snow till
it waxed too vast for our strength; two or three of these piled one on
another would be sculptured by the author of The Scarlet Letter into a
snow-man, who would stand stanch for weeks. Snow-storms in Lenox began
early and lasted till far into April. The little red house had all it
could do, sometimes, to lift its upper windows above them. In the front
yard there was a symmetrical balsam fir-tree, tapering like a Chinese
pagoda. One winter morning we found upon one of its lower boughs a
little brown sparrow frozen stiff. We put it in a card-board coffin, and
dug out a grave for it beneath the fir, with a shingle head-stone. The
funeral ceremonies had for the two mourners a solemnity such as is not
always felt at such functions in later life.

Of the regular daily routine was the journey to Luther Butler's, quarter
of a mile up the road, for milk and butter. I generally accompanied
my father, and saw placid Luther's cows, placid as himself, with their
broad, wet noses, amiable dark eyes, questionable horns, and ambrosial
breath. Mr. Tappan, our landlord, had horses, and once he mounted me on
the bare back of one of the largest of these quadrupeds, which, to the
stupefaction of everybody, instantly set off at full gallop. Down
the road we thundered, the rider, with his legs sticking out at right
angles, screaming with joy, for this transcended any rocking-horse
experiences. A hundred yards away there was a bend in the road. Just at
that point there was a manure-pile, which had long bided its time. I had
hold of a strand of the horse's mane; but when he swerved at the bend I
had to let go, and after a short flight in air, the manure-pile received
me in its soft embrace. Looking up the road, I saw Mr. Tappan, with
dilated eyes and a countenance expressing keen emotion, coming towards
me at a wonderful pace, and my father and mother following him at a
short distance. I did not myself mind the smell of manure, and the
others were glad to put up with it in consideration of my having escaped
broken bones.

We did not keep a dog, but Herman Melville, who often came over from
Pittsfield, had a large Newfoundland which he sometimes brought with,
him, and Mr. G. P. R. James, a novelist of the Walter Scott school, had
another, and I was permitted to bestride both of them; they were safe
enough, but they would turn back their heads and lay their cold noses on
my leg; I preferred the now-forbidden horse. But Melville himse