Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/85

 DAYS WITH THE BROOK.

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��beon very ai)parent. He was and is He married, April 15, 1852, Mercy

ever opjiosed to jobs, corruption, ex- Taylor, of Boston. Vwo children

travagance, and unnecessary expendi- grace his home ; Agnes Elizabeth and

li.ire. ' Emma Adelaide.

��yJAVS WITH THE BROOK.

��1!V ANNIi: WENTWORTH BAEK.

��The morning was (ine, a purple mist had lipped whenever a foot pressed

them, are now split and placed in workman-like manner.

The pewee has taken umbrage at the innovation, and will not build on the new bridge.

All that remains the same after the lapse of years, are the cleavers, the brook, and the little current in the

��was hiding the tops of the distant hills and mountains, suggestive of Indian summer. September had been ush- ered in with sere, brown fields, dusty roads, and great heat. Drought had been abroad in the land for two monlhs.

As 1 walked along in the unfre(]uent-

��ed creek road, leading to the brook, brook where I used to throw sticks,

1 saw wild asters, life-everlasting, and and watch them whirl about, and

golden-rods blooming; the summer set off down stream at a rapid rate,

rlowers were nearly all gone; yellow while I wondered if human beings

clover had rolled itself into little hard, were as helpless in life's stream, as

brown balls, and stood stiffly by the the twigs were in the current of the

roadside ; hardback and iron b'.ish were brook.

��faded and dull

When I reached the bridge under which the salt and fresh waters are wedded, I lingered to admire the beauties around me. On the east side of the bridge a dense thicket of v/il- low. elm and alder, was growing ; among the trees, in an open space, golden-rods of a rich yellow were grow- ing rank and tall; the sunlight flick- ered and fell through the quivering leaves of tlie willows, upon the mur- muring water, and upon the flowers, deep in color, on the other side.

I leaned over the railin"; to look at

��A litlle below the bridge, in a cove, can be seen the remnant ot a beaver's dam. It is more than three rods in length and is built in a semi-circle ; be- hind the dam is a small mound cov- ered with red oaks, poplars, and alders. Close to the water's edge, poison ivy lurks like a thief to catch the unwary. Years ago, past the memory of our oldest people, the beavers had left this dam ; but it seams as if every tide helps to keep the little animal, and his work, fresh in the minds of this generation.

I whistled for my dogs — gone in

��the new abutment, and wished that pursuit of some game — crossed the the old tumbled down waU of twenty road, and entered the pasture famous )ears ago was still there. I used to let for mills in the years agone. Facing myself down carefully over the rick- me, in a straggling ruin, stands the cty rocks, drag through the clinging relics of the grist-mill. A turning- cleavers, to peep under the dark old lathe and thrashing-machine were bridge at the jiewee's nest built on one run in connection with the grist-mill of the stringers. The old bridge has at one time ; but business began to passed away — anew one built in its grow less, and the ol<l people of the stead ; th-e old abutment has been town tell me that fire opportunely taken out, and the rocks that for years wiped the whole thing out. Here the

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