Hard-handed youths, with bright, determined faces,--men nursed in
blockhouses, born in forts,--men who had raised their corn when the
loaded gun went every step with the hoe and the plough,--such men,
of whom the Revolution had been made, who could say nothing, and do
everything, stood in a crowd around the meeting-house door. There was
some excitement in meeting each other, though there was very little,
if anything, to say. There was time enough in those days. Progress
wasn't in such a hurry as now. Inventions came calmly along, once in
a man's life, and not, as now, each heel-trodden by that of his
neighbor, tripping up and passing it, in the speed of the breathless
race.
The sun itself seemed to shine with a calmer and silenter radiance
over the broad, leisurely land.
Time enough, bless you! and the Sunday, any way, is _so_ long!
This Sunday morning, at ten o'clock, Dorcas has already been up and
dressed six hours. Everything having the remotest connection with
domestic duties has been finished and laid aside long ago, and she has
devoted the last two hours to solitary meditations, mostly of the kind
already mentioned.
In the great oven, since last night, has lain the Sunday supper of
baked pork-and-beans, Indian-pudding, and brown bread, all the
better the longer they bake, and all unfailing in their character
of excellence.
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