otherwise, but sometimes their eyes do not rest, their wheels do
not roll, on the quaking meadow ground during the haying season
at all. So many sources of wealth inaccessible. They rate the
loss hereby incurred in the single town of Wayland alone as equal
to the expense of keeping a hundred yoke of oxen the year
round. One year, as I learn, not long ago, the farmers standing
ready to drive their teams afield as usual, the water gave no
signs of falling; without new attraction in the heavens, without
freshet or visible cause, still standing stagnant at an
unprecedented height. All hydrometers were at fault; some
trembled for their English even. But speedy emissaries revealed
the unnatural secret, in the new float-board, wholly a foot in
width, added to their already too high privileges by the dam
proprietors. The hundred yoke of oxen, meanwhile, standing
patient, gazing wishfully meadowward, at that inaccessible waving
native grass, uncut but by the great mower Time, who cuts so
broad a swathe, without so much as a wisp to wind about their
horns.


That was a long pull from Ball's Hill to Carlisle Bridge, sitting
with our faces to the south, a slight breeze rising from the
north, but nevertheless water still runs and grass grows, for
now, having passed the bridge between Carlisle and Bedford, we
see men haying far off in the meadow, their heads waving like the
grass which they cut. In the distance the wind seemed to bend all
alike. As the night stole over, such a freshness was wafted
across the meadow that every blade of cut grass seemed to teem
with life. Faint purple clouds began to be reflected in the
water, and the cow-bells tinkled louder along the banks, while,