th. But
Den's cousin's uncle, when he saw the one coming toward him, had stepped
aside quick as lightning, and the serpent's sharp fangs had buried
themselves so deep in the bark of a tree, that he could not escape.

Various other of the myths common to American boyhood, were held in
perfect faith by Den and Ellis and Ed, myths which made every woodland
path an ambush and every marshy spot a place of evil. Horsehairs would
turn to snakes if left in the spring, and a serpent's tail would not die
till sundown.

Once on the high hillside, I started a stone rolling, which as it went
plunging into a hazel thicket, thrust out a deer, whose flight seemed
fairly miraculous to me. He appeared to drift along the hillside like a
bunch of thistle-down, and I took a singular delight in watching him
disappear.

Once my little brother and I, belated in our search for the cows, were
far away on the hills when night suddenly came upon us. I could not have
been more than eight years old and Frank was five. This incident reveals
the fearless use our father made of us. True, we were hardly a mile from
the house, but there were many serpents on the hillsides and wildcats in
the cliffs, and eight is pretty young for such a task.

We were following the cows through the tall grass and bushes, in the
dark, when father came to our rescue, and I do not recall being sent on
a similar expedition thereafter. I think mother protested against the
danger of it. Her notions of our training were less rigorous.

I never hear a cow-bell of a certain timbre that I do not relive in some
degree the terror and despair of that hour on the mountain, when it
seemed that my world had suddenly slipped away from me.

Winter succeeds summer abruptly in my memory. Behind our house rose a
sharp ridge down which we used to coast. Over this hill, fierce winds
blew the snow, and wonderful, diamonded drifts covered the yard, and
sometimes father was obliged to dig deep trenches in order to reach the
barn.

On winter evenings he shelled corn by drawing the ears across a spade
resting on a wash tub, and we children built houses of the cobs, while
mother sewed carpet rags or knit our mittens. Quilting bees of an
afternoon were still recognized social functions and the spread quilt on
its frame made a gorgeous tent under which my brother and I camped on
our way to "Colorado." Lath swords and tin-pan drums remained a part of
our equipment for a year or two.

One storm