AN OPEN WELL. 



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cottage was built, but it was many a year ago, 

 and its present occupants may have commenced 

 housekeeping as far back in time, to judge from 

 appearances. May they and the cottage last for- 

 ever ! Nowhere else can so much wood-lore and 

 wise weather-saws be had at first hands. No- 

 where else is there, at least for me, " the moss- 

 covered bucket that hangs in the well." There 

 are many features of primitive country life that 

 are fascinating, yet why they are so can not 

 readily be explained. To linger by this open 

 well is one of these, yet why even hours can 

 be spent at such a spot one can not tell. Has it 

 to do with a love of retrospection common to 

 all past fifty? let this go for an explanation, 

 whether one or not. Stay ! can it be that, after 

 quaffing a gourdful of the sweet waters, I re- 

 call many an invitation to the cottage, and 

 hope ? Even yet I am as ready to respond 

 when the old lady's kindly face beams from the 

 open door, for straightway there are visions of 

 cakes and beer, the liking for which has never 

 been even dulled. Ginger-cakes merely, but 

 such ginger-cakes ! Spicewood beer only, but 

 what sparkle, what tingling spiciness ! The 

 very essence of the wild woods about the 

 cottage, the brilliant glistening of the old well's 

 brightest drops, here are combined in a beady, 

 golden draught that quickly inebriates makes 



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