114 THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 



and have never been inside of a rail car. They have come 

 little in contact with the outside world, and maintain a 

 freshness and individuality of character, rarely met with 

 in our times. There, the social parties all have utility as 

 their basis, and the flowers of the heart come up blooming 

 around the edges of quiltings, apple-parings, and Dorcas 

 sewing societies. There, the &quot; meeting-house &quot; is the or 

 thodox name for the church edifice, and the social as well 

 as the religious centre of the parish. There, the rural pop 

 ulation gather on Sundays, in costume not squared to the 

 fashionable cut, and hats and bonnets of the venerable age 

 of ten years and upwards are still visible. There, sparks 

 lit up between services, or even during sermon, are pro 

 longed into Sunday night sparking, and the nine o clock 

 bell reminds lovers, as well as more sleepy people, that it 

 is time to be at home. There, courtship makes haste slow 

 ly, and a love affair is not suffered to blossom into mar 

 riage, until it is fully discussed by all the gossips in town. 

 Hookertown is on the borders of such a quiet region, 

 and there may be seen occasionally in the street of that 

 somewhat noted village, natives of the unsophisticated 

 rural districts men and women who preserve the fresh 

 ness and simplicity of fifty years ago, who insist upon mar 

 rying their daughters very much as themselves were 

 wedded in the good old times. Esquire Bunker has given 

 us occasional glimpses of this past age, in his letters, and 

 it is with a view to furnish us another sample of this Arca 

 dian life, we presume, that he sent us the following note a 

 few days ago. 



Hookertown, Nov. 10th, 1859. 



MR. EDITOR: When your reporter was up here in 

 Hookertown, last year, to take notes on clover fields, and 

 stumbled on a wedding at my house, he was considerable 

 tickled with the way they do up such things in the coun 

 try, and thought he should like to come again. Now, if 



