shrub or a bough arrayed in scarlet and gold. Along the road, in the
midst of a beaten track, I saw mushrooms or toadstools which had sprung
up probably during the night.

The houses in this vicinity are, many of them, quite antique, with long,
sloping roots, commencing at a few feet from the ground, and ending in a
lofty peak. Some of them have huge old elms overshadowing the yard. One
may see the family sleigh near the door, it having stood there all
through the summer sunshine, and perhaps with weeds sprouting through the
crevices of its bottom, the growth of the months since snow departed.
Old barns, patched and supported by timbers leaning against the sides,
and stained with the excrement of past ages.

In the forenoon I walked along the edge of the meadow towards Cow Island.
Large trees, almost a wood, principally of pine with the green
pasture-glades intermixed, and cattle feeding. They cease grazing when
an intruder appears, and look at him with long and wary observation, then
bend their heads to the pasture again. Where the firm ground of the
pasture ceases, the meadow begins, loose, spongy, yielding to the tread,
sometimes permitting the foot to sink into black mud, or perhaps over
ankles in water. Cattle-paths, somewhat firmer than the general surface,
traverse the dense shrubbery which has overgrown the meadow. This
shrubbery consists of small birch, elders, maples, and other trees, with
here and there white-pines of larger growth. The whole is tangled and
wild and thick-set, so that it is necessary to part the nestling stems
and branches, and go crashing through. There are creeping plants of
various sorts which clamber up the trees; and some of them have changed
color in the slight frosts which already have befallen these low grounds,
so that one sees a spiral wreath of scarlet leaves twining up to the top
of a green tree, intermingling its bright hues with their verdure, as if