Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-10-23
,a1Wriuten for the Herald. ~ Z Z
Memories Awakened by Higgins,
Rustic Mill and Mountain Seen.


Merchants Row.
So said our children to us as they
came home ablaZe with excitement to
tell US about the rocks and running
brooks, the rustic mill in motion saving
the big log, the wild mountain scenery,
the boy and the boat, the ferns, the
fishes. and the fountaia they had seen
from the sidewalk through Higgins
tempting show window. -
And SO as we were passing we stopped
on the walk and witnessed this watery,
wild and wonderful work of rustic art
and imitation of nature so attractive to
the passers by. Nor were we content to
witness this wonder through the window
we went in to examine more infinitely
this work and to delight ourself in drink
ing in Eve assure you, Mr.. Editor, we
did drink nothing more intoxicating the
loneliness of this miniature landscape OF
mountain streams, stones, fountain,
ferns and busy mill The scene is de-
lightful to any one who loves the beauti-
Iul dIlJ luC WI III OdS w tto II
was more than pleasing, passing i'm
pression-it evoked precious, sacred men,
cries of the past, and made the scenes,
surroundings and dear associations of
childhood to be present with us again.
The fact is, Mr.. Editor, we were born
literally among the mountains. We
would not, by this confession, have you
associate our birth with the poetical but
sarcastic lines of Horace:
"The mountains labored and brought
forth;
And 10 little mouse was born"
No. we were born of a ao0naa3o as
noble in purpose and as pure in heart as
ever breathed the air of heaven and
yet we were born on mountain, among
the mountains. t. ..... ..
We first beheld the light of heaven
amid mountain sccneries, to us the most
grand and sublime our eyes have ever
looked upon. The log house where we
first drank in the pure mountain air with
our mothers milk, was still standing as
we approached to manhood, though
memory goes not back to the days when
we dwelt within its wooden walls, The
immediate neighborhood of our nativity
| was called $780, mountain, from the
| name of an old inhabitant we well re-
member. This mountain neighborhood
was regular ampitheatre formed by
other and grander mountains towering
high above it. Leaving the lower lands
! at the river running at the 'foot of the
! mountain, the traveller first ascends a
s.hard hill, as the natives called it, but
soon descending we enter a narrow val
! ley or mountain gorge, through which
runs swift mountain stream, on which
stand two mills. Pursuing this gorge
up, ar0 three miles from the river at the
base, we come to our early mountain
home. There was but one dwelling
house higher up among the hills than
that old homestead. Standing in the
door we could see the long, high. Hog
back range in the east, bat a few miles
away. To the west, within two miles
of our home, the peak of cold Round
Top" lowered high above all the bills,
while to the north was a wild scene of
| broken mountains and deep gorges,
through one of which runs the mill
stream. before mentioned. This stream
runs near by the home of our childhood
"a quiet, ripping, murmuring brook
during the dry summer months; but a
rapid, rushing, roaring torrent during the
spring fresbets, summer showers, or
autumn rains. s.. E......s
| Up this stream, with fishihgzrod, We
followed with our ''big brother and
other boys-up, up, climbing over fern
covered rocks, clambering over fallen
trees and decaying tinbers now stand
| ing on the banks, now wading ia the
cold stream; new catching gold speck-
led trout, and now getting caught our
self, on sharp knot or with Our sharper
hook, bat still on and up we climb, till
we stand by the great spring upon the
mountains, from whence flows one of
the coolest, purest mountain streams to
be found in this State. .,...,-,
In one of the mills, run by this steam,
we worked in days of yore. With our
comrade in distress we have many a
time, at midnight, taken our turn in the
old mill to work till MONDAY, when
others would take it and run till our
/ turn at midnight again.
This mill was run by an "oVer-shot
wheel" Ia Higgins, nearly thirty feet
in diameter, forced in rapid revolutions
| by falling water through fiume, a la
Higgins, from a reservoir above sup
piled by-this same mountain stream.
In this same mill one Sabbath evening
while our eomrade in toll was off spark
ing his Highland Lucretia, now his
wonanly wife, and after we had been
to church that Sabbath. day, and sang
the songs of Zion in the country choir
of that mountain parish, we went to
| work-tell it not in Gath and there on
that Lords day evening we had our good
right hand sawed SO badly that we went
| boo-hooing home to our mother and laid
our aching. hand and headon her matern-
al BOSOM: and found the gentle strokes
of her hand more soothing shan all the
| modifying ointments we. ever tried
That Sabbath evenings work was a
. lesson to us we. have never forgotten,
We made no pretentions to piety, but it
was the voice of God to. our con
science, as we went whirIing against
the mill post, sent by the swift
whizzing circular saw and as we
realized that a thick glove was, in
his providence, all that saved our hand,
if not our life, we impulsiyely thanked.
God, and mentally resolved never to.
consciously deseorate his holy day again
by doing secular unnecessary work. The
sad scar from the saw, made ON our
right hand that Sabbath night, has been
:, - o+,,a1 ,ro,,,;y,I1nr of that bdo,lr a11