Scan 158
The American history and encyclopedia of music .., 1908
4 lines. Read by computer on 7 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1towns. The soil is rich and loamy and makes an excellent roadbed in every direction, but the old homestead lies nestled in a saucer-like valley high up in the hills and very near the highest point in those hills on the stage road from Royalford to Woodston, so that, by whichever way you approach your home, you are compelled to climb. You seem to have been destined for a "climber." Do not let this point escape you, my dear little boy. The fact that you have had so much hill-climbing to do in getting home—the goal of our fondest desires—will, in some subtle way, fit you for that longer, harder climb up the Hill of Life which you will begin sooner than you now imagine. For this preparation you will then be grateful.
3But I was speaking of the approach to your home. How well I recall the ten-mile drive from Woodston! First, alongside a charming stream, dignified with the name Ottaquentin River, but scarcely wider than a good healthy brook; then a gradual rise along roads, sometimes shaded, sometimes open—always attractive—to a point about half a mile from your home, whence there is a beautiful view of the charming valley in which you were born, on the further rim of which nestle, in an orchard, the low-posted, roomy, white house, spacious barns and other farm buildings, flanked along the road by nine lofty Lombardy poplars, standing loyal guard over this homestead, like a column of stately sentinels, giving it for a century a distinction not enjoyed by any other American home within my knowledge. "The white house, the row of big poplars, and the long barn" has long been a sufficient description to any one inquiring the way to your father's home. The one giving this description might justly have added, "and you will find everything about the place thrifty, and tidily in order, for Joseph Bowman is a master-farmer." He had been a county official for many years, but when your two elder brothers reached an age which made them susceptible to the street influences of town life, your father resigned his office, bought this country place,
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