d bodily from France. Stepping
out to say good-morning to some young pigs that were sociably grunting in
a neighbouring sty, we beheld the vast landscape of our preceding day
stretched out beneath us, mistily emerging into the widening sunrise.
With pride our eyes traced the steep white road we had so arduously
travelled, and, for remembrance, Colin made a swift sketch of Dutch
Hollow huddled down there in the valley, with its white church steeple
catching the morning sun. And, by this, "the boarders" had assembled, and
we found ourselves at breakfast in a cheery company of three workmen, who
were as bright and full of fun as boys out for a holiday. They were
presently joined by a fourth, a hearty, middle-aged man, who, as he sat
down, greeted us with:

"I feel just like singing this morning."

"Good for you!" said one of us. "That's the way to begin the day." His
good nature was magnetic.

"Yes," he laughed, "we sing in Sheldon from morning till night."

"Sheldon's evidently a good place to know," I said. "I will make a note
of that for New Yorkers."

So, reader, sometimes when the world seems all wrong, and life a very
doubtful speculation, you may care to know of a place where the days go
so blithely that men actually sing from morning till night! Sheldon
Center is that place. You can find it on any map, and I can testify that
the news is true.

And the men that thus sang from morning till night--what was the trade
they worked and sang at?

We gathered from a few dropped words that they were engaged on some work
over at the church--masonry, no doubt--and, as they left the
breakfast-table, in a laughing knot, to begin the day's work, they
suggested our giving a look in at them on our way. This we promised to
do, for a merrier, better-hearted lot of fellows it would be hard to
find. To meet them was to feel a warm glow of human comradeship. Healthy,
normal, happy fellows, enjoying their work as men should, and taking life
as it came with sane, unconscious gusto; it was a tonic encounter to be
in their company.

They were grave-diggers, engaged in renovating the village churchyard!

Yes! and, said our hostess, they were making it like a garden! It had
been long neglected and become disgracefully overgrown with weeds and
bushes, but now they were trimming it up in fine style. They were
cemetery experts from Batavia way, and the job was to cost sixteen
hundred dollars. But it was worth it, for indeed they were