assured
me, "you could walk across on them below the falls;" but now they are
unknown, simply because certain substances which would enrich the
farms are thrown from factories and tanneries into our clear New
England streams. Good river fish are growing very scarce. The smelts,
and bass, and shad have all left this upper branch of the Piscataqua,
as the salmon left it long ago, and the supply of one necessary sort
of good cheap food is lost to a growing community, for the lack of a
little thought and care in the factory companies and saw-mills, and
the building in some cases of fish-ways over the dams. I think that
the need of preaching against this bad economy is very great. The
sight of a proud lad with a string of undersized trout will scatter
half the idlers in town into the pastures next day, but everybody
patiently accepts the depopulation of a fine clear river, where the
tide comes fresh from the sea to be tainted by the spoiled stream,
which started from its mountain sources as pure as heart could wish.
Man has done his best to ruin the world he lives in, one is tempted to
say at impulsive first thought; but after all, as I mounted the last
hill before reaching the village, the houses took on a new look of
comfort and pleasantness; the fields that I knew so well were a
fresher green than before, the sun was down, and the provocations of
the day seemed very slight compared to the satisfaction. I believed
that with a little more time we should grow wiser about our fish and
other things beside.

It will be good to remember the white rose road and its quietness in
many a busy town day to come. As I think of these slight sketches, I
wonder if they will have to others a tinge of sadness; but I have
seldom spent an afternoon so full of pleasure and fresh and delighted
consciousness of the possibilities of rural life.

End of Project Gutenberg's Strangers and Wayfarers, by Sarah Orne Jewett

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS ***

***** This file should be named 31857.txt or 31857.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/5/31857/

Produced by James Adcock. Special thanks to The Internet
Archive: American Libraries.

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copy