Upham Corners, from its hilly site, freely intersected with rock ledges, was not well calculated for profitable farming.

The farms therein were mortgaged, and scarcely fed their tillers.

The water privileges were good and mills might have flourished, but the greater markets were too far away, and few workmen could be employed.
Most of the women at poor Abel Edwards's funeral were worn and old before their prime, their mouths sunken, wearing old women's caps over their locks at thirty.

Their decent best gowns showed that piteous conservation of poverty more painful almost than squalor.
The men were bent and gray with the unseen, but no less tangible, burdens of life.

Scarcely one there but bore, as poor Abel Edwards had borne, a mortgage among them.