. It's most
time for them to hatch the goslings; Gram has given us strict orders not
to go nigh them."

My new cousins, having undertaken to show me the sights of the farm,
conducted me next to the large old barns, now empty of hay, disclosing
yawning hay bays, weathered brown beams and grain scaffolds.

On this Sabbath morning, the cobwebbed roofs were vocal with the
twitterings of many tireless, happy swallows, whose mud nests were
placed against the dusty ribs and rafters. Three comma-shaped
swallow-holes in the gable gave them access to the inside, where for two
generations of men they had found a safe breeding-place. Less safe and
less fortunate were the eaves swallows, a row of whose mud nests was
placed along one side of the barn, beneath the eaves without; for wind,
sun and rain often caused their nests to fall; crows, too, at times
stole up and plundered them; and weasels playing along the margin of the
roof, had been known to throttle the fledglings.

"He must go and see the 'Little Sea,'" said Ellen.

"Yes, cousin," Theodora said, "you have no doubt heard of the Black Sea
and the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea; but up here at Gramp's we
have a new sea that no geographer has yet put down on the map. It isn't
every day that anybody can discover a new sea, you know."

Ellen and Wealthy led the way across the fields toward the east side of
the farm; we crossed the road and descended through a wide field of
grass land, and came to a broad stone wall, extending for near half a
mile betwixt the fields and the pastures. Here grew a long, irregular
row of wild red cherry trees and black cherry trees, now just past the
season of bloom.

"The cherries off some of these trees are fine to eat," Theodora
remarked as we stood on the wall and looked about. "This one here is
Gramp's tree," she said. "Those off this tree are nearly half as large
as the 'tame' cherries; and this one by the rock is my tree; and those
out by the pine stump are Ellen's and Wealthy's. Halstead claims a whole
row of those higher up; he talks large if any of us rob his trees; but
the birds get the most of them. Ad thinks they are not really fit to eat
and says there is danger in swallowing the stones. We have enough of the
large, tame cherries, too, all through July and until the first of
August. Those trees that you saw along the barnyard fence of the north
barn are the tame cherry trees. The black cherries do not get ripe till
later; O