Zane Grey

The Young Forester Zane Grey

Travelling was a new experience to me, and on the first night after I left home I lay awake untilwe reached Altoona. We rolled out of smoky Pittsburg at dawn, and from then on the only bitterdrop in my cup of bliss was that the train went so fast I could not see everything out of my window. Four days to ride! The great Mississippi to cross, the plains, the Rocky Mountains, then theArizona plateaus-a long, long journey with a wild pine forest at the end! I wondered what more anyyoung fellow could have wished. With my face glued to the car window I watched the level countryspeed by. There appeared to be one continuous procession of well-cultivated farms, little hamlets, andprosperous towns. What interested me most, of course, were the farms, for all of them had somekind of wood. We passed a zone of maple forests which looked to be more carefully kept than theothers. Then I recognized that they were maple-sugar trees. The farmers had cleaned out the otherspecies, and this primitive method of forestry had produced the finest maples it had ever been mygood-fortune to see. Indiana was flatter than Ohio, not so well watered, and therefore less heavilytimbered. I saw, with regret, that the woodland was being cut regularly, tree after tree, and stacked incords for firewood. At Chicago I was to change for Santa Fe, and finding my train in the station I climbed aboard. Mycar was a tourist coach. Father had insisted on buying a ticket for the California Limited, but I hadargued that a luxurious Pullman was not exactly the thing for a prospective forester. Still I pocketedthe extra money which I had assured him he need not spend for the first-class ticket. The huge station, with its glaring lights and clanging bells, and the outspreading city, soon gaveplace to prairie land. That night I slept little, but the very time I wanted to be awake-when we crossed theMississippi-I was slumbering soundly, and so missed it.