Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
CHAPTER III.
MILLVILLE HEARS EXCITING NEWS.
Millville is rather difficult to locate on the map, for the railroads
found it impossible to run a line there, _Chazy_ Junction, the nearest
station, is several miles away, and the wagon road ascends the foothills
every step of the distance. Finally you pass between Mount Parnassus
(whoever named it that?) and Little Bill Hill and find yourself on an
almost level plateau some four miles in diameter, with a placid lake in
the center and a fringe of tall pines around the edge. At the South,
where tower the northern sentries of the Adirondacks, a stream called
Little Bill Creek comes splashing and dashing over the rocks to force
its way noisily into the lake. When it emerges again it is humble and
sedate, and flows smoothly to Hooker's Falls, from whence it soon joins
a tributary that leads it to far away Champlain.
Millville is built where the Little Bill rushes into the lake. The old
mill, with its race and sluice-gates, still grinds wearily the scanty
dole of grain fed into its hoppers and Silas Caldwell takes his toll and
earns his modest living just as his father did before him and "Little
Bill" Thompson did before him.
Above the mill a rickety wooden bridge spans the stream, for here the
highway from Chary Junction reaches the village of Millville and passes
the wooden structures grouped on either side its main street on the way
to Thompson's Crossing, nine miles farther along. The town boasts
exactly eleven buildings, not counting the mill, which, being on the
other side of the Little Bill, can hardly be called a part of Millville
proper. Cotting's Store contains the postoffice and telephone booth, and
is naturally the central point of interest. Seth Davis' blacksmith shop
comes next; Widow Clark's Emporium for the sale of candy, stationery and
cigars adjoins that; McNutt's office and dwelling combined is next, and
then Thorne's Livery and Feed Stables. You must understand they are not
set close together, but each has a little ground of its own.
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There was once a king who was very powerful. He had great influence over the wild beasts and animals. Now the tortoise was looked upon as the wisest of all beasts and men. This king had a son named Ekpenyon, to whom he gave fifty young girls as wives, but the prince did not like any of them. The king was very angry at this, and made a law that if any man had a daughter who was finer than the prince's wives, and who found favour in his son's eyes, the girl herself and her father and mother should be killed.
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