Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature

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[27] down in the corner, fumbled out his black junk, and saluted that instead of Deb; she then turned again to me and fell anew into her silly questions, without asking me to sit down.

I told her she treated me very rudely, and I did not think it my duty to answer her unmannerly questions. But to get rid of them, I told her I came there to have the post's company with me to-morrow on my journey, etc. Miss stared awhile, drew a chair, bade me sit, and then ran up stairs and put on two or three rings (or else I had not seen them before), and returning, set herself just before me, showing the way to Reding, that I might see her ornaments, perhaps to gain the more respect. But granam's new rung sow, had it appeared, would have affected me as much. I paid honest John with money and dram according to contract, and dismissed him, and prayed Miss to show me where I must lodge. She conducted me to a parlor in a little back lean-to, which was almost filled with the bedstead, which was so high that I was forced to climb on a chair to get up to the wretched bed that lay on it; on which having stretched my tired limbs, and laid my head on a sad-colored pillow, I began to think on the transactions of the past day.

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Samuel Sewall.

Contemporary with Madam Knight was Judge Samuel Sewall, one of the raciest autobiographers since Pepys. He will be remembered mainly for his diary, but not seldom struck a genuine literary note elsewhere; as when he describes the farms and marshes on the Merrimac :--