3Lane 



1696. It was in May of that year that the Pearson 

 who had come from England as a boy eight years 

 before married and took his wife up this lane to a 

 comfortable log house, wherein they dwelt for over 

 forty years. It was the first notable incident since 

 the opening of the new lane; an occasion as 

 worthy of notice as the house-warming that im- 

 mediately followed. There were no apple-trees 

 then, but who can doubt that the grass was starred 

 with sweet white violets ? I have said the bride 

 and groom went " up " the lane to the house. It 

 was so put upon record on that very day, and also 

 there was written, " and when I had seen the last 

 of the Friends go down the lane to their several 

 homes, I turned to Anne and said, ' I trust the 

 step we have this day taken may be for the best.' " 

 Six generations have come and gone since then, 

 and not one member of the fifth remains. It is 

 sad, but true, that the world will not miss much 

 when the sixth has disappeared. Then will come 

 a change, and the lane will be blotted out. 



Now, no one appears to hurry up or down Pear- 

 son's lane. So many dead men and women have 

 been drawn slowly down its straight course during 

 two centuries that all nature here has taken on a 

 funereal pace. The apple-trees are slow in putting 

 out their leaves, the blossoms are not ready until 

 late in May, and the fruit is not mellow until No- 

 vember. The grass on either side of the single 

 wagon-track is not the earliest green in the neigh- 

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