“Even the birds are ‘Dutch,’ I believe, in Bucks County,” said Fritz.  “I think these must be German Mennonites, there being quite a settlement of these honest, God-fearing people living on farms at no great distance from our place.”

[Illustration:  The canal at the Narrows]

As they drove along the country road, parallel with the Delaware River, just before reaching the Narrows.  Mary was greatly attracted by the large quantities of yellow-white “sweet clover,” a weed-like plant found along the Delaware River, growing luxuriantly, with tall, waving stems two to four feet high.  The clover-like flowers, in long, loose racemes, terminating the branches, were so fragrant that, like the yellow evening primrose, the scent was noticeable long before one perceived the flowers.  And, strange to tell, sweet clover was never known to grow in this locality until the seed was washed up on the bank of the river some ten or twelve years previous to the date of my story, when the Delaware River was higher than it was ever before known to be.

“The first place we shall visit,” said Aunt Sarah, “will be my grandmother’s old home, or rather, the ruins of the old home.  It passed out of our family many years ago; doors and windows are missing and walls ready to tumble down.  You see that old locust tree against one side the ruined wall of the house?” and with difficulty she broke a branch from the tree saying, “Look, see the sharp, needle-shaped thorns growing on the branch!  They were used by me when a child to pin my dolls’ dresses together.  In those days, pins were too costly to use; and look at that large, flat rock not far distant from the house!  At the foot of that rock, when a child of ten, I buried the ’Schild Krote Family’ dolls, made from punk (when told I was too big a girl to play with dolls).  I shed bitter tears, I remember.  Alas!  The sorrows of childhood are sometimes deeper than we of maturer years realize.”

“Why did you give your family of dolls such an odd name, Aunt Sarah?” questioned Mary.

“I do not remember,” replied her Aunt.  “Schild Krote is the German name for turtle.  I presume the name pleased my childish fancy.”

“Suppose we visit my great-great-grandfather’s grave in the near-by woods.  I think I can locate it, although so many years have passed since I last visited it.”

Passing through fields overgrown with high grass, wild flowers and clover, they came to the woods.  Surprising to say, scarcely any underbrush was seen, but trees everywhere—­stately Lebanon cedars, spruce and spreading hemlock, pin oaks, juniper trees which later would be covered with spicy, aromatic berries; also beech trees.  Witch hazel and hazel nut bushes grew in profusion.  John Landis cut a large branch from a sassafras tree to make a new spindle on which to wind flax, for Aunt Sarah’s old spinning wheel (hers having been broken), remarking as he did so, “My mother always used a branch of sassafras wood, having five, prong-like branches for this purpose, when I was a boy, and she always placed a piece of sassafras root with her dried fruit.”