The Rescue of an Old Place 



bargain, went over the land, now our own, 

 and took heart of grace as we planned our 

 first improvements, and decided on a site 

 for the house. When we took an account 

 of stock, this is what we found : 



A curiously shaped piece of land, some- 

 thing like the State of Maryland, omitting 

 the Eastern Shore. The long front of 

 about nine hundred feet, lying upon the 

 main street, at its southern end was nearly 

 six hundred feet in depth ; but this part of 

 the place was a barren gravelly hill, which 

 had been pastured until nothing was to be 

 found upon it but a thin, wiry grass, full of 

 white-weed and a growth of short briers. 

 In the autumn it was a blaze of Golden- 

 rod. The hill sloped steeply to the north 

 and northeast, so that the side of it was 

 exposed and cold, the wind sweeping up 

 across the meadow from the sea in bleak- 

 est gusts. This we at once determined 

 was the place to plant Pines, with a view 

 to a subsequent forest. At the foot of the 

 hill was a fertile swale of excellent grass 

 land, which intervened between it and a 

 second rise of land, which was the termi- 

 nation of another gravelly hill, through 

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