r about the great bamboo vines; twisted around the trees upon
the river banks, the long gray moss hung motionless and a thick
grayness seemed to shut out the whole world; all about me was
gray,--earth, sky, trees, barn, everything, except the redbirds and
the red berries of a great holly tree under whose shelter I stood,
listening to the whispering snowflakes.

The Sycamore Barn derived its name from a great sycamore tree near
which it stood. This tree was by far the largest that I ever saw; a
wagon with a four-horse team might be on one side, and quite concealed
from any one standing upon the other. When I knew it, it was a ruin,
the great trunk a mere shell, though the two giant forks,--themselves
immense in girth--still had life in them. In one side of the trunk was
an opening, about as large as an ordinary door; through this we used
to enter, and I have danced a quadrille of eight within with perfect
ease.

This tree gave its name to the field in which it grew, which formed
part of the tract known as the Silver Wedge. It was about the Silver
Wedge that an acrimonious lawsuit was carried on during the lives of
your great-great-grandparents, John and Frances Devereux. She was a
Pollock, and the dispute arose through a Mr. Williams, the son or
grandson of a certain Widow Pollock, who had, after the death of her
first husband, Major Pollock, married a Mr. Williams. She may possibly
have dowered in this Silver Wedge tract. At any rate, her Williams
descendants set up a claim to it, although it was in possession of the
real Pollock descendant, Frances Devereux. It was a large body of very
rich land, and intersected the plantation in the form of a wedge,
beginning near the Sycamore Barn, and running up far into the Second
Lands, widening and embracing the dwelling-house and plantation
buildings. I have heard your great-great-grandfather laugh and tell
how Williams once came to the house, and, with a sweeping bow and
great assumption of courtesy, made your great-great-grandmother
welcome to remain in _his_ house. After the suit had been settled,
Williams had occasion to come again to the house, feeling, no doubt,
rather crestfallen. Mrs. Devereux met him at the door and, making him
a sweeping curtsy, quoted his exact words, making him welcome to _her_
house.

One of my pleasant memories is connected with our fishing porch. This
was a porch, or balcony, built upon piles driven into the river upon
one side, and the other