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[p. 67] has been patched and mended, and enabled to continue in service.

Beneath its shade one can rest on the benches there provided, or drink from the cool spring that boils up from the ground at the brook's edge and overflows the stony basin about it. Some kindly hand has placed an iron post and drinking cup beside it for thirsty ramblers—cold water ramblers.

Across a mown field flows the brook with even course; then the rambler climbed a stone wall and entered the woodland, known as the Fells.

The ramble was attended with little difficulty, the frozen ground affording a firm footing, though the ‘record’ Sunday and Monday that followed must have told upon the frost, and only a few patches among the shady nooks gave evidence of the snow that had been.

Here and there the brook divides, and uniting again, forms miniature islands, while across the slowly moving waters were quaint bridges of Jack Frost's architecture.

Beautiful to look at, but too frail for use, except for the brownies or elves of the forest, the rambler sought the help of some convenient boulder or fallen tree for the few crossings he made, unless, indeed, the brook narrowed enough to admit of a step across.

Soon he entered a narrow valley where the hills arose on either side and between them lay a level ridge before his view. Through this is an opening where flowed the brook, and through this pass, in the distance, the still rising and surrounding hills are seen. To the right is another opening some rods nearer, which is lined with stone walls on either side.

Yes, this is the ‘Bower’ (so called fifty years ago), the site of the ancient mill, where the early dwellers of ‘Meadford’ came with their corn for grinding; and here, possibly, the first lumber was sawed in the old town by power.

It is more than probable that boards for some of Medford's old houses were here sawed, for there is record of a saw-mill at this spot two hundred and forty years ago.

Yes, there was power here and lots of it, too, in those old days, colony days ‘when we were under the King.’ And possibly some of the trees had the king's broad arrow on them, too, but they are long gone now.

The walled enclosure is the old raceway, and below, at the open end, is the wheel-pit. That great pile of rocks is the foundation of the mill that was elevated almost twenty feet from the brook below. Great trees have grown, and the culvert through the dam is closed by the accumulated debris, but a climb to the top reveals the extent of the old mill pond, and the course of the brook as it slowly meanders through it.

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