2 Hopkins's Pond. 



bass, while the old mill wheel, which la- 

 bored irregularly, mingled its thumpings 

 with the sound of water plunging over the 

 low wooden dam. Such sounds were very 

 different, though, from the rattle and 

 bang of a noisy engine and the screech of 

 a steam saw that one is in danger of hear- 

 ing nowadays if he is not judicious about 

 his selection of ponds. We never heard 

 anything of that sort about old-fashioned 

 Hopkins's Pond, which was very dear to 

 the heart of the boy, and very dreadful in 

 the mind of his mother, who imagined 

 that its eager depths were always yawning 

 for her dirty little darling, who had safely 

 outgrown the cistern and the well. 



As a matter of fact, it was about as good 

 a pond as one could imagine, though it 

 really was rather deep, down by the flume 

 where the water silently moved under- 

 ground in a slow, portentous current, and 

 the sticks and rusty bait boxes that we 

 boys threw in there disappeared forever. 

 If such things went as completely out of 

 sight in the bonfire in the garden it was 

 a different matter. When the agrostis 



