XXXVIII INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS 



chase from and the good housewives used to go miles to 

 exchange bulbs and shnabs, and always and ever the Min- 

 thorne garden was a delight to the eye. 



I could not but help noticing Mr. Pond, for in walking 

 along, as he suddenly espied some "Bouncing Bets" which 

 had escaped from the garden and had been growing wild 

 for years, he paused and with a reverent look picked some 

 of the blossoms and put them tenderly in his pocket with- 

 out saying a word, as a boy picks up a flower his girl has 

 dropped half ashamed that someone should see him. 



A bit further on, drawing through a gate carefully 

 chained, along the old lane we found a broadside notice 

 on the post which stated : "Pleased to have you come for a 

 swim or a hike on the hills. Do no damage but leave your 

 gun at home. These notices are not for exhibition pur- 

 poses only, but mean just what they say. eT. H. Crissey." 

 Here we were directed to draw up by Mr. Crissey who 

 said, "Now let us walk down to the pond," but as it was 

 only seventy-five yards away and as there seemed nothing 

 to notice I hesitated, when he again said, "Please: — let 

 us walk down to the pond." Even then I did not ap- 

 preciate how much our coming to Warwick meant to him ; 

 how he had for years traced out the hunting trips of Frank 

 Forester in the vale of Warwick ; how he had worked tire- 

 lessly to show his appreciation of that wonderfully cul- 

 tui-ed English sportsman who took America for his home 

 and who said "Good night" all too soon. 



Obeying his request, we had gone but a few yards nearer 

 to the lower end of the pond when we saw the cause of 

 Mr. Crissey's earnest appeal, for following in Forester^s 

 footsteps he had found the meadow where the pond had 

 been, but which had been drained in 1845. Fortunately, 

 he owned the majority of the land and by the courtesy of 

 Mr. W. D. Ackerman, who owned the rest he had been able 

 at an expenditure of some hundreds of dollars, to build a 

 cement dam across the brook, thus restoring the pond to 

 its original shape and on the dam deep in the cement, 

 when it was damp, he had inscribed in large plain letters : 



"Drained 1845, restored in 1914. 



J. H. Crissey, 



W. D. Ackerman. 



Frank Forester's Pond." 



