Anthony grew up in one of the loveliest places in the world.His father always said it was the eyes of the earth.The first time Anthony heard his father say this, he was very small. To him, those words were just sounds without meaning.At that time, some words already had meaning to him, such as "meow", which means cat.For a long time, anything as soft as a cat was also a "meow," like a plush cushion, the sealskin on the sleeve of his mother's coat.For a while, the sound of the spoon on the plate means eating; the soft humming sound means going to sleep.If they sang loudly, it meant he could jump up and down on somebody's lap; and if there was a splash of water, it meant he was going to take a bath.But the first time he heard his father say to him, "My darling, these are the eyes of the earth," those words didn't mean anything.

Then his mother held him in her arms and stood with his father at the door of his house, which was built on the hillside, and from there he could see the orchard below the hillside and the cistern of the mill below. .That day happened to be in spring, and the undulating hillside scenery was very magnificent, slowly spreading into the valley, and then slowly extending upwards, and the sunken place seemed very deep, full of loneliness and loneliness.But because they are very wide, they still have plenty of sunlight.The roads were on the other side of the hill and they couldn't see them.But those huge green slopes, full of flowers, looked steep and gentle, and the curves they formed some converged and some overlapped each other, separating one valley bottom from another, causing many brown streams to rush. Wow round many corners and wash down.These mighty slopes shut out the world, but never the sky.There is no great road between them, only small roads linking valley after valley, and the little villages and farms that lie on the slopes of the hills.Because those mountains are very high, no matter how high the roofs and treetops of the houses in those villages are, they will not stand out against the blue sky, but will only stand against the large expanses of green grass above them, which extend continuously upwards. Go, extend, and touch the blue sky and white clouds.Standing on one hillside and looking at another hillside, the distant villages are like clusters of mushrooms growing on the hillside.

There is such a village located on the mountainside behind the Anthony's house.From that village a path wound its way down to an old stone house, which in turn stood above an orchard laden with fruit.The orchard occupies an entire gentle slope, and at the foot of the gentle slope, the land becomes a terrace shape, long, flat, and narrow, and then it falls down steeply.There is a pit below that gives birth to groundwater.The terrace below the orchard was filled almost from one side to the other with flat, shining water.Never was a mill pool so calm, so shining.The water was like a smooth tabletop, framed by iris leaves and donkey grass leaves.Here and there were patches of very small, water-loving bushes in which some hen's nests were hidden.As this table-top of water spreads out to the side of the path, it quickly narrows to a beautiful forked brook, the upper tributary singing into the lonely hills, and the lower tributary bubbling down into little streams. A small waterfall, falling into a valley.The V-shaped area formed by the divergence of the stream is all undulating, dry in places, flooded in others, shaded by dots of trees, and between the roots of these trees there are countless small streams bubbling. Bubbles run everywhere.It is an area full of dangers, haunted by mysterious spells, and worthy of adventurous exploration.A spell that can never be broken hangs over that placid mill pool.It lies in a still trance, guarding hundreds of sleeping secrets, which can be awakened at any time and anywhere.Is the enchanted princess the golden iris by the water's edge, or the nimble hen that skims the silvery water?

The mill, with its dank, moss-covered water-wheel, abuts the path below the orchard.The dark grooves between the buildings are always cold and cold, and the mill wheel, with its dripping black buckets, stalks there, sometimes turning, sometimes motionless, each bucket has its secrets.But it was a wizard's magic water wheel, not a fairy's water wheel.That's what Anthony thought when he started thinking.There's always something scary about that giant water wheel dripping water in the shadows.He never lingered much there, at most passed it, and went down to the gate beside the mill, which opened on to a ledge of grass that spread out beside the rectangular pool.You can wade across the flat pool water to that flat ledge.But to a child the edge of the green path was a precipice, dropping steeply into hollow valleys woven with streams, thick with primroses in spring, and other Flowers, but primroses more than anything else.The gate of that mill is the only way in and out.But the hinges were nailed to a split willow on which the door rested.The willow had a large split at the base, so that the hollow trunk formed two hollows of rotting wood, which, however, did not prevent the tree from growing leaves.Children can squeeze their way through the cracks, and in summer they crawl through, shimmering leaves above their heads.In winter, the tree doesn't seem so friendly.Think about it, will the tree clamp you firmly one day.This idea often occurred to Anthony when he was very young when he crawled through tree holes.But this road is the only way to enter the mystery of the Mill Pool.If you just go in through the gate, you will miss a lot of things.

At that time Anthony often heard his father say those words: "It's the 'Eye of the Earth.'" The meaning of the word "eye" entered his mind first, before he understood the full meaning of the sentence.When his mother looked at him, those two clear and shiny spots, and the two spots he first saw on his mother when he looked at his mother, were her pair of eyes.When his father stood at the door and said, "This is the 'Eye of the Earth,'" he included everything he saw.Not just the orchard where the speckled chickens were pecking, not just the black and pink pigs digging into the soil, not just the ducks waddling downhill to the water's edge, not just the inlaid A still mirror-like water in gold and purple flowers, and not only the grouse darting across the water like shooting stars, and not only some brooks beyond and below that water, And the many islets of groves of primroses, and not only his few lovely acres of land.When he said this, he included the whole valley, every village on the hillside, the paths intertwined like a net, and all the flowers, plants and trees in this net, all the people and livestock.

But for Anthony Shoney, since the word "eye" has meaning, the "Eye of the Earth" is that mill pool.When he looked down from home, it looked at him like a mother's shining eyes through a flowery orchard, inviting him to come, come nearer, come nearer, and through that beautiful eye , see what it sees in the sky, what it sees on the earth.