"I see enormous logs, and a quantity of saws, and tools I don't even
know the names of. Also I see a bright, swift river."

"But over here, missy, between them two oaks. What do you please to see
there, Miss Rema?"

"What I see there, of course, is a great saw-mill."

"But it wouldn't have been 'of course,' and it wouldn't have been at
all, if I had spent all my days a-dwelling on the injuries of my family.
Could I have put that there unekaled sample of water-power and human
ingenuity together without laboring hard for whole months of a stretch,
except upon the Sabbath, and laying awake night after night, and bending
all my intellect over it? And could I have done that, think you now,
if my heart was a-mooning upon family wrongs, and this, that, and the
other?"

Here Sampson Gundry turned full upon me, and folded his arms, and spread
his great chin upon his deer-skin apron, and nodded briskly with his
deep gray eyes, surveying me in triumph. To his mind, that mill was the
wonder of the world, and any argument based upon it, with or without
coherence, was, like its circular saws, irresistible. And yet he thought
that women can not reason! However, I did not say another word just
then, but gave way to him, as behooved a child. And not only that, but I
always found him too good to be argued with--too kind, I mean, and large
of heart, and wedded to his own peculiar turns. There was nothing about
him that one could dislike, or strike fire at, and be captious; and he
always proceeded with such pity for those who were opposed to him that
they always knew they must be wrong, though he was too polite to tell
them so. And he had such a pleasant, paternal way of looking down into
one's little thoughts when he put on his spectacles, that to say any
more was to hazard the risk of ungrateful inexperience.

CHAPTER VI

A BRITISHER

The beautiful Blue River came from the jagged depths of the mountains,
full of light and liveliness. It had scarcely run six miles from its
source before it touched our mill-wheel; but in that space and time it
had gathered strong and copious volume. The lovely blue of the water
(like the inner tint of a glacier) was partly due to its origin,
perhaps, and partly to the rich, soft tone of the granite sand spread
under it. Whatever the cause may have been, the river well deserved its
title.

It was so bright and pure a blue, so limpid and pellucid, that it even
seemed to out-vie the tint of th