Your Scribe was looking forward to reading the "cabin edition" of "Down East' magazine.

Judging from the cover, which shows a rustic cabin circa 1930, it looks like the editors gave furloughs to some of its staffers to leave toney Camden to travel upcountry and check out the wilderness.

But the edition - February - only had one story about cabin life!

And it was dulcet piece about a family that runs camps on West Branch Pond, 45 minutes north of Greenville, but having no "story line" that I could find.

OK, so I am bitter.

I spent $4.99 on a glossy rag that fronts as a real-estate directory for properties so expensive that Maine people truly cannot buy them.

Still, it gave me ideas.

The Stirlings, adult son, his mom and wife, take in customers and charge $99 per night. They have a half-dozen cabins, built a century ago, but according to the story, somehow cash-wielding visitors have found them.

(An aside: It all sounds too 'Down East' - you know, a family living the hardscrabble life in Maine without a care in their world or a cavity in the mouth.)

When I wasn't dissing myself for paying out a fin, I was thinking: Maybe I could do that.

Build cabins on the Sandy River, purchase a couple extra canoes and greet awestruck tourists from the Bronx, and maybe someday, Okinawa.

And then I thought, I don't have it in me to be a "cabinkeeper."

I don't lilke to wake up in the morning, and part of the Stirlings' success is American plan - where you provide three squares a day.

I don't even like talking to people, unless it's cocktail hour at The Granary restaurant in Farmington.

And then there is the wildlife. One of the Stirlings' suppositions about the future is more tourists are going to come north to look at the wildlife than to hunt or fish.

They have moose there, and a lot of deer. Probably some trout.

My neighborhood of New Sharon has barking dogs, but not much else.

I have seen one egret and one heron in the past four years. No moose. One deer, but that was hanging by its bloody hooves when it was registered at the nearby farm store. A lot of yellow perch, of course.

So no, I guess I won't be turning my 20 acres into a tourist retreat.

Looking back, I don't know why I bought the mag.

Oh, yes I do.

The title of the piece was "Cabin Country," and for obvious reasons I just couldn't resist.

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