Only Hannah, Chapter I [pp. 156-162]

THE LADIES' REPOSITOR l'
Monday, Dec. 2A.-Convened some of
the Indians, and assisted them alboutt a
secular affair.
Lord's-day, Dec. 27.-Spent the whole
Sabbath with the Indians, and performed
divine service both parts of the day in
the usual manner.
Tuesday, Dec. 29.-Assisted the Indians again in some of their temporal
concerns. The next day I rode to Philadelphia to procure some necessaries for
housekeeping.
The note-book from which these extracts are taken, and many letters firom
Jonathan Edwards, Witherspoon, Burr,
and other distinguished divines of New
Jersey, are in the possession of the representatives of a family in Scotland, with
whom these good men corresponded.
The present extracts, while having special interest to those who are acquainted
with the history of Princeton, afford curious glimpses of life in America more
than a century ago.
ONLY HANNAH.
CHAPTER I.
HIRTY years ago that old house on
THIT
the corner of Frink Street looked a
great deal older than it does now. The
front has been raised up, and a new story
put under it; the bay-windows have been
added, and pretty green blinds screen
the once unsheltered doors and windows
from the scorching rays of the Summer
sun. Inside, the old house has been remodeled and touched up with new paint
and paper, new carpets and spruce furniture, till it has scarcely a suggestion of
the place where Hannah was born, thirty
years ago.
Not even the view from the windows
remains the same. None of the New
England towns which have undergone
the wonderful change from a farming to
a manufacturing district has been more
altered in its general features than this.
I remember it well when a few straggling
farm-houses with their inevitable outbuildings were the only reminders of human life within an area of two miles.
Now this space is thickly populated,
crowded with business of many kinds;
and tasteful residences, costly churches,
and other public buildings, lift their showy
spires, towers, or cupolas as proudly as
if they were ages old, rather than the
achievements of yesterday. On either
bank of the river, far up toward its fountain between the mountains, are long
streets lined with new homes and the manufactories whose presence has vwrought
all this marvelous change since Hannah
was born, thirty years ago.
It is difficult to realize she ever had a
season of babyhood like other children.
It must have been shorter than the cooing, petted, trustful days belonging to
infancy in general; for the mother died
when she was only two years old, and
she was not quite three when another
mother arose who knew not Hannah.
The new mothler was not unkind to
the little orphan, who shrank timidly from
her notice when she was first placed under her care. She was simply indifferent.
There had been no one to fill the child's
head with foolish prejudice against stepmothers, and she was too young to understand the relations which the stout, butstling woman held to her. There was no
pretense of affection on either side.
"She'll never set the world afire with
her beauty," said the step-mother, after
one scrutinizing glance that took in every
detail of the little figure before her.
"Light hair, pug nose, eves of no color
in particular, and complexion the same.
Humph!"
156
[Atugust,