A VISITOR FROM TOWN

Hollingsworth and I — we had been hoeing potatoes, that forenoon, while the rest of the fraternity were engaged in a distant quarter of the farm — sat under a clump of maples, eating our eleven o’clock lunch, when we saw a stranger approaching along the edge of the field. He had admitted himself from the roadside through a turnstile, and seemed to have a purpose of speaking with us.

And, by the bye, we were favored with many visits at Blithedale, especially from people who sympathized with our theories, and perhaps held themselves ready to unite in our actual experiment as soon as there should appear a reliable promise of its success.

It was rather ludicrous, indeed (to me, at least, whose enthusiasm had insensibly been exhaled together with the perspiration of many a hard day’s