CHAPTER V 



DUMB INTIMACIES 



ABOUT five minutes walk from our cabin 

 was the Cluny Milldam, a very ragged and 

 weedy barrier across a little river, which it 

 had broadened into about an acre of sweet water 

 ten feet deep at the spillway, and shallowing off 

 to a thin pond at the upper end that died out 

 into a bit of wet meadow. The banks for the 

 greater part of the way were green and lush, and 

 willows and dogwood screened them nicely. 

 Such little artificial lakes are common enough all 

 over our country. They are never kept in repair, 

 but are suffered to grow rank and picturesque 

 and always have an old mill, long deserted, at 

 one end of the dam. From time immemorial 

 they have been the treasured trysting-places of 

 the boys. To this pond Charlie and I came on 

 the hot evenings and struck up an entirely new 

 friendship with the water. The basin was not 

 full enough to run over the lip of the dam, but 



61 



