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A Border Tradition In travelling through the western part of New England, not long since, I stopped for a few days at one of the beautiful villages of that region. It was situated on the edge of some fine rich meadows, lying about one of the prettiest little rivers in the world. While there, I went one morning to the top of a little round hill which commanded a view of the surrounding country. I saw the white houses under the shade of the old elms, the neat painted fences before them, and the border of bright green turf on either side of the road, which the inhabitants kept as clean as the grass plots of their gardens. I saw the river, winding away to the south between leaning trees and thick shrubs and vines; the hills, rising gently to the west of the village, covered with orchards and woods and openings of pasture ground; the rich level meadows to the east; and beyond them, at no great distance, the craggy mountains rising almost perpendicularly, as if placed there to heighten, by their rugged aspect, the soft beauty of the scene below them. If the view was striking in itself, it was rendered still more so by circumstances of life and splendor belonging to the weather, the hour, and the season. The wide circle of verdure in the midst of which I stood was loaded and almost crushed by one of those profuse dews which fall in our climate of a clear summer night, and glittered under a bright sun and a sky of transparent blue. The trees about me were noisy with birds, the bob-o’lincoln rose singing from the grass to sink in the grass again when his strain was ended, and the cat-bird squalled in the thicket in spite of the boy who was trying to stone it out. Then there was the whistle of the quail, the resounding voice of the hang-bird, the mysterious note of the post-driver, and the chatter of swallows darting to and fro. As a sort of accompaniment to this natural music, there was heard at times the deep and tremulous sound of the river breaking over a mill-dam at some distance. There is an end of gazing at the finest sights, and of listening to the most agreeable sounds. I had turned to go down the hill, when I observed a respectable looking old man sitting near me on the edge a border tradition 34 of a rock that projected a little way out of the ground. At the very first glance I set him down for one of the ancient yeomanry of our country, for his sturdy frame and large limbs had evidently been rendered sturdier and larger by labor and hardship, and old age had only taken away the appearance of agility without impairing his natural air of strength. I am accustomed to look with a feeling of gratitude, as well as respect, on these remnants of a hardy and useful generation. I see in them the men who have hewed down the forests and tamed the soil of the fair country we inhabit, who built the roads we travel over mountains and across morasses, and who planted the hill sides with orchards, of which we idly gather the fruit. From the attention with which the old man was looking at the surrounding prospect, I judged that he was come to the hill on the same errand with myself, and on entering into conversation with him, I found that I was not mistaken. He had lived in the village when a boy; he had been absent from it nearly sixty years, and now, having occasion to pass through it on a journey from a distant part of the country, he was trying to recollect its features from the little eminence by which it was overlooked. “I can hardly,” said he, “satisfy myself that this is the place in which I passed my boyish days. It is true, that the river is still yonder, and this is the hill where I played when a child, and those mountains, with their rocks and woods, look to me as they did then. That small peak lies still in the lap of the larger and loftier ridge that stretches like a semicircle around it. There are the same smooth meadows to the east, and the same fine ascent to the west of the village. But the old dwellings...

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