3. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was born at

Haverhill, Massachusetts. Snow-bound, from which this extract is taken, gives a good description of his home and family. A great deal of his writing was done while editor of various magazines and newspapers. He was for a long time connected with the Atlantic Monthly. Many of his poems describe country life in New England; others retell old stories of pioneer days. He died at Amesbury, Massachusetts.

TOM PINCH'S RIDE

BY CHARLES DICKENS

It was a charming evening, mild and bright. The four grays skimmed along, as if they liked it quite as well as Tom did; the bugle was in as high spirits as the grays; the coachman chimed in sometimes with his voice; the wheels hummed cheerfully in unison; the brass work on 5 the harness was an orchestra of little bells; and thus as they went clinking, jingling, rattling smoothly on, the whole concern, from the buckles of the leaders' coupling reins to the handle of the boot, was one great instrument of music.

Yo-ho! Past hedges, gates, and trees; past cottages, and barns, and people going home from work. Yo-ho! Past donkey chaises drawn aside into the ditch, and empty carts with rampant horses whipped up at a bound upon the little watercourse and held by struggling carters close to 5 the five-barred gate until the coach had passed the narrow turning in the road. Yo-ho! By churches dropped down by themselves in quiet nooks, with rustic burial grounds about them, where the graves are green and daisies sleep—for it is evening—on the bosoms of the dead. 10

Yo-ho! Past streams in which the cattle cool their feet, and where the rushes grow; past paddock fences, farms, and rickyards; past last year's stacks, cut slice by slice away, and showing in the waning light like ruined gables, old and brown. Yo-ho! Down the pebbly dip, and through 15 the merry water splash, and up at a canter to the level road again. Yo-ho! Yo-ho!

Yo-ho! Among the gathering shades, making of no account the reflection of the trees, but scampering on through light and darkness, all the same, as if the light of 20 London fifty miles away were quite enough to travel by, and some to spare. Now, with a clattering of hoofs and striking out of fiery sparks, across the old stone bridge, and down again into the shadowy road, and through the open gate, and far away, into the world. Yo-ho! 25

See the bright moon! High up before we know it, making the earth reflect the objects on its breast like water—hedges, trees, low cottages, church steeples, blighted stumps, and flourishing young slips, have all grown vain upon a sudden, and mean to contemplate their own fair images till 30 morning. The poplars yonder rustle, that their quivering leaves may see themselves upon the ground. Not so the oak; trembling does not become him; and he watches himself in his stout old burly steadfastness without the motion of a twig.

The moss-grown gate, ill-poised upon its creaking hinges, crippled and decayed, swings to and fro before its glass 5 like some fantastic dowager: while our own ghostly likeness travels on, through ditch and brake, upon the plowed land and the smooth, along the steep hillside and steeper wall, as if it were a phantom hunter.

Yo-ho! Why, now we travel like the moon herself. 10 Hiding this minute in a grove of trees; next minute in a patch of vapor; emerging now upon our broad, clear course; withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our journey is a counterpart of hers. Yo-ho! A match against the moon.

The beauty of the night is hardly felt when day comes 15 leaping up. Two stages, and the country roads are almost changed to a continuous street. Yo-ho! Past market gardens, rows of houses, villas, crescents, terraces, and squares, and in among the rattling pavements. Yo-ho! Down countless turnings, and through countless mazy 20 ways, until an old innyard is gained, and Tom Pinch, getting down quite stunned and giddy, is in London.

"Five minutes before the time, too!" said the driver, as he received his fee from Tom.

—Martin Chuzzlewit.

1. Tom Pinch traveled by the fast night coach to London, in the days before railroads. Tell what he saw, and make sketches.

2. Explain: grays, boot, yo-ho, chaises, paddock, dowager, rickyards, brake, crescents.