X

ACROSS THE STREET


It would be difficult to say why the village of Oldfields should have
been placed in the least attractive part of the township, if one were
not somewhat familiar with the law of growth of country communities.
The first settlers, being pious kindred of the Pilgrims, were mindful
of the necessity of a meeting-house, and the place for it was chosen
with reference to the convenience of most of the worshipers. Then the
parson was given a parsonage and a tract of glebe land somewhere in
the vicinity of his pulpit, and since this was the centre of social
attraction, the blacksmith built his shop at the nearest cross-road.
And when some enterprising citizen became possessed of an idea that
there were traders enough toiling to and fro on the rough highways to
the nearest larger village to make it worth his while to be an
interceptor, the first step was taken toward a local centre of
commerce, and the village was fairly begun. It had not yet reached a
remarkable size, though there was a time-honored joke because an
enthusiastic old woman had said once, when four or five houses and a
new meeting-house were being built all in one summer, that she
expected now that she might live to see Oldfields a seaport town.
There had been a great excitement over the second meeting-house, to
which the conservative faction had strongly objected, but, after the
radicals had once gained the day, other innovations passed without