ly across the grass-grown track; forest
trees droop heavily over it in summer and fall unheeded across it in
winter. On either side moss-grown, winter-killed apple-trees and ancient
stunted currant-bushes struggle for life against sturdy young pine and
spruce and birch. Many a rod of heavy tumble-down stone wall--New
England Stonehenges--may be seen, not as of old dividing cleared and
fertile fields, but in the midst of a forest of trees or underbrush:

"Far up on these abandoned mountain farms
Now drifting back to forests wild again,
The long gray walls extend their clasping arms
Pathetic monuments of vanished men."

Or more pathetic monuments still of hard and wasted work. On either side
of the way, at too sadly frequent intervals, ruined wells or desolate
yawning cellar-holes, with tumbling chimneys standing like Druid ruins,
show that fair New England homes once there were found. Flaming orange
tiger-lilies, most homely and cheerful bloom of country gardens, have
spread from the deserted dooryards, across the untrodden foot-paths, in
weedy thickets a-down the hill, and shed their rank odor unheeded on the
air.

Some of the old provincial mile-stones, however, remain, and put us
closely in touch with the past. In the southern part of New London
County, and at Stratford, Conn., on the old post-road--the King's
Highway--between Boston and Philadelphia, there are mossgrown stones
that were set under the supervision of Benjamin Franklin when he was
colonial Postmaster-General. After that highway was laid out, the
placing and setting of the mile-stones were entrusted to Franklin, and
he transacted the business, as he did everything else, in a thoroughly
original way. He drove over the road in a comfortable chaise, followed
by a gang of men and heavy teams loaded with the mile-stones. He
attached to his chaise a machine which registered by the revolution of
the chaise-wheels the number of miles travelled, and he had the
mile-stones set by that record, and marked with the distance to the
nearest large town. Thus the Stratford stone says: "20 Mls to N. H."--New
Haven.

By provincial enactment in Governor Hutchinson's time, mile-stones were
set on all the post-roads throughout Massachusetts. Some of these stones
are still standing. There is one in the middle of the city of Worcester,
on Lincoln Street--the "New Connecticut Path;" it is of red sandstone,
and is marked, "42 Mls to Boston, 50 Mls to S