No prettier spot was then, or until very lately, to be found in the dear old town which is mother of us all, than Holmes’s Dam, or as it then was called Jenney’s Mill, where in the midst of a dense wood The Town Brook, rushing toward the sea, found itself at a very early date impeded by a dam, more or less artificial and effectual according to the owner, but always sufficient to turn the big wheel of the gristmill first erected by Stephen Dean, husband of that Betty Ring who inherited so little of her mother’s great estate, and afterward carried on by burly John Jenney, who sat as Assistant at the council board when Duxbury wrung consent for separate identity from the mother town. And now John slept, although _not_ with his English fathers, and his widow jointly with her son Samuel administered the mill and ground the grain not only of Plymouth, but of Duxbury, Sandwich, and several other towns. With so wide a custom the miller’s was a flourishing business, and might have been still more so had it been more carefully carried on, but alas! John Jenney was a shipowner, and aspired to setting up salt-works at Clark’s Island, and in fact had a soul above the pottles of meal by which he was supposed to live; and when his widow succeeded to his estate the customers complained that they were forced to share their grain with rats and mice, and that the miller’s widow was too easy tempered to be very efficient. Now, however, that the oldest son was married and the daughters were grown up, things went better, and the mill became a popular resort for the young people, especially in hot weather. But all this time the governor’s sons are peeping through the boscage, and we peeping with them see four young girls, their kirtles of blue and white homespun linen drawn about their knees, while with bare feet they comfortably paddle in a little pool formed by a bend of the stream, floored with beach sand and bordered by a grassy bank, whereon the four damsels sit, and chat with all the sweet volubility of blackbirds. The rays of the morning sun sifting through the branches of the young oaks overhead dance merrily upon heads of gold and brown, and the flaxen locks that curl around Susan Jenney’s head, while her eyes, blue as the blossom of the flax, gleam beneath as she says,-- “We wouldn’t do this to-night, girls, would we?” “I dare say the lads wouldn’t say nay, if we asked them to a wading match,” replied her sister Sally with a twinkling laugh, while Abby, older than the rest, looked sharply among the bushes, saying,-- “Who knows but we’re spied upon! I feel a creep up my back.” “’Tis Harry Wood, be sure on’t!” cried Susan with a little flirt of her white toes that sent the water into her sister’s face, while William Bradford, softly pulling Joseph backward, whispered in his lowest tones,-- “Betty Alden’s there, and she’d never forgive us if she knew we’d spied on them.”