54 SPRINGS. 



suggestion would be worth all the art arid ornament 

 to be had. It would irrigate one's heart and char- 

 acter as well as his acres. Then one might have a 

 Naiad Queen to do his churning and to saw his 

 wood ; then one might " see his chore done by the 

 gods themselves," as Emerson says, or by the nymphs, 

 which is just as well. 



I know a homestead situated on one of the pict- 

 uresque branch valleys of the Housatonic, that has 

 such a spring flowing by the foundation walls of the 

 house, and not a little of the strong overmastering 

 local attachment that holds the owner there is born 

 of that his native spring. He could not, if he 

 would, break from it. He says that when he looks 

 down into it he has a feeling that he is an amphibi- 

 ous animal that has somehow got stranded. A long, 

 gentle flight of stone steps leads from the back porch 

 down to it under the branches of a lofty elm. It 

 wells up through the white sand and gravel as through 

 a sieve, and fills the broad space that has been ar- 

 ranged for it so gently and imperceptibly that one 

 does not suspect its copiousness until he has seen the 

 overflow. It turns no wheel, yet it lends a pliant 

 hand to many of the affairs of that household. It \a 

 a refrigerator in summer and a frost-proof envelope 

 in winter, and a fountain of delights the year round. 

 Trout come up from the Weebutook River and dwell 

 there and become domesticated, and take lumps of 

 butter from your hand, or rake the ends of your 

 fingers if you tempt them. It is a kind of sparkling 



