476 Old Time Gardens 



brought her to his home in a triumph of enthusiasm 

 and romance, which quickly fled before the open dis- 

 like and reprehension of his upright neighbors, who 

 abhorred his fickleness, and before the years of ill 

 health and ill temper of the hard-worked, faded wife. 

 Many children were born to them ; two lived, sickly 

 little souls, who, unconscious of the blemish on their 

 parents' past, came with the other children every 

 June, and gathered Rose leaves under Hannah 

 Mason's window. 



Hannah Mason was called crazy. After her 

 desertion she never entered any door save that of her 

 own home, never went to a neighbor's house either 

 in time of joy or sorrow; queerer still, never went to 

 church. All her life, her thoughts, her vast strength, 

 went into hard work. No labor was too heavy or 

 too formidable for her. She would hetchel flax for 

 weeks, spin unceasingly, and weave on a hand loom, 

 most wearing of women's work, without thought of 

 rest. No single household could supply work for 

 such an untiring machine, especially when all labored 

 industriously — so work was brought to her from 

 the neighbors. Not a wedding outfit for miles 

 around was complete without one of Hannah Ma- 

 son's fine tablecloths. Every corpse was buried in 

 one of her linen shrouds. Sailmakers and boat- 

 owners in Portsmouth sent up to her for strong 

 duck for their sails. Lads went up to Dartmouth 

 College in suits of her homespun. Many a teamster 

 on the road slept under Hannah Mason's heavy gray 

 woollen blankets, and his wagon tilts were covered 

 with her canvas. Her bank account grew rapidly 



