dropping her off the bridge.

When I visited the brook recently it had lost its mystery and beauty for me. Its banks were overgrown and the water ran sluggishly chocked by years of effluent from the factory.

WINTER

We loved the winter. When the snow would drift into banks against the high spruce hedge that grew at the back of the neigh- bour's and our garden, it made wonderful slopes for coasting. ”Crusty” snow after a sleet storm was the best. We could fly out the driveway, cross the road and down the field where no one had yet built a house. Windy days were the best. We would hold our coats over our head to make a sail and fly on our sleds before the wind. Walking back was a nuisance but the ride was worth it.

One of our chief winter pastimes was "hooking” rides on passing sleighs. This was before cars became so common and there were no snow plows to clear the snow from the roads and pile it into your driveway. We would jump on the side of the sleighs as they passed, standing on the runner and hanging on, and the faster the horses went the better we liked it. Most of the drivers did not mind, and some would even stop to let us get on. If you slipped and fell under the runner, a broken leg was often the result.

Jaunting sleighs were the most fun. They had a board along the side to which the runner was attached and it was very convenient to stand on. Also, when they went through the pitches and slews they seemed to do it with more gusto thereby enhancing the thrills.

The slow moving wood—sleighs were not as much fun, but it was

1 nothing to see convoys of them returning from the river laden with \ smelly muscle mud dug from the river beds to be spread on the land i for fertilizer.

i Before snow plows became common the winter traffic took the 1way of least resistance through the snow banks that piled up, i through fields and people’s yards and across frozen bodies of water. QMany good ”rigs”, as horse and sleigh were called, were lost when

they broke through the ice and the horses drowned.

We loved the winter, and would ride the sleighs till our hands and feet were numb with the cold, even when we were forbidden to do so. Of course, if a kind-hearted driver stopped and offered you a ride, that was a different story and we made sure when we accounted for our late arrival home that they had all offered.

355