AN OLD ROAD. 65 



for the old road has not lessened, but rather 

 increased. In itself the place is nowise re- 

 markable, a common country back road 

 (its very name is Back Street) ; but all the 

 same I " take pleasure in its stones, and 

 favor the dust thereof." There are none 

 of us so matter-of-fact and unsentimental, I 

 hope, as never to have experienced the force 

 of old associations in gilding the most ordi- 

 nary objects. For my own part, I protest, 

 I would give more for a single stunted clus- 

 ter of orange -red berries from a certain 

 small vine of Roxbury wax-work, near the 

 entrance to Millstone Pasture aforesaid, 

 than for a bushel of larger and handsomer 

 specimens from some alien source. This 

 old vine still holds on, I am happy to see, 

 though it appears to have made no growth 

 in twenty years. Long may it be spared ! 

 It was within a few rods of it, beside the 

 path that runs into the pasture, that I shot 

 my first bird. Newly armed with a shot- 

 gun, and on murder bent, I turned in here ; 

 and as luck would have it, there sat the in- 

 nocent creature in a birch. The temptation 

 was too great. There followed a moment 

 of excitement, a nervous aim, a bang, and 



