"Marm" Pease, the mother of Rufus, had on one occasion been confined, and old Doctor--I forget his name--who officiated at the birth, had been asked to give the infant a name. Now he was a dry wag, of the kind so dear to Dr. Holmes, and expressed much gratification and gratitude at such a compliment being paid to him. "He had long been desirous," he said, "of naming a child after his dear old friend, Dr. Green." So the name was bestowed, the simple Indians not realising for some time after the christening that their youngest bore the name of Green Pease. Whether he was ever called a duck, I know not. Everything about Uncle Seth and Aunt Betsy was, as I remember, delightfully comfortable, old-fashioned, and in a way beautiful. There was their daughter Rebecca, who was pretty and gentle, so that several wild birds came every morning to feed from her hand and perch on her fingers. Uncle Seth himself wore a scarlet waistcoat, and, as I recall him, seemed altogether in figure to belong to the time of Cromwell, or to earlier days. There was a hall, hung round with many old family portraits in antique dresses, and an immense dairy--the pride of Aunt Betsy's heart--and a garden, in which I was once shown a humming-bird's nest; and cousin Rebecca's mantelpiece, over a vast old fireplace, heaped with mosses, birds' nests, shells, and such curiosities as a young girl would gather in the woods and fields; and the cider-press, in which Uncle Seth ground up the sixteen hundred bushels of apples which he had at one crop, and the new cider gushing in a stream, whereof I had a taste. It was a charming, quiet old homestead, in which books and culture were not wanting, and it has all to me now something of the chiaroscuro and Rembrandt colour and charm of the _Mahrchen_ or fairy-tale. The reality of this charm is apt to go out of life as that of literature or culture comes in. To this day I draw the deepest impression or sentiment of the _pantheism_ or subtle spiritual charm of Nature far more from these early experiences of rural life than from all the books, poetry included, which I have ever perused. Note this well, ye whose best feelings are only a _rechauffe_ of Ruskin and Browning--_secundem ordinem_--for I observe that those who do not think at second hand are growing rare.