MEN OF MAINE 



carry their luggage in a sack on their backs, and 

 from this they have coined the verb " to sack," 

 meaning " to carry." In its appHcation it is usually 

 confined to comparatively light burdens. Thus 

 I never heard a man say he would sack off a load 

 of rocks, but they do " sack out " the underbrush 

 when they take up an armful. One of these men 

 once said to me, " Did you see that little bird ? 

 He pulled the fibres out of that door-mat and 

 sacked off all he could carry." Another Maine 

 man speaking of a stormy night in winter said, 

 "It was awfully doin' outside that night." 



I have not dwelt on many expressions peculiar 

 in a large degree to New England as they are 

 familiar to all. Many are not Americanisms, 

 but are survivals of old English expressions, 

 which, disappearing in the old country, have 

 been preserved in the new. An interesting ex- 

 ample of this was noted at the time of the death 

 of Ralph Waldo Emerson. A biographer stated 

 that the Emerson family came to America in 

 1630 from the Parish of Woodhill, in the valley 

 of the great Ouse. This statement, repeated in 

 the London Athenaeum, was challenged by a local 

 historian, who declared that there was no such 

 Parish as Woodhill in the valley. More careful 



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