We suggested melon-seeds of new varieties and fruit of foreign
flavor to be added to his stock. We had come away up here among
the hills to learn the impartial and unbribable beneficence of
Nature. Strawberries and melons grow as well in one man's garden
as another's, and the sun lodges as kindly under his
hillside,--when we had imagined that she inclined rather to some
few earnest and faithful souls whom we know.
We found a convenient harbor for our boat on the opposite or east
shore, still in Hooksett, at the mouth of a small brook which
emptied into the Merrimack, where it would be out of the way of
any passing boat in the night,--for they commonly hug the shore
if bound up stream, either to avoid the current, or touch the
bottom with their poles,--and where it would be accessible
without stepping on the clayey shore. We set one of our largest
melons to cool in the still water among the alders at the mouth
of this creek, but when our tent was pitched and ready, and we
went to get it, it had floated out into the stream, and was
nowhere to be seen.
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