Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/346

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312

��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��fering, He is yet continuing to us, though an unthankful and unfruitful people, the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ, and our religious liberty and privileges, by which we enjoy the hap- piest advantages for glorifying our Creator and Redeemer, and securing our eternal well being.

All servile labor is forbidden on said day.

��In the house of representatives, No- vember 19, 1777. The aforesaid form of proclamation for a general thanksgiving being read, voted that the same be transcribed, printed, and dispersed throughout the state. JOHN LANGDON, Speaker.

Sent up for concurrence. In council the same day read and con- curred.

E. THOMPSON, Secretary.

��FR OM M \ ' LIBRAR Y WIND O W.

��BY GEORGE F. FOSTER.

��It — the window- — faces the north, and, to the casual observer, the view obtainable therefrom would fail to be particularly interesting, especially at this season of the year — early March — when nature, in New England, does not wear her most attractive garb.

The main features of the landscape are not unlike those which other rural districts in the Granite State would af- ford. There are broad fields, gradual- ly rising into hills ; gray stone walls, reaching out in irregular lines and serv- ing to define the estates of different land-holders : trees of various kinds, some perennially green, while others stand shorn of all raiment ; great patches of snow that, by contrast, ren- der the brownness of mother earth more pronounced.

In the distance, outlined against the clouded sky, rise the Craney hills — bold, precipitous — whose rocky brows furnish as excellent a site for castles as do the beetling cliffs that overhang the Rhine ; nor is the imagination severely taxed, fancying such castles as really existant, and knights in mailed armor rushing forth to the defence of some fair maiden, with a cry of "God and the right."

Still farther away grim Kearsarge rears its head, like a gigantic sentinel set to guard the surrounding country — tireless and ever watchful. Venerable is

��it, and most venerable does it appear — its crest white with snow — and worthy of the respect vouchsafed it by " all who on it gaze."

Directly in the foreground is a small building upon which the hand of time harvested heavily, as is evidenced by its dilapidated condition. To-day, it serves as a shop ; seventy years ago it was a school-house.

Sitting on its rude benches, and un- der the jurisdiction of old-fashioned pedagogues, many received their only education who subsequently became honored citizens of their native town — Weare— while others of their number ro^e to distinction elsewhere. Doubt- less, innocent flirtations were carried on therein ; no less probable is it that divers pranks were cut which the prying eyes with which the instructors of those days were blessed failed to detect. For boys and girls of one age are not wholly different from boys and girls of other generations.

Among the masters who ruled and ferruled in this school-house, none was more loved and feared than Tit- comb Burnham, Esq., afterward iden- tified with the educational interests of the state at Exeter, especially in con- nection with the female seminary of that place. For many years prior to his death he resided at Salem, Mass.,

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