A Very Old Milestone. 195 



hyssop and boneset and iron-weed and dudder 

 conceal ? Your legs and arms held fast by 

 the Gordian knot of greenbrier, you magnify, 

 when helpless, every unexplained condition, and 

 a foot-long garter-snake will give you a passing 

 vision of a boa-constrictor, and mice will grow 

 to wild-cats, before you see them scampering 

 across your feet. If you would rid the day of 

 possible monotony, push through a pathless 

 thicket in the corner of some neglected field ; 

 get scratched and pricked, and warmed by the 

 effort, if not excitement, and believe ever after 

 that the well-known country, as you thought it, 

 is not so well known after all. Too seldom do 

 we leave the beaten path and leap over the 

 farmers' fences. 



Roads or paths alike are mere conveniences. 

 We do not live on them. The little poetry 

 they possessed passed with the times that were. 

 Endless the stream of traffic and of pleasure it 

 may be that now is passing to and fro, but how 

 prosy the present when the milestone calls up 

 a vision of the past, when the winding way 

 through the woods was the spot where the col- 

 onists occasionally met and held earnest conver- 



