174 
RURAL HOURS. 
is also in flower, growing in lower and more open grounds ; a 
bit of meadow-land, on the border of one of our brooks, is now 
brilliantly colored with these handsome flowers. The very showy 
Martagon, or Turk’s-cap lily, also belongs to our neighborhood. 
Last summer a noble plant — a pyramid of twenty red blossoms on 
one stalk — was found growing in a marshy spot on the hill, at 
the Cliffs. 
Brought home a beautiful bunch of these orange lilies, with 
the leaves of the sweet-fem, and the white flowers of the fragrant 
early wintergreen. 
Tuesday, l7t/(. — Rambled about Mill Island and the woods 
beyond. The red wooden grist-mill, standing here, is the oldest 
and most important of the neighborhood. In dry seasons, when 
water fails in the lesser streams, grain has been brought here 
from farms twenty miles distant. This present summer, however, 
the water has been so low, that the wheels have stopped. 
The low saw-mill, on the farther bank, is one of half a dozen 
within a few miles. It does a deal of work. Some of the logs 
float down the lake and river ; others are draAvn here on the snow 
in winter ; but the basin above the dam is generally well filled 
with them. As the stream runs a mere rivulet now, many of the 
logs are lodged on the mud, and the mill is idle. We rarely see 
the river so low. 
We are told that for some years after the village was com- 
menced, Mill Island was a favorite resort of the Indians, who, at 
that time, came frequently in parties to the new settlement, re- 
maining here for months together. The island was then covered 
with wood, and they seem to have chosen it for their camp, in 
preference to other situations. Possibly it may have been a place 
