160 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



days? There are none left in this neighbor- 

 hood ; their ashes are mingled with those of the 

 forest. Anybody can hack a tree down, if he 

 keeps long enough at it, but to skilfully fell an 

 old chestnut is another matter ; cut and split it to 

 posts, rails, fire-wood, and fagots ; putting every 

 bit of it to some use and leaving a level-topped 

 stump upon which you might set the dishes for 

 your supper. This is a lost art ; irrecoverable 

 perhaps as the marvellous tales the woodmen of 

 the last century told to the children of that day. 

 I wonder how much of all they told was true. 

 Very little, possibly ; very much, probably ; for 

 it is hard to even imagine how a primeval forest 

 and its belongings could be exaggerated. 



The chunk upon the andirons to-night is from 

 somewhere up the river, brought down by the 

 last freshet and left, very conveniently, on my 

 meadows. There is on it a curious ring-like 

 growth, the attempt to heal over where a branch 

 has died and dropped off. An opening has 

 been left, and looks so smooth at one point, I 

 fancy squirrels have been passing to and fro for 

 many generations. My chunk is part of an old 

 tree, that perhaps, after standing long near the 



