There they lived on, those New England
people, farmer lives, father and grandfather and great-grandfather,
on and on without noise, keeping up tradition, and expecting,
beside fair weather and abundant harvests, we did not learn what.
They were contented to live, since it was so contrived for them,
and where their lines had fallen.
Our uninquiring corpses lie more low
Than our life's curiosity doth go.
Yet these men had no need to travel to be as wise as Solomon in
all his glory, so similar are the lives of men in all countries,
and fraught with the same homely experiences. One half the world
_knows_ how the other half lives.
About noon we passed a small village in Merrimack at Thornton's
Ferry, and tasted of the waters of Naticook Brook on the same
side, where French and his companions, whose grave we saw in
Dunstable, were ambuscaded by the Indians. The humble village of
Litchfield, with its steepleless meeting-house, stood on the
opposite or east bank, near where a dense grove of willows
backed by maples skirted the shore.
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