as had wounded Andy's
fingers. 'I've seen penholders of them, when I little thought I should
handle the unsophisticated originals out here.'

Before this time he had learned how enervating were reminiscences of
home; he resolutely put away the remembrance from him now, and walked on
to chop the blaze on the next tree. Breast-high the mark was cut, and at
one blaze another could always be discerned ahead.

'I've a regard for the beeches and elms,' quoth he, as he hacked at a
hickory stem. 'They are home trees; but the shrubs have chiefly foreign
faces, so I can chop them down without compunction.'

'All such sentimental distinctions will evaporate when you get into the
spirit of your work,' said his friend Sam. 'Your underbrushing rule does
not spare anything less than six inches in diameter; all must be cut
close to the ground, and piled in heaps for the burning.'

'A tolerable job to clear such a thicket as this! What a network of
roots must interlace every foot of soil!'

'Rather, I should say. But the first crop will amply repay your pains,
even though your wheat and Indian corn struggle into existence through
stumps and interlacing roots. Then there's the potash--thirty dollars a
barrel for second quality: less than two and a half acres of hardwood
timber will produce a barrel.'

'I don't quite understand.'

'Next summer, after your logging bee, you'll know what I mean. This
creek is as if 'twas made on purpose for an ashery.'

'By the way, here's my site for a town plot;' as they came to a fine
natural cascade over a granite barrier, after which plunge the stream
hurried down the slope towards the beaver meadow. 'Water power for half
a dozen mills going to waste there, Holt.'

'Let's give it a name!' sang out Arthur--'this our city of magnificent
intentions.'

'I hope you won't call it Dublin on the Liffey,' said Mr. Holt. 'How I
hate those imported names--sinking our nationality in a ludicrous parody
on English topography--such as London on the Thames, Windsor, Whitby,
Woodstock; while the language that furnished "Toronto," "Quebec,"
"Ottawa," lies still unexplored as a mine of musical nomenclature.'

'In default of an Indian name,' said Robert, 'let us call our future
settlement after the existing fact--CEDAR CREEK.'

'And posterity can alter it, if it chooses,' rejoined Arthur. 'All
right. Now I'll cut down this birch where the post-office is to stand
hereafter;' and a few sturdy blows of his axe