ls, what herds it refreshes, I
know not. I only know that when I get off at Woodlawn--that City of the
Silent--it comes down from somewhere up above the railroad station, and
that it "takes a header," as the boys say, under an old mill, abandoned
long since, and then, like another idler, goes singing along through open
meadows, and around big trees in clumps, their roots washed bare, and then
over sandy stretches reflecting the flurries of yellow butterflies, and
then around a great hill, and so on down to Laguerre's.

Of course, when it gets to Laguerre's I know all about it. I know the old
rotting landing-wharf where Monsieur moors his boats,--the one with the
little seat is still there; and Lucette's big eyes are just as brown, and
her hair just as black, and her stockings and slippers just as dainty on
Sundays as when first I knew her. And the wooden bench is still there,
where the lovers used to sit; only Monsieur, her father, tells me that
Francois works very late in the big city,--three mouths to feed now, you
see,--and only when le petit Francois is tucked away in his crib in the
long summer nights, and Lucette has washed the dishes and put on her best
apron, and the Bronx stops still in a quiet pool to listen, is the bench
used as in the old time when Monsieur discovered the lovers by the flash
of his lantern.

Then I know where it floats along below Laguerre's, and pulls itself
together in a very dignified way as it sails under the brand-new
bridge,--the old one, propped up on poles, has long since paid tribute to
a spring freshet,--and quickens its pace below the old Dye-house,--also a
wreck now (they say it is haunted),--and then goes slopping along in and
out of the marshes, sousing the sunken willow roots, oozing through beds
of weeds and tangled vines.

But only a very little while ago did I know where it began to leave off
all its idle ways and took really to the serious side of life; when it
began rushing down long, stony ravines, plunging over respectable,
well-to-do masonry dams, skirting once costly villas, whispering between
dark defiles of rock, and otherwise disporting itself as becomes a
well-ordered, conventional, self-respecting mountain stream,
uncontaminated by the encroachments and frivolities of civilized life.

All this begins at Fordham. Not exactly at Fordham, for you must walk due
east from the station for half a mile, climb a fence, and strike through
the woods before you hear its v