' 'Oh,' said I, 'too many irons in the fire.
Well, the next farm, where the pigs are in the potato field, whose
is that?' 'Oh, sir, that's C. D's; he was a considerable fore-handed
farmer, as any in our place, but he sot up for an Assembly-man, and
opened a store, and things went agin him somehow; he had no luck
arterwards. I hear his place is mortgaged, and they've got him cited
in chancery.' 'The black knob' is on him, said I. 'The black what,
sir?' says Bluenose. 'Nothin',' says I. 'But the next, who improves
that house?' 'Why that's E. F.'s; he was the greatest farmer in
these parts, another of the aristocracy; had a most a noble stock o'
cattle, and the matter of some hundreds out in j'int notes. Well, he
took the contract for beef with the troops; and he fell astarn, so I
guess it's a gone goose with him. He's heavy mortgaged.' 'Too many
irons agin,' said I. 'Who lives to the left there? That man has a
most a special fine interval, and a grand orchard too; he must be
a good mark, that.' 'Well he was once, sir, a few years ago; but
he built a fullin' mill, and a cardin' mill, and put up a lumber
establishment, and speculated in the West Indy line; but the dam was
carried away by the freshets, the lumber fell, and faith he fell too;
he's shot up, he hain't been seed these two years, his farm is a
common, and fairly run out.
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