How snug the "house-place" in the old home must have looked with its roaring fire of logs, on winter evenings, when the two little boys of nine and seven, and Joan and Anne, the little sisters, huddled up in the chimney-corner with baby Richard in his cradle, while the mother prepared hot ale and "roasted crabs" for her gossips. Will, I warrant, as with twinkling eyes he watched Mrs. Hart or Mrs. Sadler or Mrs. Hathaway, from Shottery, thought that it was Puck himself, the very spirit of mischief, who had got into the bowl "in very likeness of a roasted crab." It must have been a recollection of those winter evenings that made little Will, in later years, write his delightful "Winter Song": "When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit; Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. "When all aloud the wind doth blow And coughing drowns the parson's saw And birds sit brooding in the snow And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit; Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." Among the gossips there would be much talk of wonders, appearances, mysterious occurrences, and charms; and the children listened with all their ears, you may be sure. Perhaps one of Mistress Shakspere's friends possessed the power that some people in Warwickshire still are said to possess, of charming away warts by a touch and some murmured invocation; or curing toothache and all other aches and pains. There are plenty of people now who, after your second cup of tea is finished, will take the cup, twist the grounds around three times, turn it mouth downward in the saucer, and then, by looking at the tea-leaves which still stick to the bottom of the cup, will undertake to tell you what is going to happen--of presents you will receive, or people who are coming to see you. And many Warwickshire women still believe firmly that whooping-cough can be charmed away by the patient walking nine times over running water. [Illustration: "THE HEDGE-ROWS WERE FULL, AS THEY ARE TO THIS DAY, OF WILD APPLES, WILD PEARS, AND 'CRABS.'"]