A NEW ENGLAND WOODPILE 



Above these logs, rolled up on skids 

 or sled stakes, are smaller yet goodly 

 bodies of white ash, full of oars for the 

 water and rails for the land ; and of black 

 ash, as full of barrel hoops and bas- 

 ket splints, the ridged and hoary bark 

 shagged with patches of dark moss ; and 

 a pine too knotty for sawing, with old 

 turpentine boxes gashing its lower part, 

 the dry resin in them half overgrown, 

 but odorous still ; and oaks that have 

 borne their last acorns ; and a sharded 

 hickory that will never furnish another 

 nut for boy or squirrel, but now, and only 

 this once, flail handles, swingles, and ox- 

 bows, and helves for axes to hew down 

 its brethren, and wood to warm its de- 

 stroyers, and smoke and fry ham for 

 them ; and a basswood that will give the 

 wild bees no more blossoms in July, hol- 

 low-hearted and unfit for sleigh or tobog- 

 gan, wood straight rifted and so white 

 that a chip of it will hardly show on the 

 snow, but as unprofitable food for fires 

 as the poplars beside it, which, in the 

 yellow-green of youth or the furrowed 

 gray of age, have shivered their last. 



Still higher in the woodpile are white 

 245 



