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Show v v v v ' ..! ; . " ; . lj MARY jjj 5: SUCCEEDS on n 1 1 MAIN STREET ll l: ; ;; ,. 3; By LAURA MILLER J :: , ' '."'. tj by Laura Miller HOSTESS OF TORCH-LIGHT FISHING LAKE I.nc du Flambeau, Wis., seemed In 1915 a very deserted little Main Street Originally it was a sandy trail through great white pine trees, from Indian fishing village to Indian hunting grounds. Then French voyageurs In search of beaver followed it and translated trans-lated its Indian name, Was-Wah-Gam-lug, "Near - the - Torch - Light-Fishlng-Lake," into their own tongue. Followed Fol-lowed Americans who persuaded the descendants of Hiawatha to make Lac du Flambeau the center of a permanent perma-nent reservation. But year after year, generation after generation, say the old men, the trail remained the same pine-shadowed, moccasin-printed highway. high-way. Nineteen fifteen saw It sun-bitten, dusty, desolate, running through a devastated de-vastated country past a wrecked sawmill, saw-mill, beyond rows of uupainted, deserted desert-ed cabins that mill workers hnd used while the company stripped the reservation reser-vation of Its timber. One painted house stood apart at the end of the trail where the lake wtwes up to meet It. One of the two remaining clumps of trees siood near. One of the few spirits which had absorbed from ruthless ruth-less business the good to be learned and avoided the 111, dwelt in the painted paint-ed house. The one pair of eyes that saw the green beauty thnt would soon clothe the land, and the fish that begged for fishermen in the long chain of lakes, belonged to the dweller In the painted house. There was question from her husband hus-band when Mrs. Benedict Gauthler proposed to put all the family savings Into a summer hotel for fishermen and their families. There was opposition from the Indian tribe, only to be overcome over-come by long and patient councils. There was argument even from some of her most progressive advisers when It became known that she wanted want-ed an architect to design the hotel, and proposed a highly paid man cook, end maids In crisp black and white uniform. But the architect and the cook and the maids became realities. The Indians In-dians found guiding fishermen both lucrative and pleasant as a change from their farming. Of the many guests who drift back to Lac du Flambeau Flam-beau summer after summer, not a few hnve become fast friends of both Mr. and Mrs. Gauthler, friends such as would never have crossed the doorslll of a couple marooned in the painted house on the lonely trail. The final dramatic touch In the story to many folk lies In the fact that Mrs. Gnuthier, like the village, has an Indian name, given her by a pagan godmother, In a wigwam, lu token of her own Ojibway blood. |