CHAPTER X—TRESUMPSCOTT POND
Tresumpscott Pond lies three miles eastward from our river, set deep between the folds of wooded and rocky hills, and the woods frame it close.
You climb the rise of a long slow-mounting hill which at its southern extremity breaks sharply down in granite ledges, mostly pine-covered, and there right below you lies this little lonely, perfectly guarded lake. There is only one opening in the woods, a farm which slopes down to the shore in two wide fields, with a low rambling farmhouse. There is no other roof in sight.
The pond is about a mile long and half as wide. It has the attributes of a big lake, in little; deep bays up which loons nest, and wooded headlands, ending in smooth abrupt rocks which enclose small curved beaches of white sand, as firm and fine as sea sand. The western bay ends in a river of swamp, and all along the north side the wood screens a broken wall of fern-grown cliffs, with quantities of columbines among their crannies. The long slope above the woods is a sheep pasture, partly under pines and partly open, with ledge and cinquefoil-covered boulders cropping out in the close turf, and tall mulleins standing all about like candlesticks.
The whole locality is rich in treasures, and here on the north side of the pond is a stretch of mossy glades and openings in the underwood which are covered with the fairy elegance of maiden-hair fern, the delicate black stems standing out against the rocks and moss. They grow under cool rich woods, with pink Lady’s Slippers scattered in clumps among them.
The farm at Tresumpscott is an ample one, and Jacob Damren, who farms it, comes of fine stock, and is a big, hearty figure of a man. The Pond was his father’s before him. His wife is a plain little woman, always clean and trim in fresh cotton print. They say her habitual sadness is because she has never liked the Pond. She was town-bred, and finds it utterly lonely, while to Jacob it holds everything that earth can give.
The land is very fertile and they prospered till well past middle life, when Jacob met with an accident that was hard to bear. A neglected cut on his thumb became infected, and soon there was swelling and pain in the whole hand. No one did the right thing, no one knew what to do beyond the old-fashioned farm treatments, and after a week of fever the arm had to go. They said it was only his wife’s despairing weeping which brought him at last to consent to amputation. At first he begged to be allowed to die sooner than face life again thus maimed.
He met the blow, once it fell, in a steady manly way, and now has come well out from under its shadow. A month ago I saw him out with his horse and drag, getting out stumps, and he was managing this troublesome business successfully. He smiled a patient, slow smile, as we came up.
“This comes kind of awkward for a one-armed man!” he called out, but spoke cheerily, and seemed delighted at the way he was achieving his stumping.