190 FIVE ACRES TOO MUCH. 



so like houses, and the houses are so like pig-pens, 

 that it is hard to tell them apart and enter into con 

 versation -with my fellow-citizens of Irish extraction. 

 I, am very affable. I pat the girls on their towy 

 heads, and praise the boys for stout young lads, in 

 the vague hope that the parents may not tear down 

 my fences, nor let their children rob my future ap 

 ple-trees or steal my pumpkins. 



During one of my visits I was much attracted by 

 an old crone who wore spectacles. Spectacles are 

 not unbecoming to some people ; they lend an air of 

 maturity to youth, and even improve an elderly lady 

 reading her Bible ; but worn permanently by a very 

 wrinkled old woman, with a very long nose and very 

 sharp chin, they have a bewitching effect that, in 

 Massachusetts, would insure the culprit s early de 

 cease at the stake. I made immediate advances to 

 that spectacled female, whose age might have been 

 any where from a hundred and fifty to three hun 

 dred, in the firm conviction that her conversation 

 would be interesting and improving ; nor was I mis 

 taken, for the intimacy engendered by a few visits 

 induced her to confide in me the following story rel 

 ative to a small, round, muddy pond, that has neither 

 outlet or inlet, but which is always full, or nearly so, 

 of water, and which lies across the main road over 



