ROCK MEADOW AT NIGHT. 179 



electric cars ? There was novelty in the latter 

 alternative, and I chose it. 



Leaving Rock Meadow I crossed a field, then 

 the road leading to the Belmont mineral spring, 

 and entered a pasture. A number of cows were 

 feeding by the light of the puny moon. They 

 watched me suspiciously until the cedars con- 

 cealed my hurrying form. Then I struck Marsh 

 Street, and followed it uphill, until afar the tall 

 electric light on the Heights flashed a message 

 over intervening gloom. It was a mile distant. 

 The first half of that mile was over land, or 

 water, unknown to me. The second half was 

 across the cedar-dotted pastures so often visited 

 by me last winter. I left the road and struck 

 into the unknown pasture, keeping the moon on 

 my left and somewhat behind me. Cedars, 

 pines, birches, well-armed barberry and black- 

 berry bushes opposed my passage. Soon the 

 land began to decline, the Arlington beacon was 

 hidden, the air grew chilly, and the soil moist 

 and soft. Then patches of water gleamed on 

 my left, and the voices of frogs greeted me. A 

 shaky stone wall was crossed, and the dry land 

 turned to mud and tussocks of grass. Then 

 came a ditch. This proved the crisis in the 

 walk, for beyond it the land rose and soon I 

 reached familiar ground. I recognized cedars 

 which had suffered in the ice and snow storms 



