THE POND AT LOW TIDE 



cedars stood in it, two feet in diameter, 

 their clean straight trunks running up 

 fifty feet or more without a knob or 

 limb. This natural meadow with hay 

 for their cattle for the cutting, these 

 cedar swamps with their century-old 

 growth, were what attracted the first 

 settlers to this region, and hardly had 

 the dawn of the sixteenth century come 

 over the Blue Hills before their axes 

 were at work in Stumpy Cove and simi- 

 lar swamps all about, getting out shingle 

 stuff for the Boston market. But 

 whereas in all the other swamps the 

 young cedars were allowed to grow in 

 again for succeeding generations of 

 woodsmen, here new conditions arose. 



The meadow was flowed intermittently 



for a century; then the pond grew out 



of it. Not only might no seedlings find 



roothold there, but the very black muck 



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