These factories have two,
three, or more boarding-houses near them, two stories high, and of double
length,--often with bean-vines running up round the doors, and with
altogether a domestic look. There are several factories in different
parts of North Adams, along the banks of a stream,--a wild, highland
rivulet, which, however, does vast work of a civilized nature. It is
strange to see such a rough and untamed stream as it looks to be so
subdued to the purposes of man, and making cottons and woollens, sawing
boards and marbles, and giving employment to so many men and girls. And
there is a sort of picturesqueness in finding these factories, supremely
artificial establishments, in the midst of such wild scenery. For now
the stream will be flowing through a rude forest, with the trees erect
and dark, as when the Indians fished there; and it brawls and tumbles and
eddies over its rock-strewn current. Perhaps there is a precipice,
hundreds of feet high, beside it, down which, by heavy rains or the
melting of snows, great pine-trees have slid or fallen headlong, and lie
at the bottom, or half-way down, while their brethren seem to be gazing
at their fall from the summit, and anticipating a like fate.
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