onnet, and go-to-meeting
apparel. There was a good bed, in which I slept tolerably well, and,
rising betimes, ate breakfast, consisting of some of our own fish, and
then started for Augusta. The fat old traveller had gone off with the
harness of our wagon, which the hostler had put on to his horse by
mistake. The tavern-keeper gave us his own harness, and started in
pursuit of the old man, who was probably aware of the exchange, and well
satisfied with it.

Our drive to Augusta, six or seven miles, was very pleasant, a heavy
rain having fallen during the night and laid the oppressive dust of the
day before. The road lay parallel with the Kennebec, of which we
occasionally had near glimpses. The country swells back from the river
in hills and ridges, without any interval of level ground; and there
were frequent woods, filling up the valleys or crowning the summits. The
land is good, the farms looked neat, and the houses comfortable. The
latter are generally but of one story, but with large barns; and it was
a good sign, that, while we saw no houses unfinished nor out of repair,
one man, at least, had found it expedient to make an addition to his
dwelling. At the distance of more than two miles, we had a view of white
Augusta, with its steeples, and the State-House, at the farther end of
the town. Observable matters along the road were the stage,--all the
dust of yesterday brushed off, and no new dust contracted,--full of
passengers, inside and out; among them some gentlemanly people and
pretty girls, all looking fresh and unsullied, rosy, cheerful, and
curious as to the face of the country, the faces of passing travellers,
and the incidents of their journey; not yet damped, in the morning
sunshine, by long miles of jolting over rough and hilly roads,--to
compare this with their appearance at midday, and as they drive into
Bangor at dusk;--two women dashing along in a wagon, and with a child,
rattling pretty speedily down hill;--people looking at us from the open
doors and windows;--the children staring from the wayside;--the mowers
stopping, for a moment, the sway of their scythes;--the matron of a
family, indistinctly seen at some distance within the house, her head
and shoulders appearing through the window, drawing her handkerchief
over her bosom, which had been uncovered to give the baby its
breakfast,--the said baby, or its immediate predecessor, sitting at the
door, turning round to creep away on all fours;--a man