felt 12 strong enough for it, was almost always followed by a rapid retreat on the other side. But woe to the luckless stripling whose headlong courage carried him far in advance of his companions; for upon a sudden turn of affairs he was a captive, and down in an instant, and mercilessly “scrubbed” with snow by a dozen ready hands, until the rallying host of his compatriots advanced vigorously to the rescue. The normal alliance of us middle-men was with the Southenders, though a good deal rougher than ourselves; and in times of truce a solitary boy would walk a little gingerly through their quarter, as errands or family occasions led him that way. But the principal commercial interests centered in those parts of the town, and if, upon the breaking out of determined warfare, we could secure, in the capacity of leader, the services of some lubberly boy who had made a voyage, even a mere coasting trip, to sea, though I remember that these were 13 sometimes far less adventurous in the field than those who had no experience of the perilous deep, the issue of the contest was not for a moment doubtful. The forces of our adversaries melted away, like the snow with which they fought, at the very presence of a champion supposed to be of such redoubted prowess. The dependence of those adverse combatants was rather upon some of the younger hangers-on at the ship-yards, in their territory, for such a casual auxiliary. Sometimes, the elements of military skill would be displayed. While the two forces were closely engaged, a flanking party would make a sudden rush up some short by-street, and then the complete demoralization and panic-flight of the warriors thus newly assailed was something truly disastrous to behold.

Of course, we enjoyed the ordinary boyish sports of boating, swimming, and skating in the season for it; or, of a pleasant afternoon, would roam away “over the 14 hills,” as the phrase ran, huckleberrying, perhaps, or gathering penny-royal and other wild herbs for the old folks at home; to be dried and reserved for future occasions. For, in those days, a garret would hardly be considered complete, without bunches of these simples hanging from the beams by strings, or stored away in paper-bags. In the fall of the year, we had another resource, long since interdicted by the owners of farms in the neighborhood of populous towns. This was the pleasure of nutting; for the urchins of those days regarded these kinds of fruit, growing on trees in the fields, as a sort of feræ natura and free to every passer-by; though the more surly proprietors, even then, took much pains to circumvent and capture the lads, as they returned with their poles for beating the branches and with their loaded bags, borne by two or three of them, hanging by the middle across those implements. Sometimes, predatory bands proceeded in force 15 and defied the farmer on his own ground. The story was told of one luckless individual who went nutting alone and was caught and imprisoned, for a time, in the cellar of the farm-house, but mischievously contrived to set all the taps of the cider-barrels running, before he was released. These excursions led us often to the Devil’s Den, an excavation in an abandoned ledge of limestone, in a solitary situation at some distance from the town, and guarded, now as then, by three rather spectral-looking Lombardy poplars, which to us boys had a sort of mystic and undefined significance. Here we procured bits of serpentine, interspersed with veins of rag-stone, as we denominated asbestos, which, strangely enough, we used to chew. I suppose that no boy ever went to that place alone, and a sort of solemn ceremony attended his first visit with his older playmates, to a scene bearing an appellation ominous enough to call up every vague dread of his youthful heart. The 16 approach on these occasions was rather circuitous, through the pastures, until an elevated mass of stone, standing quite solitary, was reached, designated as “Pulpit Rock.” To the summit of this, the neophyte was required to climb, and there to repeat some accustomed formula, I fear not very reverent, by way of initiation, and supposed to be of power to avert any malign influences to which the unprepared intruder upon the premises of the nominal lord of the domain might otherwise be subjected. For these youngsters the ordinary means of education were abundantly supplied, and the girls, too, had their Academy for those who aspired to something beyond the common range; and when, at a later period, I became conversant with their circle, I must say that I have never known young ladies of better manners or more cultivated minds. As an evidence of more expansive benevolence than usual, and of profounder interest in the affairs of the great 17 world abroad, I remember that when the class of students in Goldsmith’s Ancient History came to recitation, one young lady burst into a torrent of tears. The astonished teacher anxiously inquired into the cause of her emotion. In the midst of her sobs she ejaculated, “Oh, that good man, Socrates! To think they should have treated him so!” She was finally soothed; but considering that the incident in question was of a rather remote date, this ebullition of feeling evinced a generous sympathy with a victim of past injustice, truly worthy of a philanthropic mind.

It is still a town of stately mansions upon its principal street, and one more beautiful can scarcely be imagined. The magnificent elms, of the graceful American kind, which line its borders, have always been reckoned a feature of extraordinary beauty. Of late years, special means for supplying and preserving this elegant and useful kind of embellishment of the streets have been 18 provided by the liberal bequest, for this purpose, of Mr. John Bromfield, a native of the town, but long a respected merchant at the capital of the State. A conspicuous house standing upon a gentle elevation, at some distance from the street, with pleasant grounds in its front and rear, was appropriately named by its original proprietor “Mount Rural,” though not, perhaps, with the most exact observance of the requirements of grammatical construction. Still, it has some authority for being considered idiomatic, for does not “Pilgrim’s Progress” tell us of the “Palace Beautiful?” And doubtless many other instances might be cited of the substitution of an adjective for a noun. At all events, the worthy owner, who built his house in the most approved style of former New England architecture, spacious, square, and with projecting windows in the roof, made some pretensions to classical allusion; for cultivating extensive gardens in the rear of his 19 dwelling, he placed for an inscription on his front wall,—

a citation which, it is to be feared, would be taken rather as encouragement to mischievous urchins, if any of them understood it, rather than as a warning to abstain from the fruit.

Near the extremity of the opposite quarter of the town still stands an ancient edifice of solid stone, with a couple of stories of porch of the same material, approached by a lane, bordered with trees, leading some distance from the highway, and constituting, with some modern additions, the dwelling-place of a considerable farm. It boasts an age of more than two centuries, as appears by the figures above its entrance, and was apparently built for defence, when precautions against Indian incursions were thought necessary, though afterwards used as a powder-house;