Hn ID 3Barn 



scarcely more than a mile before I reached the 

 old barn of a one-time farm, that now stood quite 

 alone. The land had been divided and sub-di- 

 vided until nearly every original feature of the ini- 

 tial settling of the place was obliterated. It was 

 but an old and empty barn ; a simple structure of 

 boards and beams that now trembled suggestively 

 when the winds of winter hurried by and through 

 it. Who built it I do not know ; who had labored 

 to gather the harvests that it had held, I never 

 heard ; but what a world of suggestiveness in the 

 moaning of the morning breeze as it struggled 

 through the wide cracks in the walls, and caused 

 to tremble many a loose board and mossy shingle. 

 I peeped through one wide space, and what a hol- 

 low echo repeated my words, as I shouted : "Who 's 

 there?" I was sure that no one was near, but 

 my voice called up a host of lurking spirits, or so it 

 seemed. Here, indeed, was a place where fancy 

 might run riot; but let us stick to the facts at 

 present. 



Oaks were everywhere abundant in colonial 

 days, and the icy floods of glacial times had 

 brought a few fragments of rocks to this neigh- 

 borhood; enough for foundations, but never 

 enough for walls; and so it happened all our 

 barns are wooden, but they are little the less sub- 

 stantial. This one, in and about which I tarried, 

 was still strong of frame, and if stripped by the 

 storms of every trace of covering, could still brave 

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