d this brook, by way of the bridge on their flight to the mill.

A wayfarer, standing on the little bridge, of an afternoon, keeping
motionless and in the shadow, might sometimes see, far down in the clear
water, vague objects that looked like shadows cast by sticks. He might
gaze for many minutes and see no sign of life or motion to them. Then,
perchance, one of these same grey shadows might disappear in the
twinkling of an eye; the observer would see the surface of the water
break in a tiny whirl; the momentary flash of a silvery side, spotted
with red, appear--and the trout would vanish back into the deep water
once more.

Let the traveller try as he might, he seldom got one of these fish.
They were too wary; "educated," the farmers called them. They certainly
knew enough not to bite.

Tim Reardon occasionally came back to Benton with two or three of the
trout tucked inside his blouse; but he wouldn't tell how he got 'em--not
even to Jack Harvey, to whom he was loyal in all else. Most folks came
back empty-handed.

To be sure, there was one part of the brook where the least experienced
fisherman might cast a line and draw out a fish. But that was just the
very part of all the brook where nobody was allowed. It was the pool
belonging to Farmer Ellison.

A little more than a mile up the brook from the bridge the water came
tumbling down a series of short, abrupt cascades, into a pool, formed by
a small dam thrown across the brook between banks that were quite steep.
This pool broadened out in its widest part to a width of several rods,
bordered by thick alders, swampy land in places, and in part by a grove
of beech trees.

Come upon this pool at twilight and you would see the trout playing
there as though they had just been let out of school. Try to catch
one--and if Farmer Ellison wasn't down upon you in a hurry, it was
because he was napping.

You might have bought Farmer Ellison's pet cow, but not a chance to fish
in this pool. Indeed, he seldom fished it himself, but he prized the
trout like precious jewels. John and James Ellison, Farmer Ellison's
sons, and Benjamin, their cousin, fished the pool once in a great
while--and got soundly trounced if caught. It was Farmer Ellison's
hobby, this pool and its fish. He gloated over them like a miser. He
watched them leap, and counted them when they did, as a miser would
money.

The dam held the trout in the pool downstream, and the cascades--or the
upper cascad