chimed in with a succession of little shrieks about as powerful as the
peep of a little chicken.

"I have heard that they once measured distances by 'shoots,'" said Mrs.
Clifford, laughing; "but I hope it will not be necessary to illustrate
_them_ by firing a gun."

They next passed on old and weatherworn graveyard.

"This," said Mrs. Clifford, "was once known, in the choice language of
the backwoodsmen, as a 'briar-patch;' and when people died, it was said
they 'winked out.'"

"'Winked out,' Aunt 'Ria? how dreadful!"

"Wing tout," echoed Katie; "how defful!"

"O, what beautiful, beautiful grass we're riding by, auntie! When the
wind blows it, it _winks_ so softly! Why, it looks like a green river
running ever so fast."

"That is a sort of prairie land, dear, and very rich. Look on the other
side of the road, and tell me what you think of those trees."

"O, Aunt 'Ria, I couldn't climb up there, nor a boy either! It would
take a pretty spry squirrel--wouldn't it, though?"

"A pitty sp'y squirrel, I fink," remarked Katie, who did not consider
any of Dotty's sentences complete until she herself had added a
finishing touch.

"They are larger than our trees, Alice."

"O, yes, papa. They look as if they grew, and grew, and forgot to stop."

"Velly long trees, tenny rate," said Katie, throwing up her arms in
imitation of branches, and jumping so high that her mother was obliged
to take her in her lap in order to keep her in the carriage.

"And, O, papa, it is so smooth between the trees, we can peep like a
spy-glass, right through! Why, it seems like a church."

"_I_ don't see um," said Katie, stretching her neck and looking in vain
for a church.

"'The groves were God's first temples,'" repeated Mr. Parlin,
reverently. "These trees have no undergrowth of shrubs, like our New
England trees."

"But, O, look! look, papa! What is that long green _dangle_, dripping
down from up high? No, swinging up from down low?'

"Yes, what is um, Uncle Eddard?"

"That is a mistletoe-vine embracing a hickory tree. It is called a
'tree-thief,' because it steals its food from the tree it grows upon."

"Why, papa, I shouldn't think 'twas a thief, for the tree knows it. A
thief comes in the night, when there doesn't anybody know it. _I_ should
think 'twas a _beggar_."

"_I_ fink so too," said Flyaway, straining her eyes to look at she knew
not what. "I fink um ought to ask _pease_."

"All this tract of country where we a