"THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET" 115 



road, a stone's toss from the well, bearing on its 

 topmost growth old-fashioned russets. But this 

 tree was top-grafted some time in the early years 

 of the last century. Before that it was of a now 

 forgotten variety known to our great-grand- 

 fathers as " high top." Of late sprouts from 

 below the graft on this old tree have come to ma- 

 turity, and the visitor to the place may taste the 

 same apples, with their sweet and pleasant flavor, 

 that pleased the palate of the poet a century and 

 more ago. 



The old oaken bucket itself has passed and been 

 replaced many a time since Woodworks day ; the 

 wooden well-curb and the sweep, swinging in the 

 upright crotch, have come and gone and come 

 again. Curb and bucket and sweep are there to- 

 day, similar in form and appearance no doubt and 

 equally useful for the drawing of water, as near 

 like those of which the poet wrote as is the water 

 of to-day like that of his time. Even at the well 

 itself the lapse of a century has left but one thing 

 permanent. That is the cylinder of stone that 

 walls it in. Here again, as in the walls surround- 

 ing the ancient fields, the stones that were the 



