CHAPTER XIV 



VOICES OF THE BROOKSIDE 



For two hundred years the water has rippled 

 over the sill on which once firmly set the gate to 

 the old milldam. Of the mill, save this, no sliver 

 of wood remains, and even the tradition of the 

 miller and his work is gone. We merely know 

 that here stood one of the grist mills of the early 

 pioneers, a mill to which the neighbors brought 

 their corn in sacks, perchance upon their shoul- 

 ders, and after the wheel had turned and the grist 

 was ground, carried the meal off in the same way. 

 Thus rapidly does the smoothing hand of time 

 wipe out man and his works. 



But still the water ripples over the old, brown 

 oak sill; and he who listens may hear the brook 

 telling a story all day long in purling undertones. 

 I fancy its language a simple one, too, but its 

 words of one syllable tumble so swiftly over one 

 another that, in spite of their liquid purity of 

 tone, I never quite catch them. It is the brook's 

 rapidity of utterance that troubles me. I am 



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