Atlantic States -- Description and travel; Kemble, Fanny, 1809-1893; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1783-1865
The end of my ride was sadder than the beginning, for at first my senses
alone took cognizance of what surrounded me, and afterwards my soul
looked on it, and it grew dark. We rode two miles along the beach, and
stopped at a little wooden hut, where, Mr. ---- told me, sportsmen, who
come to shoot plover along the flats by the shore, resort to dress their
dinners and refresh themselves. Here we dismounted: lay in the sun on
the roof with the fresh, sweet, blessed breath of heaven fanning us. My
horse thought proper to break his bridle and walk himself off through
the fields: they followed him with corn, and various inducements; ----
and I, meantime, ran down to the water, collecting interesting relics,
muscle shells, quartz, pebbles, and sea-weed; finally, we remounted and
returned home. The weather had changed completely, and become quite
bleak and cold: the variations of the climate in this place are
terrible. As we rode down a pleasant lane towards the Salem road, we met
a large crowd of country-people busily employed in raising the framework
of a house. In this part of the country, the poorer class of people
build their houses, or rather, the wooden frames of their houses,
entirely before they set them up. When the skeleton is entirely
finished, they call together all their neighbours to assist in the
raising, which is an event of much importance, and generally ends in a
merry-making. The filling up the outline of the habitation, which they
do with boards here, is an after work: the frame seems to be the
material part of the building, and slight enough too, I thought, for
protection against these bitter east winds. We reached home at about
half-past two. The play was Much Ado about Nothing: the house was spoilt
by the fair which the ladies have been getting up for the blind here,
and which was lighted and open for inspection previous to to-morrow,
when the sale is to take place.
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LINES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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