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twice as many strangers inquired the way to Craigie House as to Elmwood and “the gambrel-roofed house” put together; and though this might be partly due to associations with Washington, yet I am confident that these made but a small portion of the whole interest in the abode.
I have seldom felt so keenly the real worth of popular fame as when one summer day, in passing Craigie House, I found a young man of somewhat rustic appearance and sunburned look eagerly questioning two other youths as to the whereabouts of the “Spreading Chestnut Tree” mentioned in “The village blacksmith.”
Coming to their relief I explained to him that the tree in question was never at that point and had now vanished altogether, but offered to show him where it once was, and where the blacksmith shop of Dexter Pratt had stood.
Walking down the street with him, I won his confidence by telling him that I was one of the Cambridge-bred boys who had “looked in at the open door” ; that the blacksmith's wife, Rowena Pratt, had been my nurse, and that I had, in later life, heard
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