His large frame
was built for hard work, for lifting great weights and pushing his
plough through new-cleared land. We felt at home together, and each
knew many things that the other did of earlier days, and of losses
that had come with time. I remembered coming to the old house often in
my childhood; it was in this very farm lane that I first saw anemones,
and learned what to call them. After we drove away, this crippled man
must have thought a long time about my elders and betters, as if he
were reading their story out of a book. I suppose he has hauled many a
stick of timber pine down for ship-yards, and gone through the village
so early in the winter morning that I, waking in my warm bed, only
heard the sleds creak through the frozen snow as the slow oxen plodded
by.
Near the house a trout brook comes plashing over the ledges. At one
place there is a most exquisite waterfall, to which neither painter's
brush nor writer's pen can do justice. The sunlight falls through
flickering leaves into the deep glen, and makes the foam whiter and
the brook more golden-brown. You can hear the merry noise of it all
night, all day, in the house. A little way above the farmstead it
comes through marshy ground, which I fear has been the cause of much
illness and sorrow to the poor, troubled family. I had a thrill of
pain, as it seemed to me that the brook was mocking at all that
trouble with all its wild carelessness and loud laughter, as it
hurried away down the glen.
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