CHAPTER VI. 



BY MILL-POND AND MEADOW. 



WATER that a century ago rippled through a 

 ravine and at times rushed headlong down 

 the mossy slopes, shouting, " Catch me if you can," 

 at last found its master in a thrifty Quaker, who, in 

 accordance with his creed's cardinal doctrine, was 

 moved to the betterment of his estate. He caught 

 the water, and it has seldom defied its masters since 

 the dam was built, serving its present captor by 

 turning the great wheel of the mill. If in so doing 

 that far-seeing Friend drove chipmunks and mice 

 from the ravine, he brought instead musk-rats and 

 otters ; if the chewink and the oven-bird were forced 

 to higher grounds, he brought the tilting sand-piper 

 and the kingfisher to replace them ; and the tangle 

 of laurel and greenbrier where warblers and vireos 

 once found congenial homes is now covered by 

 water far above their one-time nesting-sites, upon 

 which rests the dabchick, or grebe, or duck, and when 

 the sleet and rain drive across the pond, there some- 

 times comes a wild, weird, loud-laughing loon. 



13* 149 



