from the cold fountains. Endicott, and his followers, came next, and
often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. The
richest goblet, then, was of birch-bark. Governor Winthrop, after a
journey afoot from Boston, drank here, out of the hollow of his hand.
The elder Higginson here wet his palm, and laid it on the brow of the
first town-born child. For many years it was the watering-place, and, as
it were, the wash-bowl of the vicinity,--whither all decent folks
resorted, to purify their visages, and gaze at them afterwards--at least,
the pretty maidens did--in the mirror which it made. On Sabbath days,
whenever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his basin here, and
placed it on the communion-table of the humble meeting-house, which
partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. Thus, one
generation after another was consecrated to Heaven by its waters, and
cast their waxing and waning shadows into its glassy bosom, and vanished
from the earth, as if mortal life were but a flitting image in a
fountain. Finally, the fountain vanished also. Cellars were dug on all
sides, and cartloads of gravel flung upon its source, whence oozed a
turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle, at the corner of two streets. In
the hot months, when its refreshment was most needed, the dust flew in
clouds over the forgotten birthplace of the waters, now their grave.
But, in the course of time, a Town Pump was sunk into the source of the
ancient spring; and when the first decayed, another took its place,--
and then another, and still another,--till here stand I, gentlemen and
ladies, to serve you with my iron goblet. Drink, and be refreshed! The
water is as pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red
sagamore, beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the wilderness
is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls, but from the
brick buildings. And be it the moral of my story, that, as this wasted
and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the
virtues of cold water, too little valued since your father's days, be