The tributary streams from this eastern side of our river come in very quietly. Worromontogus, the largest, is dammed just as it emerges from its hills, to turn the Wilsons’ saw-mill, which was once owned and run by Mary Scott’s father. The mill and mill-pond are in an open, sunny pocket of the woods. The winding lane which leads in to them is bordered with elms and willows, and the road is soft underfoot with bark and sawdust. Feathery elms stand all about the stream’s basin, and after you have followed the road in you reach the weather-stained mill, the logs, the new-cut lumber, as fragrant as can be, and the great heap of bright-colored sawdust. Worromontogus drains the pond of the same name, five miles long, some distance back in the country.
The sun had come out bright after a rain, and every leaf was shining, the June day when we drove over to Ridgefield to fetch Mary Guilfoyle. We started early in the morning, but it was already like noon in that midsummer season. Daisies were powdering the fields, as white as snow, and yellow and orange hawkweeds were growing in among them, so that whole fields showed yellow, orange, and white. The orange hawkweed is very fragrant, and its sweetness mixed with the spicy bitterness of the daisies. Then, on a knoll as the road rose above the river, we found patches of bright blue lupins in the yellow and orange and white, making such a blaze of color as I have never seen before in our northern fields.
There were streaks of crimson sorrel in the fields where there were no daisies, among the ripening June-grass and red-top; all the grasses, and the fields of grain, were beginning to turn a little tawny, and quick waves chased each other across them with the light summer wind.
Mary lives in a scrap of a new house, in a thick wood of young firs and spruces. The last mile of our road led through these sweet-smelling trees, which were set all over with light green jewels of new growth. Grass grew in the ruts, and the moist earth of the wood road was thronged with yellow butterflies; and tiny “blues,” like bits of the sky come to life, fluttered among the ferns. Breath after breath of sweetness came from the warm woods in the sunshine.