TENANTS. 



£TY LARGE dwelling stood empty in the Clove valley 

 j^k for many years, save for the natural tenantry that 

 -i- J- every old house and barn is bound to receive. 

 Wasps, bats, owls and their kindred only respect the rights 

 of preoccupancy, and any vacant place is theirs if they wish 

 it and are strong enough to retain their particular nooks and 

 crannies. Thus this old house and neighboring out-build- 

 ings were fully occupied. Woodpeckers had bored holes 

 into the piazza posts and house-side, a swarm of honey 

 bees lived in the chimney, a colony of Carolina bats in 

 the barn, and in Spring a phoebe bird built her nest under 

 its eaves. 



An old German and his wife occupied the gate-house, 

 and their cows cropped the grass on the hill-side or stood 

 in their stalls in the barn. Horses were taken to board in 

 Summer, and the old man spent his days looking after 

 them and the cows, repairing the fence to keep them in, or 

 in sallying forth on an anxious journey in quest of some 

 restless Bucephalus who, breaking the fence, had cantered 

 away. 



In rambling about the premises, I often met the old 



