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We happened to be in a part of Westchester in which were none of the very large estates, and Satanstoe passed for property of a certain degree of importance.
To my surprise, there was soup; a dish that I never saw at Satanstoe, except in the most familiar way; while here it was taken by every one, seemingly as a matter of course. Everything was elegant, and admirably cooked. Abundance, however, was the great feature of the feast; as I have heard it said, is apt to be the case with most New York entertainments.
I was consequently entitled to call myself a graduate of Newark, a sort of scholar that is quite as great a curiosity in the country as a Queen Anne's farthing, or a book printed in the fifteenth century. I remember the first evening we two spent in company, as well as if the meeting occurred only last night. It was at Satanstoe, and Mr. Worden was present.
It is true that the provinces a little further south, such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, think they can beat us in peaches; but I have never tasted any fruit that I thought would compare with that of Satanstoe. I love every tree, wall, knoll, swell, meadow, and hummock about the old place. One thing distresses me.
Besides, my Dutch ancestors did not purchase from any Dibblee, no such family ever owning the place, that being a bold assumption of the Yankee to make out his case the more readily. Satanstoe, as it is little more than a good farm in extent, so it is little more than a particularly good farm in cultivation and embellishment.
I have been grateful for this advantage, and I trust it will appear, by evidence that will be here afforded, that I have not lived in a quarter of the world, or in an age, when and where, and to which great events have been altogether strangers. My earliest recollections, as a matter of course, are of Satanstoe and the domestic fireside.
Satanstoe has the place been called, therefore, from time immemorial; as time is immemorial in a country in which civilized time commenced not a century and a half ago: and Satanstoe it is called to-day.
The idea of land-hunting was not in the least disagreeable to me; nor was it unpleasant to think that I stood in reversion, or as heir, to twenty thousand acres of land, in addition to those of Satanstoe. Dirck and I talked the matter over, as we trotted on, until both of us began to regret that the expedition was so far in perspective.
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