The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hills of the Shatemuc, by Susan Warner

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Title: Hills of the Shatemuc

Author: Susan Warner

Release Date: October 23, 2005 [EBook #16918]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HILLS OF THE SHATEMUC ***

Produced by Daniel Fromont

COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS

VOL. CCCLI.

THE HILLS OF THE SHATEMUC

BY

ELIZABETH WETHERELL.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

THE

HILLS OF THE SHATEMUC

BY

ELIZABETH WETHERELL,

AUTHOR OF "THE WIDE WIDE WORLD."

A wise man is strong.
Proverbs xxiv.5.

_AUTHOR'S EDITION_.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1856.

THE HILLS OF THE SHATELUC.

VOL. I.

CHAPTER I.

Low stirrings in the leaves, before the wind
Wakes all the green strings of the forest lyre.
LOWELL.

The light of an early Spring morning, shining fair on upland
and lowland, promised a good day for the farmer's work. And
where a film of thin smoke stole up over the tree-tops, into
the sunshine which had not yet got so low, there stood the
farmer's house.

It was a little brown house, built surely when its owner's
means were not greater than his wishes, and probably some time
before his family had reached the goodly growth it boasted
now. All of them were gathered at the breakfast-table.

"Boys, you may take the oxen, and finish ploughing that upland
field -- I shall be busy all day sowing wheat in the bend
meadow."

"Then I'll bring the boat for you, papa, at noon," said a
child on the other side of the table.

"And see if you can keep those headlands as clean as I have
left them."

"Yes, sir. Shall you want the horses, father, or shall we take
both the oxen?"

"Both? -- both _pairs_, you mean -- yes; I shall want the horses.
I mean to make a finish of that wheat lot."

"Mamma, you must send us our dinner," said a fourth speaker,
and the eldest of the boys; -- "it'll be too confoundedly hot
to come home."

"Yes, it's going to be a warm day," said the father.

"Who's to bring it to you, Will?" said the mother.

"Asahel -- can't he -- when he brings the