The Pond-Meadow. 85 



bling train across the meadows, that does not break but 

 rather, as a reminder of the outer world, deepens the sense 

 of retirement. 



Such a place of rural scenes, where nevertheless the 

 sounds of commerce are ever audible, are the acres of wood- 

 land and uncultivated sandy fields on the north shore of 

 the Island, between Old Place creek and the settlement 

 along the kill. For many years prior to the railroad, though 

 in sight of the cities across the Sound, and not far from 

 New York itself, this corner escaped the enterprise of trade; 

 utility went round and left these acres to the grasshoppers, 

 to the bitterns, and to me. 



With the railroad came changes, but not immediately, 

 and for the first years of its occupancy, save for the width 

 of the track, the land was undisturbed. Much of it indeed, 

 still remains unoccupied, but commerce having looked that 

 way, already covets the water fronts, and the speculator 

 has raised his signs of " Lots for Sale." By-and-by will be 

 the factories, the rows of squalid houses, the goats and the 

 tin cans. 



The land is low and swampy in places, where the trees 

 grow large, and anon there are sandy tracts which support 

 only a few blackberry bushes and sumachs. Along the 

 salt meadows, to the west, are several irregular dunes, and 

 cutting deep into the woods through a narrow neck, is a 

 bay -like salt meadow with a straggling creek in its midst. 



In these barren worn out fields, in the woods on the 

 edge of the salt meadow, and particularly of the bay or 

 pond shaped meadow, which is now crossed by the railroad 

 trestle, I have spent many hours, often staying into the 



