Page:A new England boyhood by Hale, Edward Everett.djvu/14

iv in Vermont and that of Hartford in Connecticut.

Quite leaving Hartford out, in my earliest days it was always a joke at home, if anyone spoke of Boston as the only city, for some one to say, "Boston and Vergennes." Vergennes was incorporated in 1788, by the legislature of Vermont, which was then an independent nation, not belonging either to the Confederacy of the United States or sharing in the deliberations for the new constitution.

Mr. Scudder asked me to furnish some chapters, with the attractive title of "A New England Boyhood," from my own memories, in such form that they might be published in the Atlantic Monthly. And this I was glad to do. Those chapters, published in that magazine in 1892, make more than half of the book now in the reader's hands.

I have to say this by way of introduction, because here is my only excuse for what else seems the conceit of introducing little bits of personal experience into my story, of no earthly value to anybody but myself and my children, excepting as they illustrate the