Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/413

Rh thank French missionaries, and French colonists for their first cultivation. Of this but little now remains except the names of places and rivers, and some Catholic seminaries. Vast forests, large lakes and mountains are the primeval features of these States; agriculture, the breeding of cattle, and the felling of timber, are their principal occupations. One beautiful minor branch of trade is the preparation of maple-sugar, which is in considerable demand. The maple-tree is tapped for its sap, as the birch-tree with us, and the sugar is formed into small cakes of a brown colour, and very sweet flavour.

I saw yesterday evening, at this house, a great assembly of the society of Burlington; cheerful and agreeable countenances were there—many such among the young.

There was in the company a universally beloved and esteemed schoolmistress, who had from her youth upwards laboured alone for herself and her family. She had done this so successfully as to be able to educate several younger brothers and sisters; to pay the family debts; maintain her aged mother; and finally, to build her a dwelling-house. After having accomplished all this she was now, at the age of thirty, about to be married herself to a man to whom she had long been engaged. She could now think about her own happiness, about her own house and home. The universal sympathy which seemed to have been excited, and the joy with which I heard all this related, speak highly for the rest of the community by whom the beautiful life and happiness of one humble individual is so much appreciated.

&emsp; I have now come hither from the society of the White and Green Mountains, from the world-despising Shakers, to the most fashionable, the worst and most worldly place in the United States, just to glance at and receive an impression of its life for my panorama of the New World.