the men at work. They were
engaged in felling trees, pulling out rocks and old logs which were
sunken in the mire, by means of oxen and chains, and in other similar
works, making all the time loud and continual vociferations, which
resounded and echoed through the forest in a very impressive manner.

What interested Phonny most in these operations, was to see how
patiently the oxen bore being driven about in the deep mire, and the
prodigious strength which they exerted in pulling out the logs. One of
the workmen would take a strong iron chain, and while two others would
pry up the end of a log with crow-bars or levers, he would pass
the chain under the end so raised, and then hook it together above.
Another man would then back up a pair of oxen to the place, and
sometimes two pairs, in order that they might be hooked to the chain
which passed around the log. When all was ready, the oxen were started
forward, and though they went very slowly, step by step, yet they
exerted such prodigious strength as to tear the log out of its bed,
and drag it off, roots, branches, and all, entirely out of the way.

Monstrous rocks were lifted up and dragged out of the line of the road
in much the same manner.

After looking at this scene for some time, the party returned to the
old road again, and there Mary Erskine said that she would bid her
visitors good-bye, and telling them that she would not forget to
invite them to her raspberry party, she took leave of them and went
back toward her own home.

"If all the children of the village that Mary Erskine knows, are
invited to that party," said Phonny, "what a great raspberry party it
will be!"

"Yes," said Beechnut, "it will be a raspberry _jam_."

THE END.

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