Near the sawmill, and partially hidden by the scraggy pine trees and thick bushes which drooped over its entrance, was a long, dark passage, leading underground, not so large, probably, as Mammoth Cave, but in my estimation rivaling it in interest.  This was an old mine, where, years before, men had dug for gold.  Strange stories were told of those who, with blazing torches, and blazing noses, most likely, there toiled for the yellow dust.  The “Ancient Henry” himself, it was said, sometimes left his affairs at home, and joined the nightly revels in that mine, where cards and wine played a conspicuous part.  Be that as it may, the old mine was surrounded by a halo of fear which we youngsters never cared to penetrate.

On a fine afternoon an older sister would occasionally wander that way, together with a young M.D., whose principal patient seemed to be at our house, for his little black pony very frequently found shelter in our stable by the side of “old sorrel.”  From the north garret window I would watch them, wondering how they dared venture so near the old mine, and wishing, mayhap, that the time would come when I, with some daring doctor, would risk everything.  The time has come, but alas! instead of being a doctor, he is only a lawyer, who never even saw the old mine in Rice Corner.

Though I never ventured close to the old mine, there was not far from it one pleasant spot where I loved dearly to go.  It was on the hillside, where, ’neath the shadow of a gracefully twining grapevine, lay a large, flat rock.  Thither would I often repair, and sit for hours, listening to the hum of the running water brook, or the song of the summer birds, who, like me, seemed to love that place.  Often would I gaze far off at the distant, misty horizon, wondering if I should ever know what was beyond it.  Wild fancies then filled my childish brain.  Strange voices whispered to me thoughts and ideas which, if written down and carried out, would, I am sure, have placed my name higher than it was carved on the old chestnut tree.

    “But they came and went like shadows,
    Those blessed dreams of youth,”

I was a strange child, I know.  Everybody told me so, and I knew it well enough without being told.  The wise old men at Rice Corner, and their still wiser old wives, looked at me askance, as ’neath the thorn-apple tree I built my playhouse and baked my little loaves of mud bread.  But when, forgetful of others, I talked aloud to myriads of little folks, unseen ’tis true, but still real to me, they shook their gray heads ominously, and whispering to my mother said, “Mark our words, that girl will one day be crazy.  In ten years more she will be an inmate of the madhouse!”

And then I wondered what a madhouse was, and if the people there all acted as our school-teacher did when Bill and the big girl said he was mad!  The ten years have passed, and I’m not in a madhouse yet, unless, indeed, it is one of my own getting up!