funnier than all, a strange-looking thing which we thought must be a
side saddle--anyway, it fitted Joe's rocking horse admirably, although
we wondered why so much whalebone was necessary!

One day, in the midst of our gambols, in walked the identical owner of
the chest, and seeing the side-saddle, she said somewhat angrily,
"Why, children, where upon airth did you find my old stays?" We never
wondered again what made grandma's back keep its place so much better
than ours, and Bill had serious thoughts of trying the effect of the
stays upon himself.

In the rear of our house, and sloping toward the setting sun, was a
long, winding lane, leading far down into a widespreading tract of
flowery woods, shady hillside, and grassy pasture land, each in their
turn highly suggestive of brown nuts, delicious strawberries, and
venomous snakes. These last were generally more the creatures of
imagination than of reality, for in all my wanderings over those
fields, and they were many, I never but once trod upon a green snake,
and only once was I chased by a white-ringed blacksnake; so I think I
am safe in saying that the snakes were not so numerous as were the
nuts and berries, which grew there in great profusion.

A little to the right of the woods, where, in winter, Bill, Joe,
Lizzie, and I dragged our sleds and boards for the purpose of riding
down-hill, was a merry, frolicking stream of water, over which, in
times long gone, a sawmill had been erected; but owing to the
inefficiency of its former owner, or something else, the mill had
fallen into disuse, and gradually gone to decay. The water of the
brook, relieved from the necessity of turning the spluttering wheel,
now went gayly dancing down, down, into the depths of the dim old