Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1879-02-07
orr NEW NEIGHBORS IT PONK.
IPOG.
BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDHIcH.

when saw the little house building, nn
eighth of mile beyond my own, on the Old
Bay road, | wondered who were to be the
tenants The modest structure was set well
back from the road among the trees, as if
the inmates were to care nothing whatever
for view of the stylish cquipages which
sweep Ivy during the summer season. For
my part. | like to See the passing. IN town or
country but each has his own taste The
proprietor who seemed to be also the archi-
trct of the new house, ,rintcud,d the va
rious details of the work, with an assiduity
that gave me a high opinion of his intelli-
E'nce and executive ability, and congratu-
lated myself ON the prospect of having some
very agreeable ncighbors
1t was quite early in the spring. if | remcm-
b,r, when they moved into the cottage--a
n,wly married couple, evidently the wife
very young, pretty and with the air of n lady
the husband somewhat older but still in the
first flush of manhood. 1t was understood
in the village that they came from Baltimore
llt no one knew them personally, and they
brought no letters Of Introduction. For OBJ
Nious reasons | refrain from mentioning
lHn's.) 1t was clear that, for the present at
least, their own company was entirely sutii-
ci,nt for them. They made no advances
toward the acquaintance Of any of the fam
lies in the neighborhood, and consequently
was what they desired and why they came
To- Poukapog For after its black bass and
Wild duck and teal, solitude is the chief sta
li ut Ponkapog. Perhaps its perfect rural
loyelinrss should be- included Lying high
up under the wing Of the Blue hills, and in
the odorOus breath of pines and c,dars, it
chances to b. the most enchanting bit of gen
uinr country within fifty miles Of Boston,
which, more over, can be reached in half an
l...... al a
way station (heav,n be praised , is two miles
distant, and the secluson is without a flaw
Ponkapog has one mail day two mails a
day would render the place uninhabitable.
The village-it looks like u compact village
at distance, but unravels and disappears
the moment you drive into it-has quite
large floating population. l do not allude to
the perch and pickerel. Along the Old Bay
road, II highway even in the colonial days
there are n number of attractive cottages
struggling off towards Milton, which are oc-
cupird for the summer by people from the
city. These birds Of passage are n distinct
class from the permanent inhabitants, and
the two seldom closely assimilate unless there
has been some previous connection. 1t
seemed to me that our new neighbors We're to
come under the head of permanent inhab-
itants; they had built their own house, and
had the air Of intending to live in it all the
year round.
Are you not going to call on them 2"
asked my wife one morning.
"When they call on us, she replied, light
ly,
But it is our place to call first, they being
strangers"
This was said as seriously as the circum-
stances demanded; but my wife turned it oil
with n laugh, and l said no more, always
trusting to her intutiOns in these matters.
She was right She would not have been
received, and Il cool mot nj home" would
have been bitter social pill to Ms if we had
gone out of our way to be courteous.
saw great deal of our neighbors, never
Tia, less. Their cottage lay between us and
the post oifce-where lie was never to be met
byuny chance-andI aughtfrequent glimpscs
Of the two working in the garden Floricultura
did not appear so much an object rs exercise
Possibly it was neither; maybe they were en-
gagged in digging for specimens of those ar
rowheads and flint hatchets which are contn-
mully coming to the surface heroahout. There
is scarcely nu acre in which the plowshare
has not turned up some primitive stone weap-
on or domestic utensil, disdanfully left to us
by the red men who onco held this domain
an ancient tribe called the PunkypOags
turlon descendant of which, one Polly
Crowd, figures in the annual Blue book,
down to the Southern war, as State pen
sioucr. | quote from the local historiogra-
pher.
VIII, ther they were developing Kitchen
garden or emuatiug Prof. Schliemann at
Mycrur, the new corners were evidently per-
sons of refined musical taste the lndy Ind
voice of remarkable sweetness, although of
no gr, at compass, and used often to linger
of IL morning 10y the high gate and listen to
Ler executing an operate air, cOnjecturally at
some window upstairs, for the house was
not visible from the public road. The hus-
land, somewhere about the grounds, would
occasionally respond with two or three bars
II was all quite nh ideal, Arcadian business.
They seemed very happy together, these two
persons, who asked no odds whatever of the
community in which they had settled them
selves.
There was II queeness, n sort of mystery,
about this couple, which admit piqued my
curiosity though, as II rule, | have no NOR
bid interest in the affairs of my neighbors.
They behaved Ike pair of lovers who Ind
run oil and got married olandestinely. l will
ingly acquitted them, the one and the other,
of having no tgal right to do so for to
chang a word in the lines of the poet
at is a joy to think the best
We may Of human kind"
Admitting the hypothesis of elopement, there
y
receiving letters. But where did they get
their groceries? | do not mean the money
Ia pay for them-that is an enigma apart
but the groceries themselves. No express
wagon, no butchers cart, no vehicle of any
description, was ever observed to stop at
their domcile. Yet they did not order fam
lily stores Mt the sole establishment in the vii
hge-au inexhaustible little bottle Of a shop
which q advertise it gratis) can turn out any
thing in the way of groceries, from hand
saw to pocket handkerchief. confess that
| allowed this unimportant detail of their
housekeeping to occupy more of my specula-
ton than was creditable to me.
In several respects our neighbors reminded
me of those ineXplicable persons we some
times come across in great cities though sell
dom or never in suburban places, where the
field may be supposed to be too restricted for
their operations-person who have no per-
ceptible means of subsistence and manage to
live royally ON nothing year They hold