60 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



did not the tree-tops sway instead of standing in 

 frozen rows? The sky above was the color of the 

 eggs of the wood thrush, a tender blue faintly washed 

 with white. As the sun rose higher and higher, the 

 color deepened to that bluest of blues which burns 

 in May under the breast of the brooding catbird. 

 Filtered through frost, the sunlight shone, intensely 

 bright but without heat. The air was full of the 

 spicery of a million pine trees. With every breath 

 it went tingling through my blood, carrying with it 

 the joy of the open and the freedom of the barrens. 



At last I came to the cabin. It is set on the very 

 edge of the brownest, crookedest, sweetest stream in 

 the world — the cedar-stained Rancocas. The wide 

 porch overhangs the water, and over the doorway is a 

 tiny horseshoe, which was dug out of the bog at 

 Upper Mill, undoubtedly cast by some fairy steed. 

 One whole side of the cabin is taken up by an arched 

 fireplace built of brown and yellow and red sand- 

 stone, the only stone that can be found in the Barrens. 

 Squat and curly, two massive andirons, hammered 

 out of bog iron, stand among the ashes. They have 

 a story all their own. 



Five miles through the woods is Upper Mill, 

 which is not a mill at all, but marks the place where, 

 a century ago, one stood. The only occupied house 

 there is a log cabin built of imperishable white- 

 cedar logs in 1720, the date still showing on one of 

 the logs. Charlie Rogers lives there alone. It used 

 to be an old tavern on the cattle-road from Perth 

 Amboy. Every now and then Charlie finds old coins, 



