Every New England village, if you only think of it, must have its do-nothing, as regularly as it has its schoolhouse or its meeting-house. Nature is always wide awake in the matter of compensation. Work, thrift, and industry are such an incessant steam-power in Yankee life that society would burn itself out with the intense friction, were there not interposed here and there the lubricating power of a decided do-nothing,—a man who won’t be hurried, and won’t work, and will take his ease in his own way, in spite of the whole protest of his neighborhood to the contrary. And there is on the face of the whole earth no do-nothing whose softness, idleness, general inaptitude to labor, and everlasting, universal shiftlessness, can compare with that of the worthy, as found in a brisk Yankee village. * * * * * [Sidenote: Life an engrossing interest.] People have often supposed, because the Puritans founded a society where there were no professed public amusements, that therefore there was no fun going on in the ancient land of Israel, and that there were no cakes and ale, because they were virtuous. They were never more mistaken in their lives. There was an abundance of sober, well-considered merriment, and the hinges of life were well-oiled with that sort of secret humor which to this day gives the raciness to real Yankee wit. Besides this, we must remember that life itself is the greatest possible amusement to people who really believe they can do much with it,—who have that intense sense of what can be brought to pass by human effort that was characteristic of the New England colonies. To such, it is not exactly proper to say that life is an amusement, but it certainly is an engrossing interest, that takes the place of all amusements. * * * * * [Sidenote: New England nobility.] In the little theocracy which the Pilgrims established in the wilderness, the ministry was the only order of nobility. They were the only privileged class, and their voice it was that decided _ex cathedra_ on all questions both of church and state, from the choice of governor to that of district school teacher. Our minister, as I remember him, was one of the cleanest, most gentlemanly, most well-bred of men,—never appearing without all the decorums of silk stockings, shining knee and shoe buckles, well-brushed shoes, immaculately powdered wig, out of which shone his clear, calm, serious face, like the moon out of a fleecy cloud. THE PEARL OF ORR’S ISLAND. [Sidenote: A ship-building community.] In the plain, simple regions we are describing,—where the sea is the great avenue of active life, and the pine forests are the great source of wealth,—ship-building is an engrossing interest, and there is no fête that calls forth the community like the launching of a vessel.