JOE AND CRONIE. 93 

cucumbers and a small bed of onions. These last they 
found in the camp cellar where they had wintered without 
freezing, having very yellow tops ’tis true, but soon take on a 
nice green after the wetting and the sun shines upon them. 
It all looks very inviting now in the small clearing. The 
cosy camp so snug and warm in winter, yet cool and pleasant 
in the warm spring time, with its roomy porch (of which 
every sportsman thinks so much of) all open to the south, the 
well trodden path toward the spring of excellent cool water, 
which, winter or summer, is always just right. The spring 
house built over the incoming water, with its little cellar 
floored and walled with smooth, flat rocks, the water always 
heard trickling beneath them. This they think much of, as 
well as the clear, pebbly brook coursing down beside it all, 
with its corduroy bridge across, and the cedar split walk-way 
part way to camp. Perhaps on a dark day, at a time when 
three or four feet of snow had fallen upon the camp, nearly 
hiding it from view, one might chance to pass it when unoccu- 
pied and think it had a chilly, dreary, uninviting look; but 
with the boys at home, the tall black stove-pipe raised above 
the roof, emitting its jolly clouds of smoke from beneath the 
hood upon its top, casting shadows that are ever moving and 
rolling over the white snow covered roof, slowly and curling, 
during the lull of the breeze, swift and straight across as 
the wind sweeps down from over the spruces just behind it. 
Ah! then the chance passer by would admit it to be a cheery 
shelter. And now likely as not, and just at this time perhaps, 
as is often seen, ‘*Bobby,” the cute but theiving squirrel 
scampers to the highest peak of the snow covered porch, 
defying the smoke, and with his last piece of plunder in his 
little hands sits stuffing his nearly always distended cheeks. 
