AT NATURAL BRIDGE 279 



as the sandpipers and the sparrows. It was 

 painted red, and served not only as a mill, 

 but as a post-office (" Red Mills ") and a 

 " department store," with its sign, " Dry 

 Goods, Groceries, &c." A tablet informed 

 the passer-by that the mill had been " estab- 

 lished " in 1798, destroyed in 1881, and re- 

 opened in 1891 ; and on the same tablet, 

 or another, was the motto, "Laborare est 

 orare." I regretted not to meet the pro- 

 prietor, but he was nowhere in sight, and I 

 felt a scruple about intruding upon the time 

 of a man who was at once postmaster, miller, 

 farmer, storekeeper, and scholar. With that 

 motto before me, "Apologia pro vita sua," 

 he might have called it, such an intrusion 

 would have seemed a sacrilege. 



What I remember best about the whole 

 establishment is the song of a blue-gray 

 gnatcatcher, to which I stopped to listen 

 under a low savin-tree on a bluff above the 

 mill. He was directly over my head, sing- 

 ing somewhat in the manner of a catbird, 

 but I had almost to hold my breath to hear 

 him. It was amazing that a bird's voice 

 could be spun so fine. A mere shadow of a 

 sound, I was ready to say. It was only by 



