THE TURNING POINT 
By Kate Douglas Wiggin 
OT far from the village of 
Bonny Eagle, on the west 
bank of the Saco, stood 
two little low-roofed farm¬ 
houses; the only two that 
had survived among all 
those that had once dotted 
the green brink of the river. 
Long years before, in 1795 or there¬ 
abouts, there had been a cluster of log 
houses on this very spot, known then as the 
Dalton Right Settlement, and these in turn 
had been succeeded at a later date by the 
more comfortable frame-roof farmhouses 
of the period. In the old days, before the 
sound of the axe for the first time disturbed 
the stillness of the forest, the otter swam in 
the shadowy coves near the shore and the 
beaver built his huts near by. The red deer 
came down to dip his antlers and cool his 
flanks in the still shallows. The speckled 
34 
grouse sat on her nest in the low pine boughs, 
while her mate perched on the mossy logs 
by the riverside unmolested. 
The Sokokis built their bark wigwams 
here and there on the bank, paddling their 
birch canoes over the river’s smooth sur¬ 
face, or threading the foamy torrents farther 
down its course. 
Here was the wonderful spring that fed, 
and still feeds, Aiint Judy’s Brook, the 
most turbulent little stream in the county. 
Many a moccasin track has been made in 
the soft earth round the never-failing foun¬ 
tain, and many the wooden bucket lowered 
into its crystal depths by the Dalton Right- 
ers when in their turn they possessed the 
land. 
The day of the Indian was over now, and 
the day of the farmer who succeeded him 
was over, too. The crash of the loom and 
the whirr of the spinning-wheel were heard 
