ppearance I had been
led to expect; but I consoled myself with the reflection: Pretty is as
pretty does!

We had barely concluded our labours when, with glad halloos, our
returning comrades came into sight bearing the spoils of the chase,
consisting of a brace of large birds, one being black in colour, the
other white, and both quite dead. At once I was struck by the
resemblance of these birds to ordinary barnyard fowls, but Master Pope
explained that they were woodcock. His uncle, Mr. H. K. Pope, our local
poultry dealer, frequently carried such woodcock in stock, he said; so I
was reassured.

Nor was this all. The Masters Smith had picked a considerable quantity
of wild strawberries. Theretofore I had always supposed that wild
strawberries were small, but these berries were really quite large, some
being as large as the adult human thumb. What especially attracted my
attention was the receptacle in which Master E. Smith bore them, it
being of rough, dark earthenware, circular in pattern and plainly of a
primitive design.

On Master Smith's telling me that he had come on this object buried in
the woods, I reached the conclusion that it must be a relic of the early
Mound Builders, those mysterious people who in prehistoric times
inhabited this our continent.

A discovery so interesting at once induced a train of thought. Seating
myself on my sofa pillow, I bade the boys gather about me, and I then
gave an impromptu discourse on the subject of this vanished race,
meantime holding in my hands the earthenware vessel and occasionally
elevating it in illustration as I described the customs and habits of
the Mound Builders so far as known.

Thus by easy stages I progressed onward and downward through the ages to
their successors and inheritors, the red men, or copper-coloured
aborigines, formerly so numerously encountered in this hemisphere, but
now reduced to a diminishing remnant, sequestered mainly in the Far
West, though with small reservations yet remaining, I believe, in
certain of our Eastern States, notably New York and North Carolina.

With his large blue eyes fixed on my face Master Pope listened with the
utmost gravity and attention to my remarks, which behaviour was in
contrast to that of his four associates, who seemed to derive food for
subdued laughter from what was being said. I am often at a loss to
fathom the causes which originate outbursts of levity on the part of our
growing youth; and so it was i