AT NATURAL BRIDGE 279 



as the sandpipers and the sparrows. It was 

 painted red, and served not only as a mill, 

 but as a post-office (" Red Mills ") and a 

 " department store," with its sign, " Dry 

 Goods, Groceries, <S:c." A tablet informed 

 the passer-by that the mill had been " estab- 

 lished " in 1798, destroyed in 1881, and re- 

 opened in 1891 ; and on the same tablet, 

 or another, was the motto, " Laborare est 

 orare." I regretted not to meet the pro- 

 prietor, but he was nowhere in sight, and I 

 felt a scruple about intruding upon the time 

 of a man who was at once postmaster, miller, 

 farmer, storekeeper, and scholar. With that 

 motto before me, — "Apologia pro vita sua," 

 he might have called it, — such an intrusion 

 would have seemed a sacrilege. 



What I remember best about the whole 

 establishment is the song of a blue-gray 

 gnatcatcher, to which I stopped to listen 

 under a low savin-tree on a bluff above the 

 mill. He was directly over my head, sing- 

 ins: somewhat in the manner of a catbird, 

 but I had almost to hold my breath to hear 

 him. It was amazing that a bird's voice 

 could be spun so tine. A mere shadow of a 

 sound, I was ready to say. It was only by 



