“Where is it, Aunt Lissa?”

“It is about two miles from your grandfather’s house, in the woods, at the south part of the town.  I have visited it at all times and seasons of the year, but the first time I ever saw it was in the dead of winter.”

“Why, how happened that?”

“It was the 22d of December—­the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, and there was to be a grand entertainment in the evening, to which my older sisters were invited.  They wanted some of the curly ground pine, which keeps green all winter, to put with the flowers they wore in their hair; and as brother Alfred was always famous for knowing the whereabouts of all strange plants and wild flowers, he promised to get them some.  In the afternoon, Freddy Lucas, his friend and almost constant companion, came, and as it was an uncommonly mild and pleasant day for that season of the year, they asked me to go with them.  I was right glad to do so, and after adding one more to our party, Susan Edwards, a dark-eyed, merry-hearted girl, we were soon scampering away over the hills.  There had been some very heavy rains, by which the sand had been washed away from the hill-side, leaving deep and wide furrows at the foot, which required all our skill to jump over, but we determined not to be outdone by Alfred, who acted as pioneer; so we continued to follow our leader, with many a laugh and tumble, until it seemed we were going a great way, to get nowhere.

“At length we came to a little pond, far down among the hills, with shrubs and rushes growing all around and into it.  Alfred said this was Turtle pond, where the boys often came Saturday afternoons to roast potatoes and apples, and have a real frolic.  He said, too, it would do one’s heart good to look upon these hills in the early spring time, for then they were fairly blushing with the beautiful May flowers, which the boys and girls who are working for the anti-slavery cause, take so much pains to gather, and send to the Boston market.  I asked him if this was Acorn Hollow.  ‘Oh no,’ said he, ’we must go through this pasture, and the next one beyond it; then we shall see a cedar tree growing by the fence, and soon we shall come to a place where two roads go round a hill, and then we shall be close by there.’

“So we went, and went, till he stopped suddenly, and said, ‘here it is.’  And sure enough, there was the beautiful hollow, close by the road-side.  The sides were so steep that it was by no means safe to run down into it, and the great oak trees and the small ones, with the pine, the walnut, and the silvery birch, grew thick and close all around, save that one small opening from the road, a little archway among the overhanging boughs and dwarf alders.