the side of a steep hill. One side of it was perpendicular thirty feet.
It was covered with crisp, gray moss. In the chinks and crannies on the
top, short grass was growing in little bunches.

As I followed down in the lane which led from the pasture to the
cow-yard, striped squirrels were playfully skipping through the
dilapidated wall, coming out, and disappearing; sitting down and putting
their forefeet up to their faces as if they were convulsed with laughter
to think how the old black-and-white cat had gone to sleep lying on the
wall in the sun, only a few rods below them.

Dinner was ready, as I expected. I told Mrs. Wetherell of my walk over
the Stony Bridge.

"Yes," she said. "Years ago, when I kept geese, one night I went out to
feed them and I found that they hadn't come. I knew something must be
the matter. I started for the brook. When I got out on the hill by the
graveyard, I heard the gander making an awful noise. I hurried on, and,
when I got to the corner of the field, I found a fox jumping at the old
gander as he was walking back and forth in front of the geese and
goslings. I screeched and the fox run. The geese came right up to me. I
was pretty pleased to save them. I had two geese and thirteen goslings
beside the gander."

I said: "Is that a ledge out in the field where sumachs and birches are
growing?"

Mrs. Wetherell said: "Yes; and that piece of ground is where Father
Wetherell raised the last piece of flax. I don't suppose you ever saw
any growing?"