of the hill.

We were a neighborhood of large families, and most of us enjoyed the
privilege of "a little wholesome neglect." Our tether was a long one,
and when, grown a little older, we occasionally asked to have it
lengthened, a maternal "I don't care" amounted to almost unlimited
liberty.

The hill itself was well-nigh boundless in its capacities for juvenile
occupation. Besides its miniature precipices, that walled in some of
the neighbors' gardens, and its slanting slides, worn smooth by the
feet of many childish generations, there were partly quarried ledges,
which had shaped themselves into rock-stairs, carpeted with lovely
mosses, in various patterns. These were the winding ways up our
castle-towers, with breakfast-rooms and boudoirs along the landings,
where we set our tables for expected guests with bits of broken china,
and left our numerous rag-children tucked in asleep under mullein
blankets or plantain-coverlets, while we ascended to the topmost turret
to watch for our ships coming in from sea.

For leagues of ocean were visible from the tiptop of the ledge, a tiny
cleft peak that held always little rain-pool for thirsty birds that now
and then stopped as they flew over, to dip their beaks and glance shyly
at us, as if they wished to share our games. We could see the steeples
and smokes of Salem in the distance, and the bill, as it descended,
lost itself in mowing fields that slid again into the river. Beyond
that was Rial Side and Folly Hill, and they looked so very far off!

They called it "over to Green's" across the river. I thought it was
because of the thick growth of dark green junipers, that covered the
cliff-side down to the water's edge; but they were only giving the name
of the farmer who owned the land, Whenever there was an unusual barking
of dogs in the distance, they said it was "over to Green's." That
barking of dogs made the place seem very mysterious to me.

Our lane ran parallel with the hill and the mowing fields, and down our
lane we were always free to go. It was a genuine lane, all ups and
downs, and too narrow for a street, although at last they have leveled
it and widened it, and made a commonplace thoroughfare of it. I am glad
that my baby life knew it in all its queer, original irregularities,
for it seemed to have a character of its own, like many of its
inhabitants, all the more charming because it was unlike anything but
itself. The hill, too, is lost now, buried under h