Page:A Colonial Wooing.djvu/36

 road that led from the forest and scattered plantations of Burlington County, where it crossed the creek and continued to the river. It was a particularly pleasing feature of the neighborhood to those who were keenly bent upon acquiring an estate, because it was evidence of a steady and healthy growth of the scattered community, and it was hailed with keen delight by the descendants of those earliest settlers, English, Swedes, and Dutch, who, having provided for their few wants, were pleased to have a lounging-place; and so it came about that at Bishop and Blake's those who for the time being might be idle were soon wont to congregate.

Skilled workmen were then more prominent in the social world than now. Not that labor has ever lost its dignity, but wealth had not yet become the arrogant tyrant of to-day; and among the Friends some calling was required of every one. There was but one profession open to them, medicine, and but few had the opportunity, even if the inclination, to devote themselves thereto. To have a trade was a necessity; to be apprenticed