WATSON'S CROSSING. 65 



I know of two fine bowlders in the meadows, but I use 

 them only for stepping-stones — never as texts. My last 

 public talk about them was disastrous. "There's the 

 stones, as you say," remarked one of my audience, "and 

 the lunertic 'sylum, a big pile of stone, is four miles up 

 the river." I made no reply, and to this day that gray- 

 beard passes in and out as a Solon, and I am the crank. 



One of these bowlders is milky-white and very hard, 

 and so much of its surface as is exposed is very smooth. 

 I formerly thought that if it had been lying in a higher 

 and drier meadow, the Indians would have made use 

 of it, and perhaps have carved some curious image upon 

 it, and I was right, after all. Recently, the low stage of 

 water gave me the chance to examine it closely, and 

 upon one side there are shallow depressions, where celts 

 were sharpened. Such marks are unmistakable. IN^ot 

 fifty rods away there is a knoll that the highest freshets 

 only partly cover, and the ashes of the Indians' camp- 

 fires are there exposed whenever the sod is broken. 

 And there, when it was last ploughed, I found a dozen 

 celts, perhaps every one shaped and sharpened on this 

 very bowlder in the marsh. 



The higher banks of the meadow ditches are still 

 densely green, and as the eye glances along the leafy 

 wall it is seldom that it catches a bit of color. It was 

 not so to-day. As I skirted the south side of Faxon's 

 Brook I found a great cluster of rosy centaury. It was 

 backed by ferns and bitter-sweet, the latter laden with 

 its orange berries. ISTothing to equal it have I seen 

 this summer. Centaury is to be looked for in high and 



