A HIDDEN HIGHWAY. 



A WIDE tract of meadows that skirt the 

 river near my home, and upon which much 

 wealth and labor have been expended in years 

 past, was the abode of desolation in the eyes of 

 the sturdy settlers two hundred years ago, and so 

 treacherous the footing in every direction so 

 the record runs that the hunted bears and deer 

 would come to a stand rather than plunge head- 

 long into the trackless waste. With proper cau- 

 tion the tract was finally explored, mapped, and 

 ditched, and now there is small chance of disas- 

 ter unless the rambler is culpably negligent. 



I hold that one should think kindly of a 

 ditch. The commonly imputed repulsiveness of 

 such a waterway is more often wanting than 

 present, and nearly all that I have seen have 

 teemed with interesting life. What are the 

 brooks, indeed, that turn a poet's head, but Na- 

 ture's own ditches ? As to those of man's crea- 

 tion, they need but a little time, and they will as- 

 sume every function of a natural watercourse. 



As I stood recently upon rising ground over- 

 looking a pasture meadow that was brown as a 

 nut with its carpet of dead grass, I noticed a long, 

 straight line of weed-like growths still showing 

 a tinge of green, as if the frost had spared a nar- 



