ts, striped blankets, &c., is the old
woman, the daughter, about eighteen, and a perfect swarm of
white-headed little ones. The father, and his two stalwort sons, are
busy in the forest close at hand. How merrily the echoes ring out at
each blow of their axes, and how the earth groans with the shock of
the falling trees. The two largest of the woodland giants are cut into
logs--the others are also divided into the proper lengths. The logs
are placed athwart the stream several feet distant from each
other--the rest are laid in close rows athwart, and lo! the bridge.
Over the whole scene the warm glow of the setting sun is spread, and a
black bear, some little distance in the forest, is thrusting his great
flat head out of a hollow tree, overseeing the proceedings with the
air of a connoisseur.

The bridge is now old and black, and has decayed and been broken into
quite a picturesque object. One of the platform pieces has been
fractured in the middle, and the two ends slant upwards, as if to take
observations of the sky; and there is a great hole in the very centre
of the bridge. Add to this the moss, which has crept over the whole
structure, making what remains of the platform a perfect cushion, and
hanging in long flakes of emerald, which fairly dip in the water, and
the whole object is before you. The stream has a slow, still motion,
with eddies, here coiling up into wrinkles like an old man's face, and
there dimpling around some stone like the smiling cheek of a young
maiden, but in no case suffering its demureness to break into a broad
laugh of ripples. In one spot tall bullrushes show their slender
shapes and brown wigs; in another there is a collection of waterflags;
in another there are tresses of long grass streaming in the light flow
of the current, whilst in a nook, formed by the roots of an immense
elm on one side, and a projection of the bank on the other, is a thick
coat of stagnant green--a perfect meadow for the frogs to hold their
mass meetings in, differing from ours, however, from the fact of
theirs being composed of all talkers and no listeners.

Let us look at the stream a little, which has here expanded into a
broad surface, and view its "goings on." There is a water-spider
taking most alarming leaps, as if afraid of wetting his feet; a
dragon-fly is darting hither and yon, his long, slender body flashing
with green, golden and purple hues; a large dace has just apparently
flattened his nose agains