lUbcu Grass id Green 



dug for the sole purpose of receiving the refuse of 

 their villages. I saw such ashpits recently in near- 

 by meadows, and what a curious medley was taken 

 from them. Bones of bears and deer principally, 

 but some also of nearly every one of our smaller 

 animals, even to meadow-mice. 



There was another story, too, that these dig- 

 gings told. Many a bit of bone had been cut 

 and ground down until it was a very effective awl 

 or piercer, and some of the teeth had been strung 

 for beads. With all these were hundreds of frag- 

 ments of pottery, some of which had been taste- 

 fully ornamented with incised lines, dots, and 

 cord-marks. One big piece had marks of a fish- 

 net on it, and we know from Peter Kalm, who 

 wrote a delightful book of travels about here in 

 1749, that the Indians had nets, and the knots 

 they tied were the same the fishermen tie to-day in 

 making their nets. I have seen an impression of 

 a knot made in wet clay which was so distinct that 

 I could tell how it was tied ; but when the Indian 

 woman made it she only thought of its being an 

 ornament to the bowl she had fashioned. 



But to come back to the old man's stories. He 

 had invested an ordinary field with additional in- 

 terest, and I have looked up the spot where the 

 house stood. I can only guess at the site, but 

 where now is an under drain was a trickling brook 

 that led from the spring at which these people of 

 long ago got their water. How I would like to 

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