342 TJie Story of Vincland. 



THE STORY OF VINELAND. 



One autumn morning, a youthful lawyer left his cobwebbed office in 

 Philadelphia, and took passage on the railroad which links that ancient 

 city and the Cape-May coast. Thirty-four miles away from the home of 

 the broadbrims, he stepped from the cars, and looked around. It was no 

 Arcadian landscape that met his \iew. There was not even a faint sugges- 

 tion of the Happy Valley of Amhara, which the policy of antiquity had des- 

 tined for the residence of Abyssinian princes. There were no dainty bits 

 of rural beauty, of silver stream, or grassy hillside, spattered with shadows 

 of wide-spreading elms. Far otherwise. A great plain stretched out be- 

 fore him on every side. Climbing to the top of a spindling pine-tree, he 

 could look off on miles and miles of stunted forest. To the northward, 

 nothing but boundless shade ; to the east, boundless shade ; to the west 

 and south, the same low line of horizon, mingling dimly with melancholy 

 boughs. Here and there, he saw blue smoke rising from the hut of a coal- 

 burner, and curling lazily into the upper air. Now the broad expanse 

 which lies just under his eye is not popular, and it really does not appear 

 to possess any attractive feature. The soil is light, and generally believed 

 to be almost useless for purposes of agriculture. It has never been occu- 

 pied, so far as known, save by roving hunters ; and the only sounds that 

 infrequently disturb the long reign of silence are the shots of riflemen, or 

 echoes of the woodman's axe. But our recreant disciple of Coke and 

 Blackstone happens to be owner of thirty thousand acres, more or less, of 

 this vast wilderness. What will he do with it ? 



Walking along a winding pathwa\', obscure, and so sandy that deep foot- 

 prints are made at every step, and so narrow that the underbrush catches 

 at his clothing, he comes at last upon a small house, with a bit of cleared 

 space around it. This shall be his headquarters ; and he sits, that first 

 evening, in the little room, perfecting his plans. He is firm in the faith 

 that this scouted section may be made productive and populous. He 

 thinks it especially adapted to small fruits ; and he believes that there are 

 hundreds of people who can be induced to try the experiment. He does 

 not forget that his friends endeavored to dissuade him from the purchase ; 



