To me there is something fascinating about an old deserted house standing near a lonely country road. The sashless windows and open doorways always remind me of some strange animal gasping in the agonies of death. And I fall to wondering whether the people were happy who once occupied the home when it was new. What were their hopes and ambitions? Did they love some one, and were they loved in return? Did children once play around that damaged door and look out through those windows and long to go out in the world and accomplish great things? A few Sundays ago I rode out over the country roads near my home, and finally came to a road on which I had never traveled before. It led down a valley that extended to the creek a few miles below. We drove down this road after inquiring and learning that it connected with the creek road. We knew our bearings when safely on the creek highway. We had not driven a mile before we came to the ideal fascinating deserted house. All around it rank weeds and briars were growing. The one door facing the road was very low, and on closer examination we discovered that two of the lower logs had rotted away, allowing the house to settle down two feet or more. The windows were small and warped out of shape, and not a single sash in place. The mortar and packing were gone from the crevices between the logs, and the old stone chimney was ragged and battered at the top. But the wonder was that the shingles were in pretty good condition. They had been hewn from the virgin pine and shaved by the man who built the house some eighty years ago. It was a story-and-a-half house, the upper half-story consisting of the garret only. The upper floor was missing and one could see to the rafters when looking in the open door. While we were sitting in the buggy and looking with a peculiar awe upon the old home, an old man came along and we asked him who had built the house. He stopped and walked over to the fence, put one foot on the second rail to rest his leg, and pointing to the old ruins with his crooked cane, said: “This is the Fred Beaver home. He came here from Germany in 1824, and settled on this piece of land. He had only been married six weeks before he sailed for the new world. He had barely enough money to bring him and his young wife to America. He had a cousin living near here at the time, and that is how he came to locate here in the woods. His wife was never contented, but kept longing and longing for the dear old home across the sea. They were very poor, so my father told me, often not having enough to eat, and this made life still more dreary for the homesick wife.