But the currency kept sinking till nobody would take it as a gift , and there was old Peter Goldthwaite , like Peter the second , with thousands in his strong-box and hardly a coat to his back . He went mad upon the strength of it . But never mind , Peter ; it is just the sort of capital for building castles in the air . '' `` The house will be down about our ears , '' cried Tabitha as the wind shook it with increasing violence . `` Let it fall , '' said Peter , folding his arms , as he seated himself upon the chest . `` No , no , my old friend Peter ! '' said John Brown . `` I have house-room for you and Tabby , and a safe vault for the chest of treasure . To-morrow we will try to come to an agreement about the sale of this old house ; real estate is well up , and I could afford you a pretty handsome price . '' `` And I , '' observed Peter Goldthwaite , with reviving spirits , `` have a plan for laying out the cash to great advantage . '' `` Why , as to that , '' muttered John Brown to himself , `` we must apply to the next court for a guardian to take care of the solid cash ; and if Peter insists upon speculating , he may do it to his heart 's content with old Peter Goldthwaite 's treasure . '' CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL . Passing a summer several years since at Edgartown , on the island of Martha 's Vineyard , I became acquainted with a certain carver of tombstones who had travelled and voyaged thither from the interior of Massachusetts in search of professional employment . The speculation had turned out so successful that my friend expected to transmute slate and marble into silver and gold to the amount of at least a thousand dollars during the few months of his sojourn at Nantucket and the Vineyard . The secluded life and the simple and primitive spirit which still characterizes the inhabitants of those islands , especially of Martha 's Vineyard , insure their dead friends a longer and dearer remembrance than the daily novelty and revolving bustle of the world can elsewhere afford to beings of the past . Yet , while every family is anxious to erect a memorial to its departed members , the untainted breath of Ocean bestows such health and length of days upon the people of the isles as would cause a melancholy dearth of business to a resident artist in that line . His own monument , recording his decease by starvation , would probably be an early specimen of his skill . Gravestones , therefore , have generally been an article of imported merchandise . In my walks through the burial-ground of Edgartown -- where the dead have lain so long that the soil , once enriched by their decay , has returned to its original barrenness -- in that ancient burial-ground I noticed much variety of monumental sculpture . The elder stones , dated a century back or more , have borders elaborately carved with flowers and are adorned with a multiplicity of death 's - heads , crossbones , scythes , hour-glasses , and other lugubrious emblems of mortality , with here and there a winged cherub to direct the mourner 's spirit upward .
These productions of Gothic taste must have been quite beyond the colonial skill of the day , and were probably XXXXX in London and brought across the ocean to commemorate the defunct worthies of this lonely isle .
Passing carved cried dated direct muttered recording returned said take