SPRINGS. 47 



cattle love to pass the beat of the day, and hither 

 come the birds to wash themselves and make their 

 toilets. 



Indeed, a spring is always an oasis in the desert of 

 -he fields. It is a creative and generative centre. It 

 attracts all things to itself, the grasses, the mosses, 

 the flowers, the wild plants, the great trees. The 

 walker finds it out, the camping party seek it, the 

 pioneer builds his hut or his house near it. When 

 the settler or squatter has found a good spring, he 

 has found a good place to begin life ; he has found 

 the fountain-head of much that he is seeking in this 

 world. The chances are that he has found a south- 

 ern and eastern exposure ; for it is a fact that water 

 does not readily flow north ; the valleys mostly open 

 the other way ; and it is quite certain he has found a 

 measure of salubrity ; for where water flows fever 

 abideth not. The spring, too, keeps him to the right 

 belt, out of the low valley, and off the top of the hill. 



When John Winthrop decided upon the site where 

 now stands the city of Boston, as a proper place for 

 a settlement, he was chiefly attracted by a l^irge and 

 excellent spring of water that flowed there. The in- 

 fant city was born of this fountain. 



There seems a kind of perpetual spring-time about 

 the place where water issues from the ground a 

 freshness and a greenness that are ever renewed. The 

 tjrass never fades, the ground is never parched or 

 fro/^n. There is warmth there in winter and cool- 

 uess in summer. The temperature is equalized. ID 



