He Examined, At First From
The Top Of The Bank, Our Boat And Furniture, With Sparkling Eyes,
And Wished Himself Already His Own Man.
He was a lively and
interesting boy, and we should have been glad to ship him; but
Nathan was still his father's boy, and had not come to years of
discretion.
We had got a loaf of home-made bread, and musk and water melons
for dessert. For this farmer, a clever and well-disposed man,
cultivated a large patch of melons for the Hooksett and Concord
markets. He hospitably entertained us the next day, exhibiting
his hop-fields and kiln and melon-patch, warning us to step over
the tight rope which surrounded the latter at a foot from the
ground, while he pointed to a little bower at one corner, where
it connected with the lock of a gun ranging with the line, and
where, as he informed us, he sometimes sat in pleasant nights to
defend his premises against thieves. We stepped high over the
line, and sympathized with our host's on the whole quite human,
if not humane, interest in the success of his experiment. That
night especially thieves were to be expected, from rumors in the
atmosphere, and the priming was not wet. He was a Methodist man,
who had his dwelling between the river and Uncannunuc Mountain;
who there belonged, and stayed at home there, and by the
encouragement of distant political organizations, and by his own
tenacity, held a property in his melons, and continued to plant.
We suggested melon-seeds of new varieties and fruit of foreign
flavor to be added to his stock. We had come away up here among
the hills to learn the impartial and unbribable beneficence of
Nature. Strawberries and melons grow as well in one man's garden
as another's, and the sun lodges as kindly under his
hillside, - when we had imagined that she inclined rather to some
few earnest and faithful souls whom we know.
We found a convenient harbor for our boat on the opposite or east
shore, still in Hooksett, at the mouth of a small brook which
emptied into the Merrimack, where it would be out of the way of
any passing boat in the night, - for they commonly hug the shore
if bound up stream, either to avoid the current, or touch the
bottom with their poles, - and where it would be accessible
without stepping on the clayey shore. We set one of our largest
melons to cool in the still water among the alders at the mouth
of this creek, but when our tent was pitched and ready, and we
went to get it, it had floated out into the stream, and was
nowhere to be seen. So taking the boat in the twilight, we went
in pursuit of this property, and at length, after long straining
of the eyes, its green disk was discovered far down the river,
gently floating seaward with many twigs and leaves from the
mountains that evening, and so perfectly balanced that it had not
keeled at all, and no water had run in at the tap which had been
taken out to hasten its cooling.
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