Pleasure doos make us Yankee kind of winchThe true New England countryman never flattens a vowel; if he changes it he always makes
As if it was something paid for by the inch.
[95]
of Yankee farmers, not only about their crops and cattle, but also discussing church affairs and politics, local and national.
It was the grandfathers of these men who drove the British back from Concord bridge, and it was their sons who fought their way from the Rapidan to Richmond.
With the help of country lawyers they sent Sumner and Wilson to the Senate, and knew what they were about when they did this.
For wit, humor, and repartee,and, it may be added, for decent conversation, --there is no class of men like them.
Both Lowell and Emerson have testified to their intrinsic worth.
On one occasion a Concord farmer was driving a cow past Sanborn's school-house, when an impudent boy called out, “The calf always follows the cow.”
“Why aren't you behind here, then?”
retorted the man, with a look that went home like the stroke of a cane.
If Lowell had been present he would have been delighted.
The Yankee dialect which he makes use of as a vehicle in these verses is not always as clearcut as it might be. He says, for instance,
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