low entrance to the cave is concealed just within the edge of the woods on Constitution Hill. Another cave still more remarkable than this lies just beyond the borders of the farm, in which a tiny spring has its source. The streamlet, after flowing a short distance, disappears under ground, then breaks out once more, only to disappear and reappear again a little way farther on.
Standing in the doorway of the Shaw homestead one may look across to the small house so long the home of Governor Briggs, which is still in excellent condition, and to the little court house where he first began to practise law. The house and lands of the Shaw farm long since passed out of the possession of the family. The place is now the residence of one of the oldest inhabitants of the town, and still supplies a living for the small family who make it their home. It was no doubt here at his early farm duties that the future Josh Billings first learned, as his successors have had to do, that
Must dig and ho, and plant and sich;
Work hard awl day, sleep hard awl nite,
Save evry cent, and not git tite."
Although the humorist led for many years a roving life, acting in turn as farmer, coal operator, steamboat captain and real estate agent, and never writing a line till after he was forty-five years old, the farm life amid which his boyhood was passed deeply colored all his writings. It is true that he soon outgrew the little farm in Lanesborough, and even the town itself when it began to stagnate, yet he never lost his fondness for it nor ceased to regard it as his home. The first object of interest pointed out to the visitor as he approaches the town from Pittsfield is the little cemetery by the roadside, whose most conspicuous monument is the simple, rough-hewn granite stone raised to the memory of the humorist. It was his wish to be remembered even in death by his chosen pseudonym; and the name Josh Billings is cut in large letters on the rough face of the stone; his full name on the smooth upper surface, with the dates of his birth and death, can only be seen by one standing close beside it. Josh Billings died in Monterey, California, in October, 1885, three thousand miles away; but the little town which he loved became his last resting place.