which a hundred years later, saw one of the most curious transactions of the year 1794. That an ancestor of Nathanael Hawthorne should have been a party to it, holds a suggestion of the tendencies which in the novelist's case, gave him that interest in the sombre side of life, and the relish for the somewhat ghoul-like details, on which he lingered with a fascination his readers are compelled to share. On an old paper still owned by a gentleman of Salem, one may read this catastrophe which has, in spite of court orderings and stately municipal burial, forced Simon Bradstreet's remains into the same obscurity which hides those of his wife.
"Ben, son of Col B. Pickman, sold ye tomb, being claimed by him for a small expence his father was at in repairing it aft ye yr 1793 or 1794 to one Daniel Hathorne, who now holds it." Having taken possession, Daniel Hawthorne, with no further scruples cleaned out the tomb, throwing the remains of the old Governor and his family into a hole not far off.
The New England of Simon Bradstreet's day is as utterly lost as his own dust. Yet many of the outward forms still remain, while its spirit is even more evident and powerful.
Wherever the New England element is found—and where is it not found?—its presence means thrift, thoroughness, precision and prudence. Every circumstance of life from the beginning has taught the people how to extract the utmost value from every resource. Dollars have come slowly and painfully, and have thus, in one sense, a fictitious worth; but penuriousness is almost unknown, and the hardest working man or woman gives freely where a need is
