A Very Old Milestone. 



ALMOST in the middle of a neglected field, 

 mottled with parti-colored pebbles in winter 

 and green during summer, when the dewberry 

 vines run riot over the glacial drift, here, half 

 a mile from any public road, I recently un- 

 earthed a very old milestone, when and by 

 whom set up nobody living knew. A know- 

 ledge of it came to me as an Indian idol, and so 

 it was hunted up, the frozen earth removed, and 

 the relic recovered. Closer examination proved 

 it to be a flat, frost-split slab of slaty stone, with 

 S. M. still decipherable upon one side, and a 

 few dents and short lines that I cannot demon- 

 strate ever meant anything. In proportion to 

 their ignorance, the idle element of the neigh- 

 borhood, standing about, assumed to be pro- 

 ficient in antiquarian lore, and took it unkindly 

 when called fools. Had I been blind I might 

 have imagined the ghosts of the colonists of 



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