AN OLD-STYLE FARM 



swift strike gave warning of a venturesome, 

 golden-spotted swimmer that presently tossed 

 and flounced in my creeL I profess no grea,t 

 love for music — no knowledge of it even; but 

 the whizzing of a reel which a pound trout 

 will make at the end of thirty feet of taper 

 line is to me very charming — charming in 

 those old days when the woods and meadows 

 were new, and charming now when the woods 

 and the meadows are old. Well, well, I be- 

 gan to tell the story of a farm, and here I am 

 idling along the borders of a brook! 



The toll-gate, the churches, the tavern, the 

 store lay strewn along a high-road, three 

 miles away from the valley-farm, of which in 

 those days I was busy occupant. And yet so 

 bare of trees was the interval, that from many 

 a nook under the coppices of the pasture-land 

 I could see the twin churches, the tavern, and, 

 with a glass, detect even a stray cow, or the 

 lumbering coach which from time to time 

 wended along the high-road of the village. 



The farm was suitably divided (as the old 

 advertisements were wont to say) into tillage, 

 meadow, and pasture-lands. This distribu- 

 tion of parts implied that the meadows would 

 furnish enough hay in ordinary seasons for 

 the winter's keep of such and so many ani- 



7 



