"Yes," he replied in gentle and lingering tones, and its nativeness.
"It lies here just where it was born."

Rest and quiet had infinite attractions for him. A secluded opening
in the woods was a "calm spot." He told of seeing once, or rather
being in, a circular rainbow. He stood on Indian Head, overlooking
the Lower Lake, so that he saw the whole bow in the sky and the lake,
and seemed to be in the midst of it; "only at one place there was an
indentation in it, where it rested on the lake, just enough to keep
it from rolling off." This "resting" of the sphere seemed to give
him great comfort.

One Indian-summer morning in October, some ladies found the old man
sitting on his doorstep smoking a short pipe.

He gave no sign of recognition except a twinkle of the eye, being
evidently quite in harmony with the peaceful day. They stood there a
full minute before he opened his mouth: then he did not rise, but
slowly took his pipe from his mouth, and said in a dreamy way,
pointing towards the brook,--

"Do you see that tree?" indicating a maple almost denuded of leaves,
which lay like a yellow garment cast at its feet. "I've been
watching that tree all the morning. There hain't been a breath of
wind: but for hours the leaves have been falling, falling, just as
you see them now; and at last it's pretty much bare." And after a
pause, pensively: "Waal, I suppose its hour had come."

This contemplative habit of Old Phelps is wholly unappreciated by his