Great trees were scattered here and there, and many people wondered when they saw them, but these trees, oaks and chestnuts, tall hickories and bright cheerful maples, had been growing where they stood since they were little saplings. The people of Plainton had always been fond of trees, and they had them in their side yards, and in their back yards, and at the front of their houses; and when, within the limits of the new park, all these yards, and houses, and sheds, and fences had been cleared away, there stood the trees. Hundreds of other trees, evergreens and deciduous, many of them of good size, had been brought from the adjacent country on great wheels, which had excited the amazement of the people in the town, and planted in the park. Through the middle of the grounds ran a wide and turbulent brook, whirling around its rocks and spreading out into its deep and beautiful pools, and where once stood the widow Casey's little house,--which was built on the side of a bank, so that the Caseys went into the second story when they entered by the front,--now leaped a beautiful cataract over that very bank, scattering its spray upon the trunks of the two big chestnuts, one of which used to stand by the side of Mrs. Casey's house, and the other at the front. In the shade of the four great oak trees which had stood in William Hamilton's back yard, and which he intended to cut down as soon as he had money enough to build a long cow-stable,--for it was his desire to go into the dairy business,--now spread a wide, transparent pool, half surrounded at its upper end by marble terraces, on the edges of which stood tall statues with their white reflections stretching far down into the depths beneath. Here were marble benches, and steps down to the water, and sometimes the bright gleams of sunshine came flittering through the leaves, and sometimes the leaves themselves came fluttering down and floated on the surface of the pool. And when the young people had stood upon the terraces, or had sat together upon the wide marble steps, they could walk away, if they chose, through masses of evergreen shrubbery, whose quiet paths seemed to shut them out from the world.