'6o THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



ter-up and petticoat against the grewsome gypsy 

 moth, then those thirty-five are dull indeed, 

 compared with the untrimmed, unscraped, un- 

 plastered, undressed old tramp yonder on the 

 knoll, whose heart is still wide open to the birds 

 and beasts — to every small traveler passing by 

 who needs, perforce, a home, a hiding, or a har- 

 bor. 



When I was a small boy everybody used to 

 put up overnight at grandfather's — for grand- 

 mother's wit and buckwheat cakes, I think, which 

 were known away down into Cape May County. 

 It was so, too, with grandfather's wisdom and 

 brooms. The old house sat in behind a grove 

 of pin-oak and pine, a sheltered, sheltering spot, 

 with a peddler's stall in the barn, a peddler's 

 place at the table, a peddler's bed in the herby 

 garret, a boundless, fathomless feather-bed, of a 

 piece with the house and the hospitality. There 

 were larger houses and newer, in the neighbor- 

 hood ; but no other house in all the region, not 

 even the tavern, two miles farther down the 

 Pike, was half as central, or as homelike, or as 

 full of sweet and juicy gossip. 

 - The old apple tree yonder between the woods 



