known as "Bassett's Holler."

The "upper road" is sometimes called the "depot road," because the
railroad station is conveniently located thereon--convenient for the
railroad, that is--the station being a full mile from Simmons's "general
store," which is considered the center of the town. The upper road
enters the main road at the corner by the store, and there also are
the Methodist meetinghouse and the schoolhouse. The townhall is in the
hollow farther on. Then comes the big hill--

"Whittaker's Hill"--and from the top of this hill you can, on a clear
day, see for miles across the salt marshes and over the bay to the
eastward, and west as far as the church steeple in Orham. If there
happens to be a fog, with a strong easterly wind, you cannot see the
marshes or the bay, but you can smell them, wet and salty and sweet. It
is a smell that the born Bayporter never forgets, but carries with him
in memory wherever he goes; and that, in the palmy days of the merchant
marine, was likely, to be far, for every male baby in the village was
born with web feet, so people said, and was predestined to be a sailor.

When Heman Atkins came back from the South Seas early in the '60's,
"rich as dock mud," though still a young man, he promptly tore down his
father's old house, which stood on the crest of Whittaker's Hill, and
built in its place a big imposing residence. It was by far the finest
house in Bayport, and Heman made it finer as the years passed. There
were imitation brownstone pillars supporting its front porch, iron dogs
and scroll work iron benches bordering its front walk, and a pair of
stone urns, in summer filled with flowers, beside its big iron front
gate.