To live beside a river had been to me a child's dream of romance.
Rivers, as I pictured them, came down from the mountains, and
were born in the clouds. They were bordered by green meadows, and
graceful trees leaned over to gaze into their bright mirrors. Our
shallow tidal creek was the only river I had known, except as
visioned on the pages of the "Pilgrim's Progress," and in the
Book of Revelation. And the Merrimack was like a continuation of
that dream.
I soon made myself familiar with the rocky nooks along Pawtucket
Falls, shaded with hemlocks and white birches. Strange new wild
flowers grew beside the rushing waters,-- among them Sir Walter
Scott's own harebells, which I had never thought of except as
blossoms of poetry; here they were, as real to me as to his Lady
of the Lake! I loved the harebell, the first 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.
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