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UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



doubtless dated back to the time when our rude 

 forebears were cave-dwellers in very earnest. The 

 little niches and miniature recesses in the rocks at 

 the side were so pretty and suggestive, and would 

 have been so useful to a real troglodyte. Of a hot 

 summer Simday one found the coolness of the heart 

 of the hills in these rocky cells, and in winter one 

 found the air tempered by warmth from the same 

 source. To get down on one's hands and knees and 

 creep through an opening in the rocks where bears 

 and Indians have doubtless crept, or to kindle a fire 

 where one fancies prehistoric fires have burned, or to 

 eat black birch and wintergreens, or a lunch of wild 

 strawberries and bread where Indians had probably 

 often supped on roots or game — what more wel- 

 come to a boy than that? 



As a man I love still to loiter about these open 

 doors of the hills, playing the geologist and the 

 naturalist, or half -playing them, and half-dreaming 

 in the spirit of my youthful days. Phoebe-birds' 

 nests may be found any day under these rocks, but 

 on one of my recent visits to them I found an un- 

 usual nest on the face of the rocks such I had never 

 before seen. At the first glance, from its mossy 

 exterior, I took it for a phcebe's nest, but close in- 

 spection showed it to be a mouse's nest — the most 

 delicate and artistic bit of mouse architecture I ever 

 saw — a regular mouse palace; dome-shaped, cov- 

 ered with long moss that grew where the water had 



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