A CHEISTMAS JAUNT 



the weight divided, we made good wea- 

 ther of it, sometimes, however, leaving 

 the highway for a mile or more and tak- 

 ing to the fields. Experience has shown 

 at what places the snow will lodge and 

 the roads become impassable, and there 

 it is the winter custom to establish a line 

 of travel through the long farms charac- 

 teristic of the country, marking these 

 ways of necessity every fifty feet with 

 little spruce trees set alternately to 

 right and left. Without these balises 

 the track, beaten only to the bare width 

 of a cariole, could not be followed, but 

 with their assistance the horses navigate 

 the hills and dales surely and safely as 

 the mariner does a buoyed channel. It 

 is peculiarly pleasant to journey thus 

 over ploughed fields and pastures, 

 across bridgeless and invisible streams, 

 through swales where alder and swamp 

 willow give a little shelter from the in- 

 sistent wind. 



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