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miles, from where the waters of the Sound rippled on the east 

 and south, to where the Hudson pursuing its course to the sea, 

 rolled on the west. 



Aden had arrived in but limited numbers; life was more 

 leisurely. There was more time to enjoy and appreciate the 

 beauties and the healthfulness and the content that was every- 

 where when Nature was enjoying her calmer moods. When 

 Nature was in her rougher moods, her very roughness com- 

 pelled men to appreciate their own content and blessings about 

 the firesides of the big old houses, if they would, because they 

 would, and if they wouldn't, because they couldn't get away. 

 Where in this busy workday of ours, from the time that each 

 returning day wakes us with the consciousness that we must 

 hastily eat a morning meal, then to rush away and be hurtled, 

 perhaps, through space, or perhaps through an ill-smelling 

 underground cavern at the rate of forty miles an hour, to 

 reach some objective point, maybe fifteen or twenty miles 

 away in but little over an hour after we have risen, — then, 

 the inhabitant of our land rose perhaps earlier in the morning 

 than we do, serene and confident in the knowledge that there 

 was no great haste, and no necessity for a speed which it is 

 doubtful if he ever contemplated. If he had thought of it, 

 he who lived here one hundred years ago would have known 

 that he was a long journey from the places that we count on 

 reaching in sixty minutes or thereabouts. 



There was no crowding in all these forty square miles that 

 are now ours, — there were probably not over 175 families with 

 their dependents, — and withal there was probably not more 

 than one settlement that amounted to the dignity of a village. 

 The whistle of a locomotive had no more been heard than 

 had the clang of a trolley car. But three means of locomotion 

 were possible: by one's own exertion, through the^ propelling 

 power of animals, and over the water; and over the water, 

 means of propulsion other than by human exertion or the 

 winds, were not greatly used. Even roads were but few. 

 When the traveler from lower Manhattan crossed the Coles 



