JOE AND CRONIE. 101 

long levels, they see and are travelling in a straight line of 
light and sunshine, over a carpet. of green, gray and brown 
velvety mosses. Walking through these shady dells and hills 
in the spring time, on such a sunny, quiet afternoon as this, 
is a pleasure few could help but enjoy. 
Coming out again to broad open day and the full widened- 
out sunlight, they are standing upon the last rocky hill 
belonging to this dark shady upland, and looking down into 
another and deeper dell, but quite changed. Only a scatter- 
ing spruce or evergreen is now to be seen compared with the 
many behind them, while nearly every variety of the native 
hard woods are in view and mixed as evenly as if planted by 
the hand of man for a showing of the different kinds, large 
and largest, small and smallest, down to the tiniest seedling 
having only its first two leaves, and those in the form of the 
seed it sprung from, which some day and in some man’s 
time, may grow to be the very monarch of the dell, reaching 
its arms high above all others toward the beautiful blue sky. 
Sitting upon the rocks a few moments before stepping down 
into the pretty sunlighted valley, they notice some of the many 
different kinds of hard woods; the rock maple which is the 
curly and the bird eye, white and soft maple, yellow and white 
birch, the very largest of these being the canoe birch; the 
beech, upon which grow the fine nuts the deer love so well; 
the ash, elm, moose wood, iron wood, cherry and others, 
while scattering about and upon the hillside and beyond, they 
see an occasional spruce and fir, with a very few hemlock. 
Here, this afternoon in the early summer, standing above 
the trees while they were all fairly mellow in the warm sun- 
shine, their young green leaves scarcely trembling in the 
faint breeze, they were more beautiful than glossy satin, and 
