72 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 



past come to us more than once for ice ; she now very strongly 

 hints that she needs some of our water. While we desire to 

 be very neighborly, it is just possible we shall soon have none to 

 spare for either love or money. 



We seem to see in dim colonial vistas a scene like one painted 

 upon the canvas of a dream. Hardy trappers and hunters roam 

 the woods ; through the thick glades the crack of the flint-lock 

 musket rouses the echoes, answered by the call of early-risen 

 birds, the noise of waters, the trampling feet of beasts. Over 

 the wooded plains sweeping to the Merrimack, following the 

 paths of brooks and guided by the roar of river rapids, children 

 ranged without fear through thickets far from the rude shelter 

 of their homes. The smoke of the settler's fire had supplanted 

 the smouldering heap of the Indian ; but for years every sense 

 was alert to interpret the sounds borne in upon the air of night, 

 to question each fresh trail through the dew of morning. A 

 broken twig, a fall of moss, the crushing of a tuft of deer-grass 

 — did these betray the heel of a foe or of a friend ? No strange 

 noise escaped the settler's ear; startled, perchance, in the pur- 

 suit of game by a sudden bruit and clamor, he leans to listen 

 only to the far-away cry of the loon or the crescendo in the for- 

 est where the partridge beats his drum. 



