The old man had every excuse for silence, and he and his wife spoke rarely, and always in their native tongue, but they evidently understood English perfectly. The farmer and his wife spoke English to each other, and spoke it as though born to its use, but they used that quaint German dialect in talking with the old people and the children. The wife was a plain woman, inclined to fretfulness, I thought, and she had a certain air with her husband, which is not uncommon to plain women whose husbands are distinctly handsome. She had little to say, but she listened attentively to the farmer's talk. He was entertainment for us all. Good-looking, high-spirited, manly fellow--in perfect unconsciousness of self, he talked on with the genial freedom of a true man of the world. His trip to Williamsport was a fruitful theme, and no least event of the journey was without its interest. He told us of the neighbors whom he met on the road, and all of his conjectures regarding their probable errands. He had taken a load of vegetables to town, and now recounted every sale and purchase, for he had been charged with many commissions. One was the purchase of braid for his wife's new dress. He was full of good-humor at each fresh departure in his tale; but, for some reason, the story of this last commission pleased him most. With high regard for circumstantial detail, he told it to us at least five times, and ended every narrative with a beaming smile, and the unvarying remark that "I'd have got it wider if I'd only known," to which his wife replied each time with unfaltering insistence upon the last word: "But you might have known." In the morning he was as cheerful as on the night before, and he put me in high spirits as, with many good wishes for my success, he told me again how sure he was that I could find work in the woods. At Salladasburg I stopped for further directions about the way to English Centre; and the tavern-keeper, at whose door I inquired, confirmed me strongly in my expectation of ready employment. An old plank road lead me through a mountain-pass, and along the course of a stream, far into the interior. The earlier miles of the march were among mountains that had long been stripped of all valuable timber, and that now stood ragged and uncouth in their new growths, and in the blackened remnants of forest fires. Here there were a few scattered farms; stony and of thin soil, where, for fences, uptorn stumps of trees had been placed side by side, with their twisted roots so interwoven as to form an impenetrable barrier. A caravan of gypsies met and passed me; but except for these, the road was almost deserted, and seemed to be leading into yet lonelier regions. Mountains now succeeded, on which the forests were untouched, and which, in autumn colors, were like huge mounds of foliage plant, so richly did the gorgeous hues of the maple-trees and chestnuts and beeches blend with the dark greens of hemlock and pine.