ESSEX COUNTY DIALECT. 175 



the Isle of Man. Can it be they who have flooded an in- 

 nocent country-side with the Americanisms of that Gaelic 

 population! Hall Caine's " Manxman " says, " If a man 

 has done wrong, the next best thing he can do is to say 

 darned little about it," and the Manx song abont hunting 

 Jenny Wren! I wonder if that song has been as familiär 

 everywhere as in this county? 



On receiving rave, (the rail of a cart), from Sewall's 

 Diary, the Secretary said he had heard it in Eastern Con- 

 necticut, but had forgotten to record it. You see we all 

 have valuable words hidden away in our memories ; it is 

 a great point gained if we can be on the watch and seize 

 them asthey come to the surface. And the older members 

 of the Community are invaluable store-houses of pure New 

 England usage ; (safer guides thanthe younger generations, 

 whose heads are füll of phrases from all quarters of the 

 earth), and then they may remember words used long ago 

 by only a few old persons, and they had a comprehensive 

 view of a place, too. It would not be possible now to 

 say confidently, " He is the only person in the Community 

 who says that," as some one said the other day, speaking 

 of a man who used to come from West Gloucester to seil 

 vegetables in 1825, perhaps. He alvvays said, "Do you 

 want to buy any whortlebeny-ipliims ?" and everybody eise 

 in town said " huckleberry ;" but I am told whortleberry 

 was not uncommon in Deerfield about that time, and the 

 persons who used it were not trying to be fine. 



But in 1810 Gloucester plus Rockport numbered not 

 quite 6,000 souls ; now Gloucester minus Rockport num- 

 bersnearly 30,000, and all these arrivals tend to "swamp" 

 the native speech. My chief quarrel with them is that 

 they have totally obliterated the auxiliary shall. In my 

 young days nobody said will for shall in Gloucester. It 



*See "Vinton Memorial." 



