till your stony up-land and neglect the fine rich bottom which lies before your door?  Had you never tried, you never had learned how to mend and make your ploughs.  It will be no small pleasure to your children to tell hereafter, that their father was not only one of the most industrious farmers in the country, but one of the best writers.  When you have once begun, do as when you begin breaking up your summer fallow, you never consider what remains to be done, you view only what you have ploughed.  Therefore, neighbour James, take my advice; it will go well with you, I am sure it will.—­And do you really think so, Sir?  Your counsel, which I have long followed, weighs much with me, I verily believe that I must write to Mr. F. B. by the first vessel.—­If thee persistest in being such a foolhardy man, said my wife, for God’s sake let it be kept a profound secret among us; if it were once known abroad that thee writest to a great and rich man over at London, there would be no end of the talk of the people; some would vow that thee art going to turn an author, others would pretend to foresee some great alterations in the welfare of thy family; some would say this, some would say that:  Who would wish to become the subject of public talk?  Weigh this matter well before thee beginnest, James—­consider that a great deal of thy time, and of thy reputation is at stake as I may say.  Wert thee to write as well as friend Edmund, whose speeches I often see in our papers, it would be the very self same thing; thee wouldst be equally accused of idleness, and vain notions not befitting thy condition.  Our colonel would be often coming here to know what it is that thee canst write so much about.  Some would imagine that thee wantest to become either an assembly-man or a magistrate, which God forbid; and that thee art telling the king’s men abundance of things.  Instead of being well looked upon as now, and living in peace with all the world, our neighbours would be making strange surmises:  I had rather be as we are, neither better nor worse than the rest of our country folks.  Thee knowest what I mean, though I should be sorry to deprive thee of any honest recreation.  Therefore as I have said before, let it be as great a secret as if it was some heinous crime; the minister, I am sure, will not divulge it; as for my part, though I am a woman, yet I know what it is to be a wife.—­I would not have thee, James, pass for what the world calleth a writer; no, not for a peck of gold, as the saying is.  Thy father before thee was a plain dealing honest man, punctual in all things; he was one of yea and nay, of few words, all he minded was his farm and his work.  I wonder from whence thee hast got this love of the pen?  Had he spent his time in sending epistles to and fro, he never would have left thee this goodly plantation, free from debt.  All I say is in good meaning; great people over sea may write to our town’s folks, because they have nothing else to do.  These Englishmen are