Hopkins's Pond. 3 



ghosts and dead leaves had all been raked 

 out from under the currant bushes and 

 piled upon the heap of trimmings from 

 the grapevines and apple trees, a cloud 

 of crackling smoke rolled up into the 

 balmy spring air that was more fitted to 

 receive the bluebird's song, and into the 

 fire we threw various garden rakings : a 

 tail from a wornout buffalo-robe, and a 

 heavy dried paint-pot, a chicken's foot, a 

 recently unearthed spool that little sister 

 begged us to spare for her wagon, a piece 

 of bagging with plaster on it, the remnant 

 of a hoop-skirt, an old tow chignon that 

 the pup had dragged over from the minis- 

 ter's yard, a sole from grandfather's boot, 

 the wooden cover of a Webster's spelling 

 book, a cabbage stalk with roots deeply 

 entwined in a hunk of dirt, a mouldy corn- 

 cob, a rusty screw, and a good new clothes- 

 pin if nobody was looking. We watched 

 the disappearance of these things in the 

 fire with great glee, and there was none of 

 the sober feeling that came over us when 

 the sticks and bait boxes went out of sight 

 in the flume. 



