the "Thank ye marms," and who asked the driver
innumerable questions which it was part of the noted
whip's duty and always his pleasure to answer. The
squirrels darted across the road as if to get a look at
the enthusiast and then ran for their lives to escape
the wheels; and the crows heard the rumble and rose
in a body from the sparse cornfields for a closer view;
and the big trees arched over his head, cooling the air
and casting big shadows, and even the sun kept peeping
over the edge of the hills from behind some jutting
rock or clump of pines or hemlock as if bent on
lighting up his face so that everybody could see how
happy he was.

As the day wore on and the coach rattled over the
big open bridge that spanned the rushing mountain-
stream, Oliver's eye caught, far up the vista, the little
dent in the line of blue that stood low against the sky.
The driver said this was the Notch and that the big
hump to the right was Moose Hillock, and that Ezra's
cabin nestled at its feet and was watered by the rushing
stream, only it was a tiny little brook away up
there that anybody could step over.

"'Tain't bigger'n yer body where it starts out fresh
up in them mountings," the driver said, touching his
leaders behind their ears with the lash of his whip.
"Runs clean round Ezra's, and's jest as chuckfull
o' trout, be gosh, as a hive is o' bees."