,
for sale. We passed an Irishwoman with a child in her arms, and a heavy
bundle, and afterwards an Irishman with a light bundle, sitting by the
highway. They were husband and wife; and B------ says that an Irishman
and his wife, on their journeys, do not usually walk side by side, but
that the man gives the woman the heaviest burden to carry, and walks on
lightly ahead!
A thought comes into my mind: Which sort of house excites the most
contemptuous feelings in the beholder,--such a house as Mr.------'s, all
circumstances considered, or the board-built and turf-buttressed hovels
of these wild Irish, scattered about as if they had sprung up like
mushrooms, in the dells and gorges, and along the banks of the river?
Mushrooms, by the way, spring up where the roots of an old tree are
hidden under the ground.
Thursday, July 13th.--Two small Canadian boys came to our house
yesterday, with strawberries to sell. It sounds strangely to hear
children bargaining in French on the borders of Yankee-land. Among other
languages spoken hereabouts must be reckoned the wild Irish.
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