The Hereditary Barn [pp. 337-347]

T H E
THE
O\- zRAND A\lONTL —Y.
DFVOTI'ED TO
THE DE VEL OPMENT OF THE CO UNTR Y.
VOL. VIII. (SECOND SERIES.)-OCTOBER, i886.-No. 46.
THE HEREDITARY BARN.
THE old Joslin farm is on the road from From the little pinched-up flower garden,
Fairport to Penobscot, near the head of the where marigolds, hollyhocks, love-lies-bleedNorthern Bay. It is a ragged and hilly piece ing, and China asters- disputed the starved
of upland, yielding good grass, and capable ground with balm, sweet marjoram, and
of great possibilities in the way of potatoes. mother-wort, the land sloped steeply off to
But the Joslins never did stick to farming as the bluff overhanging the river. A tidy raila sole means of getting a living. The old- fence skirted the lower edge of the place,
fashioned, gambrel-roofed house, mossy as to and the Penobscot road, yellow with golden
roof, and dark red as to its front, overlooked rod and ox-eyed daisies in autumn, and gulthe Northern Bay; and it was a pretty dull lied with heavy rains in spring, crept along
time when at least one coaster could not le under the fence, half-hidden from the house
seen, lazily creeping up to Penobscot with and dangerously near the crumbling bluff of
the tide in her favor; or it may have been the river bank.
a hay-sloop that dropped'down, equally lazy, From the house, overlooking road and
with the ebb. And it was a part of the do- bluff, the eye fell on a long and narrow bay,
mestic economy of the farmers of the bay, or estuary, fronm the broader bay of Penob