But the Brook was far more
attractive, for it had sheltered hathing-places, clear and white sanded,
and weedy stretches, where the shy pickerel loved to linger, and deep
pools, where the stupid sucker stirred the black mud with his fins. I
had followed it all the way from its birthplace among the pleasant New
Hampshire hills, through the sunshine of broad, open meadows, and under
the shadow of thick woods. It was, for the most part, a sober, quiet
little river; but at intervals it broke into a low, rippling laugh over
rocks and trunks of fallen trees. There had, so tradition said, once
been a witch-meeting on its banks, of six little old women in short,
sky-blue cloaks; and if a drunken teamster could be credited, a ghost
was once seen bobbing for eels under Country Bridge. It ground our corn
and rye for us, at its two grist-mills; and we drove our sheep to it for
their spring washing, an anniversary which was looked forward to with
intense delight, for it was always rare fun for the youngsters.
Macaulay has sung,--
"That year young lads in Umbro
Shall plunge the struggling sheep;"
and his picture of the Roman sheep-washing recalled, when we read it,
similar scenes in the Country Brook. On its banks we could always find
the earliest and the latest wild flowers, from the pale blue, three-
lobed hepatica, and small, delicate wood-anemone, to the yellow bloom of
the witch-hazel burning in the leafless October woods.
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