rst new flower the river gave me, as I had never loved
a flower before.

There was but one summers holiday for us who worked in the mills--the
Fourth of July. We made a point of spending it out of doors, making
excursions down the river to watch the meeting of the slow Concord and
the swift Merrimack; or around by the old canal-path, to explore the
mysteries of the Guard Locks; or across the bridge, clambering up
Dracut Heights, to look away to the dim blue mountains.

On that morning it was our custom to wake one another at four o'clock,
and start off on a tramp together over some retired road whose chief
charm was its unfamiliarity, returning to a very late breakfast, with
draggled gowns and aprons full of dewy wild roses. No matter if we must
get up at five the next morning and go back to our hum-drum toil, we
should have the roses to take with us for company, and the sweet air of
the woodland which lingered about them would scent our thoughts all
day, and make us forget the oily smell of the machinery.

We were children still, whether at school or at work, and Nature still
held us close to her motherly heart. Nature came very close to the
mill-gates, too, in those days. There was green grass all around them;
violets and wild geraniums grew by the canals; and long stretches of
open land between the corporation buildings and the street made the
town seem country-like.

The slope behind our mills (the "Lawrence" Mills) was a green lawn; and
in front of some of them the overseers had gay flower-gardens; we
passed in to our work through a splendor of dahlias and hollyhocks.

The gray stone walls of St. Anne's church and rectory made a
picturesque spot in the middle of the town, remaining still as a
lasting monument to the religious purpose which animated the first
manufacturers. The church arose close to the oldest corporation (the
"Merrimack"), and seemed a part of it, and a part, also, of the
original idea of the place itself, which was always a city of
worshipers, although it came to be filled with a population which
preferred meeting-houses to churches. I admired the church greatly. I
had never before seen a real one; never anything but a plain frame
meeting-house; and it and its benign, apostolic-looking rector were
like a leaf out of an English story-book.

And so, also, was the tiny white cottage nearly opposite, set in the
middle of a pretty flower-garden that sloped down to the canal. In the
garden there