famous for knowing
the whereabouts of all strange plants and wild flowers, he promised to
get them some. In the afternoon, Freddy Lucas, his friend and almost
constant companion, came, and as it was an uncommonly mild and pleasant
day for that season of the year, they asked me to go with them. I was
right glad to do so, and after adding one more to our party, Susan
Edwards, a dark-eyed, merry-hearted girl, we were soon scampering away
over the hills. There had been some very heavy rains, by which the sand
had been washed away from the hill-side, leaving deep and wide furrows
at the foot, which required all our skill to jump over, but we
determined not to be outdone by Alfred, who acted as pioneer; so we
continued to follow our leader, with many a laugh and tumble, until it
seemed we were going a great way, to get nowhere.

"At length we came to a little pond, far down among the hills, with
shrubs and rushes growing all around and into it. Alfred said this was
Turtle pond, where the boys often came Saturday afternoons to roast
potatoes and apples, and have a real frolic. He said, too, it would do
one's heart good to look upon these hills in the early spring time, for
then they were fairly blushing with the beautiful May flowers, which the
boys and girls who are working for the anti-slavery cause, take so much
pains to gather, and send to the Boston market. I asked him if this was
Acorn Hollow. 'Oh no,' said he, 'we must go through this pasture, and
the next one beyond it; then we shall see a cedar tree growing by the
fence, and soon we shall come to a place where two roads go round a
hill, and then we shall be close by there.'

"So we went, and went, till he stopped suddenly, and said, 'here it is.'
And sure enough, there was the beautiful hollow, close by the road-side.
The sides were so steep that it was by no means safe to run down into
it, and the great oak trees and the small ones, with the pine, the
walnut, and the silvery birch, grew thick and close all around, save
that one small opening from the road, a little archway among the
overhanging boughs and dwarf alders.

"Just below this opening there was one of the most lordly looking oak
trees that I ever saw. It was taller than any of the other trees, and
the trunk was so large, that when two of us children stood, one on each
side, and reached our arms around it we could only touch the tips of
each other's fingers. We had to hurry and get our ground pine, for the