s
with beautiful and intelligent eyes. It had smelt the fruit, and wished
to put in its claim for a share.

Tuesday morning, before breakfast, E---- and I drove three or four
miles, to the summit of an intervening ridge, from which we had a wide
prospect of hill and dale, with Monadnock in the midst. It was a good
sight, although the atmosphere did not give the hills that aspect of
bulk and boldness which it sometimes does. This part of the country is
but thinly inhabited, and the dwellings are generally small. It is said
that, in the town of Temple, there are more old cellars, where dwellings
have formerly stood, than there are houses now inhabited. The town is
not far from a hundred years old, but contains now only five or six
hundred inhabitants. The enterprising young men emigrate elsewhere,
leaving only the least energetic portions to carry on business at home.
There appear to be but few improvements, the cultivated fields being of
old date, smooth with long cultivation. Here and there, however, a tract
newly burned over, or a few acres with the stumps still extant. The
farm-houses all looked very lonesome and deserted to-day, the
inhabitants having gone to the regimental muster at New Ipswich.

As we drove home, E---- told a story of a child who was lost, seventy or
eighty years ago, among the woods and hills. He was about five years
old, and had gone with some work-people to a clearing in the forest,
where there was a rye-field, at a considerable distance from the
farm-house. Getting tired, he started for home alone, but did not
arrive. They made what search for him they could that night, and the
next day the whole town turned out, but without success. The day
following, many people from the neighboring towns took up the search,
and on this day, I believe, they found the child's shoes and stockings,
but nothing else. After a while, they gave up the search in despair; but
for a long time, a fortnight or three weeks or more, his mother fancied
that she heard the boy's voice in the night, crying, "Father! father!"
One of his little sisters also heard this voice; but people supposed
that the sounds must be those of some wild animal. No more search was
made, and the boy never was found.

But it is not known whether it was the next autumn, or a year or two
after, some hunters came upon traces of the child's wanderings among the
hills, in a different direction from the previous search, and farther
than it was suppose