176 Singing Valleys 



. . . this smith who agrees to grind the corn which comes first 

 to the mill, and in scarciety of water to grind ondly for the inhabit- 

 ants of East Chester, for the sixteenth part towell of wheat, and 

 the twelfth parte Indian corne; and to pay 28 at or before the 

 25th. day of December next. 



Covenants of this sort were not at all uncommon in the 

 northern colonies where a simple democracy prevailed. The 

 close interdependence of farmers and millers was too clearly 

 recognized to be lightly treated. In a very real sense the miller 

 was a public servant. He ranked below the schoolmaster, but 

 was not to be classed with the blacksmith, house builder or 

 wheelwright. The rate charged for grinding corn was fixed by 

 the Town Council. The miller could show no preference in the 

 way of grinding one man's grain before another's. The miller 

 served the community impersonally, not for cash, but for a toll. 

 This gave his service an unquestioned dignity. 



The road to the mill was the most traveled one in the town- 

 ship. It was the first to be broken after a heavy snowfall; the 

 first to be improved when the Selectmen called on the men to 

 give a day's labor on the highways. The mill itself was the 

 general gathering place for the men of the community; older 

 than the church, freer, more democratic, infinitely more com- 

 fortable. A man could rest himself on a sack of corn and speak 

 his mind about the government. He could spit satisfyingly 

 into the mill-race while he argued with a farmer from the 

 other side of the ridge the probable results of the coming 

 elections and the advisability of bringing the need of a new 

 bridge over the Housatonic before the Selectmen's Meeting. 



News came to the mills, and went from them to the farthest 

 hillside cabin. . . . Ben Holmes had heard it said in Boston 

 by a ship's captain newly come from Malaga, that the English 

 were landing soldiers in Spain. . . . Queen Anne was poorly. 

 . . . Would her successor be the Pretender, or some German 

 princeling? And what would either one of these do for the 

 colonies? . . . Wheat was six shillings and sixpence the 

 bushel. . . . The New Haven bakers, to meet the house- 



