A QUIET POND 99 HUSKING-TIME 100 SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW 101 NOVEMBER 103 THE VILLAGE ON THE HILL 105 A MILL IN THE VALLEY 106 CLOUD SHADOWS 107 A LOG HOUSE 109 AN EARLY SNOW 110 ON A MOUNTAIN CRAG 111 ONE OF THE GREEN MOUNTAIN PEAKS 111 AMONG THE BIG HILLS 112 A DESERTED HUT IN THE WOODS 113 CHARCOAL KILNS 114 ROUGH UPLANDS 115 DECEMBER 117 A PATH IN THE WINTER WOODS 119 WINDY WINTER--ON THE WAY HOME FROM SCHOOL 120 AFTER A STORM 121 [Illustration: OLD FIREPLACE] PART I OLD TIMES ON A NEW ENGLAND FARM [Illustration: A FOOT-STOVE] About “old times” there always hovers a peculiar charm. A dreamland atmosphere overhangs them. The present, as we battle along through it, seems full of hard, dry facts; but, looking back, experience takes on a rosy hue. The sharp edges are gone. Even the trials and difficulties which assailed us have for the most part lost their power to pain or try us, and take on a story-book interest in this mellow land of memories. [Illustration: CANES AND UMBRELLAS] To speak of “the good old times” is to gently implicate the present, and the mild disapproval of the new therein suggested is, from elderly people, to be expected. We grow conservative with age. Quiet is more pleasing than change. The softened outlines of the past have an attraction which the present matter-of-fact hurry and work have not, and the times when we were young hold peculiar pleasure for our contemplation. To actually prove by logic and rule that the old times were better than the new would not be easy. They had their lacks. The world learns and gains many things as it ages. It is to be hoped that it grows better as it grows older; but even so the past has its charm, whether one of memories in which we ourselves were actors, or of story, which shows the contrast to the present which is the out-growth of that past. [Illustration: THE CHURN] [Illustration: YE ENTRANCE OF OLD FASHION]