The land
is good, the farms look neat, and the houses comfortable. The latter are
generally but of one story, but with large barns; and it was a good sign,
that, while we saw no houses unfinished nor out of repair, one man at
least had found it expedient to make an addition to his dwelling. At the
distance of more than two miles, we had a view of white Augusta, with its
steeples, and the State-House, at the farther end of the town.
Observable matters along the road were the stage,--all the dust of
yesterday brushed off, and no new dust contracted,--full of passengers,
inside and out; among them some gentlemanly people and pretty girls, all
looking fresh and unsullied, rosy, cheerful, and curious as to the face
of the country, the faces of passing travellers, and the incidents of
their journey; not yet damped, in the morning sunshine, by long miles of
jolting over rough and hilly roads,--to compare this with their
appearance at midday, and as they drive into Bangor at dusk;--two women
dashing along in a wagon, and with a child, rattling pretty speedily down
hill;--people looking at us from the open doors and windows;--the
children staring from the wayside;--the mowers stopping, for a moment,
the sway of their scythes;--the matron of a family, indistinctly seen at
some distance within the house, her head and shoulders appearing through
the window, drawing her handkerchief over her bosom, which had been
uncovered to give the baby its breakfast,--the said baby, or its
immediate predecessor, sitting at the door, turning round to creep away
on all fours;--a man building a flat-bottomed boat by the roadside: he
talked with B------ about the Boundary question, and swore fervently in
favor of driving the British "into hell's kitchen" by main force.
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