Already the maples were crimson and gold, and the wild
laughter of the loons echoed in sheltered bays that never knew their
strange cry in the summer.
With a whole island to oneself, a two-storey cottage, a canoe, and only
the chipmunks, and the farmer's weekly visit with eggs and bread, to
disturb one, the opportunities for hard reading might be very great. It
all depends!
The rest of the party had gone off with many warnings to beware of
Indians, and not to stay late enough to be the victim of a frost that
thinks nothing of forty below zero. After they had gone, the loneliness
of the situation made itself unpleasantly felt. There were no other
islands within six or seven miles, and though the mainland forests lay a
couple of miles behind me, they stretched for a very great distance
unbroken by any signs of human habitation. But, though the island was
completely deserted and silent, the rocks and trees that had echoed
human laughter and voices almost every hour of the day for two months
could not fail to retain some memories of it all; and I was not
surprised to fancy I heard a shout or a cry as I passed from rock to
rock, and more than once to imagine that I heard my own name called
aloud.
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