ear
corn-fields--again to build a shingle palace, and again to sell off and
wander.

Such were the people of Connecticut, who bordered upon the eastern
frontier of Nieuw Nederlandts, and my readers may easily imagine what
uncomfortable neighbors this light-hearted but restless tribe must have
been to our tranquil progenitors. If they cannot, I would ask them if they
have ever known one of our regular, well-organized Dutch families, whom it
hath pleased Heaven to afflict with the neighborhood of a French
boarding-house? The honest old burgher cannot take his afternoon's pipe on
the bench before his door but he is persecuted with the scraping of
fiddles, the chattering of women, and the squalling of children; he cannot
sleep at night for the horrible melodies of some amateur, who chooses to
serenade the moon, and display his terrible proficiency in execution on
the clarionet, hautboy, or some other soft-toned instrument; nor can he
leave the street door open, but his house is defiled by the unsavory
visits of a troop of pug dogs, who even sometimes carry their loathsome
ravages into the _sanctum sanctorum_, the parlor.

If my readers have ever witnessed the sufferings of such a family, so
situated, they may form some idea how our worthy ancestors were distressed
by their mercurial neighbors of Connecticut.

Gangs of these marauders, we are told, penetrated into the New-Netherland
settlements, and threw whole villages into consternation by their
unparalleled volubility, and their intolerable inquisitiveness--two evil
habits hitherto unknown in those parts, or only known to be abhorred; for
our ancestors were noted as being men of truly Spartan taciturnity, and
who neither knew nor cared aught about anybody's concerns but their own.
Many enormities were committed on the highways, where several unoffending
burghers were brought to a stand, and tortured with questions and guesses,
which outrages occasioned as much vexation and heart-burning as does the
modern right of search on the high seas.

Great jealousy did they likewise stir up by their intermeddling and
successes among the divine sex, for being a race of brisk, likely,
pleasant-tongued varlets, they soon seduced the light affections of the
simple damsels from their ponderous Dutch gallants. Among other hideous
customs, they attempted to introduce among them that bundling, which the
Dutch lasses of the Nederlandts, with that eager passion for novelty and
foreign fas