“No, I never encouraged him as much as _that_. I only treated him so well that he came a second time. La, Parson, if I’d only said the word I needn’t ha’ been huskin’ here for one bushel in ten. But my folks, they were all ought-to-be people, and I had to be just what I ought to be. It was born in me. I know that I got spiritually proud, and actually thought that the Lord had appeared to me and set a halo of glory around my head. Think of it, a poor lone woman like me! But the world has been good to me, and it will be a great deal better on the day that I go out of it than it was on the day when I came into it, and none the worse for my being in it—don’t you think so, Parson?” “Yes, Sister Susan, that is just my own opinion.” “I can make mince pies equal to Dorothy Hancock’s, though I can’t pull a string as that woman did on the French fleet one day, and have a whole frigate go bang, banging around me. There’s a difference between some folks and others.” “You are right, Susan,—you _can_ make mince pies.” “And pandowdy!” “Yes, I never ate any Thanksgiving pandowdy equal to yours.” “That’s because I let the crust candy, and then breaks it all up, and kneads it into the apple.—This is a beautiful world!” It surely was on that day and in that thrifty meadow. The sky was as blue as in April. The hills in their late autumn hues shimmered afar like dreamlands. The long meadows were restful and bright with cool green aftermath. Between the hills ran the way down to the cranberry meadows, the salt marshes, and the purple sea. The farm lay upon a stretch of land now known as Tiverton Heights, which was already famous in Indian history, but is now also associated with stirring events of the Revolutionary War. There is no place in America that commands more romantic scenes and waterways. At a distance lay the town of Little Compton, the residence of Captain Benjamin Church the Indian-fighter, and the rich hunting-grounds of the Awasonks. In the lowlands at the sea-levels was the island of Rhode Island, where had lived Bishop Berkeley, of prophetic memory. In the town now called Middleton, near Newport, the Aquidians had met their fate; and the same town now is famous as the place where Barton captured General Prescott:— “’Twas on that dark and stormy night, The winds and waves did roar, Bold Barton then with twenty men Went down upon the shore.” The old inhabitants still love to tell how Tuck Sisson on that memorable July night broke open the British General’s door by butting against it with his head.