THE POND-MEADOW. 



IT is dark, the snow lies on the ground, and I sit silently 

 in the house and think of the warmer days when I 

 rambled at eventide, when the sun did not set so early 

 and there was a greater margin to the afternoons. It was 

 pleasant then, when the hurry and disquiet of town employ- 

 ment were at an end, to steal away to some retired nook, 

 where only the louder and more piercing cries uttered in the 

 warfare of commerce, could intrude upon the ear. It was 

 easy to find such surroundings, and they seemed to bespeak 

 unbroken solitude, where perchance the foot of man had 

 not been for many weeks. But soon there broke upon the 

 ear a multitude of artificial sounds that had found their 

 way thither through the leafy trees, and which proclaimed 

 the still existing uproar of the outer world. We cannot 

 escape these clangings, if we live within the reach of baker's 

 bread, and our ears have become so accustomed to them, 

 to the blowing of whistles, the firing of guns and the rum- 

 bling of trains, that we often fail to give them heed. There 

 is also a certain companionship that is not objectionable 

 in the far away sounds that are due to human agency 

 mankind is reachable they seem to say, and awaits you in 

 the distance. This is especially true of the whistling, rum- 



