Joyce of the North Woods

When the splendid lumber had been felled within a prescribed limit, Industry took another leap, left St. Ange scarred and blighted, with a fringe of forest north and south, and struck camps farther back and nearer Canada.

Then Nature began to heal the stricken heart of the Solitude. A second growth of lovely tree and bush sprang to the call, and the only reminders of the camp were the absences of the men during the logging season, and the roaring and rushing of the river through Long Meadow every spring, with its burden of logs from the distant camps.

In the beginning St. Ange had had her aspirations. A futile highway had been constructed, for no other purpose apparently, than to connect the north and south forests. A little church had been built?there had never been any regular service held in it?and a small school-house which promptly degenerated into the Black Cat Tavern, General Store, and Post Office. A few modest houses met the highway face to face; a few more turned their backs upon it and were content with an outlook across Long Meadow and toward Beacon Hill, beyond which lay the village of Hillcrest which grew in importance as St. Ange degenerated. There were scattered houses among the clumps of maple and pine growths, and there was a forlorn railroad station before which a rickety, single track branch ended. Sometime during the day a train came in, and after an uncertain period it departed; it was the only link with the outer world that St. Ange had except what came by way of Hillcrest.