And then, too, without travelling more than a few miles from my
door, I can see things fully as enchanting as I can see by ranging
Europe. I went to-day along a well-known road; just where the
descent begins to fall into a quiet valley, there stands a
windmill--not one of the ugly black circular towers that one
sometimes sees, but one of the old crazy boarded sort, standing on
a kind of stalk; out of the little loopholes of the mill the flour
had dusted itself prettily over the weather-boarding. From a
mysterious hatch half-way up leaned the miller, drawing up a sack
of grain with a little pulley. There is nothing so enchanting as to
see a man leaning out of a dark doorway high up in the air. He drew
the sack in, he closed the panel. The sails whirled, flapping and
creaking; and I loved to think of him in the dusty gloom, with the
gear grumbling among the rafters, tipping the golden grain into its
funnel, while the rattling hopper below poured out its soft stream
of flour. Beyond the mill, the ground sank to a valley; the roofs
clustered round a great church tower, the belfry windows blinking
solemnly.
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