry, in
one of the two-and-twenty low, shambling log-houses, lived La
Flamme. His house was built in Squidville's only style- logs
mortised togeth er, with here and
there a huge iron
clamp,"to steady
her a bit," as
Cagy used to re mark. The space H
between the logs
was filled up wi th
rough mortar.
The effect of p lsti
such a house on
the eye was far w
from pleasing; o
yet in point of
comfort it far ex- i
celled the ordina- i
ry country frame house. It was':~
one of Buttons'
ordinary remarks
that "such houses 4
were native to i i
the soil," and 4
there was much
truth in this observation.
clouds teem on
the mountain's ",THE SMOKE CEASED IN BUTTONS' PIPE."
brow, and fierce
winds drive the sleet over the lowlands, making it as prickly
as sharp-pointed needles, there is an indescribable comfort in a
log-cabin, with its laughing fire of crackling pine logs. A stranger would easily guess that there was something wrong in
this cabin from the continual opening and shutting of the doo,