Peripatetic Meditations 



find a button and so too of an arrow when we 

 find its head, and just as the arrow indicates a 

 bow and this in turn a man to use it, so the but- 

 ton leads to the coat and a man to wear it. So 

 far safely; but this pleasant May sunshine 

 makes me venturesome and I go a step farther 

 and say to myself, perhaps this button belonged 

 to the coat of the man who built the mill. When 

 we say " perhaps, " we are always safe. The 

 word is a breastwork through which no critic 

 can shoot. At all events, there was a miller, once 

 upon a time blessed words these, once upon a 

 time and tradition has it, he was a man of 

 many parts ; miller, sawyer, cabinet-maker and 

 cordwainer. His grandson, whom I remember, 

 was a sawyer only and all his talk was of tim- 

 ber. He bore much resemblance to a gnarly oak 

 and his words crackled like dead leaves in win- 

 ter. If his faults were many, he had a few vir- 

 tues and these, like oaks among brambles, over- 

 shadowed the undergrowth of his make-up. He 

 was proud of his grandfather and in justifica- 

 tion of his own inferiority, asserted that the 

 world had ' 'tamed down" since the old man's 

 day, and so had he. 



Soon, as I said, there is to be a new mill-pond, 

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