t at Easthampton. When I say "haven," I mean a sort
of hearth and home for weary voyagers, you know, for this Island _does_
give you the impression of having more heart than most places. Perhaps
this is because (despite all the Indian fighting and battles of the
Revolution) it was from the beginning of its civilization the bourne of
homemakers. And, anyhow, when people did horrid things here in the past
they prayed about them devoutly; they didn't build their dining-halls
over the dungeons, and comfortably feast while their prisoners starved!

[Illustration: LONG ISLAND--SOUTH SHORE "Artists would find a paradise
of queer, cozy gables, and corners of gardens crowded with old-fashioned
flowers"]

But about Easthampton. There's absolutely nothing like it on the
other side of the water, not even in Devonshire or Dorset, where the
seashore villages are so lovely. Perhaps he will change his mind
to-morrow, but to-day Jack says Easthampton is the prettiest place he
ever saw.

I wonder if I can make _you_ see what it's like? Perhaps you may see
with your mind's eye, but I'm afraid for Monty it's hopeless, as he's
never been to America, where everything is so completely different from
other countries. Easthampton could be described in several ways by
several people, and they would all be right. A history lover would see
dignified ghosts of Indian chiefs treating with prim Puritans driven
from New England by grim religious dissensions. He would see the best
whaling-boats of the New World being made. He would people the oldest
shingled houses with families whose possessions are now stored in the
picturesque museum. "This place of dreams belongs to the past," he would
say, feeling pleasantly sad as he stood by the Great Pond, gazing at
irresponsible, intensely modern ducks. Artists would find a paradise of
queer, cozy gables, and corners of gardens crowded with old-fashioned
flowers that matter more than all the ancient books in the museum
library. They would remember Easthampton for the green velvet moss and
golden lichen on its ancient roofs, the faint rainbow tints in the old,
old glass of its tiny window-panes; for the pink hollyhocks painted
against backgrounds of dove-gray shingles; for its sky of peculiar
hyacinth blue like a vast cup inverted over wide-stretching golden
sands. They would remember gray windmills striding along those sands
like a procession of tall monks with arms lifted in benediction;
whereas the summer