# Travels in Philadelphia/Darby Revisited

DARBY REVISITED
The Soothsayer owns a car, and tools passionately about the country, revisiting the vistas and glimpses that he thinks particularly lovely. But he is a stubborn partisan of such beauty spots as he has himself discovered, and bitterly reluctant to concede any glamour to places he hasn't visited. For a long time he has heard us raving about Darby creek, and always asserted furiously that we had never seen a certain road up Norristown way that was (he said) a far, far better thing than any place we would be likely to know about. But the other evening, somewhat stirred by our piteous babble about the old cider mill we hadn't visited for ten years, he got out his 'bus and we set forth.
We went out along the West Chester pike, and the manner of the Soothsayer was subtly supercilious. All the way out from Sixty-ninth street the road is in bad condition, and as he nursed his handsome vehicle over the bumps we could see that the Soothsayer thought (though too polite to say so) that we were leading him into a very bedraggled and ill-assorted region. Another very sinister rebuke was that he had left up the canopy top over the car, although it was a serene and lucid evening, flushed with quiet sunset. This seemed to imply that any tract of country we would lead him to would hardly be worth examining carefully. As we passed by the university astronomical ​observatory he made a last attempt to divert us from the haven of our desire. He suggested that we both go in and have a look at the moon through the big telescope. As it was then broad and sunny daylight we treated this absurd project with contempt.
Down a steep winding hill, and we came upon the historic spot with delightful suddenness. Our heart was uplifted. There it was, unchanged, the old gray building standing among trees, with the clank and grind of the water-wheels, the yellow dapple of level sun upon the western wall.
But what was this? Under the porch-roof was a man bending over iron plates, surrounded by a dazzle of pale blue light. He was using an electric welder, and the groan of a dynamo sounded from the interior of the old mill. "It's probably a garage now," said the Soothsayer, "most of these old places are."
But that was the Soothsayer's last flash of cynicism, for in another moment the spell of the place had disarmed him. We approached, and it seemed to us there was something familiar in the face of the man operating the welder, as he watched his dazzling blue flame through a screen. It was Mr. Flounders, who has run the old mill for going on thirty years, and who used to preside at the cider press in days gone by, when we had many a pull at his noble juices. But he hasn't made any cider for several years he told us; the sawmill shed is unused, and the old mill itself is being fitted up ​with ice-making machinery. He says he went out West for a while, but he came back to Darby creek in the end. We don't blame him. The spell of that enchanting spot may well keep its hold on all who have ever loved it.
The Soothsayer and his passenger got out their pipes and brooded a while, watching the green swift water of the mill race; the sunny flicker of the creek below as it darts on its way through the meadows; the great oak tree steeped in sunlight, and the old millstones that still lie about by the front door. Inside the building the wooden beams and levers and grooved wheels are just as they were when the place was built as a flour and feed mill, in 1837. The woodwork still has that clean, dusty gloss that is characteristic of a flour mill. By the sawing shed lie a number of great logs, admirable site for a quiet smoke. The Soothsayer, tremendously impressed by this time, wandered about with us and listened kindly to all our spasms of reminiscence. We both agreed that the old mill, dozing in the sunlight, with the pale and tremulous shimmer of blue light in the porch where Mr. Flounders was working, was a fit subject for some artist's brush.
We did not fail to admire the remarkable old house across the road, where Mr. Flounders lives. It is built in three portions: a wooden lean-to, a very ancient section of whitewashed logs (which must be some 200 years old) and then the largest part of the dappled stone of various colors so ​familiar to Pennsylvania ramblers. Nothing can be more delightful in the rich tint of afternoon light than that medley of brown, gray, yellow and ochre stonework. We pointed out the little side road that we were to follow, running up the valley of the creek, past reddening apple orchards and along the meadows past the swimming pool. And then the Soothsayer paid us a genuine compliment. "Let's take down the top," said he. "Then we can really see something!"