rrible. And yet here was this girl to whom it all
appeared like the merest commonplace. What she felt about it was that
it was "awful cold, sometimes; the days were so short! and it grew dark
so early!" Then she told me about the spinning, and the husking, and
the sugar-making, while we sat in a corner together, waiting to replace
the full spools by empty ones,--the work usually given to the little
girls.

I had a great admiration for this girl, because she had come from those
wilderness-regions. The scent of pine-woods and checkerberry-leaves
seemed to bang about her. I believe I liked her all the better because
she said "daown" and "haow." It was part of the mountain-flavor.

I tried, on my part, to impress her with stories of the sea; but I did
not succeed very well. Her principal comment was, "They don't think
much of sailors up aour way." And I received the impression, from her
and others, and from my own imagination, that rural life was far more
delightful than the life of towns.

But there is something in the place where we were born that holds us
always by the heartstrings. A town that still has a great deal of the
country in it, one that is rich in beautiful scenery and ancestral
associations, is almost like a living being, with a body and a soul. We
speak of such a town, if our birthplace, as of a mother, and think of
ourselves as her sons and daughters.

So we felt, my sisters and I, about our dear native town of Beverly.
Its miles of sea-border, almost every sunny cove and rocky headland of
which was a part of some near relative's homestead, were only half a
day's journey distant; and the misty ocean-spaces beyond still widened
out on our imagination from the green inland landscape around us. But
the hills sometimes shut us in, body and soul. To those who have been
reared by the sea a wide horizon is a necessity, both for the mind and
for the eye.

We had many opportunities of escape towards our native shores, for the
larger part of our large family still remained there, and there was a
constant coming and going among us. The stagedriver looked upon us as
his especial charge, and we had a sense of personal property in the
Salem and Lowell stagecoach, which had once, like a fairy-godmother's
coach, rumbled down into our own little lane, taken possession of us,
and carried us off to a new home.

My married sisters had families growing up about them, and they liked
to have us younger ones come and help t