The Turnpike Road. 115 



grave. An old woman drove her vegetable wagon along 

 the road, and sat crying as she urged her horse onward, 

 for while she was in the village below, her husband had 

 died. " Ah ! my old man, he die, he die, while I down 

 there," and she pointed in the direction of the village with 

 her whip. Thus do the shouts of the revellers, the sobs 

 and the funeral bell, chime in the memory, and a wondrous 

 song is heard on the Turnpike road. 



The wind blows and the dead leaves skip about sem- 

 bling butterflies in their motions. A mullein plant fresh 

 and green, has a favored situation on the sunny side of a 

 tree stump. When you unfold the soft downy leaves, you 

 think you see the face of Summer there, but it is only a 

 dream. Little insects have tucked themselves in the soft 

 warm bed, formed by the overlaying of these mullein leaves, 

 and thus await the sun. What marvelous faith have they, 

 everything is well to them, and though we complain of the 

 long, long, cold winds, yet they wait patiently in the mullein, 

 and go abroad on the sunny day that is sure to come. 



In a hollow stump the sorrel grows, spreading its tender 

 leaves on the ground. It is protected from the weather 

 by the walls of wood, and the sun shines for a little while 

 each day through the open at the top ; but the leaves are 

 not quite so sour to the taste, not quite so potent, as those 

 matured in the open field. 



How strangely the cold and stormy days follow close 

 to the bright and even warm ones. The little pools by the 

 wayside, look smiling and sunny on a spring day, when, lo I 

 on the morrow, they are frozen over, and their surface 

 becomes beautifully marbled. The curved lines and streaks 



