THE OLD FARM'S WOOD-PILE. IO 3 



might as well tell me that a snowbird isn't a 

 chippy in its winter dress ! " 



" They are not, indeed ! " I replied, astonished 

 to hear so remarkable a statement. 



" So you set up book-learnin' against me about 

 such things as that, eh ? " Miles remarked, with 

 unlimited scorn in both his voice and manner ; 

 and from that time I lost favor in his eyes. Such 

 crude ideas concerning our common birds are 

 still very common, nor is it to be wondered at. 

 Knowledge of local natural history is still at a 

 discount. Is there a country school where even 

 its barest rudiments are taught ? 



The heaped-up logs that, burning brightly, 

 made cheery my room when I sat down for a 

 quiet evening's meditation, are now a bed of 

 ashes and lurid coals. They typify the modern 

 wood-piles about our farms mere heaps of ref- 

 use sticks and windfall branches of our dooryard 

 trees. Fit for kindling, perhaps, but never for a 

 generous fire upon an open hearth. As I linger 

 over them, the irrecoverable past, with all its 

 pleasures to the fore, comes back with painful 

 vividness. The fantastic shapes of the ruddy 

 coals, the caverns in the loose ashes, the shadows 

 of the andirons, the filmy thread of smoke, are a 

 landscape to my fancy, upon which my eyes can 

 never dwell again. In the faint moaning of the 

 wind that fills the chimney corner I hear a voice, 

 8 



