We were always wildly eager to get to the country when spring came, and very sad when in the late fall the family moved back to town.
In the country we of course had all kinds of pets--cats, dogs, rabbits, a coon, and a sorrel Shetland pony named General Grant.

When my younger sister first heard of the real General Grant, by the way, she was much struck by the coincidence that some one should have given him the same name as the pony.

(Thirty years later my own children had _their_ pony Grant.) In the country we children ran barefoot much of the time, and the seasons went by in a round of uninterrupted and enthralling pleasures--supervising the haying and harvesting, picking apples, hunting frogs successfully and woodchucks unsuccessfully, gathering hickory-nuts and chestnuts for sale to patient parents, building wigwams in the woods, and sometimes playing Indians in too realistic manner by staining ourselves (and incidentally our clothes) in liberal fashion with poke-cherry juice.

Thanksgiving was an appreciated festival, but it in no way came up to Christmas.

Christmas was an occasion of literally delirious joy.