small children, whom the "marcury doctors"
had "pisened" and crippled? Did it not belong to that down-east
unfortunate who had been out to the "Genesee country"(1) and got the
"fevernnager," and whose hand shook so pitifully when held out to
receive my poor gift? The same, under all disguises,--Stephen Leathers,
of Barrington,--him, and none other! Let me conjure him into his own
likeness:--

(1) The _Genesee country_ is the name by which the western part of New
York, bordering on Lakes Ontario and Erie, was known, when, at the
close of the last and beginning of this century, it was to people on
the Atlantic coast the Great West. In 1792 communication was opened by
a road with the Pennsylvania settlements, but the early settlers were
almost all from New England.

"Well, Stephen, what news from old Barrington?"

"Oh, well, I thought I knew ye," he answers, not the least disconcerted.
"How do you do? and how's your folks? All well, I hope. I took this
'ere paper, you see, to help a poor furriner, who could n't make himself
understood any more than a wild goose. I though I'd just start him
for'ard a little. It seemed a marcy to do it."

Well and shiftily answered, thou ragged Proteus. One cannot be angry
with such a fellow. I will just inquire into the present state of his
Gospel mission and about the condition of his tribe on the Penobscot;
and it may be not amiss to congratulate him on the success of the
steam-doctors in sweating the "pisen" of the regular faculty out of him.
But he evidently has no wish to enter into idle conversation. Intent
upon his benevolent errand he is already clattering down stairs.
Involuntarily I glance out of the window just in season to catch a
single glimpse of him ere he is swallowed up in the mist.

He has gone; and, knave as he is, I can hardly help exclaiming, "Luck
go with him!" He has broken in upon the sombre train of my thoughts
and called up before me pleasant and grateful recollections. The old
farm-house nestling in its valley; hills stretching off to the south and
green meadows to the east; the small stream which came noisily down its
ravine, washing the old garden-wall and softly lapping on fallen stones
and mossy roots of beeches and hemlocks; the tall sentinel poplars at
the gateway; the oak-forest, sweeping unbroken to the northern horizon;
the grass-grown carriage-path, with its rude and crazy bridge,--the
dear old landscape of my boyhood lies outstretched before me li