A NEW ENGLAND WOODPILE 



woodpecker chopping his best for a liv- 

 ing with his sharp-pointed axe, all hav- 

 ing followed their rightful possessions 

 from the woods, taking perhaps the track 

 of the sled. It is wonderful to hear the 

 auger of the pine-borer, now thawed into 

 life, crunching its unseen way through the 

 wood. Then there is always the chance 

 of the axe unlocking the stores of deer- 

 mice, quarts of beechnuts with all the 

 shells neatly peeled off ; and what if it 

 should happen to open a wild-bee hive 

 full of honey ! 



If the man comes who made the round 

 of the barns in the fall and early winter 

 with his threshing-machine, having ex- 

 changed it for a sawing machine, he 

 makes short work of our woodpile. A 

 day or two of stumbling clatter of the 

 horses in their treadmill, and the buzzing 

 and screeching of the whirling saw, gnaws 

 it into a heap of blocks. 



Our lounging-place and the children's 

 wooden playground have gone, and all 

 the picturesqueness and woodsiness have 

 disappeared as completely as when split- 

 ting has made only firewood of the pile. 

 It will give warmth and comfort from 

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