up-and-down-going

Updated: May 18, 2025

This was a place Fleda dearly loved. The wild sound of the waters, and the lonely keeping of the scene, with the delicious smell of the new-sawn boards, and the fascination of seeing the great logs of wood walk up to the relentless, tireless, up-and-down-going steel; as the generations of men in turn present themselves to the course of those sharp events which are the teeth of Time's saw; until all of a sudden the master spirit, the man regulator of this machinery, would perform some conjuration on lever and wheel, and at once, as at the touch of an enchanter, the log would be still and the saw stay its work; the business of life came to a stand, and the romance of the little brook sprang up again.

Susan Warner - Queechy, Volume I

This was a place Fleda dearly loved. The wild sound of the waters and the lonely keeping of the scene, with the delicious smell of the new-sawn boards, and the fascination of seeing the great logs of wood walk up to the relentless, tireless up-and-down-going steel; as the generations of men in turn present themselves to the course of those sharp events which are the teeth of Time's saw; until all of a sudden the master spirit, the man-regulator of this machinery, would perform some conjuration on lever and wheel, and at once, as at the touch of an enchanter, the log would be still and the saw stay its work; the business of life came to a stand, and the romance of the little brook sprang up again.

Susan Warner - Queechy