the song of the song-sparrow - all of these heard by me in the early grey morning, tell me spring is near!
     As I stood delighting in the song-sparrow’s melody, I hap­pened to look around and saw that the “Second Haunted House” was gone - entirely vanished. I walked over to the ruins - a mass of plaster, bricks and broken lathes, all thrown together in a confused heap, with mingled sensations. The “Second Haunted House” - second because there was another one further on up the road - was not really inhabited by spirits, altho spirits might have added to its charm, but was fun several years ago to call it such. Anytime that we had been out after berries, out swimming, or on a cross country tramp, we would usually be very tired and thirsty as we came along here, and it was always a joy to turn in here and get a refreshing drink at the spring set in a bank behind the house where the water tasted better than anywhere else; then we would slowly ramble on the the house and look in - awed by the resounding echoes of our steps and voices; so we called it a haunted house. It seemed like an old friend gone.
     The whole place was a scene of desolation. To the east was a swamp, covered with dead cattail blades, and surrounded by thick underbrush, across the little sulphur stream