MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



may be had for the cartage, and which goes 

 to pig food, or the fermentation of compost. 



I think I have hinted at a character which 

 those will recognize, who know the neighbor- 

 hood of large New England towns : a prompt 

 talker— not bashful,— full of- life— selectman, 

 perhaps; great in corner groceries, "fore- 

 handed," indefatigable, trenchant, with an eye 

 always to windward. 



If I were to sketch another type of a New 

 England farmer, who is, in a small way, suc- 

 cessful,— it would be a sharp-nosed man, thin, 

 wiry, with a blueness about the complexion, 

 that has come from unlimited buffetings of 

 northwesters; one who has been "moderator" 

 at town meetings, in his day, and upon school 

 committees over and over ; one who has sharp- 

 ened his tongue by occasional talk at "society 

 meetings" — to say nothing of domestic practice. 



I think of him as living in a two-story, white 

 house, with green blinds (abutting closely 

 upon the road), and whose front rooms he 

 knows only by half-yearly summations to a 

 minister's tea-drinking, or the severer ordeal 

 of the sewing circle. His hands are stiff and 

 bony; all the callosities of axe and scythe and 

 hoe, have blended into one horny texture, the 

 whole of the epidermis ; yet his eye has a keen 



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