contemplation does not afford the patriotic tipler as much complacency
as formerly, for Burgoyne is thundering at the passes of the Hoosacs,
only fifty miles away, and King George may get his red coat back again,
after all. The Tories in the village say that the landlord keeps a pot
of red paint behind the door, so that the Hessian dragoons may not take
him by surprise when they come galloping down the valley, some afternoon.
On the other side [of] the green is the meeting-house, built some thirty
years ago, by a grant from government at Boston, and now considered
rather old-fashioned and inconvenient. Hard by the meeting-house is the
graveyard, with the sandy knoll in its south-west corner, set apart for
the use of the Indians. The whipping-post, stocks, and cage, for the
summary correction of such offences as come within the jurisdiction of
Justice Jahleel Woodbridge, Esquire, adorn the middle of the village
green, and on Saturday afternoon are generally the center of a crowd
assembled to be edified by the execution of sentences.

On the other side [of] the green from the meeting-house stands the
store, built five years before, by Timothy Edwards, Esquire, a structure
of a story and a half, with the unusual architectural adornment of a
porch or piazza in front, the only thing of the kind in the village.
The people of Stockbridge are scarcely prouder of the divinity of their
late shepherd, the famous Dr. Jonathan Edwards, than they are of his
son Timothy's store. Indeed, what with Dr. Edwards, so lately in their
midst, Dr. Hopkins, down at Great Barrington, and Dr. Bellamy, just
over the State line in Bethlehem, Connecticut, the people of Berkshire
are decidedly more familiar with theologians than with storekeepers,
for when Mr. Edwards built his store in 1772, it was the only one in
the county.

At such a time it may be readily inferred that a commercial occupation