A MOUNTAIN POND 



Stewart's Pond, on tlie Hamburg road 

 a mile or so from the village of Highlands, 

 served me, a visiting bird-gazer, more than 

 one good turn : selfishly considered, it was 

 something to be thankful for ; but I never 

 passed it, for all that, without feeling that it 

 was a defacement of the landscape. The 

 Cullasajah River is here only four or five 

 miles from its source, near the summit of 

 Whiteside Mountain; and already a land- 

 owner, taking advantage of a level space 

 and what passes among men as a legal title, 

 has dammed it (the reader may spell 

 the word as he chooses — " dammed " or 

 " damned," it is all one to a mountain 

 stream) for uses of his own. The water 

 backs up between a wooded hill on one side 

 and a rounded grassy knoll on the other, 

 narrows where the road crosses it by a rude 

 bridge, and immediately broadens again, as 

 best it can, against the base of a steeper, 



