THE rumble of the wheels in the great stone mill across
the Sycamore and the roar of the waters over the dam seem
to have been in Jeanette Barclay's ears from the day of
her birth; for she was but a baby when the stone mill rose
where the little red mill had stood, and beside the stone
mill there had grown up the long stone factory wherein
Lycurgus Mason was a man of consequence.As the trains
whirled by strangers could see the signs in mammoth
letters, "The Golden Belt Mills " on the larger building
and on the smaller, " The Barclay Economy Door Strip
Factory." Standing on the stone steps of her father's
house the child could read these signs clear across the mill‐
pond, and from these signs she learned her letters.For
her father had more pride in that one mill on the Sycamore
than in the scores of other mills that he controlled.And
even in after years, when he controlled mills all over the
West, and owned railroads upon which to take his flour to
the sea, and ships in which to carry his flour all over the
world, the Golden Belt Mill at Sycamore Ridge was his
chief pride.The rumble of the wheels and the hoarse
voice of the dam that seemed to Jeanette like the call of
the sea, were so sweet to her father's ears that when he
wearied of the work of the National Provisions Company,
with its two floors of busy offices in the Corn Exchange
Building in the great city, he would come home to Syca-
more Ridge, and go to his private office in the mill.The
child remembers what seemed like endless days, but what
in truth were only a few hours in a few days in a few
years, when Daddy Barclay carried her on his shoulders
across the bridge and sat her down barefooted and bare-
headed to play upon the dam, while he in his old clothes
prodded among the great wheels near by or sat beside her

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