"Where is she, then?" says I. "What's the use o' makin' such a mystery, Cinthy Rathbun?"

Because there is a mystery," says she. "Almiry Geer's left her husband." My knees gave way at that, an' I should a sunk in a heap on the grass if I hadn't clutched Cinthy's arm, an' held myself up. "You don't mean to say that she went off unbeknownst to anybody?” said I.

"Yes, she did," said she; "an' John Geer's boardin' at the Leonard House, an' their tenement is locked up."

"Almiry Geer's a fool!" said I "There's different opinions about that," said Cinthy. "What's he gone to the hotel to board for, I should like to know!"

"Because his wife's left him," said I. "Humph!" said Cinthy.

I grew pretty mad then. I hate hints, an' looks that mean more'n out an' out charges, an' I opened on Cinthy Rathbun, an' when she'd heard enough she left the house. She always was sort o' meachin' an' underhand.

'Twas five years ago that it happened. There wa'n't never nothin' like it in this country. I mean the givin way o' that dam, an' the water tearin' down into the valley, sweepin' along trees an' houses as if they had been straw an' children's toys. It was like the day o' judgment to them that was in its way. The house that Almiry an' John lived in stood low, in the very wake o' the water. When John heard that the dam had give way and the flood was comin', instid o' keepin' in a safe place, he ran to his home to try to save some of Almiry's things. An' the woman that all the fuss was about, she run after him with her child in her arms, a-beggin' an' implorin' of him to stop. My Joshua, he see it all. But he had enough to do savin' the poor creatures that couldn't help themselves. It looked as if they'd have a chance to get out o' the house safe enough, for the flood was stayed a little just above by a great raft o' trees an' logs an' housen stuff; an' they two- John an' the woman— actually carried out great armfuls o' beddin' an' wearin' apparel, Almiry's weddin' gown with the rest, an' the poor little baby things. An' they got to a safe place

with the things, an' if they'd been contented with that, they might'a saved their lives. But they went back once more; it might'a been to get Almiry's silver that was her grandmother's, for John was found with a silver spoon clutched tight in his hand; an' the flood, fiercer than ever for bein' kept back, plunged down on 'em an' carried the little house away as if it had been an eggshell. Joshua see it rockin' and tossin' and they at the winder - John, the woman, an' the baby.

The next day there was corpses in most every house that was left. John an' the woman an' the baby, they was brought to our house. I would have it so. I wa'n't goin' to have John Geer laid out in no hotel. An' I said if the woman was his friend I'd be her friend too, an' I had them bodies laid out as if they'd been my own kin. They'd been layin' there some time, an' lots o' folks had viewed 'em, when all of a sudden Almiry Geer came stalkin' into the house like a ghost. Close behind her was Hank Maccomber. An' when I see 'em I thought in a minute of a sermon our minister preached describin' the souls that go away without hope at the last day. I declare I couldn't speak.

"Where's John?" asked Almira, in a voice that might a' come out o' the mouth o' some o' the drowned folks, it was so little like any livin' voice. I got up an' went ahead into the parlor where he laid in his coffin. Almira went in an' stood between the two corpses, an' looked from one to the other, an' at the little dead baby by its mother's side. She didn't shed a tear. She looked awhile, then she took some sprays o' purple heliotrope out o' her handkercher. They was so fresh an' sweet that the room was full o' scent in a minute. An' as calm as if the dead was only sleepin' she put a bunch o' the flowers in John's hand, an' a bunch in the woman's, an' a little spray in the baby's. Then she turned to her brother, an' says she, "Come." An' there was that look on both their faces like lost souls, too frightened by God's awful voice passin' sentence to sob or cry or complain as folks might in common trouble.

As Almira passed out between the coffins, I got holt of her 'round the waist,

an' dragged her down to the sofy, and says I, "You shan't go." Why, I expected to see her turn ravin' crazy any minute. An' says I: "God's sorriest for the dreadfullest trouble; an' you'd better tell Him." An' I slipped onto my knees, an' I just cried to God to help them poor creatures. An' when I got through prayin', Almiry was clingin' to my neck an' sobbin'; but the man, her brother, had slipped out, an' that was the last I ever see o' him; though he left money with one of his cronies to pay the funeral charges of the woman an' child.

Well, when Almiry calmed down a little I got her out into the settin' room, an' she told me just what I expected to hear some time or other that John Geer wan't no ways to blame except in havin' a secret from Almiry. The poor drownded woman was his own only sister, an' the child was Hank Maccomber's. The rascal had pretended to marry her when he had no right to marry, havin' a wife already. She made John promise to keep her secret. An' they got into a tangle,

she an' John an' Almiry, on account of John's obstinacy, an Almiry's jealousy, an' the human nature they all had. I always

shall say the woman ought to'a told Almiry her story, seein' as how she come to Millersville to get help from John. But then, 'tain't likely she ever dreamt of such a thing as Almiry's actin' as she did. An' John, poor fellow, was faithful to both

women.

Almiry's lived with me ever sence. She's been tolerble useful, bein' as faithful a creature as ever breathed: an' that's a great deal in these days. But she's slack. The life all went out of her when John was drownded. She'd a been a poor crazy thing if I hadn't held on to her, or if the Lord hadn't, for she's been a believer ever sence; an' takes comfort over the easy parts of the Testament when her work's done, an' she sets down with her clean apron on. Her wits was saved, but they ain't what you would call sharp. She always has a pot o' purple heliotrope bloomin' summer an' winter. She'd spend every cent of her wages for it if she couldn't get it any other way. It was the flower John loved best, she says; an' she'll talk to it as she goes about her work; an' stan' an' smile when its lookin' bright an pretty. Tain't likely she'll ever be any different."

A

John D. Long.

I.

THINK the New England of forty or fifty years ago has been subjected, in the social and general features of its country town life, to a radical change, and will never, in those respects, return to its former sort. For two hundred years, till 1840 or 1850, its towns remained practically unchanged in the character, habits, living, and occupations of their inhabitants; or, perhaps I should say, moved in a current of slow development along the same lines. Since that time there has been a rapid and fundamental shaking up and dispersion of elements. The overwhelming inrush of foreign immigration; the injection of foreigners distributed along every line of railroad embankment and around every mill wheel, being at first engaged in the construction of the means of material enterprise, but next multiplying in numbers and flowering out in thrifty, permanent citizenship; especially also the railroad system itself, which has fairly sucked the native New England population into the maelstrom of city life and business; largely, too, the more attractive opportunities there offered for the swift acquirement of wealth, - all these and other causes have wrought the revolution. The old family trees have been remorselessly stripped and shattered. The winter school, that used to have in the farming country districts fifty or sixty scholars, "great big" boys on the back seats, "fellers" and girls chewing gum, sliding down hill, going to spelling school, yet turning out ultimately as the very bone and sinew of a vigorous New England life, have now wilted to a meagre and straggling attendance of small urchins. The soldiers of the Revolutionary War, and the men of their time, (and they were the best blood of Pilgrim and Puritan descent) that went

a century ago to the farms of Maine, and the hill towns of what was then remote in Massachusetts, and made a spirited yeomanry with their well-filled churches, their saw-mills and stores, their turnpikes and stage-coaches, their trainings and musters, their justice courts and vigorous townmeetings, their great fields and farms, and barns and crops, and even their pretentions and distinctions in social life,have now to a great extent, outside of the central villages, a diminishing number of representatives left, except when some millionnaire jauntily comes back, after a half-century's absence, for a few summer weeks, and starts a fancy stock-farm for tosses a public library to the old Common where he used to play ball, or drive home his father's cows. Many an outlying rural mansion, almost aristocratic in its day with its white paint and green blinds, with hollyhocks in the yard, and mahogany and dainty china in the interior, is now in a dilapidated old age, crushed under a mortgage, or bought for a song by some wanderer from foreign shores.

a pros

But this is not finality; it is simply transition. It has been the result, not of the depression, but of the prosperity of our country for the last thirty years perity which has given such activity to its centres of population that the mobile elements of American enterprise and force have swarmed to the points of largest attraction; that is, to the cities from the towns, to the valleys from the hills, to the prairies from the rocks, and to the mill wheels from the sheep pasture. A reaction is sure to come. It will come from the steady increase of general wealth, which, as a matter of taste, of change, of novelty, as well as investment, will flow back again. It will come more and more speedily as now the public lands, the domain of which until recently seemed inexhaustible, are more and more occupied; and as the pioneer, finding no longer the boundless room of the West, turns his face to the sunrise and finds that New England

has still, in her soil, resources of product and maintenance, and that, in fact, during all this transition time, there have been those who remained on the paternal acres and have made them pleasant and profitable. Indeed in the towns about the birthplace of any of us, there are here and there not a few such cases.

And this reaction, too, has already begun to come, more than some are aware, in the fact that our citizens of foreign birth are seeking and have sought the New England farms, and are there going through the experiences which made our own ancestors self-supporting farmers; to wit, living prudently, saving their money, making no show of dress or equipage or lavish living, and raising large families of boys and girls, and keeping them at work indoors and out of doors, at home. There

is no fear for the future of New England rural life. It will be a different life from that of a generation or two ago. It will be, not a unique, but a conglomerate population. It will not be of one faith, but of many faiths. It will not be a Puritan New England, but will be the New England of the twentieth century, with a seaboard rich in foreign commerce, — with great cities, with factories and all sorts of skilled industries dotting its inland, -— with the most improved means of locomotion everywhere from hamlet to centre, — and with its fields and farms cultured and productive, furnishing the living and profit of the farmer who depends on the soil, or representing the wealth and leisure of those who retire or turn to country life and expend upon it the surplus of their profits gained in commerce or manufacture.

George B. Loring.

IN considering the future of the New England country, we naturally review the past, and are guided by the facts which are already recorded in history. It is but a century since the population of Massachusetts was not more than three hundred thousand. Boston had only thirteen thousand souls. The entries of foreign and coasting vessels into that port were about three hundred annually, and the clearances were about four hundred. The valuation of all the property of Massachusetts, including the Province of Maine, was about ten millions only. The travel on the great line to New York was more than accommodated by two stage coaches and twelve horses. The strangers who visited Boston landed mostly at Long Wharf, we are told. No bridges. No bridges spanned the Charles or the Mystic. In Essex County, one of the oldest and most populous sections of the colony, there were only three post-offices, and the appointment of these postmasters was all the patronage of that kind which the illustrious chief magistrate or his postmaster-general possessed. A weekly mail was a luxury; a weekly newspaper was all that the most inquisitive or ambitious

could obtain for the gratification of their curiosity or the ventilation of their views. The school-system of Massachusetts, even, the most cultivated of all the New England States, was most primitive. Here and there an academy, simply organized, conducted by a strict disciplinarian whose scholarship was undoubted, constituted all the means by which young men were prepared for college. No school of theology or law, and but one of medicine existed. Children were educated in district schools called "outskirts" and sometimes" squadron" institutions. The senior class in Harvard college counted only twenty-seven students, and Harvard was the only college in New England. Lawyers were at a discount; and a young man just entering on the profession wrote to a friend: "The profession by which I am to get my bread, nay, the very coat in which I can at present exercise it, is denied." The clergy were the social autocrats, and ruled their parishes with a rod of iron, while with supreme authority and assurance they pointed the way to heaven. The farmers, who constituted the bulk of the population, living in exceedingly simple dwellings, wearing largely homespun, led isolated lives, and were dis

tinguished for sturdiness of purpose, rather than for any grace of mind or body. Farming was a rude, while a successful occupation. The plough, the flail, and the sickle were clumsy and would now be considered useless. The territory of New England was occupied by farms large and small, in which all grace and beauty were ignored before the universal demand for profit and a good living. A refined and beautiful country residence was hardly known. The residents of the city spent the entire year in their city houses, and rarely, even in midsummer, journeyed either to the mountains or the sea, and never enjoyed the luxury of a summer home. Of the habitations of these people the author of the "Memoirs of an American Lady," says:

"The house I had so much delight in recollecting had no pretension to grandeur and very little to elegance. Through the middle of the house was a very wide passage with opposite front and back doors, which in summer admitted a stream of air peculiarly grateful to the languid senses. Valuable furniture was the favorite luxury of these people."

The same author assures us that the lives of her cultivated friends "besides

being passed in unruffled peace and prosperity afford few of those vicissitudes which astonish and arouse." And of the great mass of mankind who lived outside of the small towns and cities, we are told that they had "plenty of the necessaries of life, but no luxuries. Their wives and daughters milked the cows and wrought at the hay. They usually had clean houses with pleasant porticos, and a fine stream beside the dwelling and some Indian wigwams near them. They were wood-surrounded and seemed absolutely to live in the bosom of nature, screened from all the artificial ills of life; and those spots, cleared of incumbrances, yet still in native luxuriance, had a wild originality about them not easily described." Wilson, the ornithologist, a Pennsylvania Scotchman, a confirmed grumbler, but a shrewd judge, and the most thorough of American travellers, said, as late as 1808:

"My journey through almost the whole of New England has rather lowered the Yankees in my esteem. Except a few neat academies, I found

their schoolhouses equally deserted and ruinous with ours; fields covered with stones; stone fences; scrubby oaks and pines; wretched orchards; scarcely one grain field in twenty miles; the taverns along the road dirty and filled with loungers brawling about lawsuits and politics; the people snappish, and extortionous, lazy, and two agricultural improvements." hundred years behind the Pennsylvanians in

President Dwight found better things in New England, and was convinced that the tastes of the people were simple enough to be "satisfied with college commencements and sleigh rides as an amusement." Their landscape was not adorned with flower gardens and lawns, but they took care to plant near their dwellings the American elm, which to-day towers above the farmhouse which it has watched so many years; and which stands even, now, the monument to the social and domestic virtues, and the integrity and courage and honesty of the generations who have gathered beneath its shade. They rejoiced in the "wild originality" about them.

A century has rolled round since the state of things which I have described existed. Had the American of that early day predicted the facts of this he would have been counted a visionary and a dreamer. Leaving the thirteen thousand people of his admirable and beloved Boston, with its crooked streets and cowpastures, he could now wander through the twenty large cities of Massachusetts, and return to his home, thronged with four hundred thousand brilliant and busy inhabitants, all engaged in some adventure of mind and body and estate. He could reach the Pacific Coast in less time than he formerly occupied in passing from Boston to Philadelphia. The arts, the sciences, the industries of modern life, would astonish the venerable inhabitant of our old New England. His discourse of last evening would be read in every city in this Union in the morning papers, if he had recited any fact of universal interest or general sensation. His rustic home would be adorned with reproductions of the "Angelus" or Rosa Bonheur's horses. The refinements of philosophy would have cleared away the theological perplexities of his ancestors. A long procession of two hundred and twelve seniors would pour through the gates of Harvard, and a