e hewed and squared by Captain Moses Rice (who lies in
his grave on the hillside above it), in the presence of the Red Man
who killed him with arrow and tomahawk some time after his house was
set in order. The gigantic tree, struck with a sort of leprosy, like
all its species, appears much older, and of course has its
tradition. They say that it grew from a green stake which the first
land-surveyor planted there for one of his points of sight. John was
reminded of it years after when he sat under the shade of the
decrepit lime-tree in Freiburg and was told that it was originally a
twig which the breathless and bloody messenger carried in his hand
when he dropped exhausted in the square with the word "Victory!" on
his lips, announcing thus the result of the glorious battle of Morat,
where the Swiss in 1476 defeated Charles the Bold. Under the broad
but scanty shade of the great button-ball tree (as it was called)
stood an old watering-trough, with its half-decayed penstock and
well-worn spout pouring forever cold, sparkling water into the
overflowing trough. It is fed by a spring near by, and the water is
sweeter and colder than any in the known world, unless it be the well
Zem-zem, as generations of people and horses which have drunk of it
would testify, if they could come back. And if they could file along
this road again, what a procession there would be riding down the
valley!--antiquated vehicles, rusty wagons adorned with the
invariable buffalo-robe even in the hottest days, lean and
long-favored horses, frisky colts, drawing, generation after
generation, the sober and pious saints, that passed this way to
meeting and to mill.

What a refreshment is that water-spout! All day long there are
pilgrims to it, and John likes nothing better than to watch them.
Here comes a gray horse drawing a buggy with two men,--cattle
buyers, probably. Out jumps a man, down goes the check-rein. What a
good draught the nag takes! Here comes a long-stepping trotter in a
sulky; man in a brown linen coat and wide-awake hat,--dissolute,
horsey-looking man. They turn up, of course. Ah, there is an
establishment he knows well: a sorrel horse and an old chaise. The
sorrel horse scents the water afar off, and begins to turn up long
before he reaches the trough, thrusting out his nose in anticipation
of the coot sensation. No check to let down; he plunges his nose in
nearly to his eyes in his haste to get at it. Two maiden ladies
--unmistakab