A VOYAGE TO BEARD'S ISLAND. 133 



refused to receive them back into itself, we left 

 Concord behind us on the one side, and on the 

 other many a meadow and sloping hillside, 

 crowned with farmhouse or summer cottage. 

 The town did not let us abandon it suddenly. 

 More than once, when I thought it left far away 

 across a meadow, the river would sweep back 

 to it, and show us more green lawns and terraces, 

 gay boats lying on the grass, elms fruited with 

 purple grackles and cowbirds, children at their 

 games, purple martins soaring near their bird 

 boxes, and wagons rolling up dust in the roads. 

 Before we were free from the town our river 

 changed its name ; for at a place where a ledge 

 crowned with great trees is washed by the cur- 

 rent, the north branch blends its waters with 

 the Sudbury to form the Concord. The Sud- 

 bury was our stream, and but for one brief 

 glance up the dai'k Assabet I should not have 

 known that Musketaquid had lost a part of 

 its strength. 



About seven o'clock our cockleshells came to 

 a long reach of river looking a little east of 

 south. Meadow-grasses rustled over many acres 

 on each side of us, and the breeze favored us at 

 last. So we raised our tiny masts and spread 

 our white sails. That which followed was to 

 physical action what falling asleep is to mental 

 effort. It was not rude motion gained by 



