About an hour after breakfast, Jonas with the oxen, and Oliver and Josey with the horse, wereslowly moving along up the road which led back from the pond towards the wood lot. The wood lotwas a portion of the forest, which had been reserved, to furnish a supply of wood for the winterfires. The road followed for some distance the bank of the brook, which emptied into the pond atthe place where Jonas and Oliver had cleared land, when Jonas first came to live on this farm.It was a very pleasant road. The brook was visible here and there through the bushes and trees onone side of it. These bushes and trees were of course bare of leaves, excepting the evergreens, andthey were loaded down with the snow. Some were bent over so that the tops nearly touched theground.The brook itself, too, was almost buried and concealed in the snow. In the still places, it had frozenover; and so the snow had been supported by the ice, and thus it concealed both ice and water. Atthe little cascades and waterfalls, however, which occurred here and there, the water had not frozen.Water does not freeze easily where it runs with great velocity. At these places, therefore, the boyscould see the water, and hear it bubbling and gurgling as it fell, and disappeared under the ice whichhad formed below.