Sketches of New England; Or, Memories of the Country (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A COUNTRY STORY. Good sir, reject it not, although it bring Appearances of some fantastic thing, At first unfolding!?Wither. It was on a bitter cold evening in the month of December, that a number of neighbors had called in to say good-by to my cousin John, who was to start the next morning on a trip down the country, to dispose of some of the products of the farm. An hour or two had passed off very pleasantly over a mug of flip; the more distant visitors had dropped away as the evening wore on; the lumber-box had been loaded with firkins of butter, and boxes of cheese, and flitches of bacon, and all those innumerable knick-knacks which the farmer's wife sends to the market-town; the commissions for gowns and ribands, patterns and fashions, had been repeatedly given; and the remaining visitors were moving their chairs, as if half reluctant to quit the bright fireside, despite of the sleepy nods and yawns of my good grandmother; when my uncle roared out with his stentorian voice," Stop neighbors, don't go yet ! we'll have another mug of flip and Bowgun shall tell us a story." It required but little urging to induce a general acquiescence in the proposal, for my uncle's flip and Captain Bowgun's stories were the toast of the whole neighborhood. Even my pretty cousin Jane, whose eyes had been closed for a long time, brightened up in the expectation of a tale, and every one's attention was directed to the Captain for the promised enjoyment. " Well, boys, and what is it I'm to give you ?" said Bowgun, in a tone something like that with which Matthews used to debut in his ' What's the news at Natchitoches V and whom our old story-teller resembled in more points than one, ?" Well, boys, and what is it I'm to give you 1 Shall it be a love story, or a witch story, or a ghost s...