LUTHER BURBANK 



boisterous pastimes, and the more usual recrea- 

 tions included such functions as spelling-bees and 

 husking-bees. 



I recall with a good deal of pleasure that on 

 one occasion I personally built a dam across a 

 large trout stream on our farm and flooding a 

 neighboring meadow so that we could have a large 

 skating pond. I was about nine or ten years of 

 age at the time, if memory serves me, and the 

 damming of the stream was permitted on the 

 plea that it would increase the crop of cranberries. 

 But of course what I chiefly had in mind was the 

 making of a place for skating, that being a sport 

 of which I was especially fond. 



I well remember my hard work through the 

 October and November days — though where the 

 time was found in the intervals of schooling can- 

 not be surmised — in building the dam which later 

 flooded not only my father's cranberry meadows 

 but a great number of acres adjoining. 



One of the happiest days of my life was Christ- 

 mas of that year, when the great glassy sheet of 

 ice was alive with my schoolmates and compan- 

 ions, darting here and there singing and shouting, 

 enjoying to the utmost a New England skating 

 party. 



Incidentally, it may be recalled that the same 

 meadows, at another season,' furnished the inter- 



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