II 



ALONG THE WATER- 

 WAYS 



[ME O' YEAR spends half his days 

 among the waterways, that begin afar 

 off in quickening veins of moisture 

 among the rocky hill-woods, thread 

 their way unknown, save for the tell- 

 tale flowers that follow, across many 

 meadows, and join forces to rush into 

 the mill-pond above the forge; after this they sepa- 

 rate again, and go their several ways as full-fledged 

 streams. 



Time o' Year has chosen the most capricious 

 among these for his following a waterway that 

 changes its course every hundred yards or so. Now 

 fairly broad and smooth, though inhospitable to 

 traffic, like so many New England streams, it sud- 

 denly drops rushing into a ravine cut by centuries 

 of its passing, where fissured rocks and pot-holes 

 tell of its work. Then, hesitating in pond-like 

 complacency every little while, it quiets to a usual 

 mill-stream for the eight -miles' course before, the 



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