The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866

hair for a living, and concluded to admit Mr. Roberts, especially as he married a far-away Elliott, and was really a sensible and cultivated man. But as we must stop somewhere, we drew a strict line before the tinman, blacksmith, and Democrats of all sorts. We are pure-blooded Federalists in Barton, and were brought up on the Hartford Convention. I think we all fully believed that a Democrat was unfit to associate with decent people.

As in most New England towns, the young fly from the parent nest as soon as they are fledged. Out of Barton have gone, in my time, Boston millionnaires, state secretaries, statesmen, and missionaries,--of the last, not a few. Once the town was full of odd people, whose peculiarities and idiosyncrasies ran to seed, and made strange, eventful histories.

But we have ceased to take such microscopic views of each other since the railway came within ten miles of us, and are now able to converse on much more general topics than formerly. Not that there isn't still opportu