It has been conjectured that when the hill shook, these
stones rolled down its side and became the present shore. It is very
certain, at any rate, that once there was no pond here, and now there is
one; and this Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the
account of that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers so
well when he first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor
rising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and he
concluded to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still think that
they are hardly to be accounted for by the action of the waves on these
hills; but I observe that the surrounding hills are remarkably full of
the same kind of stones, so that they have been obliged to pile them up
in walls on both sides of the railroad cut nearest the pond; and,
moreover, there are most stones where the shore is most abrupt; so that,
unfortunately, it is no longer a mystery to me. I detect the paver. If
the name was not derived from that of some English locality--Saffron
Walden, for instance--one might suppose that is was called, originally,
_Walled-in_ Pond.
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