NEIGHBOURS
By
ROBERT STEAD
Author of "The Cow Puncher", "The Homesteaders", "Dennison Grant", "The Empire Builders", etc.
TORONTO
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LIMITED
Copyright, Canada, 1922
HODDER & STOUGHTON, LIMITED
PUBLISHERS
PRINTED IN CANADA.
NEIGHBOURS
CHAPTER I.
My earliest recollection links back to a grey stone house by a road entering a little Ontario town. Across the road was a mill-pond, and across the mill-pond was a mill; an old-fashioned woolen mill which was the occasion and support of the little town. Beside the mill was a water-wheel; not a modern turbine, but a wooden wheel which, on sunshiny days, sprayed a mist of jewels into the river beneath with the prodigality of a fairy prince.