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Over the sea, in Gloucestershire, England, is an old, old chestnut tree that has given birth to more than a thousand generations of nuts. In King John's time it was known as a boundary mark; and I doubt if there is another chestnut tree in all the world that is quite so old as this.

But, on Mt. Etna, there is a very wonderful one that measures nearly two hundred feet in circumference. It is hard to imagine a tree so large as this, but just take a bit of string some day and put it around the biggest tree you can find; then you will understand better how many trees of ordinary size it would take to make one that would measure two hundred feet around, like this one up on Mt. Etna. One part of the trunk is hollow, and sometimes whole flocks of sheep with their shepherds get inside for protection from the sun or rain.

Once upon a time, Joanna of Arragon, with a hundred horsemen, all from the noble families of Catania, rode up the mountain side; and just as the royal party reached this wonderful tree, there came up a sudden and very violent storm.

At first, they hardly knew what to do, but the big tree threw out its great arms so invitingly that they drove in under the branches, and, sure enough, there was plenty of room for them all. Ever after that, the tree was called the "Hundred-Horse Chestnut."

These European trees are not very different from ours, but the nut that grows upon them is much larger. The best kind for eating, the French call marrows; and all these big nuts that Katie has in her "roaster," have come from over the seas. She charges twenty-five cents a pint for these just double what she does for the natives, -- for she had to pay a good price for them, herself; and each one of the foreign nuts is equal to a couple of ours.

Little Augustus Magini tells me that when they lived in Genoa he used to go out into the chestnut groves about the city and gather the nuts, just as we have been doing to-day.

"We'd shake the trees, and the big ripe burrs would tumble down," he says.

"But did you never have any frost there?

"P'raps, but it wasn't cold like as it is here. Sometimes, though, we did have a little snow."

Just think of snow in sunny Italy; but Genoa, you know, is farther north than Florence and Naples.

"And they used to grind up the nuts and make flour out of 'em "adds Augustus.

"And what did they do with the flour -- make bread and cakes out of it?"

Augustus is a little doubtful he was a very little fellow when they left Italy, and he doesn't quite remember. But we know that puddings cakes, bread, and soup-thickening are made from this kind of chestnut flour, or rather meal; and all throughout the southern portions of Europe, it forms a staple article of food among the poor.

Sometimes, the chestnuts are simply boiled or roasted, and eaten with milk; but in whatever form they are taken, the nuts contain a deal of nutriment, and I don't know how the working classes could get along without them. For meat costs a deal, and chestnuts there, are very plenty and very cheap.

Beside the flour, there is a kind of crumb like sugar made from the nut that is quite good for many purposes; and all throughout Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Germany, the wood of the sweet chestnut is much valued by cabinet makers and coopers.

On the banks of the beautiful Rhine, along the slopes of the Jura, the Pyrenees and the Alps, you will find the chestnut tree; and in England, too, for there it is grown for coppice-wood and for building purposes, as well as for its fruit.

The wood of the chestnut is very much like oak, both in color and texture; and when it is well seasoned, as in old buildings, it is very difficult to tell the two apart. Some say that the roof of Westminster Abbey is really made of chestnut, although it looks exactly like oak, and is usually described as such.

In our own country, too, we find the native chestnut wood is often used for hard finish in buildings, and for furniture. Sometimes, it is put with black walnut, and then the contrast of light straw with dark brown is very effective.

During the latter part of the last century, Thomas Jefferson tried to introduce the European chestnut into Virginia, but I do not think it has taken very kindly to our soil. We have plenty of horse chestnuts, but these trees are altogether different from the chestnut whose fruit is fit to eat, and resembles the horse chestnut only in size. The tree itself, is so large and so beautiful both in its form and foliage, I don't wonder Salvator Rosa delighted to bring it, as often as possible, into his paintings.

But here is little Katie, waiting to give us our pint of chestnuts and our change.

We have wandered "over the seas and far away," but we shall eat our chestnuts with all the better relish, for that. Chestnut vending, during the season, is quite the fashion here in Boston and on the Common you will find another little girl, Adeline Barr by name, who sells chestnuts with her cakes and fruits and candies.