Page:A new England boyhood by Hale, Edward Everett.djvu/37

 HE reader and I ought not to begin with out my reminding him that the Boston of which I am to write was very different from the Boston of to-day. In 1825 Boston was still a large country town. I think some one has called it a city of gardens; but that some one may have been I. As late as 1817, in a description of Boston which accompanied a show which a Frenchman had made by carving and paint ing the separate houses, it was said, with some triumph, that there were nine blocks of buildings in the town. This means that all the other buildings stood with windows or doors on each of the four sides, and in most instances with trees, or perhaps little lanes, between; as all people will live when the Kingdom of