Firelight

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Text originally published in 1937 under the same title.

© Papamoa Press 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

FIRELIGHT

BY

BURTON L. SPILLER

Illustrated by

LYNN BOGUE HUNT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

FOREWORD 5

ILLUSTRATIONS 7

DOG DAYS 9

BEAR 25

THE REFF 35

SMOKE EASTER 44

STORM 54

THE LOQUACIOUS GUILD 71

LOST 79

BULL 92

WHITE DEER 99

NET PROFIT 112

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 134

DEDICATION

TO THE BEST GUIDE I EVER KNEW—

MY DAD

FOREWORD

Like the grouse dogs he so often described in his stories, Burton L. Spiller was also a specialist, his specialty being hunting and fishing in New England. His most frequent subject and one for which he possessed an uncommon sensitivity was His majesty, the grouse (the title of one of his stories). In fact, Spiller wrote with such consistent genius on the topic that he has often been called the poet laureate of grouse hunting. Spiller also wrote about trout and salmon fishing and other topics pertaining to man in the wilds of New England, but whether his stories on these subjects are worthy of a crown for their creator is a decision that must be made by the reader. Certainly his gift of expression is present; perhaps his sensitivity is there as well. Suffice it to say that sporting writer and close friend H. G. Tapply wrote that Spiller’s passion for trout and salmon in the spring equaled that for grouse and woodcock in the fall.

Burton Spiller was born in Portland, Maine in 1886. He worked for a time as a blacksmith and later at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. He also raised gladioli commercially and introduced several new varieties, made a couple of violins and some hunting knives, and of course, hunted and fished. His love of the sporting life encouraged Spiller to write down-East stories during a time when game was plentiful in New England, and he wrote in the company of other sporting authors including Nash Buckingham, Archibald Rutledge, Ray Holland, William Harnden Foster, Harold Sheldon, Paul Curtis and Ben Ames Williams.

Eugene V. Connet III saw fit to use his prized Derrydale Press stamp on four of Spiller’s books, all issued in a limited number of 950 copies: Grouse Feathers (priced at $7.50 at its introduction in 1935, illustrated by Lynn Bogue Hunt), Thoroughbred (1936, illustrated by Hunt), Firelight (1937, illustrated by Hunt, front cover by Edgar Burke), and More Grouse Feathers (1938, illustrated by Hunt). At least two books were published later: the last book during Spiller’s lifetime, Drummer in the Woods (1962, Van Nostrand, drawings by Milton C. Weiler) and Fishin’ Around, which was published posthumously in 1974. Many readers have begun sporting book collections after discovering the works of Burton Spiller, many quite recently when Grouse Feathers and More Grouse Feathers were reissued by Crown in 1972. In addition, Spiller was a frequent contributor to outdoor periodicals (including the old National Sportsman, Hunting and Fishing and Field & Stream) and such general interest magazines as Cosmopolitan.

Firelight is not about grouse. With the exception of the lead story, it comprises tales of fishing and other adventures in New England in the first part of the 20th century. As I read the beginning chapters, my first impression was that Burton Spiller was letting me down. He ought to stick to subjects he knew, I thought, and what he knew best were grouse and grouse dogs. Why was he writing about a fireman, a sailor in a rough sea and other topics not even related to hunting and fishing? Closing the book I remembered that Firelight preceded More Grouse Feathers and followed Grouse Feathers and Thoroughbred. Presumably Spiller, like any other artist, could not always be at such a peak. He had produced two masterpieces of sporting literature with his grouse books; he couldn’t be that good in Firelight. Thus, I surmised that Firelight was a letdown for Spiller, a vent for his talents during a trough in his creative cycle. The empirical evidence seemed to support my theory: of the four Derrydale Press books published by Connett in four years, Spiller’s grouse books ranked high with readers; Firelight was a low. Firm in my logic (for what is stronger than empirical evidence in support of a theory), I resolved to let this foreword reveal that Spiller is a good storyteller and that these stories are good entertainment, but don’t expect, I thought, to place this book on the altar where his grouse books belong.

It didn’t take long for my opinion of Firelight to change. The next morning dawned gray and damp and seemed at first glance to be ideal for bird hunting until I noticed the east wind stirring the unraked leaves into tiny whirlwinds. As I watched the leaves in their orderly dance, I recalled that Spiller wrote about days like this in Firelight, probably even using the same phrases. It suddenly occurred to me that the secret and the strength of his writing is his eye for such easily overlooked things as an east wind which means so much to the outdoorsman. In my hurry to form an opinion, I had neglected the very heart of Burton Spiller’s writing.

Spiller’s eye sorted through facts and details and focused on those of consequence by applying common woods sense, honed through personal experience. It is an attribute Spiller admired, and there is scarcely a story in Firelight or his other works without at least one character who possesses this trait.

Simple words, simple sentences and what seem to be simple thoughts characterize most of his work. However, simple though his stories may be, they have a way of embedding themselves in one’s memory. What Spiller’s writing has to offer us, several generations and nearly a half century later, is an eye sharpened by his reverence for all that is wild and near wild in his New England. He took his share of fish and game, perhaps more, but it was the chase that held the appeal. He wrote about quitting early in a productive day partly because a surfeit of game or fish always takes away the keen thrill of the sport. And Spiller had his own measuring scale for success, whether it concerned a man who achieved it in the outside world and was a failure in the woods, or in his description of a portrait of a bird dog named Jack which was done in oils by a master who was no greater an artist than was Jack. He revered the woodsmen and guides who had been seasoned in the wilderness or the sea.

As I thought again about what I had read, I realized that Spiller knew a great deal about the subjects in Firelight. Equally important, he knew and wrote about the essence of each subject. Don’t expect a Melville epic or the introspection of Thoreau in these stories: expect Spiller’s own brand of honesty and wit. Although Burton Spiller died in May 1973 at 86, I predict that fragments of his Firelight will remain in my mind, much as fragments of the grouse books have endured. They will remain simply because they are stories about the little things, the things that mean so much to those of us who, like Burton Spiller, revere the outdoors.

E. M. Saniga

Newark, Delaware

ILLUSTRATIONS

The fly snapped free

—but it never reached the cup.

My feet didn’t have much inclination to stay on the ground.

He kicked and choked some.

The propeller caught and we dashed forward.

I threw the rifle to my shoulder.

The deer did not deliberately charge.

She came toward him.

Faultless ensemble of sartorial perfection.

DOG DAYS

I HOPE I may never forget the lodge room at Tracy’s. Its exterior looked much the same as when the elder Tracy built it some fifty years ago, but the bark has long since rotted from the log walls and they have become weathered and beautiful with the wintry blasts and summer suns of a half century. The pine split shingles which were its original covering have long since been replaced by less artistic but more efficient substitutes, but, with the exception of these slight changes, the exterior remains the same.

The interior, too, has changed since I first knew it in the days of my boyhood. The logs were moss chinked then and the walls were covered with many thicknesses of yellowed newspapers, but these inelegant but practical wind breakers have long since been replaced by cedar sheathing, laboriously tongued and grooved by hand, and with the plane marks still showing beneath the lightly sanded surface.

No longer is there any character of newness about it, though. The unvarnished wood has seasoned for a quarter century and has absorbed nicotine from the smoke of countless pipes until it has attained a richness of finish it would be hard to duplicate. The stark colors of the new wood have softened. The chestnut hues have become rare old mahogany, and the glaring whites are now an inconspicuous and pleasing chrome.

But little of the wood on the walls is visible now, for above the three foot wainscoting they are almost completely covered with photographs. Photographs of celebrities—the great and the near great—as well as those individuals whose only hope for distinction lies in the fact that their likenesses are thumb-tacked here in such illustrious company.

Despite the diversity of types, even the most casual observer would become immediately aware of one common characteristic in each portrayed likeness. From the costliest half tone enlargement down to the lowliest snapshot, one cannot help but notice the same intentness of pose and the deadly seriousness of the subject. It would seem that each, if he were permitted the boon of speech, would express a common thought. I imagine such would be the case, for there is a mute appeal in each straining posture, a pleading look in each bulging eye which seems to say Hurry up, Boss! I have him this time! He’s right here in front of me in that clump of bushes!

Yes, they might well make some such remark for they are bird dogs—every one of them. The very place is suggestive of bird dogs. To reach it one must drive through a dozen miles of lowlands. The air is humid with the moisture which arises from the springy, sweet-grass bottoms where alders and iron bushes grow lush and rank. There are innumerable slightly elevated ridges where gray birches and stunted pine predominate and afford coolness and shade for the mottled russet chap who finds in this otherwise valueless area a haven to his liking. It is woodcock country, every last inch of it, and it is a strip of land some twenty-five miles long by six or seven broad. To the westward the towering hills deflect the cold winter winds, shunting them upward into the fast moving upper currents, while to the eastward lies the sea whose waters temper both the winter’s cold and the summer’s hottest sun.

That combination of mountain wall and ocean barrier are in part responsible for the superior shooting this particular stretch of land affords. The towering hills, stretching far inland, shunt the migrating birds ever toward the sea until they converge at last on that tunnel-like strip of land. So admirably adapted to their requirements it is, that many terminate their spring migration here and remain to raise their broods. One will find the place teeming with them on the opening day of any season.

Then, too, the sheltered area meets the approval of the fall migration, and in the old days of a long open season, one could often find good shooting there as late as mid-November.

It was near the northern end of this Mecca that the elder Tracy built his sportsman’s lodge. He had an intimate knowledge of the land and a keen vision concerning the future, and while it was inevitable his neighbors should believe him a bit mad, that belief only enabled him to secure a better price on the land they regarded as almost without value. Bit by bit he acquired title until he owned every last worthwhile acre, and then he began reaping the harvest which has steadily increased in value despite the ever shortening season.

It is an ultra-exclusive club now and the membership fees have gone far beyond the realms of possibility for me, yet I visit it occasionally for the memories it recalls, as well as for its present associations. One evening in that well remembered room is worth, alone, whatever it costs.

To stand before the huge, mica-flecked, granite fireplace which occupies most of the northern wall, and examine one by one the treasures that rest upon the split stone shelf, is a pleasure I cannot forego for long. A charcoal sketch, done on a broad cedar shingle, occupies the place of honor in the center. It is unsigned, yet it needs no signature to attest the fact that it was done by one of the world’s renowned artists who have found happiness here. It is done fearlessly, in great broad strokes which are the sure mark of genius, yet so faithful it is that one has but to look intently at it for a moment and the somber black transforms itself into the rich mahogany coat of an Irish setter, sliding with bracing legs to a sudden and intense point. That act, in itself, has not yet been consummated, but one waits breathlessly for that next instant when the moving body shall have ceased its forward progress and frozen into a statue which is destined to become a model for all pointing dogs yet to be born through all the ages to come.

There are framed and colored prints of all the national champions since Grand Junction first became a battle ground on which the contestants fought for that coveted honor. There’s a portrait of Jack, done in oils by a master who was no greater artist than was Jack. Yes, Jack was an old master in his knowledge of woodcock, and when he was finally laid away, at the ripe old age of fourteen, he had a trifle more than seventeen hundred birds chalked up either to his credit or against it.

Everything in the lodge is reminiscent of dogs. Coming in from the crisp out of doors air one is instantly aware of a faint, doggy odor. In the humid days of Indian Summer when the ground is steaming anew with the unseasonable heat, it is almost unpleasantly pronounced.

In my youth I considered it the most delightful spot on earth and it called me with power I could not resist. To sit in that charmed circle before the blazing fire, while an October moon rode high in the heavens outside and the white frost dropped down on the birch sidehills, was my dream of Paradise. The men gathered here were the embodiment of what I hoped to be. They were bird hunters, every one of them, and in my mind that was a height beyond which no man could climb. In the early days they were a comparatively local group but as the years passed and cars became more plentiful—and birds less so—new faces appeared with ever increasing frequency.

There used to be something almost sacred about the assembling of the old-time gang on October First. With no foreknowledge of the exigencies of business with which they were harried, one could picture quite accurately the faces he would see again on the opening week. Of course the Tracys would be there to welcome us. Bob, Senior, was nearing sixty but he was youthfully slim and straight and his hair was as black as a raven’s wing. Long legged and athletic, he was a hard man to follow for any part of any day in any hunting season.

Young Bob would be there, too. A lithe and active youngster so full of enthusiasm and boundless energy that he had not yet learned to coordinate mind and muscle to time effectually a woodcock’s flight or, as yet, to control his hot temper to a point where he could be safely trusted with the schooling of a headstrong young dog.

Steve would be there the first week. For him it was a week filched from a lucrative plumbing business, and contrary to his usual custom, he would bring the necessary tools with him. Denied the privilege of hunting for the entire season, he yet made much of his one short week, plodding stolidly along behind his equally stolid setter and shooting far better than any man had a right to shoot whose gun stood in its corner for fifty-one weeks of the year.

Doc would arrive sometime before