9 8 



IN WINTER. 



but there has been one for many a long year, 

 perhaps for more than a century. Turn up the 

 soil and you will find it black ; examine it with a 

 lens, and you will find it filled with wood fiber 

 in every stage of decomposition. Dig deeper 

 and you will find many a relic of a by-gone gener- 

 ation. Pewter buttons that once shone like sil- 

 ver, the pride of beaux who, though Quakers, 

 loved a smart-looking coat ; buckles worn at the 

 knee and upon the shoes ; bits of spectacle rims 

 that once held circular glasses of enormous di- 

 ameter; a thousand odds and ends, indeed, of 

 metal, glass, and china, discarded, one by one, 

 as they were broken ; for the wood-pile was a 

 dust-heap as well, and the last resting-place of 

 every small object that could not be burned. 



My own earliest recollection of outdoor sport 

 is of " playing, house " about the generous heap 

 of gnarly logs and crooked branches that had 

 been brought from the woods during the winter. 

 At some convenient corner the loose earth would 

 be scooped away, water brought until the hollow 

 was filled, and a long row of mud pies molded 

 in clamshells, the product of a happy morning's 

 work. It was usually when thus engaged that 

 some curious object would be brought to light and 

 referred for explanation to the wood-chopper, 

 if he were present. I can see two old men now, 

 whose sole occupation in their later years, so far 



