[ 62 ] 



TARBELL'S SPRING 



July 5, 1852. How cheering it is to behold a full 

 spring bursting forth directly from the esp-th, like 

 this of Tarbell's, from clean gravel, copiously, in a 

 thin sheet; for it descends at once, where you see 

 no opening, cool from the caverns of the earth, and 

 making a considerable stream. Such springs, in the 

 sale of lands, are not valued for as much as they are 

 worth. I lie almost flat, resting my hands On what 

 offers, to drink at this water where it bubbles, at the 

 very udders of Nature, for man is never weaned from 

 her breast while this life lasts. How many times in 

 a single walk does he stoop for a draught! 



Journal, iv, 188. 



July 12, 1857. I drink at every cooler spring in 

 my walk these afternoons and love to eye the bot- 

 tom there, with its pebbly caddis-cases, or its white 

 worms, or perchance a luxurious frog cooling himself 

 next my nose. Sometimes the farmer, foreseeing hay- 

 ing, has been prudent enough to sink a tub in one, 

 which secures a clear deep space. . . . When a spring 

 has been allowed to fill up, to be muddied by cattle, 

 or, being exposed to the sun by cutting down the 

 trees and bushes, to dry up, it affects me sadly, like 

 an institution going to decay. Sometimes I see, on 

 one side the tub, — the tub overhung with various 

 wild plants and flowers, its edge almost completely 



