"I couldn't help it Doctor, it did itself," he said in half apology.
"It's so good to be out in the woods with you again. I feel as if I were
being re-created already."
"Yell again," said the physician with another laugh, and added dryly, "I
won't tell."
Gordon's Mills, on Gordon's creek, lay in a deep, narrow valley, shut in
and hidden from the world, by many miles of rolling, forest-covered
hills. The mill, the general store and post office, and the blacksmith
shop were connected with Corinth, twelve miles away, by daily stage--a
rickety old spring wagon that carried the mail and any chance passenger.
Pure and clear and cold the creek came welling to the surface of the
earth full-grown, from vast, mysterious, subterranean caverns in the
heart of the hills--and, from the brim of its basin, rushed, boiling and
roaring, along to the river two miles distant, checked only by the dam
at the mill. For a little way above the dam the waters lay still and
deep, with patches of long mosses, vines and rushes, waving in its quiet
clearness--forming shadowy dens for lusty trout, while the open
places--shining fields and lanes--reflected, as a mirror, the steep
green-clad bluff, and the trees that bent far over until their drooping
branches touched the gleaming surface.
As the two friends tramped the little path at the foot of the bluff, or
waded, with legs well-braced, the tumbling torrent, and sent their flies
hither and yon across the boiling flood to be snatched by the
strong-hearted denizens of the stream, Dan felt the life and freshness
and strength of God's good world entering into his being.
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