You
step over the white-scoured floor to the bright "dresser"
lightly, as if afraid to disturb the devotions of the
household,--for Oriental dynasties appear to have passed away
since the dinner-table was last spread here,--and thence to the
frequented curb, where you see your long-forgotten, unshaven face
at the bottom, in juxtaposition with new-made butter and the
trout in the well. "Perhaps you would like some molasses and
ginger," suggests the faint noon voice. Sometimes there sits the
brother who follows the sea, their representative man; who knows
only how far it is to the nearest port, no more distances, all
the rest is sea and distant capes,--patting the dog, or dandling
the kitten in arms that were stretched by the cable and the oar,
pulling against Boreas or the trade-winds. He looks up at the
stranger, half pleased, half astonished, with a mariner's eye, as
if he were a dolphin within cast. If men will believe it, _sua
si bona norint_, there are no more quiet Tempes, nor more poetic
and Arcadian lives, than may be lived in these New England
dwellings.
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