t to the earth with a resounding crash, lo! in the opening there
appeared to the startled eyes of the settler's wife, as if rising out of
heaven, a neighbor in her loneliness--Mount Kearsage, grand, serene, and
beautiful, crowned with the glories of the setting sun, standing guard
over a smiling lake at its foot. And every day through her long and
happy life till ninety-six years old, as she looked at the splendid
mountain, standing as it will till time shall be no more, did she thank
God for His gift, for that noble companionship which came so suddenly,
so inspiringly, upon the cramped horizon of her lonely forest home.

After the trees were all felled, it was no longer a "cut-down" but an
"opening." This was made preferably in the spring. The fallen trees were
left some months on the ground to dry in the summer sun, while the
farmer turned to other work on his farm, or, if he were starting in
life, hired out for the summer. In the autumn the tops were set on fire,
and the lighter limbs usually burned out, leaving the great charred
tree-trunks. Then came what was known as a piling-bee, a perfect riot of
hard work, cinders, and dirt. Usually the half-burned tree-trunks were
"niggered off" in Indian fashion, by burning across with a smaller stick
of wood till the long log was in lengths which could be dragged by the
farmers with their oxen and horses into vast piles and again set on
fire. Another treat of rum accompanied this day's work. The word
"log-rolling" was often applied to the latter bee, and occasionally the
felling of trees and dragging into piles for firing was done in a single
log-rolling.

Sometimes before the opening was cleared it was planted. The spring
rains and melting snows carried the fertilizing ashes deep into the
soil. Corn was planted and "dug in"; rye was sowed and "hacked in." The
crops were astonishing; the grain grew among the fallen logs and stumps
in rioting luxuriance. A stump-pulling was another occasion for a
friendly bee, to clear off and put into comely shape the new field.

Another exhibition of cooeperation was in a stone-hauling or a stone-bee.
Some of the rocky fields of hard New England would defy a lifetime of
work of one man and a single yoke of oxen. With judicious blasting, many
oxen, strong arms, and willing hearts the boulders and ledges were
tamed. Stone walls eight feet wide, such as may be seen in Hopkinton,
New Hampshire, stand as monuments of the patience, strength, ski