at
Europeans meant what they said. I can't reconcile it with Jack to have
had a pig for an ancestor, but he certainly had, at least one. Luckily
the tendency has run out in the family ages ago.

But to turn from ancestral pigs to our Island!

Jack says the history of Long Island is the history of the whole country
in miniature, like "the world seen through the little eye of a sparrow,"
as Emerson would have said. In fact, it's _Some_ island, as Emerson
would _not_ have said; and of course we think our part the loveliest and
historicalest of all. There's more variety in history as well as scenery
on this island than in many entire _states_. You simply take your
choice. You say to yourself, "Do I prefer Indian history and names? Or
do I prefer the Dutch? Or does my taste run in the direction of the
English? Do I want to visit the sites of Indian massacres or
Revolutionary battles? Does pirate treasure lure me? Am I thrilled by
the adventures of whaling-ships and their brave captains?" When you've
chosen, you point your auto's nose in the direction desired. The only
thing you _couldn't_ find in the Island's thousand miles of glorious
roads--(yes, my child, a thousand miles, to say nothing of the not so
glorious ones!)--the only thing, I repeat, would be something completely
modern.

That proud statement doesn't sound true, but it is. You could find
plenty of new houses, the newest of the new: palaces of millionaires,
middle-sized houses of middle-class people who are happier than the
happiest millionaires; fantastic cottages for summer folk; cozy cottages
of "commuters"; queer colonies of Italians, and even of darkies; but
there isn't a foot of Long Island ground on which these palaces and
houses and cottages and colonies have sprung up that isn't as historic
as European soil. It's enthralling to see how intimately and neatly
history here links itself with history on the other side: history of
England, France, and Holland; noble names and great events. That's what
delights Jack, picking up these links, and fitting them together like
bits of jigsaw puzzles. He's absolutely _thrilled_, and wants to stop
the car whenever we come to one of the curiously deformed old trees
which still, on country roads, mark the direction of ancient Indian
trails. This fad of Jack's leads to awkwardness during our present
excursion, as we're part of a weird cavalcade which I'll describe to you
later. But just now I _can't_ let you off those