The house in which Forester lived was the largest in the village. It
was a square house of two stories. It stood back a little from the
road, in the middle of a large yard, ornamented with rows of trees
along the sides, and groups of shrubbery in the corners and near the
house. There were gravel walks leading in different directions through
this yard, and on one side of the house was a carriage-way, which led
from a great gate in front, to a door in one end of the house, and
thence to the stable in the rear. On the other side of the house, near
the street, was the office,--for Forester's father was a lawyer. The
office was a small square building, with the lawyer's name over the
door. There was a back door to the office, and a footpath, winding
among trees and shrubbery, which led from the office to the house.

The morning after they arrived, Forester took Marco out to see the
village. He intended not only to show him the various objects of
interest which were to be seen, but also to explain to him why it was
that such villages would spring up in a farming country, and what were
the occupations of the inhabitants.

"The first thing which causes the commencement of a village in New
England," said Forester, "is a water-fall."

"Why is that?" asked Marco.

"There are certain things," replied Forester, "which the farmers can
not very well do for themselves, by their own strength, particularly
grinding their corn, and sawing logs into boards for their houses.
When they first begin to settle in a new country, they make the houses
of logs, and they have to take the corn and grain a great many miles
on horseback, through paths in the woods, or, in the winter, on
hand-sleds, to get it ground. But as soon as any of them are able to
do it, they build a dam on some stream in the neighborhood, where
there is a fall in the water, and thus get a water power. This water
power they employ, to turn a saw-mill and a grist-mill. Then all the
farmers, when they want to build houses or barns, haul logs to the
mill to get them sawed into boards, and they carry their grain to the
grist-mill and get it ground. They pay the owner of the mills for
doing this work for them. And thus, if there are a great many farms in
the country around, and no other mills very near, so that the mills
are kept all the time at work, the owner gets a great deal of pay, and
gradually acquires property.

"Now, as soon as the mills are built, perhaps a blacksmith