re, I
thought. Surely they must have been some society for grandmamma?"

"I do not believe," mamma replied, "that any other spot upon the globe,
not even Robinson Crusoe's island, could now seem so desolate and shut
off from all communication as our home in the woods did then. You must
remember that there were no railways in 1826, which fact made us still
more remote from the rest of the world. Now, with the railways
spreading in every direction over our vast Republic, you can scarcely
imagine what it was to live with an almost impenetrable forest between
yourself and your nearest neighbor. Uncle Benjamin occupied what was
called the 'next lot,' and had the ground been cleared, the distance
from us would still have been three-quarters of a mile; but when the
distance was increased three-fold by the darkness of the forest, and
there was in addition every probability of meeting a bear or two on the
way, you can imagine that being neighborly was scarcely practicable."

"Bears!" exclaimed Gabrielle, her eyes sparkling with excitement; "how
lovely! Darling auntie, do tell us more about them. It must have been
like one of Captain Mayne Reid's stories, to live in that delightful
Pennsylvania!"

"Our life there," said mamma, "certainly equalled the wildest tales of
adventures experienced by early settlers that I have ever read, and we
children found it quite as 'lovely' as you imagine it to have been. We
never felt isolated, although our entire 'clearing' consisted of only
four acres, upon which our house stood, and any further prospect was
shut out by the woods. To us it was delightful to realize the
adventures of Robinson Crusoe, which, as I told you, brother had read
to us in Vermont, merely changing tropical animals and scenery for that
of the North. I do not remember ever being afraid, but the wolves, who
nightly howled in gangs about our slightly built house, the bears who
ate up the corn in our little patch, the porcupines who gnawed the
hoops off our pork barrels, and the frightful, screaming owls, struck
terror to poor mother's heart.

"I recollect that one night father went out to drive away a porcupine
whose teeth and claws he heard busily at work upon a barrel hoop, but
the creature rushed into the house through the open door, and ran
across the trundle bed where sister Arminda and I slept. I need not
tell you how dangerous it would have been had one of his quills
penetrated our flesh."

"Do go on, a