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COBWEB DRAPERY IN BARRETT'S MILL 



October 19, 1858. Ride to Sam Barrett's mill. 

 Am pleased again to see the cobweb drapery of the 

 mill.i Each fine line hanging in festoons from the 

 timbers overhead and on the sides, and on the dis- 

 carded machinery lying about, is covered and greatly 

 enlarged by a coating of meal, by which its curve 

 is revealed, like the twigs under their ridges of snow 

 in winter. It is like the tassels and tapestry of coun- 

 terpane and dimity in a lady's bedchamber, and I 

 pray that the cobwebs may not have been brushed 

 away from the mills which I visit. It is as if I were 

 aboard a man-of-war, and this were the fine "rig- 

 ging" of the mill, the sails being taken in. All things 

 in the mill wear the same livery or drapery, down to 

 the miller's hat and coat. I knew Barrett forty rods 

 oflf in the cranberry meadow by the meal on his hat. 



Barrett's apprentice, it seems, makes trays of 

 black birch and of red maple, in a dark room under 

 the mill. I was pleased to see this work done here, a 

 wooden tray is so handsome. You could count the 

 circles of growth on the end of the tray, and the 

 dark heart of the tree was seen at each end above, 

 producing a semicircular ornament. It was a satis- 

 faction to be reminded that we may so easily make 



' When this photograph was taken, the miller, on being told the pur- 

 pose of the photograph, remarked, "Oh, yes, those are the same cob- 

 webs that Thoreau saw here fifty years ago!" H. W. G. 



