Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/106



F one of the ancient proprietors of the regions about Manhattan—say Wanacapeen or Taquamarke or Awarazawis or Longe Classe or Kneed—could rise from under his particular heap of clam- and oyster-shells and walk again, it would do his savage heart good to come upon the estate of John Dunbar, Esq.; for if he confined his regards to its edges and shores, and did not foolishly penetrate—foolishly, from his point of view—to the house and gardens, he would recognize his own dear woodlands, left to forest themselves since the year one, the shaggy hickory from which he cut the bow, the sassafras from which he stole the succulent root, and the weedy, rocky beach where the fiddler-crabs scuttle and the clams spurt, from which he launched