A BIT OF COLOR. Ill 



tion. Perhaps when they are gone it will be 

 remembered that they were picturesque. One, 

 with its buttressed brick walls coated with green 

 lichens and overhung by a projecting upper story 

 of gray wood, always reminds me of a gloomy 

 picture I have seen of an Algerian walled town. 

 The other, overhanging the pond, raises a tall 

 gray tower against the sky, and looks down upon 

 deep water through which broken piles emerge 

 to cast black shadows in the mist. When these 

 ice-houses are empty they are sepulchral and 

 forbidding places to enter. The least sound 

 awakes echoes in the darkness of the roof. Eng- 

 lish sparrows flit about and scream, and the air 

 is heavy with dampness and as cold as a tomb. 

 On Thursday afternoon I turned in from Con- 

 cord Avenue toward these ice-houses, following 

 the freight track, which runs directly towards 

 them, forming a barrier between Fresh Pond and 

 a foul swamp which fills, with the Tudor place, 

 the bend in the avenue. The swamp is a thicket 

 of willows, button - ball bushes, and birches. 

 The early willows were in full bloom, their 

 bright yellow staminate and green pistillate 

 flowers swaying in the wind. Late willows 

 were beautiful with their small pink-white 

 pussies and unfolding leaves crowded on slender 

 stems. Here and there a tall red maple raised 

 its branches over the swamp and displayed its 



