476 
Old Time Gardens 
brought her to his home in a triumph of enthusiasm 
and romance, which quickly fled before the open dis- 
like and reprehension of his upright neighbors, who 
abhorred his fickleness, and before the years of ill 
health and ill temper of the hard-worked, faded wife. 
Many children were born to them ; two lived, sickly 
little souls, who, unconscious of the blemish on their 
parents’ past, came with the other children every 
June, and gathered Rose leaves under Hannah 
Mason’s window. 
Hannah Mason was called crazy. After her 
desertion she never entered any door save that of her 
own home, never went to a neighbor’s house either 
in time of joy or sorrow; queerer still, never went to 
church. All her life, her thoughts, her vast strength, 
went into hard work. No labor was too heavy or 
too formidable for her. She would hetchel flax for 
weeks, spin unceasingly, and weave on a hand loom, 
most wearing of women’s work, without thought of 
rest. No single household could supply work for 
such an untiring machine, especially when all labored 
industriously — so work was brought to her from 
the neighbors. Not a wedding outfit for miles 
around was complete without one of Hannah Ma- 
son’s fine tablecloths. Every corpse was buried in 
one of her linen shrouds. Sailmakers and boat- 
owners in Portsmouth sent up to her for strong 
duck for their sails. Lads went up to Dartmouth 
College in suits of her homespun. Many a teamster 
on the road slept under Hannah Mason’s heavy gray 
woollen blankets, and his wagon tilts were covered 
with her canvas. Her bank account grew rapidly 
