Norwich bulletin., 1914-11-28

Written Specially for The Bulletin.)
 Years and years ago, when I was not young and charming" but boytsh and buoyant--and went to the district school. there was bare hillside in a pasture near the road which used to be a winter joy. Like other country boys. I took my "sled" to school with me and drew it home at night. There was a little time for sliding at Ire cess' and noon hour. Moreover, there was one good long hill to slide down on the way home,
 And there was this pasture hillside of which have spoken.
 Ts was a very steep hill with few rocks, lodging which was something an old stone wall. with a stake-and- rail rider. When conditions were just right, when there was a good hard crust on the hillside snow, and when the wall was drifted under leaving somewhere between stakes just the edge of rail protruding. we boys used to strike our stout, home made sIedS at the top of the hill and let 'em go. aiming at the space between the stakes where a rail-edge showed when we struck that rail- edge don't know, but it seems to me that we hit it just about as soon as we started!
 Of course, when we touched that up-standing edge the sled jumped. That was the very thing we were af- ter That was the climax of the slide. Y wa struck it squarely the sled would "sI,i'' through the air for twenty or thirty feet and then shoot on across I..>t. I we struck it little skew jaw the sled might do almost anything It might come down on one runner and whop around fin cir cIe. It might half turn that circle in the air before 1t struck and cata- putt its rider in any direction It might come down on its nose, stick ing that into the snow and bucking the rider off as neatly as 9 circus broncho.
 And. of course. there was always the chance that somebody might break his neck. The fact that our old folks were constantly warning us that this which made the slide irresistible to Us boys.
 Not that any one of us wanted to break his own neck, but our youth full cantankerousness simply compelled LIS to make daily trial and proof that we could do what those old folks said we couldn't
 As matter of fact, no one of us ever did break his neck nor even his nose. Luck and merciful Providence were with us, and we could mend our own sleds-f perchance a. runner crack ed or a shoe was torn off in the slide and bump.
 So we had the laugh on the old peo- pie, after all.
 Today a sawnilI stands near the foot of that hill and the choppers are cutting off it more than a hundred '7ousand feet of pine. The very slope
 0"- r"n'e77f"T'. was my favorite Eho3ce to come down on my sled. has .a.I l., iYtn9T1 piOnfPpn i<es thropPh at the butt.
 And it WIS less than sixty years ago that used to slide there, with not even a bush tip showing above the snowi
 Ever since it became known that Ghe owner had sold these pines to be cut down, there has been a. vail in my ears from certain people of artis- tic tastes or fmaginations against the vandalism" The sturdy trees climb ed the steep hillside in ranks and CIumps, standing so thickly that their straight trunks showed like carved columns, underneath the green -limbed roofage they supported. They not only masked the bare homeliness of the hill, they rose over it clear against the distant sky line in spiry tops of dane ing greenery. They turned rugged hillside into a grove of real beauty They added to the landscape an oasis of natural charm which was restfu1 to the eye of every passer-by.
 Yet now they are to be cut down,