IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET {MT-3)

1.0 ^^

I.I

1.25

itt

140

2.5
22

2.0

1.4

1.6

^>>/"Q

■b

^^Jf

CIHM/ICMH

Microfiche

Series.

CIHM/ICMH
Collection de
microfiches.

Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductlons historiques

1980

Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques

The Institute has attempted to obtain the best
original copy available for filming. Features of this
copy which may be bibliographically unique,
which may alter any of the images in the
reproduction, or which may significantly change
the usual method of filmihg, are checked below.

D
D
D
D
D

□

Coloured covers/
Couverture de couleur

I I Covers damaged/

Couverture endommagde

Covers restored and/or laminated/
Couverture restaurde et/ou pelliculde

I I Cover title missing/

Le titre de couverture manque

Coloured maps/

Cartes gdographiques en couleur

Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/
Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire)

Coloured plates and/or illustrations/
Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur

Bound with other material/
Reli6 avec d'autres documents

Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion
along interior margin/

La reliure serr6e peut causer de I'ombre ou de la
distortion le long de la marge int6rieure

Blank leaves added during restoration may
appear within the text. Whenever possible, these
have been omitted from filming/
II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes
lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte,
mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, ces pages n'ont
pas 6t6 filmdes.

Additional comments:/
Commentaires suppl6mentaires:

L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire
qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details
de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du
point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier
une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une
modification dans la mdthode normale de filmage
sont indiqu6s ci-dessous.

I I Coloured pages/

Pages de couleur

Pages damaged/
Pages endommagdes

Pages restored and/oi

Pages restaurdes et/ou pellicul6es

Pages discoloured, stained or foxei
Pages ddcolordes, tachetdes ou piqu^es

1 I Pages damaged/

I I Pages restored and/or laminated/

rr^ Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/

E
D
D
D
D

Pages detached/
Pages d6tach6es

Showthrough/
Transparence

Quality of print varies/
Qualit^ indgale de Timpression'

Includes supplementary material/
Comprend du matdriel supplementaire

Only edition available/
Seule 6dition disponible

Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata
slips, tissues, etn., have been refilmed to
ensure the best possible image/
Les pages totalement ou partiellement
obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure,
etc., ont 6X6 filmdes d nouveau de fagon d
obtenir la meilleure image possible.

10X

This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/

Ce document est filmd au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous.

14X

18X

22X

26X

30X

12X

16X

20X

24X

28X

32X

The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks
to the generosity of:

National Library of Canada

L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grSce ^ la
g6n6rosit6 de:

Bibliothdque nationale du Canada

The images appearing here are the best quality
possible considering the condition and legibility
of the original copy and in keeping with the
filming contract specifications.

Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le
plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et
de la nettet^ de l'exemplaire film6, et en
conformitd avec les conditions du contrat de
filmage.

Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed
beginning with the front cover and ending on
the last page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All
other original copies are filmed beginning on the
first page with a printed or illustrated impres-
sion, and ending on the last page with a printed
or illustrated impression.

Les exemplaires originaux dent la couverture en
papier est imprimde sont filmds zn commengant
par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la
dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte
d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second
plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires
originaux sont film6s en commenpant par la
premidre page qui comporte une empreinte
d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par
la dernidre page qui comporte une telle
empreinte.

The last recorded frame on each microficho
shall contain the symbol — ^> (meaning "CON-
TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"),
whichever applies.

Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la
dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le
cas: le symbols — *-signifie "A SUIVRE", le
symbols V signifie "FIN".

Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at
different reduction ratios. Those too large to be
entirely included in one exposure are filmed
beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to
right and top to bottom, as many frames as
required. The following diagrams illustrate the
method:

Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre
filmds A des taux de reduction diffdrents.
Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre
reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 A partir
de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche d droite,
et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre
d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants
illustrent la mdthode.

•

•ti*.

-ffKf

IE. A' ,,,,

:•' ■%

n^.^

COACHING

JUNE, 4883.

r N

i J,

i i

.\1

NOTE S

OF A

(I H

THROUGH THE

COACHING TRIP

CONNECTICUT VALLE'/ AND AMONG
THE GREEN MOUNTAINS,

BY THE

DWIGHT-VVIMAN CLUB,

JUNE, 1883.

"iiifry^^ —

(

£^/

(PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.)

. 1 \

Trout & Todd, Printebs, ^^ ^

Monetary Times Book and Job Printing Establishment,
61 & 66 Church Street, Toronto, Ont.

i v/

i I

NOTES

OF A

JUNE COACHING TRIP

IN NEW ENGLAND.

" Who, in this age when all things go by steam,
Recalls the stage-coach, with its four-horse team ?
Its sturdy driver — who remembers him ?
Or the old landlord, saturnine and grim."

TT 70ULD anybody like to know how we came to
^ ^ take this coaching trip ? It was not upon the
inspiration of William Black, or after the example of
Andrew Carnegie that it was done, though the experi-
ence of both these was in our mouths many a time and
oft before we fairly started. The idea originated, prob-
ably, with the President, who had become impressed
with the beauty of the Connecticut Valley, and had
dwelt, while in the Muskoka woods with the other
members of the Club in October last, upon the probable
attractions of that region in leafy June. Robert was
rejoiced at the notion, for his earlier years had been ,
spent thereabout ; Wiman took fire at the proposal of
of a Green Mountain ramble ; Theo. thought well of
it ; Willie warbled over it ; Wilbur welcomed it, and
Tom said "try it." As for the historian, when the

NOTES OF A

proposal was made to him to join the party as a guest,
his response was that of the delightful young woman
of the American Four-in-hand in Britain : *' Will I go
to Paradise for a fortnight on top of a coach ? Agents
of providence, I will."

The President explains the origin of this coaching
trip, and throws light upon the rise and progress of the
Club in a memorandum which is too interesting not to
append. It is as follows:

" On Tuesday morning, the fifth of June, 1883, four
friends from Toronto met, by appointment, four other
friends at a point in Massachusetts, for the purpose of
starting from that place on a coaching trip up the
Valley of the Connecticut River and through a portion
of the Green Mountain region, of Vermont. The trip
had been projected in October last, when this group
of eight were sitting round tiieir camp fire, near a
Muskoka lake.

For many years these New York friends had been
in the habit of meeting their Canadian comrades in
campmg expeditions to the northern woods of Canada
and to the innumerable lakes and streams with which
that region abounds. Sometimes in early June, the
season for trout-fishing, but more generally in October,
when the deer-hunting begins, and the Canadian woods,
in their autumn foliage, present such a scene of beauty
as can hardly be described either by brush or pen.

A few words will describe the formation of the
Dwight-Wiman Club, as it has come to be called, and
these few words may be of interest to those who know
something of fishing and hunting and camp life.

Between twenty and twenty-five years ago, two or
three of the members of the present party, D wight,
Wiman and Townsend, were wont to start from Toronto
in the summer, each with a fishing rod and box of
worms for bait, and visit such small streams as could
be reached in a day, partly by rail and partly by
waggon, spend the next day in following the stream as

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

een

ich

the

er,

ds,

ity

the
[nd

|ht,

ito

lid

las

far as they were able, and return home the third day
with our baskets generally pretty well filled with trout,
averaging in weight but a few ounces and rarely
weighing over half a pound. Reports reached us,
however, of grander sport than we had ever yet seen,
to be found far away in the Muskoka wilds. Lakes of
wonderful beauty, the scenery of which no lumberman
or settler had ever disfigured ; streams with waterfalls
and rapids, where trout w^eighing pounds instead of
ounces might be seen leaping on any June evening.
And we began to talk of a camping outfit and a trip to
those far-away lakes and streams. Our ideas went
beyond fish poles cut in the woods for the occasion ;
strong hooks and linen or cotton lines and earth-worm
bait ; and jerking the little trout out of the water over
our heads, to find them, if we found them at all, some-
where up on the stream's bank or out in the meadow
or in the alder bushes. Our ambition presently swelled
far beyond this primitive st^de of fishing, and we
began to discuss nicely jointed rods, weighing only a
few ounces, landing nets, reels, lines of a finer material,
and, more than all, oi flies instead of worms. -

All these dreams and discussions, carried on through
the winter, bore fruit one spring, and some i8 or 20
years ago, a party of four, we set out on our first camp-
ing expedition with guides and canoes, reaching the
shores of Trading Lake, 130 miles north of Toronto.
Since then, the party has augmented, and consisting
now of eight has paid annual visits to our northern
lakes and streams, each year pushing further into more
remote regions, and being generally rewarded by find-
ing such sport in fishing and hunting as can only
be found by penetrating the forest beyond the settler's
and lumberman's reach. And besides our pleasing
experience of capturing trout of two or three pounds in
weight, we found out the charm of camp life in the
lovely v/oods, the love for which grows stronger upon us
year by year."

The coaching trip being resolved upon, then

ensued discussions at Delmonico's and at the National

6 • ' NOTES OF A

Club, conferences by letter and by wire, as to
the when and the how of our getting away together.
Willie could not go in early June. '* Then we shan't
go at all," said Robert. " What ? Go without Willie !
Hamlet played without the Prince ? Not if we
know it." Wiman, bound not to be baulked of
the presence of all the party, urged ihe loth of May ;
but this was, happily, over-ruled, for, as we know by
this time, " May is a pious fraud of the almanac,"
while "June is full of invitations sweet," and as a re-
result of earnest representation and kindly concession
it was fixed that all hands should rendezvous at Green-
field, Mass., on the 4th June.

It had usually happened, when the Club went to the
woods, hunting or fishing, that the burden of providing
guides, tents, provisions, or what not, fell upon the
President and Tom. But in the present case the
fitness of things seemed to indicate Robert for the post
of General Manager. And he proved himself to be the
exact admixture of angel, statesman and uncommercial
traveller to fill the position. How well he planned,
and how resolutely he managed, to have a party,
numbering at various times from eight to thirteen, con-
veyed over some two hundred and twenty miles of hill
and vale ; fed the moment they were reasonably
hungry, refreshed when they were properly thirsty,
regaled with the most charming of guests, domiciled at
the best of hostelries, and " put through" all along on
schedule time, was nothing short of a marvel. No
wonder that the enthusiasm of the Vice-president
flashed out, now and again, with a pcean in his praise
d la Yale: "R-o-b-e-r-t," which the rest of us
chorrissed. ending with a " Tiger-r-r !"

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

on
No
ent
lise

Having left that city on Monday evening, June 4th,
the New York members of the Club reached Greenfield
late that night. The Canadian quartette left Toronto
at 10 a.m. on the same day and awoke at daylight
next morning, after passing through the Hoosac Tunnel,
to enjoy the varied beauties of the Deerfield River,
" rock, stream, and scaur." Here a brakesman of
mature years and unusually thoughtful aspect moved
about the car with the air of a man ill-used by fortune.
Clustered as we were at the front windows, with eager
eyes devouring the landscape one of our party put some
question to him which had reference to the locality, to
which came the measured answer : '* I cannot exactly
say; my connection with the road dates back only
eighteen months, I am sorry to be unable to inform you.'*
On asking the conductor what sort of a philosopher he
had got hold of for brakesman, he replied : " Oh, he's
just too stylish for anything ; he used to carry around
a chair with him, to sit in, and I had to speak to him
about it. He ought to be a professor, I judge."

In the country, writes Sir Charles Dilke of this
peaceful neighborhood, " districts that nestle in the
dells seem to have been there for ten centuries at least ;
and it gives one a shock to light upon such a place as
Bloody Brook, and to be told that only 200 years ago,
Captain Lathrop was slain here by red Indians, with
80 youth, 'the flower of Essex County,' as the old
Puritan histories say."

NOTES OF A

! I

Greenfield, Mass., 5.15 A.M., June 5TH.

TT ERE we are at the Mansion House, a roomy, cosy
-*" •*• hotel, and on its register the names of the four
fellows whom we most desire to see. Wilbur's first
impulse was to go and pull Willie out of bed, but
the landlord was equal to the occasion. " You can't
find any of these folks," said he. And sure enough the
'cute fellows had had their rooms numbered wrongly
on purpose to mislead us. Their boots in the passages
betrayed them, how^ever, and it was not long before we
were embracing one another. The coach was the next
object of interest, and there was no bath and no break-
fast for us Canucks until we had seen and clambered
all over it. We wished, in the spirit of terrestrial navi-
gators, to "survey our empire and behold our home."
A roomy, inviting, yielding structure it was, of the old
Concord kind, which was to be our home for the next
fortnight. Very much such a one in appearance as the
the last cartoon of Puck represents the Republican
Harmony Coach to be. There were the horses, six in
number : the leaders lively blacks, the wheelers steady
grays, the others bay. And Bert Faunce, the driver, w^ho
was to be our pilot, engineer. Dens ex machina in fact ;
it did not take long to demonstrate that he was the
right man for his place.

Faunce had a habit, born of his stage-driving ex-
perience no doubt, of looking us over every morning,
or after every stop, counting noses, as it were. Thus
far we had only eight noses to count, but farther on
they had become a dozen. These were the eight :
From New York, Erastus Wiman, vice-prest., Robert

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

J. Kimball, Wm. P. Raynor, Theodore Leeds. From
Toronto, H. P. Dwight, president, J. T. Townsend, W.
C. Matthews, James Hedley.

Breakfast, which is always of importance as afford-
ing a good foundation for the business of the day, was
on this Tuesday memorable apart from its component
viands. This is how it came about : Theodore had
gone to call upon his ward, a pupil at the Prospect
Hill Seminary, close by, and had taken Willie with
him. They had not returned when the remaining half
dozen of us, full of hope but full of hunger, sat down to
. ' break our fast. Mid-way of the meal arrived Theo.
breathless but radiant, to say that his neice and four
of her fellow pupils were coming to breakfast with us.

Places were at once made and enter, escorted

by Willie, five school-girls, bright with the freshness of
youth and freedom, winning in their simplicity of dress
and manner. Will any of the boys explain liow it was
that our masculine appetites deserted us from that
moment ? It was in vain that the girls declared they
had breakfc'Sted already; Wilbur tempted them with
pickles, W^iman pressed them with strawberries.
Robert ordered for their use all and every sort of fruit
the house afforded, and then Willie put a hot blanket
on all the poetry of the occasion by insisting on griddle-
cakes ; "shocking. Monsieur Raynor, shocking."

Leaving the breakfast room with a decorous reluc-
tance, we found our coach ready at the front portico,
and a goodly group of villagers to witness the unac-
customed spectacle. The ladies must of course be
seated outside, and as all the men could not sit with
them, four of us were detailed for inside duty to give
steadiness — shall we add sedateness ? — to the coach.

"^^V

I
' i

I 1

NOTES OF A

'* Partenza " from Robert, a crack of the whip and we
are off. A delicious morning, for

' " What is so rare as a day in June ?
Then, if ever, come perfect days."

Surely the residents of such beautiful villages as Green-
field may well furnish a gladsome answer to the ques-
tion of that modern pessimist who dolefully asks, " Is
life worth living ?" To breathe such air as that which
now blew its perfume about us, to look around upon
the vernal greenery and the smiling dwellings — old and
new ; to see the venerable elm trees that bring to
travellers in this New England memories of the Old,
and over all " The blue dome's measureless content,"
was happiness enough for us.

That was an adroit suggestion which led our caval-
cade up the slope to the Seminary gate, and gave the
pursuers of knowledge within a chance to see the
triumph of their class-mates without. A signal from
our lady passengers, which resembled an Alpine yodel-
call, was responded to from the windows where pupils
clustered with longing eyes, and presently Mrs. Parsons
herself came out, class-book in hand, to wish us a kind
good-speed. Then our driver gave the first of many
demonstrations of his skill by turning our forty odd
feet caravan in a roadway not twelve feet wide, without
crushing a sod or displacing a shrub, and away we
bowled for Brattleboro. '

It was not long before our "outsides" gave proof
of their abounding spirits ; Wiman could not rest con-
tent without some music, and this our guests were
willing to furnish. The literal songstresses began with
** Gentle Spring," a*; was apposite, while the imagina-

■*/

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

tive ones supplemented that with '* Juanita " and its
dreamy suggestion of moon-Ht scenes. Presently the
listeners below stairs were ordered aloft to exchange
with such of the male dwellers upon the roof as could
tear themselves away, and the chorusses appeared to
be strengthened by the exchange.

Noon came when we had reached what seemed an
idyllic spot for luncheon. All alighted upon a rustic
bridge, with a clump of trees just beyond, snug shelter
for the horses, and made our way over the fence, whose
bars willingly unlaced to admit the light footsteps of
the joyous trespassers, to a shady nook beside a gently
running brook. Down bundled the hamper, and out
of it came such an ample cloth, such dainty little
napkins, such tiny, thin-lipped glasses, as proved what
angel of the household had helped Robert to select
them. " Nothing allowed here that does not bear the
Club monogram," said the General Manager, and it ap-
peared to be even so. Were we hungry ? Well, may
be not ; but like the Englishman who was asked that
question, we "mighty soon could be" when so tooth-
some a display was made before us as presently came
from out that enchanted basket. There were lemons,
too, in plenty, and something of a rich claret color in
bottles, which may or may not have been raspberry
vinegar. But why linger ? We strolled and sang and
watched the rippling water with its tiny minnows^
until Wiman, as if to drive away the dejection which
began to appear when it was learned that here we must
part, called for a dance. And dance we did : " No sun
upon an Easter day was half so fine a sight," to the
sound of Allouette, chantez^ allouette^ and to that other
most delightful of French Canadian chansons :

NOTES OF A

i! !

A la claire funtainc ■.■.:":'''':■.■-■*•''''■■''

M' allant promcner, ;• v.

y ai tvouve V can si belle
Quefy mc siiis baivne.

Which some too precise translator has stiffly rendered
" As by the crystal fount I strayed." Willie related
his " ghastly grin " story, by request, and afterwards
performed, with great gravity, the basilicon-thaumatur-
gical feat of swallowing bits of cracker and then find-
ing them under a hat. But one of the girls was too
sharp for him and detected his trick ; she forbore,
however, to reveal it until he had finished his incanta-
tion. Then, at last, Roberts' lips formed the " Partenza"
that he would not speak, and the girls mounted the
waggon which our host at the hotel had himself oblig-
ingly driven after us, and returned to Prospect Hill,
singing us a parting song in response to the cheer we
gave them. ' : *.

The incident of thus entertaining these young ladies
was a delightful one to all the Club, but made
Theodore — for it was his proposal — " very happy."
Unlooked-for by us, and a surprise to them, it made a
most propitious start for our trip. Two days afterward
the mail made it clear to us that they had enjoyed it
too, for there reached the President at W^indsor a
graceful little note, of which hereafter. ,

The party was a i'*ifle less chatty when we re-
mounted, and the fust memo, in the historian's note-
book just here happens, not inaptly, to concern a
cemetery, in which the female names upon " the stones
which named the under-lying dead " were the Puritan
ones of Susanna, Ruth, Abigail, Eunice and the like.
It must not be understood that there was any King

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

Richard among us, to say, " Of comfort no man speak;,
let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs," because
our cheery lassies were gone. No, no, perish the
thought, in this bright sun-shine. Only, as has been
said, we were just a little distrait, until some one ful-
minated a conundrum as to the relative importance of
chambermaid, bell-boy, &c., at the hotel we had just
left. Everybody "gave it up," and then it was
recalled by one of the end-men of the troupe that the
printed notices in the bedrooms of the Mansion House
contained the following instructions for the use of the
electric bells by guests : ;, ■^/:.^-\^^:--\

*' Touch once for bell-boy. . -\ .^ , . , t ;;
Twice for ige-water.
Three times for towels.
Four times for chambermaid."
Showing, amongst other things, that travellers there-
about made greater demand for ice-water than tliey
did for towels. We had now crossed the line which
separated Guilford township from that of Brattleboro
— the municipal divisions which in Canada are called
townships are here known as towns— and by half-past
two we reached tidy, busy, Brattleboro, named after
Col. Brattle, a distinguished Bostonian, in by-gone
years one of the original proprietors of the village.
At the Brooks House, "the best in Vermont," say
the guide-books, and we did not doubt it, we found
Kimball's friends. Senator Thatcher of the Benning-
ton Bank, Col. Estey, Col. Fuller, and Col. Hooker,
no relative of "Fighting Joe" Hooker of Monte-
rey and Antietam, (born at • Old Hadley, across
the river) but who looked as if, should occasion
require, he could show himself no mere paper knight.

NOTES OF A

The Phoenix newspaper said, this week, that " Col.
" Hooker unblushingly claims to have had a greater
" proportion of ladies in his Memorial Day audience at
" Arlington than any other orator in the State ;" on
which the Argus and Patriot declares, that "blushing
" never was the special forte of the genial and wide-
" awake Colonel." The Argus must have closed some
Oi its many eyes to the Colonel's merits, for the historian
has seen his bronzed cheek flush very prettily.

Col. Estey and his friends, with welcome attention,
brought carriages and took the Club for a most enjoy-
able drive along the Whetstone Brook which affords
good water-power, in the park upon the heights which
surround the village, and what a lovely view it was
that met our eyes as we looked down. We were
also taken to the Estey Organ Works, said to be
the largest in the world, and to the cemetery. Con-
spicuous here was the monument to James Fisk, jr.,
who made himself a name by his career in New York
that seemed poorly to warrant the grief sought to be
expressed by the marble figures of Navigation, Com-
merce and the like, which surround his tomb.

There is, to all appearance, no poverty in Brattle-
boro ; " and no whiskey," added our informant, not
unwisely connecting the two evils in a New England
epigram. Contentment and neatness, born of industry
and taste, showed in the trim cottage, flower-sur-
rounded, as well as in the lordly mansion. Fort
Dummer, built by the Legislature of Massachusetts
about 1724, stood near the present village ; and it is
related with pride that tho' often attacked by hostile
Indians it was never lost. It had been arranged that
Col. Hooker should here become one of our party for

! I

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

t "Col.
greater
tence at
te;" on
)lushing
d wide-
id some
istorian

tention,
t enjoy-

aflfords
s which

it was
e were
i to be
'. Con-
isk, jr.,
w York
tit to be
1, Com-

Brattle-
nt, not
England
ndustry
v^er-sur-
Fort
ihusetts
id it is
hostile
ed that
arty for

the drive to Bellows Falls or Windsor, but a sad be-
reavement deprived us of his company, a circumstance
that all who met him sincerely regretted. Col. Estey,
too, set out that night to catch the steamer to cross the
the Atlantic. We walked to, but did not enter, the
Vermont Asylum for Insane, an institution carried on
by private enterprise but under State supervision. Its
grounds are handsome ; the hedges were in places five
feet high and nearly six feet across.

Brattleboro, Vt., June 6th. ,
AT I o a.m. on Wednesday the 6th, we parted from
'^^ Boniface Goodhill and left Brattleboro, having
Senator Thatcher on top of the coach. Along the
river which separates the two States we bowled on
smooth roads, the trees upon the green hills of New
Hampshire nodding welcomes to us as we rode. The
view upon this stretch of country, of the Connecticut
River, the slopes of the Verds Monts, and the more dis-
tant New Hampshire hills, was delightsome. Some
seven miles from Brattleboro the valley widens and the
picture has a broader scope. " But on and up, where
nature's heart beats strong amid the hills," is the
breezy invitation of a modern writer — the response to
it was written three hundred years before by Kit
Marlowe :

*' And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

Woods or steepy mountains yields."

That this is no settlement of yesterday is proved by
the moss-grown and venerable stone walls which mark

NOTES OF A

ililt

I 1

the roads and bound the fields. That it is aiso, mainly,
a settlement of old people, people whose sons have left
their hill-side farms and gone to make their way in
cities further south or to work the prairie lands of the
Great West, is only too apparent from the relative
scarcity of young men. Statistics show, that New
England, certainly Vermont, is not increasing in popu-
lation, or very slightly if at all. The working popula-
tion of the manufacturing towns and villages is swelled
by an influx of French Canadians from the near-by
Province of Quebec, or of Blue-noses from the
Pjovinces across the Bay of Fundy. Agriculture, pur-
sued here, though it is with a diligence and a "faculty"
for which the Down -Easter is proverbial, has no such
prizes for the farmer as are yielded by the rich prairie
lands of the West where, speaking figuratively " you
have only to tickle the earth with a hoe to see it blossom
with a harvest." . ^ , .

Resting a while at Putney, eii route, long enough to
refresh the horses and ourselves, we found, lounging
upon the broad verandah of the inn or leaning out of
the windows of what, in a non-teetotal State, would be
the bar-room, some specimens of the bar-room loafer of
a temperance kind ; one, also, who gave strong symp-
toms, in eyes and breath, of potations stronger than
iced tea, wherever he got them. On bandying words
with these sun-dried drones, we found them quaint in
attempts at the sort of wit abounding in Sam Slick.

" Rude poets of the tavern hearth,
Squandering your unquoted mirth
Which keeps the ground and never soars
While Jake retorts and Reuben roars." ^

We discovered, too, when we had grown a little more

i ' ■^-.

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

familiar with the shirt-sleeved landlord, that ** we du
sometimes keep medicated leme.xiade here for travellers
lik' yeou." Here was the secret of the lounger's thick
tongue.

Some miles further on we halted for luncheon be-
side a large, white farm house with green blinds, — the
farm houses hereabout are almost all large, and white,
and clean but the outbuildings are, from an insurer's
point of view, alarmingly close to the dwellings ; the
driving shed, barn and stables being often, indeed, a
continuous range of buildings or else connected en
echelon. Elms fifty feet high made perfect shade for us
upon the soft lawn which sloped away from the flower-
plots under the windows, and with the eyes of hungry
men one half of the party watched the other half spread
our canned chicken and prawns, our Roquefort and
Stilton cheese upon the cloth. Although there were no
women kind in sight — rather odd, we thought, consider-
ing that in New England the women are said to pre-
ponderate — we were served with delicious milk and
butter, made the more attractive by the ice we had
brought from Putney. The grave but civil householder
also helped Faunce to look after the horses, with a soli-
citude which proved that he must have possessed the
phrenological bump which Fowler and Wells call ** love
of animals," strongly developed. A slight rain fell
while we lay stretched under the dense maple trees, but
no one seemed to heed it, except perhaps Theo., whose
silk hat had been tossed, by ruthless hands, on top of
the coach, and our kind Senator, who warned the boys
against taking their siesta upon damp grass.

Up and on into Westminster town, and we were
presently aware of an old lady, springing from her

NOTES OF A

! I

chair on the piazza, amidst a group of younger folk, and
waving her knitting with an impulsive delight on see-
ing our vehicle, as if reminded of '* old coaching days."

Getting into Westminster village in the afternoon, a
straggling dreamy-looking place, the General Manager,
with his usual thoughtfulness, while the horses were
being watered ran into a shop to get some lemons, and
emerged presently carrying a huge jug of lemonade.
The unusual and scarcely aesthetic shape of the jug
elicited from the boys varied comments, corresponding
to their estimates of art and of delicacy. Wiman de-
clared that such a jug was frightful, and so it must
have been, for a young lady, " sole heiress of the house
and heart," possibly, of a mansion under whose trees
we lounged, ran when she saw it. But our good friend
the Senator, who would not be affrighted from his
serenity by a trifle, declared it calmly to be " all right,"
although he afterwards laughed as heartily as the rest
of the party at Robert's gravity amid the confusion of
the rest. The householder — whose face was round and
rosy enough to be a laughing one, though this it was
not — when he announced that he had a Jersey calf in
his stable, led Robert captive at his will, and, presently,
behold the General Manager, all his responsibilities
foigot, expounding pedigrees to the listening group and
twisting the tail of the little animal to be assured that
the escutcheon was comme ilfaut.

During one of our stops to rest on the long climb
to this point, the driver told us of the frightful murder
of a girl lodger, committed near Stowe, a year ago, by
a Mrs. Meeker and her weak-minded son. We saw
that son, next day, in the prison at Windsor, where he
was serving his term, his mother having been hung,

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

and there was nothing in his weak but not bad face to
indicate a murderous nature.

About five in the afternoon we reached Bellows
Falls and found letters and telegrams awaiting us at
Towns' Hotel. Those of the party who had no busi-
ness letters to write strolled down to the falls, whose
sound could be heard from our windows. When we
saw the chasm and the huge rocks which formed the
uneasy bed of the river or distorted its angry waters,
(the river falls 40 feet in half a mile) forming dark pools
here and there, we could believe that, long ago, this
was a favorite Indian resort because of the numbers of
salmon and shad found near the foaming rapids. Now
there is a fringe of factories along the bank below the
bridge, and a gang of men were blasting the rock to
admit a spur of the Cheshire Railway for the conveni-
ence of loading and discharging freight at the mills.
Returning to the village we heard, as we passed their
boarding houses, the familiar patois of the French
Canadians who form a good portion of its artisan popu-
lation.

Charlestown, N. H., June 7th.

'TEARING coach at ten in the morning, we crossed the
-*■ riverinto New Hampshire. The day was bright and
warm and the dust thick enough to make the linen
dusters we had bought at the Falls very comforting.
From here to Windsor we had Vermont and the
Connecticut on our left, and got some lovely glimpses
of landscape, with the sloping valleys of the Granite
State to the eastward, the river and the Vermont hills to
the west. At our first halting place, a substantial stone
horse-trough, fed from a spring, bore an inscription,

NOTES OF A

1 1

! I

** Presented to Old No. 4," by one of her grateful
sons. The meaning of the inscription is plain when
we learn that the town of Charlestown, N. H., was
settled under the authority and by the people of
Massachusetts in 1740, and was named " Number
Four," being re-named, some years afterward to do
honor to Commodore Sir Charles Knowles. Observing
the green meadows and the comfortable old homes
under grand elms, we fell to speculating upon the
character of their occupants, and Theo., an authority
on New England, from persistently dwelling on the
attractions offered by this section of country to a tour-
ist on horseback, began to be suspected of having done
some sparking hereabout at some previous time. This,
however, he proposed as a wager, viz : that throughout
this day's drive, beans might be depended on as a
staple dish at any of the farm houses, and that fish-
balls would certainly be found upon the Sunday break-
fast table at any house we passed.

There are three pleasant villages and three inns in
the long river-town of Charlestown, says the guide
book. At which of the three villages we stopped, the
historian does not know, but it must have been the
prettiest ; and we found one attractive inn, kept by
Mr. White. But no four walls could contain us, with
such an out-door scene as here met the eye : a long,
wide, elm-shaded street, whose every tree seemed to
wave us, from the past, a stately welcome ; quaint
houses, of last century style, of wood or rubble masonry,
whose color was softened by age or by the moss which
here and there covered its surface ; newer houses, of
the prim and plain order, which had the " pizen-clean *'
look which Mrs. Stowe or some late writer alleges to

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

r grateful
ilain when
^, H., was
people of
" Number
ard to do
Observing
old homes
upon the
n authority
ing on the
y to a tour-
laving done
ime. This,
throughout
sd on as a
d that fish-
nday break-

iree inns in
i the guide
stopped, the
'^e been the
in, kept by
ain us, with
jye : a long,
i seemed to
me ; quaint
ble masonry,
moss which
ir houses, of
3izen-clean **
2r alleges to

be characteristic of New England houses. Then, the
dwellings according to the modern architect, of odd,
not to say affected shape, a revolt against the severity
of a former generation, and pointed in all imaginable
colors, from warm gray, or shrimp pink, or sage green,
to the very latest craze — a " pumpkin yellow " with
brown or claret *' trimmings," with flame-colored chairs
on the verandahs.

Dwight and Hedley set out to see all they could of
the place ; peeped into the school house — all girl pupils,
eating their lunch or conning their lessons, for it was
recess ; passed house after house on a side street where
there was not a creature in sight to break the solitude
and scarcely a sound to break the stillness. Espying
a hedge which enclosed grounds of more than usual
extent and pretension, they entered the iron gate and
found greenhouses, fish-ponds, stables and a mansion,
all indicative of weclth and comfort. Seeking an exit,
they found, when the front of the dwelling was reached,
two elderly gentlemeii seated on the verandah.
One of these courteously approached, and proved to be
the owner of the property, Mr. Sherman Paris, a re-
tired New York merchant, who had come up to his
country house in advance of his family. He insisted
that the two trespassers should come in and that the
remainder of the party should be brought in, retaining,
vi et armis, the President of the Club as a hostage for
the rest. While Hedley went in search of the party,
Dwight was seated by the other occupant of the
verandah, whose only name, so far as we were informed
was '* Peter, a New Hampshire farmer, seventy years
of age."

A stalwart, silent, bronzed son of the soil he

NOTES OF A

was, with a Daniel Webster face and a voice as deep
as the neighboring Black River. Soon, the coachers
gathered in answer to the hospitable call, and as we
were one by one introduced the host, though manifestly
taken with Wiman's cheerful readiness of speech and
Townsend's Old Country calm, and selecting Theodore,
with his canary-colored duster and tall hat for " the
parson," placed his hand on Willie's shoulder the
moment he appeared, and said " Well, now, you're the
man I want ; come right along and I guess we'll have
a good time." The ripple of amusement that glanced
along the group at this, told how truly the shrewd old
gentleman had hit upon the life of the party. With a
heartiness and lack of ceremony that betokened a gen-
tleman of the old school, with a touch of the South-
ern planter, Mr. Paris placed the best in his house at
our disposal, and entertained us royally for an hour.
Indeed, he would scarcely let us away, and we hardly
wanted to go away. But discipline had to be maintained
and so we resumed our drive.

It was long past two when the coach stopped for
luncheon, and after remounting we almost welcomed
the slight shower that came to cool the air and lay the
dust. Our rest had been close by a little brook.

" A gravelly bai.k, a sudden flash of green,
A tangled wocd, a glittering stream that flows."

Passing West Claremont at about 3.30, we were in full
view of Mount Ascutney, which, since noon, had
" heaved high his forehead " and at 5.30 came in sight
of Windsor, nestling prettily among the hills and
beside the river.

■41^

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

e as deep
J coachers
and as we
manifestly
3eech and
Theodore,
t for "the
>ulder the
you're the
we'll have
it glanced
hrewd old
. With a
led a gen-
the South-
5 house at
an hour,
we hardly
laintained

opped for
welcomed
id lay the
ok.

sre in full
oon, had
in sight
hills and

Windsor, Vt., Thursday, June 7TH.

T T was of interest to learn that this was the point at
-*• which the deputies of the Vermont towns adopted
the constitution of the State in July, 1777, alter the
battle of Ticondero^^a ; but one may be pardoned for
saying that it was of more moment to us in June, 1883,
as being the spot where Robert used, as a boy, to
paddle his boat or swim in the Connecticut thirty years
before, and as being the seat of our guest the Senator's
duties on the morrow.

We were driven at once to the State Prison, which
is situated here. It should be said, perhaps, in explan
ation of the last sentence, lest this history should fall
into the hands of any person with an ill-balanced or
suspicious mind, that we were not forcibly detained,
but that our companion, Senator Thatcher, is Chair-
man of the Board of State Commissioners, and makes
his head quarters at the cosy office of the Windsor
prison when on his official visits. The party was
shown through the building which had 75 or 80 in-
mates, all or nearly all engaged in making shoes.

B}?- division of labor and the use of modern machin-
ery, the making of shoes is greatly changed from the
cramped and sedentary employment of a former day.
When the upper leather and findings have been cut to
pattern, then stitched and eye-letted by machines, the
laster gets hold of them and with some assistance from
a thing like a vise gets them into a half-human shape,
and another fitter " tacks " the sole to its proper place
on the last. Then they are tossed, lasts and all, into a
huge box, which, when full, is wheeled up to a terrific
machine which whirrs and groans like a dyspeptic

NOTES OF A

: I

demon and seems to shake the solid earth. This is
the '• pegger." Once here, the boots are seized, one at
a time, by a brawny worker, (who gives brief and
moody looks at us, as if he would like to put each
visitor through the machine) and "Tr-r-r-r-r-ip-thump !"
12 seconds and the sole is on. There was a screw-
wire machine and a Mackay sewer, and — but here the
gaoler called us to go below stairs. While we were
still in the court-yard the men passed, in single file, to
their cells ; the face of one, a bank robber, haunted
Wiman all the night, it was the face of one of whom,
as the Country Parson says, more might have been
made.

Then we went to the hotel, the Windsor Hotel,
kept by a warm hearted and able bodied Burlington
man, and were instantly at home. A peck measure of
letters and telegrams was awaiting us here, none of
them disquieting, many of them welcome and amusing.
Mr. Gooderham and other Toronto friends had, we
found, remembered us ; and at the New York end, too,
of the invisible line with which our heart strings were
interlaced, there were those who greeted us lovingly.
It was here that the letter of the Prospect Hill girls
reached the party, and hungry as they were, not a man
of them stirred a step towards the dining room till the
dainty little note was read :

"From P. H. S.,

To THE D. W. C—

" We all send our heartfelt thanks for our de-
lightful entertainment of Tuesday, and truly hope
that this excursion will prove as successful as
your ' last trip to Europe.' "

The last four words proved the young ladies not unob-

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

1. This is
zed, one at
brief and
put each
p-thump !"
3 a screw-
it here the
B we were
gle file, to
r, haunted
of whom,
have been

sor Hotel,
Burlington
neasure of
e, none of
i amusing,
had, we
end, too,
rmgs were
lovingly.
Hill girls
lot a man
m till the

de-

)pe

lot unob-

servant of Club chaff and by no means deficient
in humor. It has already been said that one of them
had detected Willie in his legerdemain. This was Miss
Richmond, who was, however, considerate of the con-
juror's feelings. Miss Berge made a very prudent
custodian of the packing-case of confectionery Theo
had brought along. We guessed that Miss Lilly and
Miss Curtis were the contralti of the party; but we
felt certain, even on so short acquaintance, that Miss
Hartwell was a soprano in more than voice ; and the
old boy to whom she confided her dawning interest
(as a student) in Wordsworth's poetry, predicts that
that interest will deepen.

It is not becoming, it is true, to dwell much on the
pleasures of the table ; it is indeed scarcely fair to the
other good hostelries we found, before and after, to
particularize the viands here, but the historian will
risk — and Willie or Wilbur will back him — the state-
ment thai the strawberry pie we had on Thursday
night was ambrosia itself. And then, to have Jersey
cream on the table in jugs, not liqueur mugs, and the
unusual pleasure of a beaming landlord standing near
by coaxing us to "tuck in," and sending the waiters
out for more cream ! It was something like what the
fellow in the play calls a delirious joy. D wight would
have served for a statue (seated) of Tantalus, as after
a meal fit for any of the gods, he tasted a morsel of the
pie, and then turned cO Matthews with suppressed
yearning to ask, mournfully, why he had not told about
this pie earlier in the course of the meal.

Windsor has a remarkably good building for her
Post Office and Court House, and for it she is possibly
indebted to Hon. W. M. Evarts, the distinguished

NOTES OF A

: !

\y^

statesman and orator whose country seat is close by.
We were taken to see a portion of his estate — he
possesses some 800 acres here — and the three dweUings^
of somewhat ancient date, two of them occupied by
his relatives. Across the village street stood a majestic
elm, the largest in the country. There are handsome
horses hereabout ; we saw some specimens of them,^
and Wilbur and Dwight went, late in the evening, by
request and a light buggy, some miles into the country '
to see a span which had been mentioned to Wiman,
and the price of which seemed a little " steep " — $1400,

Here we were glad to encounter, for a too brief
time, Col. John B. Mead, of Randolph, Kimball's
brother-in-law, on his way to take the steamer City of
Rome for England, bent on the purchase of an addition
to the herds of red-polled cattle jointly kept by
them at the Randolph farm. It was annoying to
learn, as we afterwards did by telegraph, that his
steamer had been detained a whole day by getting
aground in New York Harbor, when we might
have had just so much more of his welcome com-
pany. Here, too, we met the facile representative
of the Boston jfonrnal, Mr. Forbes, who was to have
accompanied us for a day or two but was called away
to attend some Commencement exercises or town meet-
ings, or female seminar}^ openings — more agreeable,
this last, than either of the others, we ventured to
guess. However, in a comrade's spirit he gave us a
light-hearted send-off in the columns of the good old
journal.

The clang of a steam printing press, turning out
the Vermont Journal, across lots from the hotel was
not conducive to sleep, so four of us sat down in

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

is close by,
estate — he
;e dwellings^
occupied by
i a majestic
2 handsome
ns of them^
evening, by
the country

to Wiman,
p"— $1400.

a too brief
, Kimball's
mer City of
an addition
iy kept by
noying to
, that his
by getting
we might
;ome com-
>resentative
as to have
:ailed away
town meet-
agreeable,
entured to
gave us a
e good old

Lirning out
hotel was
: down in

Wiman's room to play euchre. We were turned out of
that — not by Wiman ; no, not likely, Chassie dear — but
by his Mentor, and assembled in Matthews'. Out of
this in turn, we were chased, by the ever vigilant
Robert, who talked unwelcome platitudes about early
rising, late hours, disturbing the house, &c., and even
cavilled at our harmless, necessary lager beer which
some considerate gentleman had sent over to us for
a " blow out." This was felt to be a shame, inasmuch
as we had never objected to his drinking as much of
his favorite beverage, hot water, as he liked. But
Willie, who at the time held a strong hand and had a
firm grip of his pipe, was able to retort upon him :

" * * * Blast the man, with curses loud and deep
Who first invented and went round advising
That artificial cut-off, early rising." * ,

■,-"•,■'■ '''■:
*

Friday, June 8th.

Albert B. Chandler and Horace J. Morse joined us
at breakfast, to the general delight, having arrived
during the night from New York. Senator Thatcher
left the party here, and we parted from him with real
regret, for his sociable, cordial temper and his know-
ledge of places as well as events in old Vermont, had
made him a most welcome and agreeable companion.

It was a glorious morning when we bade good-bye
to the friendly people of Windsor and mounted our
coach at seven for the forty mile drive to West
Randolph, to be made in time for supper.

" Four miles from Windsor we bought the horns."
So stands the entry in the official note book of the

NOTES OF A

Ml I

trip ; and trifling though it seems, there is probably no
other that brings to mind more odd scenes, for no in-
vestment, surely, of thirty cents, ever brought so much
amusement, as did these little tin dinner-horns :
"Toot-toot, too-e-wee," would go Robert's note as
we passed some shirt-sleeved figure leisurely hoeing
corn in the field some rods away. Then the figure
would turn, never hurriedly, shade its eyes with
its hand and gaze long enough to take stock of the six
horses and dozen men filling the air with dust and
devilment and waving handkerchiefs, and would —
coolly go on hoeing ! Further on, " Taran-ta-ra-a,"
from the stentorian lungs of Matthews, would wake the
echoes, and the workers in the fields would respond
with a halloo or a wave of the hand. One old boy, a
regular yosh Whitcomb, by the road side, attracted by
Morse's " Blaa-blaa-toot-toot," in imitation of a Penn-
sylvania railway whistle, put his thumbs in his sus-
pender fronts and called to us, with a centennial
smile, "Whoy ! y' aint hevin' no fun nor nothin', be
ye ! So-long, boys, so-long."

Stone walls, stump fences, occasionally a wire
railing, rarely a rail fence separated the road from
the fields or these from each other, and it was in-
dicative of the plentifulness of slate stone that the
fence posts were often of that material, undressed, with
holes drilled for the wire stringers. Slate roofs were
put upon even barns and sheds. We passed slate
quarries here and there, some of them abandoned,
others in full swing with the roughest of wooden
shanties as quarters for the laborers. VerL )nt is
noted for its quarries of stone and slate and marble, and
the great length of stones used as foundation for the

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

wooden houses was frequently remarked. New Hamp-
shire granite was seen in the grave-yard monuments",
but the white marble of this State was mostly used for
head stones. Rows of these, parallel to the road,
could sometimes be discerned from the coach, apper-
taining to families whose plots were side by side ; as
many as six or eight of one name were thus placed in a
row in one cemetery. Putnam, Eaton, Hubbard,
Holden, Sturtevant, Brockway, w^ere names which told
of New Englanders of a former generation.

The rain of the previous day had laid the dust and
fre jhened the abundant verdure, so that the drive was
perfect. The trees were odorous, and the scent of the
lilacs or honeysuckles, and " the sweet door-way greet-
ing of the rose," hard by the dwellings, came to us on
the light air that stirred the leaves. It seemed to our
delighted eyes that nothing was wanting to complete
the view of wood and field, sky, and stream, and to
make this day's excursion " Altogether lovely." We had
not bound ourselves by any vow, as Andrew Carnegie's
party did, that everything which happened should be
hailed as deserving this sweeping phrase. But this
morning we found everything to justify it. We w^ere
too late to loiter " in sugar camps, when south and
warm the winds of March are blowing, and sweetly
from its thawing veins the maple's blood is flowing,"
and our party missed the apple-blossoms here, which
were to be seen, however, when we had got three de-
grees farther north. But there could be nothing else,
could there ? which we had not in this daily panorama.

** You 're in the Harper and Scribner country now,
Jimmy, keep your pastoral eye open," was Willie's
warning. Yes, Willie love, this is also the Hawthorne

! I

NOTES OF A

and Bryant country, the Hiram Powers and the Ethan
Allen country, the Mormon Joe Smith and the " Pusley "
Warner country, if the delightful author of " My
Summer in a Garden," will forgive the mention of him
along with Joe. And the scribe might further reply
that it was no wonder the admirable magazines
named were widely read, when they had such scenes
and incidents to describe as this country afforded.

But what was that, like an animated stump, up-end-
ing itself in the field yonder? Hedley's woodcraft
was at fault, but some of the others, notably Tom,
smiled superior and explained that "the wood-chuck
like a hermit gray " which " peeped from the door-way
of his cell" was the moving thing so nearly the color
of the earth. " Did you ever see a bobolink?" asked
Chandler, and at least one subdued Canuck had to
answer " no," but excused himself by telling what he
had read of the habits of that lacrosse-player of the
sparrow kind. ^ ' - ;

" 'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year,
Gladness on wings, the bob-o-link is here."

And sure enough there is one, flitting over our heads

and justifying Hosea Biglow's description. The note

is charming and recalls the lark that at Heaven's gate

sings. But O, will a bird's note ever again cause such

a thrill as that felt when standing one summer. day

amid the daisies on the very Banks o' Ayr, we heard

from out the azure, the

" Neibor sweet,
The bonny lark, companion meet.
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,

Wi' speckled breast
When upward springing, blithe, to greet

The purpling east."

""■'"'■"I" »■""• -'j-iiiaa

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

Bowling along at a good rate, in view of our long drive
and in high anticipation of what was at the end of it,
we came, at 11. 15 to Woodstock, in the Valley of the
Otta-Queechee, or White River. The shire-town of
Windsor County, with Mount Tom for a back ground,
is famed among other things as being the birth place
of Hiram Powers the sculptor. In the centre of the
long street stood a grove of maples, having the Eagle
Hotel on one side of the oval enclosure dignified with
the name of park. The hotel-keeper's description in-
duced Dwight and Robert to drive out to the handsome
place of Mr. Frederick Billings, of Northern Pacific
Railway celebrity, which was well worth the visit.
While they were gone, up drove Mr. Billings himself,
to chat cheerily with Wiman and others of the party
and to express his regret that our stay was too brief to
admit of his entertaining us as he would like to do.
Leaving Woodstock at 12.45 fortified by some sand-
wiches and lemonade, we had covered the half of our
day's journey when a halt was made in Pomfret Town,
four miles out, in front of the cosy, old-fashioned home
of Samuel Reynolds Gilbert, a farmer of whom more
anon.

** Lost Dw. and Theo. along here," says the record,
and truly we thought they were lost. These two Alpine
and Laurentian pedestrians started in advance of the
coach, somewhat proud of their walking powers, per-
haps, and anxious, as Dwight modestly expressed it,
to find a good place for lunch. Engrossed in reminis-
cences of the Club's last trip to Europe and confident
in their skill as pioneers, they took a wrong road when
they came to a " fork." In the bliss of ignorance and
the perspiring glow of mens conscia recti, the twain

! <

NOTES OF A

sat down when,- after having covered several miles
they found a suitable pic-nic ground, and waited
patiently for the coach. Meanwhile the wheels of
said coach, like Artemas Ward's world, were " re-
solvin' around on their own axletrees, subject to the
cons'tution of the United States," on a road which led
away from them at an angle of some twenty-five de-
grees. Here was a rum go ! as Mr. Toby Veller might
have said. ■ . ' • -

But Robert was equal to the occasion : Mr.
Gilbert had a horse and buggy, likewise a son who
had some "faculty" about him. The young man was
despatched at the horse's "best licks" back to the
fork of the road, and thence to the halting place of the
pedestrians, who by this time were growing uneasy as
well as hungry. The lad advised them, shrewdly
enough, to cut across country and rejoin us, instead of
following the road, to do which last meant too much,
in lime and space. They obeyed, and climbed the hill
toward us. In the mean time lunch had been spread
on Mr. Gilbert's convenient piles of planks, under trees
by the stream, and that veteran brought us milk and
butter with an unsparing hand. Morse played gargon
for the rest, and seemed especially pleased to see
Chandler "tuck in " as if the Green Mountain air did
him good.

" Voulez vous du pate de shrimp ?" the gargon would
say in his choicest Wall Street patois.

" Vous just bettez your life," would come from Willie,
with his eyes full of laughter and his mouth of chicken.

"Passez moi a fresh bouteille du vin de claret,"
might be heard from Matthews, adding, " and if Hedley

has g(
screw.'
At
dorff
knife
amuse]
ToJ
attend]
sound

Wil
hke a
He str
agreea
ever, t
Willie
as the^
belief i
Mr. G
centur
his fat
with r
some
streng
crowd
ful ey
rolled
of dii
recog
at on
H
the
said
the 1

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

has got his business clothes on, get me his cork-
screw."

At this Robert would chime in, in approved Ollen-
dorff French, demanding "the loan of the iron pocket-
knife of the German carpenter," and creating great
amusement thereby.

Tom refused, in spite of his continental experience, to
attend to any request that was not conveyed in good
sound English.

Wiman had finished first, and was wandering about^
like a latter-day Athenian, seeking some new thing.
He strode to the open door of the house and did the
agreeable to the two daughters within, who were, how-
ever, too busy with household affairs to flirt, as in fact
Willie and his friends found ; and who listened demurely
as they sewed, with an air which indicated only a partial
belief in the yarns we told of the trip and of one another.
Mr. Gilbert told us that the house was as old as the
century, that he had lived in it all his life, and so had
his father before him. The old man grew garrulous
with recollections of his young days and indulged in
some gymnastic feats to pass the time and show his
strength, ending by offering to run any man in the
crowd a race backwards. Just then, Kimball's watch-^
ful eye espied two figures, with coats off and trowsers
rolled up, toiling along in the hot sun towards the goal
of dinner. A shout went up from all hands as we
recognized Leeds and D wight, and the word was at
at once given, (at 3.15 p.m.) " All aboard."

Having parried, as best they might, the chaff which
the others launched at their escapade, either of them
said but little till he had despatched, inside the coach,
the toothsome lunch which the forgiving Robert had

NOTES OF A

' iiiiir

lii

111

i III

IHi

II ' 'ijl

i::ll!illi!

' k^ ^..'tSSSBBBBHBI

caused to be made ready for their waiting appetites.
Then, being fortified, and fighting as it were on a full
stomach, Dwight delivered an admirably logical dis-
course, which showed him a firm believer in the doctrine
of compensations. '• I tell you, boys," said he, after
looking at his watch and stretching his tired legs upon
the opposite seat, *' this delay will be compensated for
by making our drive during the latter part of the day
even more pleasant than it would otherwise have been.
Don't you see," he continued in his earnest way, •' how
delightful it is going to be to conclude our day's journey
in the cool of the evening with the sunset around us,
and drive into Randolph as the dew falls ?" *' Yes,"
retorted Robert, " and my mother's dinner spoiled by
being kept waiting ! You forget our time-table."
Theodore's face wore a peaceful smile but he was
discreetly silent. The pedestrians had something to
tell us, though. This it was :

" In the dwelling-house near by where we had
selected our lunching spot to-day, lives a farmer of
about fifty years of age, named Winslow. While
waiting we grew acquainted with him and found that
his father and grandfather had lived on the same
place. Among his heir-looms was an old-fashioned
chair with which his grandmother had begun house-
keeping ; an old powder-horn given in 1770 by a
British soldier to W's grandfather, who was an American
soldier of the Revolution. On this horn was a rude in-
scription, scratched by the soldier of King George,

Success to British arms.

With name and date. A grandfather's clock, of brass,
which had literally stood about * ninety years on the
floor,' but had not yet, as the song has it, * stopped

short.'
other s
enterta
chat w

Thi
son to
the cer
genera
score y
male ii
female!
son in

Sor
down
about
folk-loi
*'Ha'n
noticec
Fauno

Just w
be sai
Faunc
anythi
then.

Nc
traver
refresl
their
walkii

JUNE COACHING TRIF.

ppetites.
)n a full
ical dis-
doctrine
he, after
gs upon
ated for
the day
ve been.
^ '• how
journey
)und us,
•' Yes,"
)iled by
5-table."
he was
hing to

we had
rmer of
While
nd that
B same
ihioned
house -
> by a
lerican
ude in-

ge»

brass,
on the
opped

short.' These relics, with old coins, old receipts and
other stained documents of a former century, and the
entertaining narration of this child of the soil made our
chat with him extremely interesting."

This neighborhood is assuredly the place for a per-
son to come to if he desire to live long in the land, for
the census of 1881 shows that while in New England
generally the proportion of persons who reach four
score years is i in 134, there is in New Hampshire i
male in 80 who reaches that age and i in 58 of the
females. In New York State, however, only i per-
son in 160 lives to reach 80.

Somewhere in Queechee Valley, we passed a tumble-
down though not ancient house, with no sign of life
about it. Faunce, who was *' up" in local gossip and
folk-lore, jerked his thumb towards it and said
*' Ha'nted." Perhaps the place would not have been
noticed, except for its dilapidation, but the moment
Faunce declared it haunted :

•' Over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted
And said as plain as whisper in the ear :
The place is "

Just what Tom Hood pronounced it. More could not
be said at that time, for Robert would have thrown
Faunce and Hedley (and Tom Hood too,) overboard if
anything more had been said on ghostly subjects just
then.

Now we had only Barnard and Bethel towns to
traverse, and we should be in Randolph ! The horses,
refreshed by the stoppage, tramped briskly along with
their load, which we lightened by getting down and
walking some miles. The road, overhung with trees,

NOTES OF A

ill'

sometimes dipping into a quiet hollow would emerge^
higher up :

" By homesteads old, with wide-flung baras
Swept through and through by swallows. —
By maple orchards, belts of pine
And larches climbing darkly
The mountain slopes, and over all,
The great peaks rising starkly."

Reaching the crest of a slight hill, one of the horses — it
was neither a leader nor a wheeler — fell over in a fit of
" blind staggers," and Faunce was off his perch in a
moment to bleed him. The poor creature recovered
for the time, but was so manifestly unfit to complete
the journey that when we reached Barnard village at
five, having fifteen miles yet to go, a consultation was
held as to whether we should go on with five or four
horses, or whether a fresh beast should be procured..
Pending the decision, Dwight and Hedley took a walk
about the village and presently spied an old, fresh- faced
man walking behind a wall, near a house. Asking him
some questions, in our character of strangers seeking
information, "interviewing" him, as the wretched
phrase and still more wretched practice is, his tongue
struck Hedley as that of a Scot, which indeed, on en-
quiry he confessed himself to be : Mr. Caldwell, a re-
tired Congregational minister, educated at Glasgow
University, but resident in this country 47 years. The
old gentleman was plainly surprised at being " spotted "
for a Scotchman from his tongue, and did not fail to
*' speer at" his questioner who he was that recognized
him for " a brither Scot." But to find him there was
only another proof that no corner of the earth is free
from the beneficent influence of Scotchmen. " Ah I

iiftt!;,!

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

you do well to say * influence,' for I have known some
Scotchmen of the Nemo me impune lacesset sort, whose
presence was by no means genial," said a good
American.

With a nice courtesy, some young ladies of the
village, seeing our party seated around the piazza and
looking, for the first time, be it understood, just a little
•disconsolate, came across the street, seated themselves
at the piano in the hotel parlor and gave us some
music, evidently to beguile the journey and mak us
feel the unfortunate detention less. They were warmly
thanked, by a deputation.

Robert went moodily towards the stables, but
presently carne back, erect and triumphant, having,
after much parley, secured a fresh horse. His speech
•on the occasion was an emphatic and memorable one :
^* Boys, we are going into Randolph with six horses
if we have to buy 'em." Great applause. Good boy,
Robert.

*' Hurrah ! hurrah for the heather hills,"

Some one burst out as we sped away from Barnard,
the team refreshed and its human load reassured,
the outline of Randolph hills in the distance. Our
new horse proved " a daisy," as the note book says,
and on the same page, '* the driver a brick, indeed ;"
bits of slang which it is hoped will be pardoned for
the sake of their expressiveness. Bethel we passed
at tea time — we knew this because the telegraph
operator was at tea, and Robert would not let anybody
know what in the mischief he wanted to telegraph for,
anyway. The little place nestled in an amphitheatre
of hills.

NOTES OF A

■''.II

At eight o'clock we came in sight, over the crest of
a hill, of the pretty plateau on which West Randolph
is placed. A bicyclist was stationed where he could
see our approach, and when we appeared he dashed off
as if to announce our coming. Mr. Wm. H. Du Bois,
director of the Vermont Central Railway, met us here ;.
Horace alighted to drive his horse in, while we made
room on the coach for him and his little son. We ap-
proached the village from the south, along a ridge
which seemed an embankment made by nature on pur-
pose for a drive. The landscape was of the loveliest, for
the clouds had not lost their sunset dyes, while objects
in the valley were just beginning to be softened by the
dusk.

It was very evident by the smiles and waving ker-
chiefs from door-step groups which greeted us as we
drove into the village, that we were expected and
were welcome. There was no one but seemed to
know Kimball, and no one, certainly, had other
than smiles or kind words for him or his friends-
Along the main street and past the public square we
drove, and pulled up at the home of Robert's mother^
The dear old lady was awaiting us with a welcome there
was no mistaking. It was a true Home-coming, for she
did us the honor to term us " her boys," and right well
pleased had we occasion to be with her motherly kind-
ness and solicitude.

Standing about her in the little porch of the cottage,
we gave three cheers for Mrs. Kimball and three more
for Robert, with a Dwight-Wiman " tiger" which must
have convinced the sedate neighbors, if it did not Mrs.
Kimball, that she had got hold of a pretty noisy crowd.
It had been .matter of wondering speculation among

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

the group where, (in that neat Httle building,) he could
possibly put us all, when Robert insisted, in a tone
which we could not gainsay, that every one of the
Club should go to his mother's house. The puzzle was
solved when the parlor-door was opened and Leeds,
Raynor, Matthews and Hedley were told Parlor " K"
was for us four. Presto ! what a transformation ; and
what a bold idea ! The centre tables and sofas were
taken out of the parlor and behold, instead, four pretty
bedsteads in a row ; washstands, coat hooks, every
appurtenance convenient, and views of the Grand
Canal parade of the Club at Venice, on the walls to
delight us. It was, as Wiman said, the most elastic
house one could imagine ; for no one was crowded even
when more visitors appeared than were expected. The
other fellows had rooms up stairs, but the " big four,"
as those named were disposed to christen themselves,
wanted no odds of any man as to sleeping accommoda-
tion or ability to sleep. If one of us could only have
*' traded " sleeping appetites with Wiman, what a bless-
ing it might have been to the Vice-President. Chandler
went to his brother's house and Morse to that of Dubois.
We dined at eight, and it was a most enjoyable
dinner. Then for a starlight smoke and chat on the
verandah in the cool air, and to bed at ten, less fatigued
with the* long drive of forty miles than we had been
with the shorter ones of previous days. This was, very
possibly, because we had varied the scene by walking,
and the exercise had revived us. It was as well, per-
haps, for the peace of the neighbors and the more
sedate coachers who lodged in separate rooms overhead,
that the '* big four " were in a private house, with a lady
for hostess. Nothing else would have kept these

40 NOTES OF A

** children of a larger growth " from making night
hideous with pillow-fights, songs and loud laughter.
Theodore discreetly chose a bed near a window, so
that he could escape if jokes became too practical.
Hedley was placed in the bed between Willie's and
Wilbur's, in order that these two should not molest one
another in the night. But even if their hands were
figuratively tied their tongues were not, and Harrigan
<& Hart were rivalled for a time with " Swamp " stories
and *' Island " puns. The historian does not doubt that
we even laughed m our sleep that night ; and whether
or not we were therefore talking to the angels, as runs
the beautiful Irish legend of the sleeping child which
smiles, it is as true as the stars that there were angels
near us.

West Randolph, Vt., Saturday, June 9TH.

OOBERT, first of the household awake, roused all
'*'^ hands at seven to be ready for one of the most
appetizing of breakfasts at eight. We had brook trout,
which Mr. Gay and Mr. Vial, two of our village friends
— think of it — drove nine miles that morning to catch,
for our enjoyment, starting at three. Then, cfter
prayers, those who had letters to write secluded them-
selves for the purpose. A visit was made to the tele-
graph and post offices and to the Randolph National
Bank, of which Mr. Dubois is president. The weather
was most inviting, and about ten o'clock carriages
came to the door to take the party for a drive to Col.
Mead's farm. The spanking team which took the lead
belonged to Dubois. " You can drive 'em anywhere

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

you can drive a yoke of steers, they are so clever," said
he, with admiration which we very soon shared.
Those who noticed it were struck with the invitation 5
worthy of Thoreau or John Burroughs, lettered upon a
little bird house, erected in front of a dwelling as we
drove out of town :

" Come, birdies, come."

From Randolph Hill, where we stopped to drink at a
roadside spring, we saw, among the hills that swelled
all around us, Killington, a tall peak back of Rutland,
thirty miles away. This spring had memories for the
Randolph boys amongst us : close by it stood the house
where Robert was born, a plain wooden building, older
than it looked and almost hidden from view by barns,
as one approached it driving up the hill. Our route
lay along a breezy hill-top, or ridge of successive hills,
with more of them beyond, and Randolph lying, a
break in the expanse of rolling greenery, in the valley
between.

Arrived at Col. Mead's farm, where we had been
promised some bread and butter, we found that Mrs.
Mead had provided that and something more, for such
a repast as we sat down to was delicious enough for
an eighteenth century gourmand. It sufficed to con-
firm the party in the belief which had been instilled
into us all along, that there is something quite too
utterly utter about Jersey milk and butter. Walking
over the large and evidently well conducted farm, we
reached the field which contained Kimball's Polled
cattle, imported, and whi^h he prizes highly. There
were nine cows, and the bull, Romeo, of the Norfolk
and Suffolk red-polled breed, which Robert had brought

NOTES OF A

out from England in October, 1882, at which time
Romeo was not a year old.

On the previous day, Mr. Wiman had wired Mr.
A. M. Kidder, head of the banking firm of A. M.
Kidder & Co., New York, and Morse's partner, at his
summer quarters, Plymouth, N. H., to join us. This
he did on Saturday, looking, thanks to country air and
fare, but little like the invalid we expected to find him.

At two we started to complete the circuit of
twelve or fifteen miles, which was to bring us back
to Randolph Village. On the way it was in order
to visit the Moulton Stock Farm, where we had
the good fortune to find all three brothers, Messrs.
Oilman, Justin and Clarence Moulton, at home.
All of us had heard of Mr. G. S. Moulton, in con-
nection with the improvement of Coney Island — of
which scheme, now so successful and famous, his firm,
Messrs. Austin Corbin <^ Co., were the authors. Here
we saw a herd of fully a hundred Jersey cows, all
registered, and probably the best herd of that breed
in the United States. They were of a variety of
colors : solid gray fawn, silver gray, red fawn, light
brown with white chest and brisket, and all of them,
doubtless, with escutcheons to which even Robert could
take no exception. While upon the subject of Jersey
cattle, it may be well to note here that, in a seven days
test made this month, of the Jersey cow. Value 2nd,
6,844, bred in New Jersey, owned in Baltimore, the
coW was milked at intervals of eight hours, yielding
327 pounds of milk, from which was produced 25 pounds
2 ounces of butter. We were here shown two out of their
three valuable bulls : Albert Rex, Pearl Rex, and Ben
Rex, kept in quarters sumptuous enough to correspond

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

with their names. The Messrs. Moulton have in their
stables and paddocks some very handsome horse flesh,
principally of the Hambletonian strain, and obligingly
took us to see as many of them as our limited stay
would permit. Vermont Chief, a son of old Hamble-
tonian, was a fine animal, and there were other sleek
and symmetrical horses there which we fairly had to
drag Wilbur away from. Here, too, we found the most
admirably appointed creamery which any of the strang-
ers had seen. Its construction, ventilation and fitting
were to our eyes faultless ; and the minute care ob-
served to keep its every corner and utensil clean and
sweet, free from contact with injurious substance or
even odor, would be a revelation to many a farmer.

Those who, in Canada, are struggling to further her
important dairy interests by reforming the butter in-
dustry, so that the butter made in the Dominion shall
equal her cheese in quality, could scarcely impress
laissez-faire dairymen more strongly than by taking
them to an establishment such as this and showing^
them what stress is laid upon cleanliness and methods
The result, measured in dollars and cents, will prove
to the farmer's pocket if it does not to his palate the
worth of special care and technical knowledge : for
the price obtained for butter from this dairy ranges
from 65 cents per pound this week to one dollar per
pound in the winter season. The ensilage system, too,
had a good illustration in the complete arrangements
at this farm.

A succession of lovely views rewarded our eager
eyes on this drive. Cloud shadows chased each other
along the slopes of near and distant hills ; peaks forty
miles away melted into the evening sky and gorgeous

44 NOTES OF A

clouds prolonged the panorama of Nature. Graceful
elms along the road tossed their branches in the breeze
and sugar orchards near by encouraged us to believe
thai, as Scott declares,

" Ne'er was poison mixed in maple bowl."

One does not wonder that interest is taken in sugar
maples here, as well as in the Eastern Townships of
Quebec, when he learns that the maple sugar * crop ' of
Vermont amounts in value to from $1,000,000 to
$2,000,000 a year. Near Col. Mead's we passed a red
house, whose eave-troughs bore the date 1790; it had
four rows of lights, *iome of them dormer windows in
the roof, patterned after the French Canadian style of
dwelling, reminders of the days of the Intendants and
Governors of the regime of old France in the New
World, which Parkman so well describes. The crown-
ing view of all was obtained when we reached Fish
Hill. Out-spread below us lay the valley in which
Randolph nestles ; its spires distinct in the declining
sunlight, a glint of water here and there, a railway
train with its puff of smoke, the vivid green and dark
green foliage alternating with brown fields and
brighter meadows. The landscape was, assuredly, one
key to the charm which this township possessed for
our friends who were to the manor born.

We reached Mrs. Kimball's a little late for tea, but
were not scolded. Indeed the Keeper of the Records
does not know of any instance in which we did get a
scolding there. As we sat in the porch enjoying our
evening smoke, there came marching down the street
the village band, in full uniform, with waving plumes
and accompanied by delighted link-boys who bore their

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

kerosene torches as proudly as if they were banners at
a Sunday school parade. Halting opposite the house
the band proceeded to serenade Robert and his friends^
with a number of airs well-chosen and well per-
formed. They were invited into the grounds, where
Robert thanked them for thus welcoming his friends
and himself and called on Wiman to respond for the
Club, which he did with even more than his usual happy
facility, for his heart was full. Morse made a brief
address and even Dwight was induced to ' break a cus-
tom ' and make a neat little speech. Chandler spoke,
with unaffected emotion, of the pleasure of this reunion
with old friends, playmates, companions, some of them
in uniform before us; and although many were missed,
yet " all were not gone, the old familiar faces." After
the band had left, we lingered on the porch and
sang song after song, plaintive or gay. A constant
favorite was " Title Clear," which lived in the recollec-
tion of the Club because they heard it sung by the
guides and Indians in Muskoka long ago under circum-
stances which made it memorable. " Auld Lang Syne "
elicited an unlooked-for encore from a crowd of villagers
gathered on pathway or fence across the street, whose
presence, in the darkness, we had not suspected.

Sunday, June ioth.

OHOWERS had fallen during the night, bat the
^ Sabbath morning dawned bright and clear. We
went, together, to the Baptist Church, and* heard a
sermon from the Rev. Mr. Pierce. The allusion of the
preacher to the hill view as being superior to that from

46 NOTES OF A

the valley, in things spiritual as well as physical, seem-
ed to us to have an especial appositeness. Mrs. Mead
and her baby arrived from the farm for dinner, as also
did Miss Mead and her brother.

Heavy showers after dinner, which kept everyone in-
doors; but presently a start was made for the house of
Mr. Dubois, who with his good lady entertained us de-
lightfully for some hours. Having Mrs. Dubois* effective
assistance we were able to give some hymns in chorus.
Albert was at the piano, and when, a great rarity, he
sang a sacred solo, it was a treat to be remembered
and worth travelling a whole night to hear. On the
way returning, we stopped at Mr. Willard Gay's cosy
home, whose daughter won our hearts by citing the
poem from which the Club motto is taken, viz.,
Lowell's Sir Launfal :

" What is so rare as a day in June,
Then, if ever, come perfect days.
Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
Whether we look or whether we listen
We hear life murmur or see it glisten."

And many a time did we see the " glisten " as the sur-
face of field and meadow was swept by the wind and
the bent blades shone in the sun. We had some more
sint^ing when we came home to Mrs. Kimball. " How
delightful, if Robert's wife and children were here now,"
and our hearts went out to where other dear ones were
gathered, in distant cities, thinking of us, doubtless, and
the thought was ** like the benediction that follows after
prayer." What days these two have been, we said to
ourselves ; shall we ever have just such another, restful,
happy scene ?, As at Trading Lake, years ago :

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

*' Brief seemed the day and all too brief the night
Of this red-letter Sunday in the woods.
The hours, the restless hours that would not wait,
Now bring the time the visitor? depart :
' Another song," — ' one more ' — and yet again
The eager hunters beg ' one little hymn.'

—► I ■4' o*r=@=**t

Monday, June iith.

n^ 0-DAY we were to drive to Montpelier, the capital
■'• of the State, and were up in good season to look
after packing and other preparations for a start. It
had rained heavily in the night and looked still
unsettled when Faunce appeared, promptly at eight,
with the coach and six. As we were mounting, behold !
a photographer, making demonstrations towards us
with his shot-gun-like apparatus. A sort of New Eng-
land Italian he seemed, full of 'a wild civility' as
Herrick says, and with a * sweet disorder ' about him.
Whether he got satisfactory views or not we could not
tell, lor he vanished with ' divvle a word barrin' a
nod, yer Honour,' when he had done. But the frontis-
piece to this little book bears testimony to his skill.

The good-byes said, three cheers for Mrs. Kimball
and three more for Mrs. Mead, and we were off, due
north. Our route lay through the townships of Wil-
liamstown, Brookfield and Barre. As we emerged from
the valley, the cloud scape was nearly as fine as the
land view. Mists clung to some of the distant peaks,
but in front and on either hand of us there soon shone
the bluest of skies, folding masses of clouds of vivid
and luminous whiteness shading into a deep and som-
bre gray, and above them the nimble cirri, sending

NOTES OF A

their shadows flying across the slopes. Passing along a
ridge. road we found some striking scenes, and as we
crossed the Brookfield boundary one, especially lovely>
confronted us. The earth took shapes, along here, so-
bold and grand that in our eagerness to see t* c n, all
hands got on top of the coach, leaving only the valises,
inside and the hamper at the back for ballast.

It was scarcely comfortable driving, in places, for
going down slopes, and rounding craggy corners our
craft had a top-heavy feel. There were ticklish spots
on the route, where the wheel was not a foot from the
edge of a descent of hundreds of feet. We were on
the down grade, too, just there. Reminiscences began
to be heard of frightful chasms on the ascent of the
Simplon to the Hospice on its top, or that dizzy drive
down to Brigue, ********
'which some of the timid ones among us, who had not
been upon the Club's last trip to Europe, thought were
in very poor taste •♦ at such a time as this."

Still, while we held on the more timorously with our
hands, and got our legs ready to jump, just in case of
accident, you know, we were mentally holding on to
Faunce who, with foot on brake and every joint in
every finger oiled for delicate steering, handled his
4,000 lb. load, and his six h.p. engine in a way that
might well reassure : '* I wudn't hev a dump fur all
the cump'ny thet wuz," he confided to the Historian
who was sitting reverently at his feet, " not fur t' kem
deown here from hum" — alluding to the injury it
would cause to his prestige if he, a driver for fouiteen
years between Stowe and Montpelier, should come
down this far, from his home at Stowe, to * spill ' his
passengers. We marvelled often at his mianagement

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

of the animals by touch of rein or word of mouth, at
the alertness of the leaders, the calmer sagacity of the
wheelers. Asking Faunce what the secret of his suc-
cess was — he never went over a precipice but once,
when the pole strap broke and the coach could not be
turned away from the chasm — his reply would be :
*' Ef ye dun't keep yer eyes whar they belong ye can't
come eout right. Y' want to know whar yer bosses
feet air and whar yer wheels is. — Gut to keep feelin' uv
yer critters tu ; I cal'clate to feel the mouths of every
one on 'em, settin right here."

Going up a hill out of Randolph on the Monday,
we met a ruddy-cheeked, elderly man behind a glossy
nag, who looked us over as he passed us by and then
turned lazily on his seat to say " Forty years ago, I'd
think the Legislatur' had riz."

In the tortuous and exciting drive of the last hour, zig-
zagging and doubling in the most be*vildering way, we
were pursued by a brook which took so many shapes and
chased or dodged us so waywardly that it might have
been enchanted. What a delicious dash and rush it
had as it followed and then crossed the road, how sub-
dued into silence as it fell into a pond in a little, land-
locked basin. " Trout in there, boys, I'll bet you
what you like," said Tom. Then, grown bolder and
larger, it passed a mill, whose wheel it drove, farther
down on its crooked course another mill, and another,
and then, having attained the dimensions of an old
country river, fell gradually into a narrow cut, rushing
and foaming more and more till out of sight. No
wonder this town was named Brook-field, if it had
many feuch elvish streams. Sometimes these mountain
brooks would run shyly past us at a little distance with
leisurely pace, and

NOTES OF A

" • • Chatter over stony ways
In little sharps and trebles."

At other times they would leap joyously down t je
slopes as if to keep us company, when

" Owre a linn the bumie plays
Wi' bickerin' dancin* dazzle."

Presently we emerged from this rather difficult
country into a valley, which narrowed until it became
a deep and wedge-like ravine, known as Williamstown
Gulch. Here the cleft is just wide enough to hold a
house and a road, and the steep sides are loio feet
high. The house is Lang's Hotel, and we stayed
thereat two hours, getting an excellent dinner, during
which rain came on and lamps had to be lighted.
Wiman earned a scolding from the general manager for
too pronounced attentions to a little lady who was also
stopping at the hotel. But her husband did not seem
to resent them, for he cordially offered his flask — it
was a large one — to everybody in the party. Robert,
Wilbur, Hedley and Dwight beat Kidder, Chandler,
Tom and Willie at a match-game of ten-pins ; then
we had a drink at the medicinal spring near by, and
started at 2.40.

Passing through Williamstown into faarre, we
stopped at an octagon-shaped hotel to escape a rain-
storm, and saw a new-fangled, noiseless lawn-mower,
which bids fair to supersede the Philadelphia ones.
Here is situated a large school, which has enjoyed
celebrity in the Eastern States for a quarter of a cen-
tury or more. Dubois met people, here as elsewhere,
whom he knew, and we guessed that he had to do
more private explaining than he cared to admit, as to
who his unruly comrades were. Robert sometimes

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

forgot his cares as general manager and broke away
from the gravity which befits the office — witness the
Westminster episode — but we rather welcomed that,
even Jove must sometimes nod. Kidder and Albert
pass, when at home, we are told, for quiet men, and
while it would be a libel to say that they were ever
indecorous, it is at least true that, like the fat Knight
Falstaff, they were the frequent cause of wit in others.

The rain which we had dodged at Barre caught us
further on, when we had much fun in the unaccustomed
circumstances. Having plenty of rubber-coats or
sheets and several umbrellas no one got wet, but the
sedate iiisides had rather the best of it. As we skirted
and afterwards crossed the Winooski River, a rainbow
appeared, to add to the beauty of the scene.

Tom was our authority on trees, and shrubs and
flowers : he could tell a beech from a chestnut a mile
off and could name about every green leaved thing we
saw, but one, and that he could neither divine nor find
anyone to explain. He seemed to have read Evelyn's
Sylva as well as the Arboriculture Manual of the Pro-
vince of Quebec. And it was an improving sort of
knowledge, too, for as somebody says, " There's nothing
that keeps its youth, so far as I know, like a tree and
truth." We saw these all, officeis, subalterns and
privates in the army of the forest :

" The lofty woods in summer sheen arrayed,
The trembling poplar with its silver leaf,
The stately walnut rising o'er the glade,
The willow, bending with its load of grief.

The graceful elm, the energetic oak,
The red-leaved maple, and the slender pine,
The grove of ^rs, half hidden by the smoke
From the white cottage clothed with jessamine."

NOTES OF A

And the historian would here observe, without stopping
the coach, that no better descriptive epithets have
been found for these trees than are here appUed to
them by a Canadian poet — who was also fdnd of fishing.
" Well, we have only your word for that," said the
saucy Matthews ; how do you know he was a fisher-
man ? there's nothing about fish in the piece you
spouted !" "Say 'recited,' Wilbur, it sounds tonier,"
interjected Kidder. The spouter, abashed, could only
refer to further stanzas of Sa.iigster\ ^Evening Scene on
Detroit River ^ where he says : " the fisher ceased his
song, leaned on his oar." '* Yes, but that was only a
kingfisher, Jimmie," said the senior ornithologist.
** Do kingfishers have 'oars' as well as 'songs,' Willie,
you sardine ?'• " Yes, and (r)udder too," chimed in
Robert, to keep up the fun.

A year or more ago, it was enacted that every
Vermonter should swear to the return of property he
made to the assessors. The result was that in 63
towns the total of personalty rose from $37,000,000
in 1881 to $76,000,000 in 1882. This may or may not
prove them a God-fearing population, but it reminds
one of an Arkansas story : " What's the value of your
personal property, old man ?" asked a tax assessor of
a negro in that State. " What yej wanter know dat
fur ?" " So we'll know how much to make you pay."
" My stuff's dun paid fur, Sah !" " Yes, but you'll
have to pay taxes on your household goods." " Dey
taxed me enough in de fust place, Sah. Ain't agwine
ter pay no mo' !" " If you don't you can't vote at the
next election !" " All right. Dey don't count my vote
nohow. Go off some whar and tax a man fur havin de
rheumatiz."

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

Arrived at Montpelier, with the right kind of wel-
come from the proprietor of the roomy-looking Pavilion
Hotel, the first enquiry was for letters, and the next,
from Willie, that walking cyclopedia of Wall Street
information, for quotations. Some other staid and
modest members of the group devel6ped a sudden curi-
osity about prices, and presently we heard : " Saint
Paul preferred is all right, anyway ; Delaware & Lack-
awana i28f. " — "How's Denver?" asked one eager
voice, and the reader replied " Why the market is oflf,
it seems to me." " Nonsense," called out old steady-
goer, " Erie common is 37f , and when we left New
York it was 35^, so how's that for ' off' ? " " Why,
here! shove this along to Wiman, he's a director and
maybe he'd like to know that Western Union is up four
points." " No ! " " Yes it is too, this is the latest, the
very latest ; she sold on the 5th at 83 and is now 87,
three from seven leaves four, or used to, when I went
to school." Having ' shoved it along ' to Wiman, who
was waist deep in letters and telegrams, we were
making some movement towards our rooms, when
*' What about Canada Pacific ? " came unexpectedly
from a quiet New Yorker, and the Canadian contingent
indulged a little patriotic pride in hearing the name of
their national work quoted on the New York market
along with the other prominent stocks of the day.

In a little while we were gazing l the handsome
granite State House, near by, with its colossal statue
of Ceres surmounting the dome, when DuBois, enjoy-
ing our admiration remarked ; " Nice little state, ours "
— he is County Treasurer — " no jobs, no debt, 275
representatives, mostly good men." The " good men"
we were not disposed to question, but we did question

NOTES OF A

him, some of us, as to why it took 275 of them and a
Senate besides, to " run " a state with a population of
335»ooo when Ontario, with 2,000,000 people was *' run "
with only 86. It seemed too much machinery for the
hull of the boat, as one of our Maritime Province mem-
bers might say. The slight collation tiiat we had here
before sallying out to see the capital, some might call
a' square meal, but we did not " let ourselves out " at
table, as Wilbur puts it, out of consideration for the
civil but solemn girls with large eyes — Jersey eyes,
some one called them — who waited on us.

On the piazza of the hotel we were introduced to Mr.
Bingham, uniyersally known as " Governor " Bingham,
from his having been for twenty years Democratic can-
didate for the governorship of a pronouncedly Repub-
lican State, and who seems destined to die candidating,
" facing fearful odds," like a New England Horatius of
the hustings. A portly, hearty, unmistakably jolly
gentleman he was ; we almost wished, pace the claims
of some good folks who shall be nameless, that he might
get converted and have a chance to ** fill our Guberna-
tor's chair;" but he seemed the sort of stuff which
nothing, short of a hot-blast converter, would convert.

At last we found ourselves in the grounds of the
State House, whose terraced granite steps lead up to
the really imposing building, with its massive Doric
portico. Mead's statue of Ethan Allen, near the
entrance, reminded us of days when in Morse's geogra-
phy we used to read of the battle of Bennington and
the bold Ethan's exploits as marking the early history
of Vermont. The attitude of the statue would seem to
illustrate the moment when, in 1775, the fearless Green
Mountain boy demanded of Captain De la Place the

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, ** in the name of the
Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." It is a
neat, clean, charming town, this Montpelier with its
French name ; neat residences, with lawns unfenced ;
a handsome railway station, a lovely cemetery, and
doubtless other pretty sights had we had time to see
them.

But here we were to lose Wiman, Morse and Chand-
ler, and we could not think of anything else that night.
In vain Wiman, loath to go, and needing rest, but
driven by necessities of his own eager, restless making,
bade us go to bed, and he would sit up for the midnight
train ; in vain did Morse assume a gayety he did
not feel; in vain Chandler chivalrously urged, for our
sakes, that it was now "the dusky hour, friendliest to
sleep and silence," — Dear, candid Chandler :

" Better lo'ed ye canna be ;
Will ye no come back again ?"

We stayed and saw them off at the train, and then
to bed in half a gale of wind. Heigh ho ! the wind and
the rain ; how they did beat and bang our window
shutters, making Tom think he was out in his son's
boat, close reefed, and pitying, as old Dibdin's song
did, " those unhappy folks on shore now."

Montpelier, Vt., Tuesday, June i2Th.

'T^HE morning was all the brighter and cooler for the
**• gusty night, and we loaded up the [coach at nine
a.m. the usual good-natured crowd assembled to see us
off, and with three cheers for Montpelier we got under
weigh. The sky was clear blue and white on starting
but when we reached Waterbury, 1 2 miles, at half-past

NOTES OF A

eleven o'cloct it had clouded all over with gray. A
fresh, damp breeze was, however, a bracing tonic. The
field daisies on the hill sides we passed, and the butter
cups along the road, seemed not to have been too
hardly used hy the rain and the breezes in the night,
for they smiled and waved to us ; but we were mostly
too late for the dandelion, " dear common flower that
grow'st beside the way," as Lowell hails it, " fringing
the dusty road with harmless gold."

Trundling through Middlesex village we observed a
sign reading

West India Goods and Groceries,

As several others did along the route — an old-fashioned
announcement which may be often seen in Halifax and
other ancient Maritime Province towns. Arrived at
Waterbury, all embosomed in hills, we found a nice
hotel and an accommodating landlord ; there were some
girls on the piazza, whom, as students of nature in all
her forms, we eyed rather more closely perhaps than
was becoming. But our forwardness was " not a patch
on " that of Faunce, who, when his horses were made
comfortable, pushed into the departments of the Water-
bury Hotel supposed to be sacred to females, and with
his chair tilted back and his legs crossed, had no end
of a good chat with the " help," as we could see.

At noon to-day, Tuesday, Kidder and Dubois left
the party, reducing its number to seven. They had
been very welcome guests, and we were pleased to
hear them say that they had got even more than they
expected in the way of interest and recreation, out of
the trip. " This drive's worth a farm," called out
Dubois, in his quick way. "Yes, with a hen on it."
responded Kidder, wearing his holiday face. We only

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

hope that Mr. Kidder gained in weight and strength
as some of the rest did, whom we wot of. The sub-
scriber knows a man in the party who gained nine
pounds in twelve days, and who was heard on his
return to ask for a button-hook to fasten the waist
buttons of his trousers.

From Waterbury Centre we looked back upon
Camel's Hump, a mountain which arched its back 4000
feet high some ten miles away, and looked forward to
Mount Mansfield, nearly 5000 feet in height, the high-
est peaks in the circle of heights. A memorandum
occurs in the historian's note book : " Telephone wire
all along here," which is a reminder that we did
wonder, some of us, how there came to be such a pro-
fusion of telephone and such a scarcity of telegraph
through this quiet district. Was it that the telephone
people were making efforts to penetrate the territory
which the Western Union scorned to make ? There
were some parts in which the telegraph lines were
rather primitive, side blocks on the poles, and the old
boot-hook style of insulator. Some of the travelled
members of the Club who had "been to Yurrup " told
of the use of marble for telegraph posts in parts of
Italy, and ventured to think that Vermont had as much
right as Italy to that sort of extravagance — if extrava-
gance it were. But Tom could smile superior on that
score ; he had forgotten more than some of them knew
about wires and posts, however much they might excel
him in picturesque lies (this is Mark Twain's phrase)
about the Grindenwald and the Corniche Road.

There were six telegraph men in the party, from
first to last, and it is not surprising — since shop-talk
will creep into the best regulated excursions — that we

NOTES OF A

sometimes did talk telegraph. One thing had struck
more than the two who first spoke of it, viz : the un-
expected number of persons in the world who at one
time or other of their lives have tried to learn the art
of telegraphy. Maybe it is a complaint to which
youth of a certain age are liable, like the tendency to
rhyme. '

Stow is a large township, and we had ten miles to
go before reaching, at 2 p.m., the village at which E»
C. Bailey, owner of " Our Coach " and proprietor
of the Mount Mansfield House, received us with a
smile broad enough and a welcome large enough to take
in the 400 guests, which is stated to be the capacity of
his summer hotel. Bailey the son was there, too, and
he was an unmistakable New Englander, in style and
frame. But the ** old man " might have been a British
Boniface, he was so jolly and burly. Bert Faunce was
down off his perch in a twinkling, and had the arms of
a little boy, his son, round his neck even before making
his report to his employer. Here we were to part with
our comfortable coach and our six trusty horses.

" Well, well, old Bay !
Ha, ha, old Gray!"

As Farmer John says, we must lose you here but we
will not forget you.

After a substantial dinner the route was taken at
3.20 for Mt. Mansfield, in a three-seated spring waggon
with four fresh horses, still having Faunce as driver.
The hand-bags and some Kosh-a-wosh were put under
the seats. A steady climb for five or six miles ; fine
weather when we started, but when up beyond cloud
line the mist and the rain combined to soak whatever

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

parts of us they could get at ; the air grew dark and
chill and the spirits of the boys were tried. Dw. was a
fit subject for a crayon sketch, with a summer overcoat
which failed to cover his knees, and a broken umbrella ;
to keep up the ribs of this one hand was needed, while
the slant of the ribs guided the trickling streams
of rain water down the neck of his next neigh-
bor. Theodore was rather chirpy, while Willie
spoke not a word unless to respond to chaff.
Tom had his pipe to comfort him. Robert pre-
served the spirit and the attitude of Excelsior^ for
the shades of night were falling fast and he felt the
weight of government heavy upon him, probably, for
here was a novel experience for us : a steady soaking.
Wilbur was not overcome badly ; he had seen rain
before, somewhere in Switzerland, but somehow thought
this American rain could wet a man through quicker
than any that dropped from old-world skies — save and
except, always, those of Greenock and Glasgow.

When half way up the rain abated, and a halt was
made to rest the horses. It proves what an abstemious
group we were that not a person looked for the Kosh-a-
wosh until we stopped ; but when we did, we found
both it and the hand-bags gone ! Great Glenlivat !
what a thirst we now discovered. One fellow started
back to search the road for the missing valuables, but
in vain ; so there was nothing for it but to remount and
push on. At six the Summit House was reached in
the midst of blast and downpour ; but in the large
rooms of the hotel, warmed by wood -fires, the party
stripped off their wet things and made ready for the
generous supper provided by the keeper and his wife,
who were their own cooks and housemaids and boots.

NOTES OF A

Luckily, tobacco was not scarce, and Hedley, notwith-
standing that his cigar case was gone down the moun-
tain side, never to return, had some Montpeher Capa-
duios in an inner pocket, which a fastidious officer of
the Club was pleased to approve.

Some mutterings of thunder by-and-bye assisted the
eerie blasts to shake the house, and this set the landlord
off upon reminiscences of storms in a twenty-seven
year's residence in this mountain country. •* It doos
thunder and lighten some, hereaways," he began, " one
time I was a stan'in here by the door an' the lightnin'
struck near by — seemed lik' a fleece o' wool come right
up aroun' me to my knees. My soul an' body ! how it
stunded me ; I cudn't stir, no more cud my wife.
Think, sez I, I'm sent fur neow. It run back an' furth
acrosst the stov^e, an' we seemed to kin' o' feel lik' our
hair was singein." "Lets' see your hair," said the
incredulous Willie, amid a chorus of laughter. The
host was as good-natured as he was nimble ; a French
Canadian, Louis de Mois by name, he had been a trades-
man elsewhere, but developed a taste for cookery, of his
skill in which, indeed, he gave us proof, and while he
cooked steaks, biscuits, pancakes, his active wife played
waitress on us all with marked dexteritv.

Top of Mansfield Mountain,

Wednesday, June 13TH.

T T owl as the elements might without, we slept soundly

■■•-*' within, and in the morning were early astir to

get the view which the dun clouds had prevented the

day before. The panorama was superb : a sea of

mountains ; the plateau off towards Stow ; the chasm

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

of Smuggler's Notch ; Champlain Lake and the Valley
with its villages ; beyond the lake the blue Adiron-
dacks ; but the distant White Mountains we could not
see, for it was not very clear. Some of us climbed
the 200 or 300 feet of bare and roughly laminated rock
which forms the " chin " of the profile of a human
being which this mountain top resembles.

We had been awakened, by Dumois calling out in
the corridors, " here's your bags," ami sure enough
here was the obliging Faunce, who had driven his
empty waggon down the mountain in the rain at night
and walked up in the dawn of the morning to bring
our bags and the precious Kosh-a-wosh. We had a
tip-top breakfast, as the note-book records, and left the
hotel at 8.30 to walk down the west side of Mount
Mansfield. Our path proved to be a water-course,
which the rains through the night had swelled to more
than ankle deep, and what with perspiration and soft
water, slips in the mud and tumbles on the boulders,
we were more dilapidated in appearance than '.'good
torm " would have permitted when we had covered the
two miles — " two miles !" said some one indignantly,
*' it was more like four" — to where waggons were wait-
ing to convey us to Underbill. A little rain fell, on the
way, but we were beyond caring for that, and eleven
o'clock found us at the Dixon House, Underbill, where
two friends of Robert's from Burlington, Mr. K. B.
Walker and Dr. Vincent, had arrived to meet us.

Getting an early dinner, we bestowed ourselves in
and upon the Tantivy Coach of W^ H. Lane & Son,
Mr. Rogers, driver, bound for Burlington, 16 miles.
There was lots of fun and innumerable cigars concealed
about Walker, we soon found, and the more sedate

NOTES OF A

doctor was presently guilty of some very good stories,
which were racy of the soil. '• Hotter 'n mustard, ain't
it ?" said Walker, as we slowed-up about noon, in the
sandy road of Jericho Centre on the Lamoille River,
on the Burlington & Lamoille Railroad, a remark which
reminded the driver, in turn, of ** a little story."

It was while crossing Lamoille River bridge, that
Matthews got a fright which will henceforth increase
his sympathy with brakesmen on freight -trains.
The bridge was a covered one, as most of them are in
this district, and its designers had not had Tally-Ho
outsides in view in their measurements. '* Low
Bridge !" had been duly called out by the pilots on the
front seat, and every one ducked his head. But the
three on the last and highest seat had to bend backs
as well as heads ; the two thin ones had room to pass
under the beams, but Matthews, bend his Atlas-like
shoulders as he might, could not escape contact, and
the nut of a projecting bolt on the under side of the
cross-beam caught his chocolate velvet coat and ripped
it from shoulder to waist, before the coach could be
stopped. It was a mercy his back, or at any rate his
ribs, had not been broken. He did not rt sh allusions
to Sartor Resartus, and could not be got to adopt
Herr Teufelsdrceckh's " Philosophy of Clothes," seeing
that, for once, he was out of harmony with his environ-
ment. Hedley even bethought him of a translation of
Beranger's most famous songs, A mon habit :

" Poor though we be, my good old friend,
No gold shall bribe our backs to bend,
, Poor coat."

But Wilbur's back did bend, and that rather spoiled
the application.

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

The drive from Underbill to Burlington was most
enjoyable, and we reached Burlington in high spirits
about two, where the party was quartered at the Van
Ness House, whose landlord is a nineteenth century
brick.

After dinner, three carriages were brought by our
hospitable friends, and we were taken for a memorable
drive about one of the loveliest towns in all New Eng-
land, Mr. Derby, an agreeable addition to the party,
having joined us at Mr. Walker's request. For four
hours we drove about, in and out of the town, so enter-
tained with cur companions and the various charming
views and objects that it did not seem two. The
Bishop Hopkins Institute, and curiou.i monument to
the bishop's memory; Legrand Connon's mansion
and park ; the Agricultural grounds and race-track ;
the beautiful cemetery and neat chapel ; the new
buildings of Burlington University where the statue
of Lafayette was to be placed, and many handsome
residences in commanding sites. Good roads and p>er-
fect weather added, made the long and varied drive
absolutely delightful.

We were interested in what Mr. Walker told us of
the benefactions done to the community by Mr. John
P. Howard. This gentleman, a bachelor, has bestowed
much of his great wealth in benefitting the citizens of
Burlington. For example, he has built three fountains
in the city, built the entrance to the fair grounds, the
pretty chapel in the cemetery. Ther. he expends
$54,000 in modernizing Vermont University buildings ;
gives $25,000 to place in front of it a statue of Lafay-
ette, (who laid the corner-stone of the old building, by
the way,) and having erected an opera house block at

».-

64 ' NOTES OF A

a cost of $100,000 he hands it over to be managed for
the behoof of the Orphans' Home. What a lesson to
men of wealth to be their own executors ; to see the
fruit of their donations ; to partake, while they yet live,
of that purest of pleasures, the pleasure of making
others comfortable and happy. Strange, that the appe-
tite for amassing money should so often grow by what
it feeds on, and that impulses to generosity so commonly
lead no further in rich men's life-time, than to bequests
in wills, to be squabbled over at law when the makers
are dead and gone.

After tea at the VanNess House, which was crowded
with members of the Masonic brotherhood, met on
some ff. Jtival occasion, the President and the Historian
were seated, in fancied seclusion, in a corner of the
verandah when a young man approached and asked
" Is this a reunion of the Grand Army of the Poto-
mac ? " pointing to our brown velvet coats. It was
well for that young man that Robert's wrath or Willie's
scorn did not fall upon him.

BURLTNGTON, THURSDAY, I4TH JUNE.

T^HE unseemly noises of some convivial Freemasons
■*• overhead kept some of us awake for hours that
night, but we were in good trim when roused by Robert
at 6.30. A good breakfast put us in tune with the
weather, bright, breezy and cool. The baggage checked,
and a final division made of the varied contents of the
big coach trunk, we were off to the steamer Vermont^
which left at 8.50 for the journey down Lake Cham-
plain.

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

This was the end of our coaching trip, tlie more the
pity. Does it need any summing up ? Verily it was of
itself a poem, and needs no commemoration in a
''pome" such as some Ochtwan salamander put, by
anticipation, into the mouth of " Old Head" when we
left Toronto.

We had had wonderful weather, much kindness
shown us on our way, much of Providential care to be
thankful for ; and we had reason to recall, in our inter-
course with one another, the dialogue of Joseph and
Father Zebedee in the Story of Waterloo : " Everything
changes, good sense and a good heart are the only
things that remain unchanged." And the lesson of
the Old Burying Ground was not lost upon us as we
passed the " God's Acre," here and there, that

" Yet still the wilding flowers would blow,
The golden leaves would fall,
The seasons come, the seasons go,
And God be good to all."

Upon Burlington wharf we chanced to meet Mr.
Brad. Smalley, another of Kimball's friends, who was
to have ridden in with us from Underbill, but was pre-
vented. With much reluctance we bade good-bye to
our handsome Walker, who

, " Stood six foot, A I,
Clear grit an' human nater,"

, And steamed away on the bosom of the beautiful lake
which has gained probably a greater celebrity, on this
continent at least, than has the memory of the. great
Frenchman after whom it was named. The scenery,
so charming and described so often, needs no descrip-
tion here, it was seen to perfection in the bright

\\ v m t \ r'-"'V-^ "" ■i-'-'fc"

NOTES OF A

sunlight of to-day. As we passed Crown Point,
which has a history of nearly 300 years (1609),
and were speculating on the derivation of its name,
the captain of the steamer, himself part French
Canadian, Rochleau by name, informed us that it was
Pointe a la Chevelure^ or Scalp Point, the reference
being to the uncomfortable Indian habit of peeling their
captives' skulls. Ticonderoga was reached at 11.30,
and here we had to part with Kimball, who started by
railway for New York.

The rail took us hence to Baldwin, Lake George,
4 miles, and we got the steamer Horicon down that
lovely sheet, which Willie said looked like Como,
barring the vineyards and the bold hills. Could
anything surpass the luminous oL :e green tint of the
water at Rogers' Rock ? What a pity Wiman was
not with us, to be rested and soothed by the placid
beauty of the scene. Townsend detected an English
party on board, (two ladies with their knitting and a
gentleman with a California frog in a box) which
Howells or Henry James might have made something
of from an American " Point of View." Tom chatted
with them about old England for a full hour. Caldwell
fulfilled all expectations for picturesqueness, and the
Fort William Henry hotel for size. Leeds and
Raynor had come with us, intending to take boat from
Albany to-night, and when we parted from them we
had seen the last, for this summer, of the New York
section of the party. The Canadians stopped at
Saratoga, 6.30 p.m., and put up at the Clarendon.

JUNE COACHING TRIP. 67

Saratoga, N.Y., June 15TH.

A NOTHER perfect June morning. Had we had any
'^^ other kind, save and except the **drooking" at
Mount Mansfield ? If so we did not recall it. After
breakfast Slorah's Tally- Ho coach was mounted for a
drive to Hilton Park, a visit no sojourner at Saratoga
should omit to pay. Then per similar conveyance to
Moon's and Frank Leslie's former residence, InterlakeUy
on Saratoga Lake, almost equally enjoyable. These
coaches boasted performers on the attenuated horn
which could put to shame the efforts of our
party on their simpler instruments, but they could
never get so much fun out of their perfunctory
horn-blowing as we did out of our amateur tooting.
Back to dinner to find the dining room half filled by
undertakers, who were present from all parts, holding a
"convention." Mr. Harris, one of the proprietors of
the Clarendon (who also keep the new Genesee at
Buffalo) was a very cordial Englishman, who seemingly
'* knew the ropes " at Washington in addition to his
other knowledge. It was not yet •* the season " at
Saratoga and we were made very comfortable. Here
Dwight heard by cable lelegran. , as he had done at
other points during our drive, from his son Lyman,
who is one of the Canadian Team which is giving ex-
hibition gameg of lacrosse throughout Great Britain.
Every one was glad to hear of ** Imey's " welfare, and
of the marked success of the team, many of whom we
knew.

At three we left for Albany by train, arriving at 4.30.
Visited the granite and marble Capitol and saw
through several of its magnificent apartments, thanks
to the address of Dwight and the 3delding civility of an

NOTES OF A

official who knew when to " break a custom." After
tea, Tom and the President drove through the Park,
while Wilbur and Hedley were seeing the North River
boats and interviewing an enthusiastic Adirondack
sportsman down town. Twenty-five cent drinks and
fifty cent games of billiards will astonish any fellow
who permits himself to forget that he is in the Capital
of the Empire State, where the magnificoes " cut it
rich." The train which left at 10.30 took us into
Buffalo station at half-past seven, where a stately
George-Frederick- Washington-Douglas style of waiter
got us an admirable breakfast. Then on to Lewiston
and per Chicora across Lake Ontario, home.

TT may have been noticed that we were greatly
favored in respect of weather ; the days were
almost uninterrupted sunshine, the nights cool and
clear: "Queen's weather," we Canadians would call
it, for it has become a proverb that whenever the good
Victoria has a pageant, or whenever, on the 24th May,,
her birth-day is to be celebrated, it is sure to be fine
weather ; " Club weather," the Dwight-Wimans termed
it, for their outings have been nearly uniformly blessed
with fine days. And the scenery !-— Charming, charm-
ing day by day.

Were there no mishaps ? None worthy the name.
One curious auditor of our adventures wondered how
we got on in a tee-total state such as Vermont, seeing
that we were not all cold- watermen. " Didn't you miss
your beer at dinner ?" Hardly ever. The question
recalled, however, a certain entertainment by the late
WiUiam E. Dodge of the delegates to the Evan-
gelical Alliance in his mansion, when, it is related :

JUNE COACHING TRIP. 69

'• certain famous German theologians wandered over
the house, as through a dry and thirsty land, in vain
quest for a glass of beer." If any one had craved for
a stronger beverage than. water, it was not impossible
to procure it. But with such stimulants as ozone and
hearty laughter what need had we of John Barleycorn ?
In the woods in October, or on the Swiss or Scotch
Highlands, where the Club have wandered, it might
have been requisite and palatable, but here it seemed
out of place. Query, was it some feeling of this sort
that moved the Vermont people to. forbid it ? '' But
on top of Mount Mansfield," Tom thought, " yoii
would have been mighty glad of some, drenched as we
were." Right you are Tom ; for, as Mrs. Carlyle says,
" things affect one so differently at different times,"
— she is writing from Chelsea to her friend Mrs. Russell
— " whiskey seemed to fever me at Holm Hill, at
the coast it calmed me, and here it puts me to sleep."

It goes without saying, that during the course of
the drive many an incident of former Club trips was
narrated : Fish stories were told that would have de-
lighted that Prince of fishermen and modern philoso-
phers, the late George Dawson, whom one of
the party had met in such excellent company as
that of Col. (now President) Arthur and Mr. R.
G. Dun, albeit they related to trout, and not to
the lordly salmon of the Nipisiguit — Tom's upset
in the rapids at Ox-Tongue and his capture of
the baby bear under the cliff— Wiman's slaughter
of wolves at Lake of Bays, for which he claimed
and got the- reward of the Ontario Government —
The enchanted doe of Camp Hedley in October, 1882,
and the legends our guides told of that uncanny little

NOTES OF A

creature — The "Lady of the Lake" episode of 1879,
worthy of the pen of the Great Magician himself —
Dwight's appearance in puris naturalibusj in the atti-
tude of Ajax defying the Hghtning, his towel for a
shield, until, turning his head like a btartled fawn, he
beheld the shallop of the Dawson family approach, and
ran to cover in the bushes — The entertainment of
Olivia-and-DoUy-Varden-in-the-pink-shawl on Captain
Huckins' steamer at Baysville — The so sadly misunder-
stood hospitality of Wilbur and Willie on the Corniche
road on the first trip to Europe, when Morse and
Robert, Tom and Theodore missed their wine for want
of a timely knowledge of Italian at Refuge No. 1881 —
The little keg of Kosh-a-wosh that appeared when
" we were the first that ever burst into that silent sea "
of Keh-we-am-be-ge-wog-a-mog, and Lyman and K ^nry
fell asleep and lost the dog.

How W^iman laughed and Chandler stared when
Willie Raynor, that born story-teller, rehearsed these
and a hundred other tales, ranging from Muskoka
to the Pyrenees, from the Georgian Bay to the Bay of
Naples. ** Oh ! Boys, oh Boys," as Chris. Sawyer, the
guide, used to ejaculate — a harmless expletive which
Alfred McDougall is fond of quoting.

The Canadian members of the Club, returned to
*• the daily round, th^ common task," were saying to
one another, in prose, something like this :

*' The year has but one June, dear friend,

The year has but one June ;
And when that perfect month doth end,
The robin's song, though loud, though long.

Seems never quite in tune,"

When the correspondence which follows came to them.
The big-hearted President had, as we knew he would,

JUNE COACHING TRIP.

put our sentiments well, and Robert's reply was
•' Robert all over." The letters may fitly serve to con-
clude this sketch of the trip : —

From Greenfield, Mass., to Burlington, Vt.

•' What is so rare as a day in June.''''

DWIGHT WIMAN CLUB.

g
e

New York, June 19th. 1883.
R. J. Kimball, Esq.,

Care Fuller Electrical Co., City.

My dear Robert, —

It remains for me, on behalf of the Dwight Wiman Club and
its guests on the late delightful trip, to make some permanent recog-
nition of the appreciation we all entertain of the admirable arrange-
ments you made on our behalf. Words would fail me to express to
you all we feel about how much you have contributed to the per-
petuation of the pleasant relation which exists between us all ; how
perfectly and completely you fulfilled, not only our high expecta-
tions, but far surpassed them. Nothing seemed wanting throughout.

As for your own hospitality at your dear mother's house, it was
a thing never to be forgotten ; and I only hope I may have the oppor-
tunity some day to do as much for the Club as you did for it in those
rare days in June.

As some slight token of our sentiments, we beg your acceptance
of the accompanying ring, which we trust you will wear in memory
of the bright days of June, 1883, rendered all the more delightful by
your conception of the trip, your forethought in providing for it, and
your happy and ge'— '-^l companionship and guidance through it all.

am, ever truly yours,

Erastus Wiman,

Vice-President,

^^p

NOTES.

s]
b
ri
C
I
s
n

" What is so rare as a day in JuneJ"-

141 Montague Street,

Brooklyn, N.Y., June 20, 1883.
My dearest Friends, —

Your delightful not« of the 19th inst. is received, accompanied
by a most elegant present : a ring, with a stone which I am sure
must be as rare in comparison with the greater number one can find,
even at " Tiffany's," as were our " glistening days in June " in com-
parison with the other days of the year.

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the kindness that
prompted the gift, and the token itself.

I thank you all. As " Sir Joseph Porter, K. C. B." would say,

"it is one of the peculiar characteristics of oilr Club, to be well

pleased with whatever we do and have," and therefore I did not

expect anything less on our " Coaching Trip," through my dear

old State of Vermont; but I was hardly prepared to be '* out-

Vermonted ' ' by your appreciation of what we saw and did in the

home of my boyhood. This, of itself, more than repays me and my

friends for anything we may have done to make your visit a pleasure

to you, as it certainly was (extremely so) to us.

We all remember the visit "in the rare days of June, 1883," as

among the most delightful of our lives, and we look forward to the

time when it may be repeated.

Ever sincerely yours,

Robert J. Kimball.
To Erastus Wiman, Esq.,

Vice-President D. W. Club.

Albert B. Chandler. H. J. Morse,

AND OTHER GUESTS OF THE ClUB.

»"Tfr'r,*'"'T-n''« -r

ne 20, 1883.

.ccompanied

I am sure

me can find,

ne " in com-

indness that

' would say,
b, to be well
re I did not
igh my dear
to be " out-
d did in the
i me and my
sit a pleasure

le, 1883," as
arward to the

Kimball.