"
Richard Manning had married Susan Dingley; this Jacob was probably her
nephew. In this allusion to Quakers one might fancy a germ of tolerance
which ripened into "The Gentle Boy."
"Captain Britton from Otisfield was at Uncle Richard's today. Not long
ago, uncle brought here from Salem a new kind of potatoes called 'Long
Reds.' Captain Britton had some for seed, and uncle asked how he liked
them. He answered, 'They yield well, grow very long,--one end is very
poor, and the other good for nothing.' I laughed about it after he was
gone, but uncle looked sour and said there was no wit in his answer, and
that the saying was 'stale.' It was new to me, and his way of saying it
very funny. Perhaps uncle did not like to hear his favorite potato
spoken of in that way, and that if the captain had praised it he would
have been called witty."
"Captain Britton promised to bring 'Gulliver's Travels' for me to read,
the next time he comes this way, which is every time he goes to
Portland. Uncle Richard has not the book in his library.
"This morning the bucket got off the chain, and dropped back into the
well. I wanted to go down on the stones and get it. Mother would not
consent, for fear the wall might cave in, but hired Samuel Shane to go
down. In the goodness of her heart, she thought the son of old Mrs.
Shane not quite so valuable as the son of the Widow Hawthorne. God bless
her for all her love for me, though it may be some selfish. We are to
have a pump in the well, after this mishap.
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