VOICES OF THE BROOKSIDE 179 



not many brookside idlers have done as much 

 as that. I fancy many a summer couple, say a 

 brave telegraph clerk and a fair stenographer, 

 have worked out as much as "I love you" and 

 "God bless our home" long before this. 



After all, the brook is shallow and it is prob- 

 able that it prattles merely the gossip of today 

 and yesterday and the days gone by. Yet even 

 so it might give me the story of this mill that so 

 long ago stood upon its bank, something of the 

 talk of the miller and his customer and the events 

 of their time, matter I can get from no printed 

 book nor from the tongue of man now living. 

 Could I but get this I should have a rare book 

 indeed, for nothing is so vivid to the reader as 

 the true story of the plain life, the words and 

 deeds of folk who lived a hundred or more years 

 ago. The plain tales of Boswell, Pepys, Samuel 

 Sewall, will live when all the series of six best 

 sellers that have ever been are drifting dust. 



The brook tells me more of nature than it does 

 of man, perhaps because it has known man for so 

 short a time, though I should say shows rather 

 than tells. A hundred forms of life live in it 

 and on it, while through the air above float a 

 thousand more, or the evidences of them. Down 



