e tea
into Boston harbour, and had some hereditary fear of taxes.

Hunters and trappers were much impressed by it. They felt it over,
peering curiously into the muzzle, with one eye closed.

"Ye couldn't kill nuthin' with it," said one of them.

"If I was to pick it up an' hit ye over the head with it, I guess
ye wouldn't think so," said another.

Familiarity bred contempt, and by and by they began to shoot at it
from the tavern steps.

The gun lay rejected and much in the way until its buyer came to
his own rescue and agreed to pay for the mounting. Then came
another and more famous controversy as to which way they should
"p'int" the gun. Some favoured one direction, some another, and at
last, by way of compliment, they "p'inted" it squarely at the house
of the giver on the farther side of the park. And it was loaded to
the muzzle with envy and ingratitude.

The arrest of Sidney Trove, also, had filled the town with exciting
rumours, and gossip of him seemed to travel on the four winds--much
of it as unkind as it was unfounded.

Then came surveyors, and promoters of the railroad, and a plan of
aiding it by bonding the towns it traversed. In the beginning
horror and distrust were in many bosoms. If the devil and some of
his angels had come, he might, indeed, for a time, have made more
converts and less excitement.

"It's a delusion an' a snare," said old Colonel Barclay in a
speech. "Who wants t' whiz through the air like a bullet? God
never intended men to go slidin' over the earth that way. It ain't
nat'ral ner it ain't common sense. Some say it would bring more
folks into this country. I say we can supply all the folks that's
nec'sary. I've got fourteen in my own family. S'pose ye lived on
a tremendous sidehill that reached clear to New York City, so ye
could git on a sled an' scoot off like a streak o' lightnin'. Do
ye think ye'd be any happier? Do ye think ye'd chop any more wood
er raise a bigger crop o' potatoes? S'pose ye could scoot yer
crops right down t' Albany in a day. That would be all right if
'ye was the only man that was scootin', but if there was anything
t' be made by it, there'd be more than a million sleds on the way,
an' ye couldn't sell yer stuff for so much as ye git here. Some
day ye'd come home and ask where's Ma an' Mary, and then Sam would
say, 'Why, Mary's slid down t' New York, and the last I see o' Ma
she was scootin' for Rochester.'"

Here, the record says,