SLOUGH CREEK MEADOW BROOK 45 



used to try to imagine how it would feel to have 

 a leech clinging to me, and know that it was suck- 

 ing my blood. The boys said it was "awful," but 

 they were proud of their large experience. I 

 never quite dared to take the risk. 



In later years the real meadow brook came into 

 my ken. The first time I saw one was from a car 

 window. We were speeding along a broad valley, 

 hemmed in by low-browed hills broken here and 

 there by other valleys, at right angles with the 

 main body of lowland. To the right, now near, 

 now far, flowed the river that gives the valley 

 its name and fame. To the left, as we went east- 

 ward, the land was full of promise. It seemed one 

 perpetual meadow, varied only by scattered trees 

 and planted fields. All at once I became aware 

 that a stream of water had been there all the time 

 and that I had been but dimly conscious of its 

 presence. It was the very windingcst stream I ever 

 saw. In and out, bending, almost doubling on it< 

 course at times, it followed us merrily, not loudly 

 demanding our notice but always there to offer a 

 smile and to reflect a bit of white cloud into our 

 faces if one chanced to float over at the right mo- 

 ment. "What a treasure!" I exclaimed, and the 

 meadow brook became a member of the family. 



My own personal and private "Meadow Brook" 

 belongs to another man. Yet he does not own it, 

 though his broad acres form its banks. He knows 

 that it supplies water to his herd of high born 

 cattle. That is enough for him. The brook is 



