CHAPTER II 



MEN OF MAINE 

 " What a piece of work is man ! " 



THE late James G. Blaine once asserted 

 that the purest bred of Anglo-Saxons 

 on earth to-day was to be found in 

 northern Maine. This was scarcely an exaggera- 

 tion, for Maine was peopled by the Puritans from 

 Massachusetts Bay, and since then the migration 

 of different races from Europe has swept by in a 

 stream, flowing ever westward, and no Celt, Latin, 

 or Teuton has ever apparently penetrated these 

 wilds with the exception of now and then a 

 French-Canadian from over the northern border, 

 or a Blue-Nose from the eastward; and to-day 

 the blue-eyed, light-haired type of man predomi- 

 nates, — the original Simon-pure Yankee, child of 

 the Pilgrim. A chapter of the Colonial Dames, 

 if it were established here, would be forced to take 

 to its bosom every adult female in Insley, if the 

 tracing of one's descent from those who founded 



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