The showman proceeds.

Casting our eyes again over the scene, we perceive that strangers have
found their way into the solitary place. In more than one spot, among
the trees, an upheaved axe is glittering in the sunshine. Roger Conant,
the first settler in Naumkeag, has built his dwelling, months ago, on the
border of the forest-path; and at this moment he comes eastward through
the vista of woods, with his gun over his shoulder, bringing home the
choice portions of a deer. His stalwart figure, clad in a leathern
jerkin and breeches of the same, strides sturdily onward, with such an
air of physical force and energy that we might almost expect the very
trees to stand aside, and give him room to pass. And so, indeed, they
must; for, humble as is his name in history, Roger Conant still is of
that class of men who do not merely find, but make, their place in the
system of human affairs; a man of thoughtful strength, he has planted the
germ of a city. There stands his habitation, showing in its rough
architecture some features of the Indian wigwam, and some of the log-
cabin, and somewhat, too, of the straw-thatched cottage in Old England,
where this good yeoman had his birth and breeding. The dwelling is
surrounded by a cleared space of a few acres, where Indian corn grows
thrivingly among the stumps of the trees; while the dark forest hems it
in, and scenes to gaze silently and solemnly, as if wondering at the
breadth of sunshine which the white man spreads around him. An Indian,
half hidden in the dusky shade, is gazing and wondering too.

Within the door of the cottage you discern the wife, with her ruddy
English cheek. She is singing, doubtless, a psalm tune, at her household
work; or, perhaps she sighs at the remembrance of the cheerful gossip,
and all the merry social life, of her native village beyond the vast and