180 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



observer would scarcely have noticed them. 

 Tufts of beard-grass stood above the snow, 

 " Indian grass," my guide called it, and 

 the remains of an ancient stone wall still 

 marked the line, if one might guess, where 

 the grazing-land had been divided from the 

 tillage. It was a farm in ruins. 



Soon we came to a larger cellar-hole, of 

 which, as of the smaller one, bushes and trees 

 had long ago taken possession. Here had 

 stood the city house, a " frame " structure 

 (whence its name, probably), a famous af- 

 fair in its day, the pride of its owner's 

 heart. It was one of five or six houses, if I 

 understood my informant correctly, that had 

 once been scattered over this part of the 

 town of Weston (or what is at present the 

 town of Weston) within a radius of a mile or 

 so. Of them all not a trace remains now 

 but so many half-filled cellars. 



I thought of something I had been saying 

 lately about the manner in which the forest 

 reclaims Massachusetts land as soon as its 

 human possessors let go their hold upon it. 

 Now it was suggested to me that if a man is 

 ambitious to do something that will last, he 



