Hiram Harvey Hurlburt: Passage About Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake’s Marriage

In the autumn before I was nine, I was sent to some lady tailoresses about one and a half miles to have a coat cut from cloth finished at my fathers and uncle’s clothing works. These ladies names were Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake. After I had obtained an entrance with my package to their apartment, Miss Bryant asked me, “Whose boy are you?” I answered Hiram Hurlburt’s boy. Then I was going to say something, but Miss Bryant pointing her finger at me, said “You will wait.” Then she said, “Your mother was a Bullard, she came from Athol, Mass. Now what did you wish to say?” Then I held my tongue, Mother wished me to ask you, if I might dig some sweet flag root on your ground? Miss Bryant said yes. But bring me a piece, measuring on her hand five or six inches long. I dug the root, which was milder in taste than usually found, not so pungent. When I gave the long piece to Miss Bryant she remarked, “That I was the first boy that had ever asked permission to dig roots there, they come and dug as they had a mind to.”