The work must be a kind of adventure, and permit of sallies into
free fields. Hence the most acceptable work for me was to be sent
strawberrying or raspberrying by Mother; but the real fun was to
go fishing up Montgomery Hollow, or over on Rose's Brook, this
necessitating a long tramp, and begetting a hunger in a few hours that
made a piece of rye bread the most delectable thing in the world; yet a
pure delight that never sated.

Mother used to bake her bread in the large old-fashioned brick oven, and
once or twice a week we boys had to procure oven wood.

"You must get me oven wood this morning," she would say; "I am going
to bake today." Then we would scurry around for dry, light, quick
wood--pieces of old boxes and boards, and dry limbs. "One more armful,"
she would often say, when we were inclined to quit too soon. In a
half-hour or so, the wood would be reduced to ashes, and the oven
properly heated. I can see Mother yet as she would open the oven door
and feel the air inside with her hand. "Run, quick, and get me a few
more sticks--it is not quite hot enough." When it was ready, the coals
and ashes were raked out, and in went the bread, six or seven big loaves
of rye, with usually two of wheat. The wheat was for company.

When we would come in at dinner- or supper-time and see wheat bread
on the table we would ask: "Who's in the other room?" Maybe the answer
would be, "Your Uncle Martin and Aunt Virey." How glad I would be! I
always liked to see company. Well, the living was better, and then,
company brought a new element into the day; it gave a little tinge of
romance to things. To wake up in the morning and think that Uncle Martin
and Aunt Virey were there, or Uncle Edmund and Aunt Saliny, quickened
the pulse a little. Or, when any of my cousins came,--boys near my own
age,--what joy filled the days! And when they went, how lonesome I would
be! how forlorn all things looked till the second or third day! I early
developed a love of comrades, and was always fond of company--and am
yet, as the records of Slabsides show.

I was quite a hunter in my youth, as most farm boys are, but I never
brought home much game--a gray squirrel, a partridge, or a wild pigeon
occasionally. I think with longing and delight of the myriads of wild
pigeons that used to come every two or three years--covering the sky
for a day or two, and making the naked spring woods gay and festive with
their soft voices and fluttering blue wings