4 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



sparks, as the grimy workman pounded out the iron 

 shoes, for which " Debby " stood patiently in waiting. 



There was a green country store, where " domes- 

 tics " were sold, and West India sugars, and hoes 

 " Ames' best cast-steel " and, I greatly fear, occa- 

 sional tipple. It was burned down long ago ; ten 

 years after, I saw the yawning, ragged cellar, and a 

 giant growth of stramonium springing from the door- 

 step. 



There was also somewhere along this dreary street 

 a manufactory of musical instruments whether of 

 harps or organs I cannot justly say ; but I have been 

 given to understand that the manufactory has since, 

 under zealous and spirited management, grown into a 

 great musical institute, where young misses in white 

 (with blue sashes) woo the muses with a thundering 

 success. But more distinctly than the manufactory 

 whatever it may have been I remember a little 

 brook, that stole away in the meadows thereabout 

 under clumps of alder, under lines of willows, under 

 plank bridgelets, and how, on many a May day my 

 line drifted on into dark pools, until some swift strike 

 gave warning of a venturesome, golden-spotted swim- 

 mer that presently tossed and flounced in my creel. 

 I profess no great love for music no knowledge of 

 it even ; but the whizzing of a reel which a pound 

 trout will make at the end of thirty feet of taper line 



