102 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



marked the dawn of Independence, the sunrise 

 guns of American Freedom. My friend looked 

 very grave when he saw that this tree was gone. 

 It had been a landmark, not only on the shore 

 of Musketaquid, but on the shore of his life, of 

 which a precious part had been spent on this 

 river of flooded meadows. Above the oak rose 

 a bold headland crowned with plumelike pines. 

 It was Ball's Hill, which Thoreau called " the 

 St. Ann's of Concord." We sought the top and 

 looked down upon the fair picture below us. 

 Great Meadows, the " broad moccasin print," 

 was one rippling lake, dotted with islands or 

 single trees. The river, from the stone arch 

 bridge, just passed, down to Carlisle bridge with 

 its wooden piers, had merged its life in this 

 blue archipelago. The distant tower of Bedford 

 church recalled my melting walk of a month ago, 

 when over the snowdrifts the sun of March had 

 nearly burned my eyes out and quite scorched 

 the skin from my lips and cheeks. Early spring 

 in Massachusetts is a crab-like thing, but it has 

 its charms. In a ploughed field behind the bluff, 

 we found fox tracks, and under a lofty pine, 

 pellets of mouse hair, which some owl (or crow 

 perhaps) had cast from its mouth undigested. 



Taking boat once more we wound in and out 

 along the northern shore. Here, fox sparrows 

 scratched in the bushes and paused surprised at 



