A Village Stradivarius 123
The Eventful Trip of the Midnight Cry 195




THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER.


It stood on the gentle slope of a hill, the old gray house,
with its weather-beaten clapboards and its roof of ragged shingles.
It was in the very lap of the road, so that the stage-driver could almost
knock on the window pane without getting down from his seat, on those rare
occasions when he brought "old Mis' Bascom" a parcel from Saco.

Humble and dilapidated as it was, it was almost beautiful
in the springtime, when the dandelion-dotted turf grew close
to the great stone steps; or in the summer, when the famous
Bascom elm cast its graceful shadow over the front door.
The elm, indeed, was the only object that ever did cast its
shadow there. Lucinda Bascom said her "front door 'n' entry
never hed ben used except for fun'rals, 'n' she was goin'
to keep it nice for that purpose, 'n' not get it all tracked up."

She was sitting now where she had sat for thirty years.
Her high-backed rocker, with its cushion of copperplate patch
and its crocheted tidy, stood always by a southern window that
looked out on the river. The river was a sheet of crystal, as it
poured over the dam; a rushing, roaring torrent of foaming white,
as it swept under the bridge and fought its way between the rocky