The parents of my young playfellow were of the humbler class in society;
they were industrious and prudent, and took great pains to teach him
what was right. They lived in the metropolis of New England, where my
schoolmate was born. His father wrought with the saw, the plane, the
hammer, and such tools as carpenters use about their business. His home
was a neat, wooden two-story house, in one of the streets of that part
of Boston which was generally known, when we were boys, by the name of
the MILL-POND. I suppose that most of my little readers who live in the
city can tell where it is. Many changes have taken place there since my
childhood. When I was a small boy it was called the _town_,--now we
never hear of it but as the _city_ of Boston. Its population has
increased rapidly; its territory has been extended; it has grown in
wealth, in splendor, in its means for mental and moral improvement; in
the number and convenience of its public schools,--the pride and
ornament, or the disgrace, of any place. Yes, Boston is not, in
appearance or in fact, what it once was.
But I am getting off from my story. I was saying that my young friend
resided on the "new-land"--no; the "Mill-Pond;"--well, it's all the
same--for when they dug down old Beacon Hill, they threw the dirt into
the Mill-Pond, and when it was filled up, or made land, the spot was
still known as the Mill-Pond, and oftentimes was called the new-land.
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