And you have pleasanter memories of
going after pond-lilies, of angling for horn-pouts,--that queer bat among
the fishes,--of nutting, of walking over the creaking snow-crust in
winter, when the warm breath of every household was curling up silently
in the keen blue air. You wonder if life has any rewards more solid and
permanent than the Spanish dollar that was hung around your neck to be
restored again next day, and conclude sadly that it was but too true a
prophecy and emblem of all worldly success. But your moralizing is broken
short off by a rattle of feet and the pouring forth of the whole
swarm,--the boys dancing and shouting,--the mere effervescence of the
fixed air of youth and animal spirits uncorked,--the sedater girls in
confidential twos and threes decanting secrets out of the mouth of one
cape-bonnet into that of another. Times have changed since the jackets
and trousers used to draw up on one side of the road, and the petticoats
on the other, to salute with bow and courtesy the white neckcloth of the
parson or the squire, if it chanced to pass during intermission.
Now this little building, and others like it, were an original kind of
fortification invented by the founders of New England. They are the
martello-towers that protect our coast.
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