62 AN OLD ROAD. 



patch of rose-color was (though we made 

 haste to despoil it), circling an old stump 

 or a bowlder ! The berries were pleasant 

 to the eye and good for food ; but after all, 

 their principal attractiveness lay in the fact 

 that they came right upon the heels of 

 winter. They were the first-fruits of the 

 new year (ripened the year before, to be 

 sure), and to our thinking were fit to be 

 offered upon any altar, no matter how 

 sacred. 



I have called the subject of my loving 

 meditations a by-road. Formerly it was the 

 main thoroughfare between two villages, but 

 shortly after my acquaintance with it began 

 a new and more direct one was laid out. 

 Yet the old road, half deserted as it is, has 

 not altogether escaped the ruthless hand of 

 the improver. Within my time it has been 

 widened throughout, and in one place a new 

 section has been built to cut off a curve. 

 Fortunately, however, the discarded portion 

 still remains, well grown up to grass, and 

 closely encroached upon by willows, alders, 

 sumachs, barberries, dogwoods, smilax, cle- 

 thra, azalea, button-bush, birches, and what 

 not, yet still passable even for carriages, 



