BRIDGES 161 



they bitin' ter-day, son?" Those drinking pools were 

 excellent places to wade in, too, on your way home from 

 berry picking, when there didn't happen to be a real 

 swimming hole on the lower side of the bridge. I don't 

 know why our swimming holes were always by a bridge, 

 but they invariably were, perhaps because a stream is 

 apt to be narrowest just before it widens into a pool. 

 At any rate, we were always forced to expose our naked- 

 ness just below the roadway where it crossed on the 

 rattling timbers, and it was the part of honour and de- 

 cency to go under water when a carry-all passed, and to 

 stay under if there were ladies in it until the rumble of 

 the^ boards had ceased. Many a boy learned to dive by 

 being caught on the left bank, where there were no trees 

 or bushes, a sudden clatter of hoofs or the sound of 

 women's voices warning him that he must leap. 



Among the most interesting of little roads are the 

 lanes on a farm which radiate out from the barn into the 

 hayfields, the orchard, the sugar grove, the timber; and 

 among the most interesting of little bridges are those on 

 which these lanes and farm paths cross the brooks. 

 Such bridges are of the simplest construction, often but 

 a few planks laid on a couple of beams, without any 

 railing, to enable the hayracks to cross the brook, which 

 here is almost hidden deep down in the long grass and 

 flows lazily toward the river as if resting after its tumble 

 from the hills. But the view from such a little bridge is 

 always charming. On either side the winding of the 



