(I am speaking again for the father
of Seffy and with his hyperbole.) Save in one particular, it was like an
enemy's beautiful territory lying between one's less beautiful own and
the open sea--keeping one a poor inlander who is mad for the seas--whose
crops must either pass across the land of his adversary and pay tithes
to him, or go by long distances around him at the cost of greater tithes
to the soulless owners of the turnpikes--who aggravatingly fix a gate
each way to make their tithes more sure. So, I say, it was like having
the territory of his enemy lying between him and the deep water--save,
as I have also said, in one particular, to wit: that the owner--the
Sarah Pressel I have mentioned--was not Old Baumgartner's enemy.
In fact, they were tremendous friends. And it was by this
friendship--and one other thing which I mean to mention later--that Old
Baumgartner hoped, before he died, to attain the wish of his life, and
see, not only the Elysian pasture-field, but the whole of the adjoining
farm, with the line fences down, a part of his. The other thing I
promised to mention as an aid to this ambition--was Seffy.
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