ht to,) which relieved us also of all prospect whatever. And the
revival spirit of habitation which has come over Concord is clapping up a
house between every two in the already crowded town; and the prospect is,
it will be soon all buildings. They are constructing, in quite good
taste though, small, trim, cottage-like. But I had rather be where I can
breathe air, and see beyond my own features, than be smothered among the
prettiest houses ever built. We are on the slope of a hill; it is all
sand, be sure, on all four sides of us, but the air is free, (and the
sand, too, at times,) and our water, there is danger of hard drinking to
live by it. Air and water, the two necessaries of life, and high, free
play-ground for the small ones. There is a sand precipice hard by, high
enough, were it only rock and overlooked the ocean, to be as sublime as
any of the Nahant cliffs. As it is, it is altogether a safer haunt for
daring childhood, which could hardly break its neck by a descent of some
hundreds of feet.

"A low flat lies between us and the town, with its State-house, and body-
guard of well-proportioned steeples standing round. It was marshy and
wet, but is almost all redeemed by the translation into it of the high
hills of sand. It must have been a terrible place for frogs, judging
from what remains of it. Bits of water from the springs hard by lay here
and there about the low ground, which are peopled as full of singers as
ever the gallery of the old North Meeting-house was, and quite as
melodious ones. Such performers I never heard, in marsh or pool. They
are not the great, stagnant, bull-paddocks, fat and coarse-noted like
Parson, but clear-water frogs, green, lively, and sweet-voiced. I
passed their orchestra going home the other evening, with a small lad,
and they were at it, all parts, ten thousand peeps, shrill, ear-piercing,
and incessant, coming up from every quarter, accompanied by a second,
from some larger swimmer with his trombone, and broken in upon, every now
and then, but not discordantly, with the loud, quick hallo, that
resembles the cry of the tree-toad. 'There are the Hutchinsons,' cried
the lad. 'The Rainers,' responded I, glad to remember enough of my
ancient Latin to know that Rana, or some such sounding word, stood for
frog. But it was a 'band of music,' as the Miller friends say. Like
other singers, (all but the Hutchinsons,) these are apt to sing too much,
all the time they are a