in the old wagon; after which Mitty's father and eldest brother pulled
off their coats, stripped up their shirt-sleeves, and went to work to
make a "clearing," as they called it, for a log house--felling the
trees, and cutting and burning the underbrush.

It took them a long while to hew down those fine old trees. I'm glad I
didn't see it done, for I should have sung out, with General Morris,

"Woodman! spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough,"--

for, a house, you know, can be put up by any carpenter who owns a set
of tools, but it takes many a long year of dew and sunshine to make
those grand old trees tower up to heaven.

However, it was all fine fun for Mitty, who sat on an old stump, with
her chin resting in her hands, watching to see the stout old trunk
stand like a rock against their heavy blows; then lean a little; then
creak, as if it were groaning with pain that its green branches must so
soon wither; then totter; then fall, crashing to the earth, like the
"giant" before little "David." Mitty liked it, though it was rather
dangerous sport; for, if the tree had fallen upon her pretty little
head, she never would have tossed back _her_ bright curls again.

Mitty was just the right sort of a Mitty for a little frontier girl.
She seemed to know just when to hand her father the axe, or the
hatchet, or the pick-axe; and just when they could rest a minute to
take a drink of water, or a mouthful of bread and cheese. She didn't
talk to them when they were busy, but amused herself making little log
houses, with chips, for her dolly. She didn't scream or run, if a snake
or a rabbit went over her foot; she was not all the time conjuring up
bears, and tigers, and raccoons, or catching hold of her father every
time she heard a little squirrel squeal;--not she--she loved
everything; and her soul looked out as fearlessly from her sweet blue
eyes, as if pain and danger and death had never followed the Serpent
into Eden.

Now, I suppose you are wondering what people so buried in the woods did
for stores, and shops, in which to buy things, and for meeting-houses
and newspapers.

In the first place, when they went there, they made up their minds that
silk dresses and ice-creams didn't grow on frontier bushes! and they
soon became astonished to find how many things there were that were not
at all necessary to their happiness, which they had always felt they
_could not do without_.

They kept a cow, and she