_clack of a guinea going to roost_: The guinea-fowl as it goes to roost frequently sets up a clacking that can be heard half a mile away. _an ancient cemetery in the very heart of Boston_: The cemetery was the historic King’s Chapel on Tremont Street, Boston. Some of the elm trees have since been cut down. PAGE 78 _Cubby Hollow_: a small pond near the author’s boyhood home, running, after a half-mile course through the woods, into Lupton’s Pond, which falls over a dam into the meadows of Cohansey Creek. _on the water_: What water is it that surrounds so large a part of the City of Boston? PAGE 79 _the shuttered buildings_: Along some of the streets, especially in the wholesale district, the heavy iron shutters, closed against the high walls of the buildings, give the deserted streets a solemn, almost a forbidding aspect. _facing the wind_: like an anchored boat, offering the least possible resistance to the storm. _out of doors lies very close about you, as you hurry down a crowded city street_: Opportunities for watching the wild things, for seeing and hearing the things of nature, cannot be denied you even in the heart of the city, if you have an eye for such things. Read Bradford Torrey’s “Birds on Boston Common,” or the author’s “Birds from a City Roof” in the volume called “Roof and Meadow.” CHAPTER XI TO THE TEACHER This is a chapter on the large wholesomeness of contact with nature; that even the simple, humble tasks out of doors are attended with a freedom and a naturalness that restore one to his real self by putting him into his original primitive environment and by giving him an original primitive task to do. Then, too, how good a thing it is to have something alive and responsive to work for--if only a goat or a pig! Take occasion to read to the class Lamb’s essay on Roast Pig--even fifth grade pupils will get a lasting picture from it. Again--and this is the apparent purpose of the chapter--how impossible it is to go into the woods with anything--a hay-rake--and not find the woods interesting! FOR THE PUPIL PAGE 80 _the unabridged dictionary_: What does “unabridged” mean? _hay-rig_: a simple farm wagon with a “rigging” put on for carting hay. PAGE 81 _cord wood_: wood cut into four-foot lengths to be cut up smaller for burning in the stove. What are the dimensions of a cord of wood? PAGE 82 _through the cold gray of the maple swamp below you, peers the face of Winter_: What does one see in a maple swamp at this time of year that looks like the “face of winter.” Think. _he that gathers leaves for his pig spreads a blanket of down over his own winter bed_: How is this meant to be taken?