EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 15 



hidden in a little valley between two round green 

 hills. In its centre is a bubbling spring of clear water 

 that never freezes in winter or dries up in summer. 

 That afternoon we had explored the Haunted House 

 at the edge of the wood, with its date-stone of 1809, 

 ten-foot fireplace, and vast stone chimney, and had 

 fearfully approached that door under which a dark 

 stream of blood flowed a half -century ago, on the day 

 when all humans stopped dwelling in that house 

 forever. 



Little John climbed puflingly up through two sets 

 of floor-beams, to where a few warped hemlock 

 boards still make a patch of flooring in the attic. 

 Under a rafter he found a cunningly concealed 

 hidey-hole, drilled like a flicker's nest into one of 

 the soft mica-schist stones of the chimney. Inside 

 were a battered home-made top, whittled out of a 

 solid block, and two flint Indian arrow-heads, ghosts 

 of some long-dead boyhood which still lingered in 

 the little attic chamber. 



In the spring twilight we stole out by a side door, 

 so that we might not cross that stained threshold. 

 A lilac bush, which in a century of growth had be- 

 come a thicket of purple, scented bloom, surrounded 

 the whole side of the house; while beside a squat but- 

 tonwood tree of monstrous girth was the dome of a 

 Dutch oven. We followed a dim path fringed with 

 white-thorn and sprays of sweet viburnum blossoms. 



From the distance, beyond the farther hill, came 

 the crooning of the toads on their annual pilgrimage 

 back to the marsh where they were born. In time we 



