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1 I THE PACIFIC

1 COAST II THE

II ROCKY MOUNTAINS

II HI THE MISSISSIPPI |

VALLEY IV THE

GREAT LAKES

[ V THE SOUTH VI

FROM THE ST.

11 LAWRENCE TO

¦ VIRGINIA VII

1 NEW ENGLAND

1

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF
NEW ENGLAND

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The fish story

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
OF
NEW ENGLAND

INCLUDING THE STATES OF
MASSACHUSETTS
NEW HAMPSHIRE
RHODE ISLAND
CONNECTICUT VERMONT AND
MAINE

J

WRITTEN AND
ILLUSTRATED BY
CLIFTON JOHNSON

Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
New York McMxn -

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

Copyright, ipij
by the Macmillan Company.

Set up and electrotyped
Published November, 1915
Reprinted February, 1916

AMERICAN
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

NEW ENGLAND

Electrotypedby the
F. A. Bassette Company
Springfield, Mass.

Contents

Page

I.

In the Maine Woods .

I

II.

Artemus Ward's Town

29

III.

June in the White Mountains

49

IV.

A New Hampshire Paradise

73

V.

On the Shores of Lake Champlain

88

VI.

The Village of the Seven Taverns

108

VII.

August in the Berkshire Hills

133

VIII.

The Port of the Fishermen .

155

IX.

The Land of the Minute Men

172

X.

Autumn on Cape Cod

18S

XI.

Nantucket Days

199

XII.

Along Shore in Rhode Island

225

XIII.

Old Put's Country

241

XIV.

Shad Time on the Connecticut

• 255

XV.

Glimpses of Life

. 282

Illustrations

The Fish Story  Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The Indian Island Ferry ..... 7

Ready for Game

H
Breakfast Preparations .
22
Artemus Ward's Old Home
29
The Village School
• 32
A Vernal Roadway
43
The Flume
• 5°
The Old Tip-top House .
59
The Presidential Range from Bretton Woods
66
The Toll-gate at the Entrance to the Bridge
75
The Fisherman .....
82
Old-time Natives .
87
The Waterside — Lake Champlain
9i
At Work in the Garden .
98
A Rugged Bit of Shore .
102
Washing-day
109
A Colonial Pulpit .
112
Capturing Bees
120
At the Door of a Country Store
133
A Nook Among the Hills
139
Harvest Time
146
The Foreign-looking Main Street
155
The Harbor ....
162
Illustrations

Cleaning Fish ......
The Lexington Minute Man ....
Where the Battle Was Fought at Concord Bridge
Old Stone Fences that Served to Shelter the Attacking
1 Farmers
A Relic of Earlier Days .
Earning His Living
A Glimpse of Provincetown
A Nantucket Harbor Nook
A Cobble-paved Lane
The Old Windmill .
The Seaward View from King Philip's Seat
At the Edge of the Water
NoonMaking a Rug
The Wolf Den
Schoolboys
Low Tide
Comparing Fish
Shad Time on the Connecticut
After Dandelion Greens .
Getting in Hay
On the Border of the Lake
One of the Old Folks at Home

167172
177
182
187
190194
203210
219226
231235
242
246
251258267274
282
285288291

Introductory Note
All the volumes in this series are chiefly concerned
with country life, especially that which is typical and
picturesque. To the traveller, no life is more interest
ing, and yet there is none with which it is so difficult to
get into close and unconventional contact. Ordinarily,
we catch only casual glimpses. For this reason I have
wandered much on rural byways, and lodged most of
the time at village hotels or in rustic homes. My trips
have taken me to many characteristic and famous
regions; but always, both in text and pictures, I have
tried to show actual life and nature and to convey some
of the pleasure I experienced in my intimate acquain
tance with the people.
These "Highways and Byways" volumes are often
consulted by persons who are planning pleasure tours.
To make the books more helpful for this purpose each
chapter has a note appended containing suggestions
for intending travellers. With the aid of these notes,
I think the reader can readily decide what regions are
likely to prove particularly worth visiting, and will
know how to see such regions with the most comfort
and facility.
Clifton Johnson.
Hadley, Mass.

THIS volume includes chapters on
characteristic, picturesque, and
historically attractive regions in the
states of Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut
and Rhode Island. The notes ap
pended to the chapters give valuable
information concerning automobile
routes and many facts and suggestions
of interest to tourists in general.

Highways and Byways of
New England i
IN THE MAINE WOODS
THE lumbermen have been devastating the forest
country around Moosehead Lake for a hun
dred years, yet much of it is still genuine
wilderness. Its solitudes are frequented by big game,
the streams are full of fish, and the lakes abound with
waterfowl. Here and there a few faint trails wind
through the forest, most of them of little use except
in winter; and the rivers and lakes are the chief
thoroughfares, just as they were in the days of the
first explorers. Even the aborigines are not alto
gether lacking, for a remnant of the once powerful
Penobscot tribe has survived, and some of its members
continue to resort to the woods to hunt and fish and
act as guides.
The four hundred persons who constitute this Indian
tribe have permanent dwellings on the borders of the
wilderness at Oldtown, where they occupy an island
in the river. Access to their domains is obtained by a

2 Highways and Byways of New England
lumberman's bateau rowed by a swarthy Indian ferry
man. The island is two miles long, and the land rises
and falls in little hills and hollows that are for the most
part well covered with trees. It seems like a bit of
Eden to one who has come from the busy streets and
noisy waterside mills of Oldtown. The Indian homes
are set helter-skelter in a somewhat close group at the
southern end of the island. Among them is a public
hall, a schoolhouse, and a good-sized church, but there
are no streets or roads — only paths. Many of the
dwellings are little one-story cabins. Others are large
and substantial, yet always with a touch of dilapida
tion or incompleteness as if the owners had not the
knack of carrying a project through to the end, or of
retaining in good order what they once gain. The most
imposing house of all at the time of my visit had a fine
granite underpinning, maroon paint, and an ornate
front door, but this door lacked a handle, and there
were no steps to mount to it. Roofs were apt to be
leaky, fences broken, and the few tiny garden patches
were overflowing with weeds, while the occasional fruit
trees were wholly unpruned and dying of neglect.
Everywhere were signs of shiftless easy-going poverty,
and the people loitered about chatting or dreaming.
The state looks after them as its wards and controls
their property, which includes considerable rentable
land, and they have an annual income from this source
that averages twenty dollars to each member of the
tribe. Some of the money is reserved to care for the

In the Maine Woods 3
poor, and the rest is doled out in the form of orders
for supplies. But these orders are often sold to the
whites for half their face value, and the cash thus
obtained is most likely spent for liquor. The sale of
strong drink to the Indians is unlawful, but there is
always a low grade of whites who will take the Indians'
money, invest it in fire-water for them, and then help
drink the stuff.
None of the Indians are now full-blooded. They have
intermarried somewhat promiscuously with the whites —
men of the French and Irish races being apparently the
most inclined to take squaw brides.
"As a class the Indians are unreliable," a local resi
dent informed me. "They attend their church pretty
well, but it don't hold them down very much. They
pick up things when they have a chance, and they never
pay a debt. If one of 'em owed me, and he saw me
comin', I'd expect him to sneak around through a back
street. Another thing — you take an Indian in a tight
place, or scrapping, and he's cowardly — don't show any
sand. They ain't got the ambition of white men and
won't work as hard. Very few of 'em can be depended
on for steady exertion. When an Indian works long
enough to earn a few dollars he no sooner gets his pay
than he lays off to spend it. They take no thought
for the morrow, and if they have something for sup
per they don't care whether they have any breakfast
or not.
"The old race was better than those of the present.

4 Highways and Byways of New England
There used to be a cannon on the island that they fired
when the village men who'd been logging came down
the river with the drive in the spring, but they hain't
got the energy to do that now. They're bright enough,
and there's some who go to college, but such don't fare
any better'n the rest. The college fellow ain't been
brought up to work, and he soon dissipates and goes to
pieces. "Yes, an Indian's an Indian; but I'll say this for them
— they've never had a fair show anywheres. Oldtown
used to be an awful rough place, and woe betide the
Indian who got in a little too much booze. It would
make him pretty wild, and the lumbermen would
'Hurrah boys!' and gather a crowd and almost massa-
cree him. Every one knows too that the whites' treat
ment of the Indian girls wa'n't what it ought to be.
Some of 'em was handsome as pictures. If a man tried
to be familiar with 'em while they were sober they'd
fly in his hair in a minute; but they were an easy prey
when they were drunk. They have, if anything, more
of an appetite for liquor than the men, and two-thirds
of the women on the island now have served time in
jail for drunkenness."
The tragic element in the Indian story did not present
itself as I rambled about their village. Life there
seemed to be particularly placid, and I found the in
habitants companionable and apparently contented.
One of the men related with evident relish how a woman
with a camera stopped to make a picture of him while

In the Maine Woods 5
he was digging potatoes, and he said he asked her if she
didn't know it was against the law to shoot wild animals
at that season in Maine.
From Oldtown I went by train to the southern end
of Moosehead Lake, whence I journeyed to the other
end, a distance of forty miles, in a little steamer. Many
forest fires were burning, for the season had been un
usually dry, and the air was thick with smoke. The
sun shone dimly through the haze from a cloudless sky,
and as the steamer pushed onward, the land between
the green points that we were constantly passing re
ceded into a vague and silvery distance.
Our journey ended toward evening at a clearing in
which were a small hotel and a store. Here I engaged
a guide, Pete by name, and, with him to advise, bought
supplies at the store for a week's canoe trip. The trip
was to begin on a stream two miles away across a
"carry." Pete agreed to hire a team and get his canoe
and the supplies over the first thing in the morning,
but I walked across that night. The road was rough
and wholly strange to me, yet it was clear of timber for
several rods on either side and, in spite of the moonless
gloom, I had no difficulty in following it.
As I trudged along I presently observed a peculiar
glow over the landscape, and when I looked up to dis
cover the cause saw that the heavens were all ablaze
with a wonderfully brilliant aurora. Splinters of light,
some single, some gathered in great sheaves, were
pulsating weirdly across the sky; and there were long

6 Highways and Byways of New England
streamers that now and then formed in a luminous,
cloudy nucleus right overhead with plumes extending
away in all directions, faintly colored with tints of the
rainbow, and alternately flashing and fading. What a
wild shimmering dance! and so silent! I unconsciously
listened for a crash of sound, but heard nothing except
a slight noise of dusky wings as an occasional bat sped
past me in its erratic flight.
At a farmhouse near the river I found lodging for
the night. Two men were sitting on the piazza smoking
their pipes and watching the aurora. "I've never seen
the northern lights like this, covering the whole sky,"
one of them commented. " I bet a dollar it means some
thing — either storm or cold."
After we had discussed the noiseless celestial fire
works for a while the other man said to me: "Your
walk across the carry would have been kind of danger
ous a few weeks later. As soon as the law is off on deer
there's the darndest rush of sports in here that ever
you see, all wantin' to hunt, and so excited they don't
know what they're doin'. They gather around the
borders of the clearings waiting for the deer to come out
to feed, and if they get sight of anything movin' they
take for granted that it's game and shoot in a hurry.
So in the late evening or early morning, when the light
is dim, if you git anywhere near 'em, they most likely
plunk you. Ain't that right Steve?"
"Yes," Steve agreed. "Why, you know one time
last year how Bob Eddy was behind a rock in the field

The Indian Inland Ferry

In the Maine Woods 7
where we cut hay. He was watchin' for a chance at a
deer, and so were some sports who were crawlin' around
in the bushes on the edge of the woods. Pretty soon he
heard a bullet sing past, and later a second and a third.
Then he sensed what was the matter and he looked and
saw the fellow who was shooting.. Bob was mad clear
through, and he jumped up and began swearing. He
told the sport he had half a mind to put a bullet in him,
and the sport took to his heels.
"It's lucky that the sports are poor shots, for though
they kill quite a number of men every year it's only a
very few compared with those that are shot at. They
get nervous and their bullets fly half a mile wide of the
mark as like as not. But bullets ain't the only danger
here. Bill, tell about that close call you had a couple
of years ago down at the river."
"Well," Bill said, "it was late in the fall and the
river was skimmed over with thin ice. I got into my
canoe and was breaking my way across, and it happened
there was an old fellow standing on the other bank
watching me. Then all of a sudden I fell in. I couldn't
do much but cling to the ice and prevent my head from
goin' under. The old fellow on the shore got a boat and
started to my rescue hollerin': 'Keep cool, keep cool!
I'm comin'!'
"It was no trouble to keep cool in that ice-water,
and by the time he pulled me out I was so cool that in
about another minute I'd have lost my grip."
At the conclusion of this narrative we went indoors,

8 Highways and Byways of New England
and Steve took a lamp and picked up from behind the
hall door a cap and a cob pipe. "Those belonged to
our fire warden," he said. "We found 'em in the river
near where he was drowned four or five days ago. He
and his wife were out in a canoe and they upset. In
her fright she grabbed him around the neck and so
kept herself above water until he sank. At the same
time she was screaming, and their nephew who was
hunting in the woods close by ran to see what was the
trouble. He swam out into the stream, but he was
foxy and wouldn't go right to her; for he was slim and
light while she was a big heavy woman, and he knew if
she got hold of him they'd both drown. So he swam
to the canoe and swung it around to her. She caught
the end of it, and he pushed her to shore. Then he
went and dove after his uncle, but couldn't get him.
He and his aunt came home, and she was most crazy.
She said she had caused her husband's death, and she
cried till her face was black as the stove. They've
moved away now, but they lived in a little house just
a few rods down the road."
In the morning the air was crisp and clear and en
tirely free from smoke. However, Bill said this was
merely because the wind had changed and that the
forest fires still burned. "We don't have as bad fires
as we used to have," he continued. "I remember one
forty years ago, by gorry! that climbed the spruce trees
like a race-horse. It was a damnable sight — and when
there come a gust of wind — Lord ! how that fire would

In the Maine Woods 9
go! But I sot a back fire along a road and kept it away
from our place.
"Another fire that I recollect got goin' in some timber
land where there wa'n't a stick but pine of the very
finest kind. The owner of the land was at our house
when it started. He watched the black smoke rollin'
up and offered to give Father a barrel of flour if he'd
put the fire out. Then he went off, and Father and
four of us boys took some pails and was on our way to
see if we could deaden the fire by throwing on water
when a thunderstorm come along and did the business.
Next day Father hitched up and drove to the town
where the man that offered him the flour had a store.
The feller was a drefful mean critter, and he declared he
wa'n't goin' to pay for what the rain had done. But
his partner said : 'Let the man have the flour. He did
what he could, and if God Almighty helped him you
no need to complain.' "
I remarked that I had come to the woods prepared
for cold, rough weather, but that the present prospects
were so bright and mild I thought I had made a mis
take. "Oh, no," he responded, "a wise man takes his
coat and umbrella whether the weather is favorable or
not. Any fool knows enough to take 'em if it's bad.
You'll have a nice trip; but a month ago it was all a
man's life was worth to go into the woods on account of
the mosquitoes and flies."
My guide arrived about the time I finished breakfast,
and we were soon afloat on the stream — a lonely,

10 Highways and Byways of New England
sluggish waterway through the interminable forest.
The steady dip of the paddles, the ripple of little waves
along the sides of the canoe, and the swiftness with
which we glided down the stream were all delightful.
But the voyaging nevertheless had its flaws, for I
presently heard Pete, who sat at the stern, grumbling
that he had tipped over the kerosene can, and that his
plug of tobacco had dropped into the spillings and
tasted of the oil.
By noon, after putting ten miles behind us, we came
to a solitary clearing where there was a little cluster of
buildings with a garden and a few fenced fields round
about. "The place belongs to Joe Smith," Pete in
formed me, " and he runs a sort of hotel. You'd ought
to see him. He's got a paunch as big as a molasses
barrel." We concluded to stop at Joe's for dinner, and so I
made his acquaintance. He was a vigorous elderly
man with bushy white hair, and as rotund as my guide
had said, but he was far from having the fat individual's
proverbial amiability. Indeed, he was as full of wrath
as he could hold and was constantly scolding, and slam
ming nervously in and out of the house. He told the
several persons who had gathered at his dinner table
that this was the last day his house would be open to
the public.
But his housekeeper said: "Joe is not himself this
noon. He will feel differently tomorrow. You needn't
mind what he says about closing the house. It will be

In the Maine Woods 1 1
open just the same. I ain't no kid, and I'll see to that.
But I can tell you I don't like my job. No one in this
world has to take the redemption and going-over that
a cook does. The trouble at present is caused by some
liquor that a sport give him yesterday. Joe had eleven
drinks before breakfast."
When we left the dinner table we heard the landlord
shouting wrathfully on the piazza. Pete glanced out
at him through a window and remarked: "Joe's got a
voice like a mad bull. I s'pose he's breakin' the news
to those two teamsters he's talkin' with."
At that instant the fat landlord delivered a sudden
blow with his fist that knocked one of the teamsters off
the piazza and landed him full length on the ground..
The man's pipe flew from his mouth, and some money
he had in his hand was scattered all around. But he
was not hurt and was soon on his feet. Joe stamped
and threw a piazza chair onto the woodpile. My guide
and I betook ourselves to the canoe, and as we went on
we looked back up the hill from the far end of the clear
ing. Joe was in the yard still bellowing at the teamsters
who were standing near a shed, and his big body and
white shock of hair loomed on the horizon like a
thunder-cloud. We now came to rapids, and a continual dodging was
necessary to keep in the channel and avoid the numer
ous stones that strewed our course, both those that
were in plain sight and those that were slightly sub
merged. Pete did the navigating alone, here holding

12 Highways and Byways of New England
back, here pushing vigorously forward, at times using
his paddle, but in the more difficult places a "pick-
pole." At last the voyaging became so bad that I got
out and walked along near the stream on a grassy tote-
road that was used in winter for transporting supplies
to the lumber camps. I had the company of a young
married couple who had been passengers in a canoe
ahead of us. This canoe was propelled by the Chesun-
cook mail-carrier who travels over a twenty-mile route,
going up the river one day and down the next.
As we strolled along, the man, gun in hand, kept a
sharp watch for game. Presently he addressed me
saying, "Your hearing isn't very good, is it?"
I did not understand the significance of his remark
until he went on to say: "You couldn't hear anything,
could you, in case I should do some shooting contrary
to law? Anyhow, the law's off on ducks, and I'm goin'
to shoot if I see one sitting up in a tree, even if it does
look like a partridge."
After walking a mile we resumed our canoe voyage
in dead-water that sets back from Lake Chesuncook,
and the lake itself presently came in sight. The day
was now waning, and Pete selected a camping-place on
a high bank, where were tentstakes and the charred
remains of a fire. In a short time we had our tent up
and a cheerful blaze crackling in front. Pete then pro
ceeded to boil potatoes, fry bacon and eggs, and bake
biscuit. He did not stint in his use of materials. It
was habitual with him to prepare more food than we

In the Maine Woods 13
could possibly eat and to cheerfully throw away what
was left. Why should he economize when the expense
was another's? He brought the canoe up the bank and
wedged it bottom upward between two trees for a
table. When supper had been disposed of we paddled across
the lake to a tiny settlement. By the time we neared
the landing the evening gloom had so increased that
we could distinguish nothing clearly along the muddy,
snag-encumbered shore, and we were vainly trying to
find a way to solid ground when some one appeared
with a lantern and helped us out of our difficulties. We
went with him up to the post office which was a room
in the ell of his house, and we were there chatting when
we heard shouts from the lake. The postmaster went
out again into the night with his lantern. This time he
returned with a guide and two young women. The
latter were to teach school in the vicinity, one on this
side of the lake, and the other in a similar tiny settle
ment on the opposite shore. They were town girls who
had accepted the positions in part, at least, for the
pleasure of spending a few months in the woods. Their
only way to come and go was by canoe, and their voy
age that day had been pretty strenuous. The guide
did not know the river and had got his canoe down the
rapids by wading. Hardly was he past the worst of the
rocks when darkness closed in on them, and they had
an anxious time until they saw ahead the lights of the
settlement.

14 Highways and Byways of New England
Pete and I presently returned to our boat and pad
dled across to camp. When we went to bed my guide
drew the blankets over his head and never removed
them till morning. I wondered that he did not smother,
but he said he always slept that way — in winter on
account of the cold, in summer to escape mosquitoes.
The bruising the canoe had received on the rocks
had set it to leaking, and Pete made repairs with paper
and shellac. Just before starting he "killed" our fire
by pouring water onto the embers so that it could by
no chance spread into the woodland. This he did every
where we built a fire, whether at our night camping-
place, or where we stopped for our noon lunch. The
precaution was taken not entirely out of regard for the
forest, but from a wholesome fear of the wardens, who,
if they discovered a neglected campfire of his, even if
he had only left it intending to come back in five
minutes, would take away his license as a guide and
send him out of the woods.
For several miles we journeyed very comfortably up
a broad arm of the lake, and the channel came to an
abrupt end in a floating tangle of stumps and dead trees.
Careful search revealed indications that other boats
had crowded and chopped a way through this debris.
So, sometimes pausing to use our ax, sometimes stand
ing on the drift and tugging at the canoe, sometimes in
the boat pushing along with our paddles we gradually
worked our way to a muddy landing. Here was a short
carry to a stream called the Umbazookskus. Its name

Ready for game

In the Maine Woods 1 5
is the only big thing about it, for it is a mere brook,
swift, crooked, and encumbered with boulders. Pete
waded and pushed the boat before him while I tramped
a trail in the towering unmolested forest. Often the
path led through a sober twilight of evergreen woods
where tresses of gray moss hung from the dead limbs.
At length we reached Umbazookskus Lake and pad
dled across it to a clearing in which a summer resident
had a log cabin. Another carry was now necessary —
this time two miles long, but the owner of the cabin had
no desire to have strangers linger on his premises, and
for a moderate remuneration he was ready to supply a
man and team to facilitate their progress to other
regions. The conveyance on which we bestowed our
selves amid our belongings was a heavy logging wagon,
and the road was deeply rutted and boggy. At inter
vals we splashed through pools of water, and there were
frequent rocks over which we bumped with a violence
calculated to addle one's brains. Now and then, too,
we had a jig over a stretch of corduroy.
It was a relief to embark once more, even though we
were traversing Mud Pond, which was decidedly more
mud than pond; for there was only a skimming of
water with black ooze beneath. Through this we
pushed by main force, and on arriving at the other
shore I resumed walking while Pete waded behind the
canoe down a brook that he said had hardly enough
water in it to float his pick-pole. But we did not have
far to go before reaching a marshy region where the

16 Highways and Byways of New England
stream was navigable, and then we paddled along till
we came to the broad expanse of Chamberlain Lake.
The smoke had come on thick again, and the dim
opposite shore seemed twenty miles away.
Pete said it was time to camp, but when I demurred
he agreed to push on, though with a reminder that most
guides would not be so obliging. In particular he men
tioned one of the crack guides and affirmed: "If you
had him he'd have stopped at Mud Pond, and you
couldn't have got him to go any farther, nohow. But
then, Dave is the balkiest man God ever made, and
that's a fact."
Another half dozen miles took us to the banks of the
Allegash, where we landed and prepared to pitch our
tent just as the sun disappeared low in the western
smoke. In the morning the smoke had once more blown off,
and the air was keen and clear. When we started on
our day's voyaging we turned southward and sped
swiftly along urged forward by a gale of wind. Once in
a while a little slop of water came over the side of the
canoe from the crest of a wave. In our rear the deep
indigo of the lake surface dappled with whitecaps and
streaked with foam looked positively ugly. The canoe
made long leaps down the incline of each successive
wave, and the experience was very exhilarating — per
haps the more so for its spice of danger.
About a dozen miles from our starting-point we
escaped the worst of the wind by passing through a

In the Maine Woods 17
broad outlet into little Lake Telosmic, and we kept
steadily on until we camped at the far end of Webster
Lake for the night.
As I was gathering driftwood for our fire that evening
I heard a splashing in the water a quarter of a mile
distant, and when I looked in that direction I saw a
cow moose standing knee-deep in the lake eating water-
weeds. I ran along through the woods near the shore
until I came opposite the animal. She was now only a
few rods away, yet for a time was quite undisturbed
by my presence. At length, however, she seemed to
scent me, and threw her ears intently forward and gazed
doubtfully toward the shrubbery behind which I was
concealed. Then she leisurely swung around, and with
many pauses straddled off on her long ungainly legs
into the woods. What a caricature she was with her
humped back and broad-nosed, big-lipped face!
I saw two other moose during my trip, but their
tracks were common along the shores of the streams and
lakes — great ox-like imprints, and with them the
dainty hoof-marks of the deer. I often had glimpses of
the latter creatures — flashes of brown disappearing
among the trees, and on the night we spent at Webster
Lake I heard a deer close by our camp "blowing."
Again and again the wheezing snort was repeated,
warning all the other members of the clan of appre
hended danger. I lifted the lower border of the tent
and looked out. The deer was hardly a dozen feet
away, and a half moon shone, but amid the darkling

1 8 Highways and Byways of New England
shadows of the forest it was effectually hidden. Soon
it went off, now and then nipping at a twig as it. moved
along. Near by was a big dam that the lumbermen used in
controlling the water to float their spring drives of logs
out of the wilderness. In the early morning Pete
resorted to the dam to catch some trout for breakfast.
A stick a few feet long that he picked up on the shore
served for a pole, and a piece of red string for a line.
He had some good flies which it was his habit to carry
twined into the ribbon of his hat, and he fastened one
of them to the string. The trout seemed more inclined
to bite at that gay string than to snap at the fly, but
he caught two, and the larger one weighed about a
pound. We had all we could eat, and yet Pete seemed
a little surprised when I remarked that it would have
been a pity to catch any more. He assured me that
most visitors to the woods are seldom considerate
either of the fish or of the interests of other persons who
find pleasure in angling. The future is nothing to them,
and they disregard the game laws whenever they think
they can do so without getting into trouble. They
catch fish for the pride of numbers and pounds of
weight, and when they have taken their prey to camp
and gloated over it they throw most of it away. Truly,
they are "sports" as the guides call them and not
genuine sportsmen.
We started promptly right after breakfast, and Pete
went off alone to "smlb" down the quick water of

In the Maine Wood* 19
Webster Stream, standing in the stern of the canoe,
pick-pole in hand, ready for all emergencies. I tramped
along a loggers' road which furnished a short cut to the
next lake, and was soon out of sight and hearing of the
stream. Once I crossed a burnt tract where the trees
were all dead and blackened and the ground was strewn
with charred trunks and fragments, but for the most
part my way led through the thick green forest which
apparently had never been devastated by either fire or
axes. When I reached the next lake I sat down to wait for
Pete. An hour passed, then two hours, and still he did
not come. Finally, a good deal perturbed, I started to
follow up the stream in search of him. I wondered
what I would do if thrown on my own resources, with
out food or shelter, and separated from the nearest
habitation by twenty miles of rough forest. As hastily
as possible I made my way along, sometimes on the
loose stones at the borders of the channel, sometimes
through the mud and brush on the banks. The water
fretted its noisy way down the ravine, and on either
side rose the silent woods, and the region seemed as
devoid of human life as if mankind had never penetrated
its sylvan wilds. But at last I was rejoiced, on turning
a bend, to see Pete poling down the rocky torrent. I
waved my hands and shouted a greeting. He, however,
did not respond, and when the canoe crunched up on
the pebbly shore near me he looked very sober.
"I've had hard luck," he said.

20 Highways and Byways of New England
While searching for a place to land above a fall,
around which he would have to carry, his canoe had got
caught between two rocks in a swift current, and the
bow had tipped down, and let in a deluge of water. At
once his cargo was set adrift. He contrived to rescue
some of the goods, but lost nearly all the food and
tableware. Our flour was gone and our cornmeal — no
more biscuits or pancakes or Johnnycake ! The potatoes
had disappeared and the eggs. No spoons or forks
remained, and no knives except my tiny pocketknife
and a sheath knife Pete carried at his side. He be
moaned with especial fervor the loss of his tobacco.
The shellac and tacks with which he repaired his canoe
were missing, and, worst of all, our matches had got
soaked so that we could not kindle a fire.
After lunching on a few half wet crackers spread with
butter, Pete went on down the shallow rapids. He
took me in when we reached the lake, and we paddled
its full length and entered the outlet — a crooked dead-
water through a swamp. Low in the west the sun
shone serenely from a sky that held not a single cloud.
There was no wind, and the stumps and dead trees on
the banks were perfectly mirrored in the water. We
seemed to be afloat on liquid glass. Ducks abounded,
and when a flock flew past us Pete lifted his paddle and
took aim with it as if it was a gun. " Bang ! " he shouted,
and added, "I wish I had one of you fellers for my
supper." Presently we came to a large pond and began to look

In the Maine Woods 21
for a camping-place. We saw several promising spots,
but so far from the water across oozy flats of mud that
it was impossible to approach them. When we reached
the extreme end of the pond we were much disappointed
to find that what we supposed was the channel tapered
down to nothing. On ahead were snaggy masses of
drift — broken tree-trunks and uprooted stumps that
the wind had driven in high water onto the marshy
lowlands. The sun had set, and the twilight gloom was
deepening. It was too late to turn back, and we were
obliged to disembark and pick a gingerly way along on
the drift, carrying our blankets and a few other necessa
ries an eighth of a mile to solid ground. The journey
was a precarious one, for the snags were thrown together
in a chaotic tangle that necessitated much zigzagging
and climbing. A misstep meant going knee deep in the
black bog. Our pilgrimage ended in an old tote-road
where we felt around in the dusk, cleared a space of
sticks and stones, and spread our partially soaked
blankets. Then we supped on the watery crackers,
with a little maple syrup that had survived the wreck
for sauce. We had nothing at all to drink because the
water of the pond was too dubious for such use.
Our situation, lost in the wilderness without tent or
fire, was anything but cheerful, and I could not help
feeling some anxiety. Pete, however, spent the night
under the blankets as equably as usual. I napped now
and then, but was often awake watching the stars and
the half moon that rose in the east and slowly climbed

22 Highways and Byways of New England
the heavens. At last the stars paled with the coming
dawn, and I crawled out. My hair was wet with dew,
and the air was damp and chilling. I roused Pete,
who got up shivering and wrapped a blanket around
himself. Then we sat down and shared our last six
crackers. There were no inducements for lingering, and we
packed up and started back to the canoe. The journey
was even more difficult than it had been the night
before, for the track on which we had to walk was
slippery with frost. We hastily embarked and applied
ourselves to a vigorous use of the paddles in order to
get warm. After careful search we discovered that not
far from the other end of the pond the true channel
made a sudden turn which we had failed to observe on
the evening previous.
In a short time we reached Grand Lake, and saw at
a distance a canoe crossing our path. By putting forth
all our strength we came within hail soon after it reached
land and just as its three occupants were starting to
ward the neighboring mountains for a day's hunting.
They advised us about our route and gave us some
matches, and we went on our way. At the outlet of
the lake, after navigating a series of rapids, we came to
five or six miles of the most entrancing travel we had
experienced. The water was very swift, sometimes
slipping along smoothly, sometimes breaking into
rippling shallows where we had to choose our course
carefully and dodge among the slightly submerged

Breakfast preparations

In the Maine Woods 23
boulders. It was the perfection of motion — that slide
down hill on the clear water.
We were hemmed in by wooded shores where were
evergreens and birches, mingled with maples that were
beginning to flash with autumn gold and scarlet. The
kingfishers were always flitting from bank to bank, and
we saw two or three great long-legged cranes go flapping
away. Once we heard a strange keen cry repeated
again and again, and were puzzled to know what crea
ture produced it. Then an enormous, broad-winged
bird sprang up from the weeds on the bank near which
we were speeding and lit on a stump. It was a bald-
headed eagle. After an inquiring look or two it flapped
down into the undergrowth and resumed its squawking.
Late in the forenoon we came to so rough a passage
that I resorted to a footpath, while Pete shot down a
succession of little ledges that have the name of Stair
Falls. Not far beyond was the first of the Grand Falls
where a carry was plainly necessary. Just above it we
unloaded and drew out the canoe, and spread the things
wet in yesterday's wreck to dry in the warm sunshine.
Pete started a fire, and we looked over our remaining
eatables which consisted of a chunk of pork, another of
bacon, a little butter and tea, and a can each of pine
apple, beans, and succotash. We decided to dine on the
beans, and as Pete had left his hunting-knife somewhere
during the morning we opened the can with his ax and
hammer. For spoons we used the covers of two tin
boxes.

24 Highways and Byways of New England
There was a bad tear in the canvas of the canoe, and
Pete found a piece of cedar in the driftwood, cut out
some pegs with my knife, and using his awl and hammer
mended the break. Then he heated some lumps of tar
which he pulled from an old bateau stranded on the
shore, and applied the sticky stuff to the edges of the
tear and other weak spots.
By and by we packed up and lugged our truck down
to quieter water. One fall succeeded another with
short stretches of paddling between, and we had a
toilsome afternoon. Pete had an especially hard task
carrying the canoe balanced on his head and shoulders
along the rocky, brushy path, and when we came to
the fourth fall he decided to launch the canoe just
below the worst of the drop and shoot the rest of the
way. The stream here narrowed to a wild rush of
tangled currents and foaming waves between steep,
ragged cliffs. I was loth to have him undertake the
boisterous voyage; but he was not to be deterred, and
after putting a rock in the bow for ballast he started,
leaving the baggage on the bank. To see that frail
boat contending with the torrent, dashed this way and
that, and making frenzied leaps of half its length amid
the foam was enough to cause a man's hair to stand on
end. However, it went through safely, and we got our
things into it and once more went sliding along on the
gentle but swift declivities of the stream until we came
to the fifth fall. Here, on a low, rocky outjut of the

In the Maine Woods 25
shore in a little group of pines and birches, we found
an idyllic stopping-place for the night. We picked up
some dry sticks, pulled a few loose shreds of bark from
a big birch for kindling, and soon had a fire brightly
blazing. Next we got the tent up, spread our bedding
beneath it on a carpet of pine needles, and then supped
on succotash and bacon with a dessert of pineapple.
Later we lay by the fire for a while, enjoying the cozi-
ness of our retreat, but retired early to bed with the
music of the waterfall to lull us to sleep.
In the morning, after breakfast, Pete investigated
the watery declivity below us and concluded he could
navigate it. So he loaded the canoe and started, and I
watched his swift course down the rude torrent. Sud
denly the canoe hit some obstruction, swerved around
sidewise on the verge of a ledge and went over bottom
upward. It disappeared and Pete with it in the tum
bled and frothy waters, and I had doubts if I should
ever see him again alive and whole.
With all haste I ran along the dew-wet path in the
alder bushes till I came opposite the scene of the
catastrophe. Happily Pete had survived, and there he
was out in mid-river on a submerged boulder turning
his canoe right side up. That done, he waded to shore
with it. His hat was gone and all of our belongings that
had been in the boat except the pick-pole and tent. He
at once got into the canoe and went in pursuit of the
missing things, most of which he recovered along the
borders of a pebbly island below the fall. Our worst

26 Highways and Byways of New England
losses were the bag of cooking utensils, the ax and ham
mer, and the tin cup and sponge we used for bailing.
On the bank, near where I rejoined Pete, was a little
shack, such as is found at frequent intervals on these
forest streams, built for shelter by the watchers of the
spring log drives. It was mainly of bark with a bed of
twigs inside. Pete's teeth were chattering, and in order
to warm and dry himself he set fire to the shack. I
furnished the matches, for I had taken the precaution
to carry in my pocket some of those we had been given the
previous day. Pete began to get off his outer garments
and was hanging them to dry before the crackling
flames when we were startled by two sharp explosions
from the fire which roused the echoes in the quiet valley.
I promptly made a dash for the big timber, and Pete
came close behind. Our alarm had been occasioned by
a couple of dynamite caps, but we were by no means
certain that an explosion of dynamite itself would not
follow and blow us out of existence. However, we
gradually recovered from our fears and returned to
the fire. By and by Pete put on the dryest of his gar
ments and my coat, and we resumed our voyaging.
Then came many miles of beautiful canoeing in the
perfect calm of a sunny September morning between
shores where the trees and undergrowth were almost
tropical in their dense rank masses of foliage, and on a
stream whose strong gliding current carried us with
swift ease down its never-ending incline.
Pete wound a blue handkerchief around his head to

In the Maine Woods 27
take the place of his lost hat, and he removed his shoes
and stockings to let them dry a little. But that gave
the flies a chance at him, and he complained that they
would "chew a man's leg off."
Toward noon we came to a dwelling on a knoll in a
clearing. We landed and found two men in charge of
the place, which served in a small way for a loggers'
camp and a shelter for sportsmen. They supplied us
with a few biscuits and doughnuts and a tin cup full of
beans. These things enabled us to make our lunch that
day a feast.
By evening we reached the railroad and the end of
our voyage, and I went on by train to a populous mill
village. But though I had parted from my guide and
was a score of miles from the wilderness of the loggers
and hunters, the civilization even there seemed not
wholly secure. For about midnight I was startled by a
terrific bellowing close at hand outside of the hotel.
I wondered what sort of a barbaric demon had invaded
the town, and I crept to the window to look out. The
creature seemed to be just around the corner of an
adjacent building. All the dogs in the place had begun
to bark, lights were appearing, and voices were inquir
ing what was the matter. The bellowing continued at
intervals, and two of the hotel maids and a man servant
who were on the back porch seemed to think the animal
was an expiring cow. "Do something, Willy," the
girls urged. "Don't let the poor cow die without trying
to help her."

28 Highways and Byways of New England
Willy crossed the yard and looked around the corner,
but at that instant the creature let forth a blood
curdling bellow that made him beat a hasty retreat,
and the girls could not get him to venture into the
vicinity of the fearsome beast again. At a window,
opposite, was a tousled man with a lamp in his hand,
swearing horribly. He complained that no one could
sleep with such a noise, and declared that the bellower,
and the dogs, too, ought to be shot. But now the beast
moved off, its raucous voice grew fainter in the dis
tance, and quiet was gradually restored.
I learned in the morning that we were indebted for
the serenade to a bull that had gotten loose from a
neighboring farm. This episode gave a final touch to
a jaunt that had decidedly more excitement in it than
I relished at the time. Yet now that it is past I realize
that in some respects, at least, it was ideal, and even
the dangers have a savor by no means wholly disagreea
ble in the backlook.
Note. — One can journey comfortaLly in an automobile over a
good dirt or gravel road, ninety miles, from Bangor to Greenville
at the southern end of Moosehead Lake. That is civilization's
jumping-off place, and beyond is the wilderness. The lake has about
four. hundred miles of shore line. It is plentifully stocked with
fish, and the surrounding forests abound in large game. Along the
borders are numerous camps for the accommodation of hunters.
A fine view can be had of Mount Katahdin on clear days. From
Greenville a small steamer runs to the north end of the lake, and
thence a short carry enables one to start a canoe trip on the streams
and lakes of the vast unsettled forest country.

Artemus Ward's old home

II

ARTEMUS WARD S TOWN

IT is always interesting to consider what effect
environment has in the development of those
whom the world honors. Were the home surround
ings a stimulus or a handicap? What kind of people
were the relatives, friends, and neighbors? What
influence did nature exert?"
I was curious to see Waterford, Maine, the birthplace
and boyhood home of Charles Farrar Browne, better
known as Artemus Ward, to get answers to just such
questions, and I had the feeling that I ought to discover
in the inhabitants and region something to account
for the peculiar qualities of his humor. The town is
about fifty miles north of Portland, and a half dozen
miles from the nearest railway station. I arrived at
this station one morning in early October and went on
by stage to Waterford. The air was briskly cool, the
sky serenely blue, and the sun shown without a cloud
to interrupt its clear rays. There had been frosts, but
the crickets and grasshoppers still chirped and fiddled,
though not with the full vigor of the late summer.
For much of the distance the road was through wood
land gay with autumn color. Some green leafage still
lingered, but for the most part the tints were of yellow

30 Highways and Byways of New England
and red, varying from delicate creamy tones to vigorous
browns and flaming scarlets. The wind was blowing
and making faint, mysterious music on its forest harp
and here and there loosening a leaf and sending it
rustling down into the undergrowth. At intervals
along the streams were rude little sawmills, and in spite
of the fact that the country has been long settled it
retains something of raw wildness.
There are several Waterfords — North, South, and
East, and Waterford Flat. The last was the village of
Artemus Ward. Its name sounds unpromising, but
in its immediate neighborhood the region, which for
the most part is rather monotonous, crumples up into
a rugged picturesqueness that has real charm, and that
seems very well calculated to nurture a genius. Lakes,
ponds, and streams abound, and one of these streams
known as Crooked River runs eighteen miles in its
erratic course across the nine mile width of the town.
It afforded just the kind of navigation to draw volumes
of profanity from the old-time raftsmen.
Waterford Flat is a nook among the hills fronting on
a body of water which is called Keoka Lake, but which
formerly had the more vigorously natural name of
Tom Pond. The latter name was acquired away back
in the days when Paugus, the chief of an Indian tribe
in the vicinity, made himself a terror on the frontiers.
He and his followers committed so many depredations
that Massachusetts offered a bounty of one hundred
pounds for every Indian scalp. Captain Lovewell led

Artemus Ward's Town 31
an expedition against Paugus in the spring of 1725,
but was attacked by the Indians and only fourteen out
of thirty-four in the English party survived to return
to their friends. One of these was Thomas Chamber
lain, who, after killing Paugus in the fight, saved his
own life by swimming across the pond at Waterford
and hiding under a shelving rock on its borders. This
episode gave the pond its early name, and the shore
where he hid is still called Tom Rock Beach.
One of the wooded hills back of the village is known
as Mount Tirem, a name supposed to have originated
with some Indians, who, in speaking to the early settlers
of climbing its steep sides, said, "Tire 'em Injuns."
Another height is Bald Pate, so called by the pioneers
because its top was then entirely denuded of trees, the
result of a fire that had recently swept it. Loftiest of
all is Bear Mountain, which owes its name to the
killing of a bear that attempted to swim across Tom
Pond from its base.
Waterford village is a comfortable, sleepy little place
whose homes cluster around a small, tree-shadowed
common. The houses are nearly all wooden, are painted
white, and have green blinds. It supports two stores
and a church. At one end of the common is a sign
board, which reads, "10 Miles to Norway." Other
places roundabout are Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Paris,
and Naples. Do not these names indicate a sense of
humor in the original settlers of the wilderness ? Water
ford itself has a Punkin Street, and what is now Fern

32 Highways and Byways of New England
Avenue was formerly Skunk Alley, and there is an
outlying district called Blackguard which took its
name from the character of the people who used to live
there. I found the village delightful in its quiet serenity,
and it was particularly appealing in the evening when
the cows were driven from the outlying pastures to their
home stables and came pacing along under the elms of
the common, while the cowbells hung on their necks
gave forth a dull-toned melody. It was a much livelier
place when Artemus Ward was born there in 1834.
Many emigrants passed through it then on their way
to the West, and the stages were crowded with pas
sengers in pursuit of business or pleasure. The hotels
presented an especially busy scene on the arrival of the
stages, and the several stores had a large trade in
furnishing supplies to lumbermen. One of these stores
was kept by Artemus Ward's father, who died in 1847.
For general information about the region I inter
viewed my hotel landlord. "Raising sweet corn for
canning is one of our principal industries," he said.
"The farmers pick the ears off and then cut the corn
green and put it into silos. They run quite heavy
dairies, and a man goes round gatherin' the cream
twice a week and brings it to the creamery.
"You'll find every farmer raisin' anywhere from an
acre to fifteen acres of sweet corn. They commence
pickin' along the 25th of August. The ears are carried
right to the corn shops, and the help is there to handle

The village school

Artemus Ward's Town 33
it. They'll husk a load in a few minutes. The pay is
five cents a bushel. Husking comes pretty rough on
your wrists. After you'd husked all day possibly you
wouldn't feel very much like husking the next morning.
There are men who can husk out sixty-five bushels in
a day, but I tell you they've got to keep pretty busy to
do that.
"Men will quit a good payin' job to go to work in a
corn shop. Yes, sure they will. They earn considerable
for what they do, but the net returns are small because
there are so many shutdowns. When the last ear of a
lot of corn is husked they may have to wait two hours,
without pay, for the next lot; and if there's no corn to
husk there's none to pack, and things come to a stand
still all along the line. But lots of people don't like to
work. You know that, don't you ? Every one around
here wants to go into the corn shops when they start
up. It's a fascinating job. The shop is a busy interest
ing place to go into. A hundred or more persons may
be working there together, and they can have a dickens
of a good time while they're waiting when there's noth
ing to do.
"Perhaps the corn shops are a good thing, but I
can't see 'em in that light. I think they're a complete
cuss to the country on account of the way they run up
wages. You can't hire men on your farm short of
thirty-five or forty-five dollars a month and board,
and the worst of it is they're so blamed independent.
If I hire a man I want him when I want him, but it's

34 Highways and Byways of New England
got so that he's more the boss than you are yourself.
Go to giving him orders, or criticize him, and he quits.
I paid a man two dollars a day this summer, and he set
down half the time. I was up at five o'clock. He'd get
out at quarter past six. I had my own work to do and
I couldn't chase around to see whether he was doing
his work.
"We've got an all-fired big crop of apples here this
year, but I only have a small orchard, and probably my
apples won't fill more'n seventy or eighty barrels. I've
just sold 'em for thirty-five cents a barrel on the trees.
That don't look like much of a price, but, by gorry! I
think I hit the mark better'n the feller who bought
em. Early in my stay I visited South Waterford where
Artemus Ward and his near relatives lie buried in the
pleasant Elm Vale Cemetery. Their names are spelled
Brown on the stones, but Artemus in later life wrote his
name Browne out of deference to an old English family
from which his own was descended.
I met the elderly caretaker of the cemetery, and
when he found that I was seeking information he began
to tell me some of his troubles with a picturesqueness
that seemed to me worthy of the region that produced
the famous humorist.
"There was a photographer here in the summer," he
said, "and the feller took soap and water and scrubbed
the moss and stains off from a few of the gravestones
that he wanted to make pictures of. Pretty soon after-

Artemus Ward's Town 35
ward a man who spends his vacations in the town come
to the cemetery, and he see that the gravestones of
some of his ancestors had been cleaned. So he pitched
into me. He's cranky by nature, and he accused me of
doing what that photographer had done. I told him
I didn't do it, but he said, 'You don't look to me as if
you was tellin' the truth.'
"Why, he was real impudent, and he was goin' to
have the law on me. I says to him: 'You have to find
a man guilty before you sentence him to death. You're
crazy anyway, and it kind o' seems to me you're talking
a little too much with your mouth.'
"'Well,' he says, 'whoever scrubbed those grave
stones was a blackguard and a vandal, and you're
responsible as the caretaker of this cemetery.'
"'The town don't pay me to watch this cemetery
night and day,' I told him, ' and I won't stand here and
listen to too much of your lip.'
"Oh, he don't amount to nothing, but his wife has
money — lots of it. He can't do much domineering at
home because she'd call him right down.
"'I hope you'll go out of this place and stay a while
and give us a little rest,' I says to him.
"'Before I go,' he says, 'I'm goin' to see that you
don't work here any more.'
"'I'm much obliged to you,' I says. 'I been wantin'
to get rid 0/ the job for two years. I wish you would
have me discharged, but don't be too sure about it
because probably your influence ain't very great.'

36 Highways arid Byways of New England
"That only made him madder, and he went on
tellin' me what he thought of me till I said: 'You see
this grave I'm diggin'. If you don't stop your talk I'll
lay you in this hole and put cement on top. I don't
s'pose I'll get any pay for buryin' you, but I'll do it
free gratis, if you don't clear out.'
"He went away then."
Artemus Ward died in 1867, which is not so long ago
but that people can be found in his home region who
remember him distinctly. One of the village women
said to me: "The place has not changed a great deal
since he was a boy here. It is about the same size,
there is the same white church, and many of the same
houses stand around the common. The old 'Brown
house' where Charles was born burned in 1871, but
'Aunt Car'line,' as his mother was called in Waterford,
had long before moved to what had been her father's
house. That is here yet, a substantial, two-story build
ing on the borders of the common, and it is still owned
in the family.
"Mrs. Brown had four children, but only Charles
and Cyrus grew to manhood. Charles was her favorite,
I think. Cyrus, who was about seven years older than
Charles, became a newspaper man and was successful.
We considered him the smarter man of the two, but he
didn't happen to strike it so lucky. I remember he was
at home here sick abed when I was a schoolgirl. The
village schoolhouse was just beyond a brook at the
north end of the common. It was an old weatherbeaten

Artemus Ward's Town 37
building that at some time had been painted white,
but not much of the paint was left. Inside were
primitive box desks, much hand-carved. The teacher's
desk was on a platform, and its sides were boarded up
like a pulpit.
"The children came in from the farms and filled the
schoolhouse. They were of all sizes from five up to
twenty when the big boys attended in the winter.
Then we had a lyceum with debates and a paper mostly
made up of local hits that was regularly prepared. It
came my turn to edit the paper, and Cyrus sent word
to have me come to see him and he would help me write
up some things. I was glad of his help, for I was quite
a little girl to be the editress. The matter we wrote
together was humorous, but I don't know now just
what it was about.
"After Charles had left Waterford and become
famous he usually returned every year to spend the
summer with his mother. He wasn't very strong. He
was tubercular. His hands were whiter than any
woman's, almost. They were small and long, and I
recall hearing my father say that Charles couldn't wear
bracelets because his wrists were as large as his hands,
and the bracelets would slip off. Father and he were^
great cronies. They were own cousins and were said
to look alike.
"Charles was always funny, even in his ordinary
talk. He bought a house near New York at Yonkers
and invited his mother to go to visit him.

38 Highways and Byways of New England
"'Charlie,' she said, 'if I do go sometime how shall
I know your house?'
"'Oh, you'll know it by the cupola and the mortgage
that are on it,' he told her.
'"Well, I'll never stop in the house if there's a mort
gage on it,' she declared.
"When he got to be well-known as a lecturer he had
full houses and a large income, and he would carry a
good deal of money about with him. But he spent it
freely. Being lionized as he was he had to live up to
his reputation. He owned considerable jewelry. For
one .thing there was a very beautiful gold chain which
had been given him by the miners in California. It
was so heavy that he said he only wore it in the after
noon. That was his funny way of speaking."
Another contemporary of Artemus Ward's whom I
met was a stooping, elderly village man who walked
with a cane. I called at his house in the evening, and
I called early because I had been told that he "went
to bed with the chickens." We sat in his kitchen in the
gradually increasing dusk.
"Yes, I knew Charles Brown," he said, "and I
helped lower him into the ground. His body was
brought from England about the beginning of June in
a metallic casket all sealed and soldered up. The
casket was cut open at his mother's request, and we
see it was Charles inside. There was a funeral at the
house attended by a few of the neighbors, and then we
went to the cemetery at South Waterford. We didn't

Artemus Ward's Town 39
have a hearse, but used a two-seated spring wagon, as
was the custom here. By taking out the seats room
was made for the box, and the driver would sit up on
that. The others went in their own teams.
"I don't know much about Charles as a boy except
that he didn't take to farming at all. He never han
kered after manual labor, and when he come here on his
summer visits the lazy critter didn't do nothin' but
have a good time. He'd lay around on the grass or go
to ride or do anything he see fit. It was kind of a
restful vacation, I should call it, but after he went into
the show business I guess he may have worked some
getting ready for the winter campaign. He was a
bright, witty feller — no mistake about that. He had a
vein of wit that all the Browns had. Cyrus, his brother,
was pretty cute, too.
"To get from here back to New York Charles would
drive eleven miles to the railroad and go by train down
to Portland where he'd take the boat for Boston.
Once he was going on board the boat after he'd been
having a little too festive a time, and he ran down the
gang plank and across the deck and threw up over the
rail. When he'd relieved himself he said to those that
were with him, ' It always makes me sick to be on ship
board.' "Another time he went onto the boat in the evening
just before the time for it to start. He'd been eating
hearty and celebrating some with his friends, and he
went right to bed in his stateroom. The next morning,

40 Highways and Byways of New England
just after he woke up, a man who was travelling with
him asked him how he'd slept.
"'Not very well,' he said. 'I'm always sick goin'
around Cape Elizabeth.'
"But the boat hadn't left the dock on account of
the weather being rough.
"Charles was a poor sick feller when he left here to
go to England, and he hadn't ought to have made such
a trip. That wound him up in the show business.
"We thought he'd leave considerable property, and
he did will away a good deal, but nobody could find it.
Well, there were roughish fellers in those days same as
now. They'd steal the eyes out of your head if they
could. "The trouble with both Charles and Cyrus was that
they drank. Whiskey ruined 'em. That was what
was the matter with 'em. I tell you whiskey is good in
some cases, but I don't believe it helped them fellers
any. They'd have lived longer without it.
"You'd better see Mr. Wheeler. He was raised here
on the Flat right beside of Charles and knew him well.
He's a feller well booked up, too, and can give some
light on this subject."
The next morning I found Mr. Wheeler in his barn
getting out some barrels in preparation for apple-
picking. "I ain't any chicken," he said, "and it is a long time
since Charles Brown and I were boys together, so I
can't remember as much about him as I wish I could.

Artemus Ward's Town 41
But I recall that one thing he used to do was to get up
a circus in his folks' barn. They had an old crumple-
horn cow that he'd dress up in great shape in blankets
of different colors for an elephant, and he'd tell us the
elephant's good qualities. The cow didn't like it, but
the rest of us did. The calves and the dogs and cats
served for other strange animals. Charles acted as
clown, and he made a pretty good one. He had some
assistants who were acrobats or thought they were.
"He was full of his fun, but there was nothing
vicious about him. He simply liked to do things that
would raise a laugh. At school he was always playing
jokes on the rest of the scholars and was a terrible
torment to them. Of course he'd get called down once
in a while for his pranks, but the teachers liked him.
Every one liked him all through life.
"William Allen sat in the seat right in front of him.
William was a good scholar, but kind of a sleepy fellow.
He'd sit with his head bowed forward studying. Charles
was forever dabbling with ink, and one day he took up
his ink bottle and poured the contents down the back
of William's neck. I saw that performance. The ink
ran down on the floor into the cracks under the seats,
and when I was in the old schoolhouse as much as
twenty-five years later the stains were still there. The
building stands yet up here side of the road, but is now
a carpenter's shop.
"There were fifty-six of us in the school the last
winter I went. A man taught in winter and a woman

42 Highways and Byways of New England
in summer. We learned more than the children do
now — got more practical information. I won a book
once as a prize for spelling, and I've kept it ever since.
The twelve or fifteen in the class would line up, and if
one missed a word and the next one below spelled it
right they'd change places. The best speller was at
the head of the line most of the time, and the poorest
at the foot. We didn't have a janitor, but did the work
ourselves. There was a fire list of the boys, and they
took turns making the fire; and there was a sweeping
list of the girls, and they took turns doing the sweeping.
When there was snow we slid down the steep hill that
was close by, and in the warm months we'd play in the
brook. "Charles wasn't out at recess tearing around with
the other boys in their rough sports. He was different
in his tastes from most of us, though when any fun was
on hand in town he was generally there early and
stayed late. We used to have school exhibitions, and
if we acted the incident in William Tell where the apple
was shot off the boy's head, or anything in that line
Charles was sure to be in it. He'd play baseball with
us on the common, and he'd get up in the middle of
the night to shoot off some powder and celebrate the
Fourth of July.
"I was out, too, firing off an old gun I had, but I
never shot a gun at game in my life. I didn't take to
that sort of sport, though once in a while I'd go spearing
pickerel on the overflowed meadow in spring. That

"a

Artemus Ward's Town 43
was done after dark in a boat. We'd make an iron
basket by riveting together old wagon tires and that
kind of thing, and put it on a stick five or six feet high
near the bow of the boat, and light some pitch pine in
it for a torch. One fellow would row and the other
spear the fish.
"When Charles was about twenty-five and was
editing a little humorous paper called Vanity Fair in
New York I went down there for a couple of days and
was with him quite a little. He was a good entertainer.
We took in the shipping wharves and the big vessels
and Central Park and went around to the dance halls.
One of those halls was a room sixty feet square with
the walls all mirrors. I'd never seen anything like it
before, and I haven't since."
The home of the humorist's mother, now called
"Wheelbarrow Farm," is owned by a woman relative
who has this to say of him. "He led a gay life, I think,
but though he sometimes drank to excess he did not
have protracted sprees. He was tall, slim, and bony,
and he easily assumed on the platform a manner that
was awkward and made him appear sort of green-
looking. But if you met him you found him genial,
courteous, and charming, and his talk full of witty
nonsense. I heard him lecture once, and just before
he began my mother and I went around to speak to
him. He insisted that we should sit on the stage.
What he said was mostly foreign to his subject. He
spoke anything that came into his mind, and he was

44 Highways and Byways of New England
so absurd that I nearly rolled under my chair. Mother
said she never laughed so much in her life."
At the age of fourteen the humorist's schooldays
ended, and he left home to make his own way in the
world. For a time he worked in the neighboring town
of Norway, and thither I followed on his trail. As I
entered the town I made some inquiries of a man I
met on the street, who responded: "Yes, Artemus
was a devil here in a newspaper printing office. He
learned the printing trade and contributed to the paper.
He was a mischievous cud, you know, and when he
went to school people thought he was a dunce and
didn't amount to anything, but when he grew up he
played to the crowned heads of Europe.
"There was a rivalry between the paper here and the
one in the neighboring town of Paris, and each one
always bragged about any improvements it made and
crowed over the other one. The Paris paper for one
while seemed to be having much the most to crow
about, and Artemus wrote this paragraph: 'A large
improvement has been made in our office. We have
bored a hole in the bottom of our sink and set a slop
pail under it. What will the hell-hounds over to Paris
think now?'
"He was a funny fellow, Artemus Ward was. Once
he was somewhere and got strapped. He found a man
he knew, and said, 'If it's not too much out of place I
wish you'd loan me some money.'
"The man was willing and handed over what

Artemus Ward's Town 45
Artemus said he needed, and then asked when he'd
pay it back.
"'Well,' Artemus answered, 'I'll be pretty busy on
the Resurrection Day. Let's call it the day after.'
"If he was lecturing here in Maine he'd refer to a
time when he 'spoke before a refined and intelligent
audience in East Stoneham.' The fun of that was that
East Stoneham was a jumping-off place. It was the
end of the road, and the people there couldn't read or
write. "But the greatest joke he ever perpetrated was the
will he made over in England. He called in all the
nobility to witness it and disposed of his property as if
he was a millionaire. Really he didn't have a darn cent."
From a Norway lawyer I got further information.
"When I started to practice I opened an office down
at Waterford," he said. "I had plenty of time on my
hands, for I didn't have much to do except to make
out occasional deeds at fifty cents apiece. Once
Artemus brought me a boy that he'd picked up some
where, and he hired me to teach him. He didn't value
money, and he'd have given away his last dollar to a
friend in need.
"When he was at home he smoked and strolled
around and joked with the boys. He was quite a fellow
to lay abed in the morning — at least, his mother thought
he was, and he wouldn't have breakfast until along
toward ten o'clock. Afterward he'd get his mail and
bring it to my office to read.

46 Highways and Byways of New England
"One time he was telling me about his visiting
Los Angeles. 'It was nothing but a village,' he said.
'I'd heard there was a river running through the place,
and I wanted to see it. 'Twasn't much of a river. I
hunted for it quite a while before I found it, and then
I was thirsty and drank it up.'
"He was droll not only in what he said, but in his
manner. Many of the things he said, which people
would go into a perfect hurrah over, would have
attracted no notice if another person had said them.
It is claimed that he is the only person who could make
every one laugh in an English audience."
What I had heard of Artemus Ward's will made me
desirous to see it, and I sought the county courthouse.
His death occurred in England on March 6, 1867, and
the will is dated about two weeks previous. It is not
the extraordinary document that the popular imagina
tion pictures, and its most interesting portions are
these: "I desire that my body may be buried in Waterford,
Maine. I give the library of books bequeathed to me
by my late Uncle, Calvin Farrar, and those that have
been added by me, to the boy or girl who at an examina
tion to be held between the first day of January and
the first day of April immediately succeeding my
descease shall be declared to be the best scholar in
Waterford Upper Village, such scholar to be a native
of that last mentioned place and under the age of
eighteen years.

Artemus Ward's Town 47
"I bequeath the residue of my estate towards form
ing a fund for the founding of an asylum for wornout
printers in the United States, and I direct that the
same be paid to Mr. Horace Greeley of New York."
Whatever personal property the humorist had in his
possession in England when he died mysteriously dis
appeared, but a few thousand dollars were realized on
his house at Yonkers. This went to children who were
relatives in his home town. His mother had enough
property to supply her own simple wants as long as
she lived.
Notes. — All along the Maine coast are delightful bays and
islands which attract a host of warm-weather visitors. Notable
above all the other outing places of the coast is that isle of enchant
ment, Mount Desert. Champlain discovered it in 1613 and gave
it its name, which was suggested by the bare rocky summits of its
mountains. The charm of its scenery began to win the favor of
wandering artists and parties of college students on a vacation
about i860. Bar Harbor, which was then a primitive village of
wooden shanties, has since become one of the most popular of fash
ionable American summer resorts.
The chief city of the coast is Portland, which the visitor will be
interested to recall is the birthplace of Longfellow. The house in
which he was born was built by his grandfather, General Peleg
Wadsworth and, though in the heart of the city, has been preserved
as a public memorial. Twenty-six miles northeast is Brunswick
where Bowdoin College is located and where Harriet Beecher Stowe
wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" when her husband was an instructor
in the college.
In going from Portland to Artemus Ward's town the most direct
route is over good dirt and gravel roads, forty-four miles, to Norway.
About half way you pass through Poland Springs, famous for its

48 Highways and Byways of New England
table waters, with fine views and pleasant drives. A more pictur
esque route, but longer and over poorer roads, is along the west side
of Sebago Lake.
About fifty miles north of Waterford is Farmington, said to be
the most beautiful village of its size in Maine. Here is the home
stead where Jacob Abbott, author of the Rollo Rooks, spent his
last years. Not far beyond, to the northwest, is the famous Rangeley
Lakes region. The chain of lakes, all connected by navigable
waterways, covers eighty square miles. It is a fisherman's paradise.
Small steamers ply the lakes and call at the various camps. These
camps usually consist of a dozen or so log cabins connected with
one another by plank walks, and each intended to accommodate
three or four persons.

Ill

JUNE IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
AFTER the heat and dust of a long railroad ride
it was a relief to get into the near vicinity of
the soaring mountain heights, serene and cool
and blue. The train followed up the valley of a little
stony river, and much of the time we were in the shadow
of the adjacent wooded hills. We passed through
several villages, and there were scattered farms, but
the region still has a flavor of the wilderness in its
abounding woodland and rugged mountains, the piles
of logs or sawed lumber one sees, and the big stumps
in occasional farm fields. The cleared land is uneven
and rocky and does not lend itself readily to agricul
ture, yet there are some evidently prosperous dairy
farms, and excellent crops of potatoes, oats, and hay
were growing in favored situations.
I went to Bethlehem which is higher up and has
more hotels than any other village in New England.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century it consisted
of a few scattered log cabins, and the settlers' fields
were full of dead girdled trees. It could boast of only
a single small hotel as late as 1865. Now there are
thirty. These, and the numerous summer homes
harbor a multitude in July, August, and September,

50 Highways and Byways of New England
but the permanent inhabitants probably do not exceed
a thousand. It lies on a breezy upland slope with a
vast panorama of mountain ranges rimming most of
the horizon. All the big wooden hotels had been put
in order for the summer inrush, and what with the
painting and scrubbing and other renovating they
looked almost painfully spick and span.
At the sunset hour when I arrived the birds were
singing their jubilant evening songs in the village trees
and in the neighboring woodland, and I could dis
tinguish the rich notes of the wood thrush, the carolling
of robins, and the clear, sweet notes of the Peabody
bird. As yet few of the summer people had come, and the
local folk were much engrossed in their own affairs.
One of the town's women stopped to visit in the twi
light on my hotel piazza when she was going home
from prayer-meeting. She related some of the recent
history of her church. A few years previous they had
a minister of whom she spoke in the warmest praise.
He was a preacher of marked ability, and a man of
culture and character with a keen desire to do faithful
work and to help those in need. One winter he
shovelled snow from the paths and did other odd jobs
about the place of a lone woman who was ijl. This
was not to the liking of some of his congregation. They
thought such tasks beneath a minister's dignity, and
there were various other ways in which his personality
did not appeal to them. The upshot of it all was that

The Flume

June in the White Mountains 51
he was presently dismissed. A while afterward another
minister was hired, and he was given a grand reception.
"But I didn't go," the chronicler said. "They asked
me why, and I told 'em: 'He's got plenty of friends
now. He'll need some later.'
"Sure enough, they soon tired of him, but he wasn't
of the gentle sort like the other man, and when they
tried to get rid of him he fought back. There was a
big row, and I told 'em, 'You people remind me of a
man who for the first six months after he married liked
his wife so well he wanted to eat her, and the next six
months he wished he had.'
"For quite a spell we didn't have any minister, but
lately we've got a new man. They gave him a recep
tion, too. Only three went to it. That's all right. He
might just as well find out everything is dead when he
first gets here as afterward."
Just then the landlord came out on the piazza. "This
is hot weather," he remarked. " By jolly ! I was pretty
near petered today. I had to drive a few miles down
the valley, and I never was as thankful before that we
don't have mosquitoes or black flies nor nothin' else
of that sort of any consequence at Bethlehem. They
nearly e't me up down there."
"What are the black flies?" I asked.
"They're a fly about quarter as big as a common
house fly," he replied, "and they bite to beat the band.
Then there's the midgets. They're so small you can
hardly see 'em. You don't notice 'em much till they

52 Highways and Byways of New England
bite. They're worse than the black fly. Oh, those
little midgets are something terrible! If any of 'em
bite me the bitten place swells up and itches and
stings." A thunderstorm was muttering and blinking in the
distance. During the night much rain fell, and the
thunder reverberated among the heights. There were,
too, a number of near and startling crashes which made
the timid say their prayers and caused some persons
at the hotel to get up and dress to be ready for emer
gencies. But the next morning, after the sun looked-
through the clouds, all the growing things had been
refreshed and the dust was laid on the highways, and.
every one agreed that the storm had been a beneficence.
I engaged a team and driver and went off over the
hills to the Franconia Notch. We soon had the mighty
mountains before us with their heads among the clouds,
and with the sunshine and shadows playing over them
in shifting hues of delicate green and purple. On some
of them there were great expanses of a light emerald
color, which the driver said were young growths of
birches that had started up where fires had run through
the forest.
"We don't have those fires the way we used to,"
he added. "The woods are protected now. There are
lookout places on the mountains where men are watch
ing for fires all the whole summer through. The men
have telescopes, and their lookouts are connected with
the villages by telephone. As soon as they see smoke

June in the White Mountains 53
of a fire starting they telephone down saying where it
is, and men are soon on the spot putting it out."
We travelled a winding road that was constantly
going up or down hill, and was usually closely hemmed
in by the forest. Nearly always a stream was near by
singing over the stones and boulders that strewed its
course, and sometimes raising its voice in louder
cadence where it made a sudden descent in a waterfall.
We passed several typical mountain hotels — enor
mous, wide-spreading, many-windowed structures with
carefully-kept grounds and close-clipped golf links.
They contrasted strangely with the wilderness around
and seemed very frail and ephemeral when compared
with the vast upheaval of granite mountains that
formed the usual background.
Our first stop was at Echo Lake, a dainty body of
water with steep wooded heights rising from its borders.
I rambled along a waterside path and shouted, but a
roistering wind was blowing, and the echo did not
work well. The nymph on the tree-clad bluff across
the lake only responded faintly and uncertainly.
A mile farther on was Profile Lake where the great
attraction is the Old Man of the Mountain. The woods
sweep up a precipitous slope for more than a thousand
feet, and you see near the summit of the mountain the
grim stone features of the Old Man outjutting from a
tremendous cliff. The face itself is eighty feet in length,
but the beholder does not realize its great size at such
a distance, and marvels most that it is so strikingly

54 Highways and Byways of New England
human. The Indians were its original discoverers, and
I wondered what impression was made on them by
that strange face gazing forth from the brow of the
wilderness mountain.
A scarcely less famous attraction of the Franconia
Notch is the Flume. It is a little aside from the main
valley up a steep slope. There you find an almost
straight cleft in the mountain, nine hundred feet long
and sixty or more deep. The perpendicular walls are
only a few feet apart, and a little stream rushes down
the shadowy depths with much noise and tumult. To
enter the Flume on a warm day is like going into an
ice-box. The stream and a strewing of boulders occupy
all the space at the bottom of the chasm, and a board
walk has been built just above the stream along one
wall. The wet cliffs loom on either side, and up aloft
you glimpse the foliage of the trees that grow on their
verge. At the far end of the Flume the stream leaps
from the brow of a precipice in a graceful cascade.
Formerly there was an enormous suspended boulder
in the Flume so firmly wedged between the cliffs that
it seemed destined to stay there until doomsday. But
in 1883 a violent thunderstorm started a landslide up
beyond the cleft, and all the rubbish came down through
and carried along the boulder. The mass of rocks and
earth and trees was deposited some distance below.
Whether the boulder was broken into fragments, or
whether it lies buried entire in the debris no one
knows.

June in the White Mountains 55
After I returned to the highway I tramped off in
another direction on a sylvan path to "The Pool."
Here in a deep nook of the woodland a stream dropped
over a ledge into a rockbound basin. The mossy cliffs
and towering trees that walled in the pool made it
particularly cool and secluded and romantic. A lone
fisherman sat on a shelving rock patiently angling for
trout and smoking cigarets. When I came away he
followed empty-handed making very scurrilous remarks
about a certain trout he had seen in the pool which
very inconsiderately refused to be caught.
During the day's ride my driver casually mentioned
that a certain Bethlehem man named Thompson had
trapped a bear a fortnight before. I met him in the
village that evening — a gray elderly man, but still
vigorous. "Yes, I caught a bear this summer," he
acknowledged. "I got him over on Gale River about
three mile from here. I've caught eight bears there in
the last five years. This one was fat as a pig. He
weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. I gave con
siderable of the meat away to the neighbors. It was
tender, and a lot of 'em e't it. But no bear meat for
me! The animals smell too much like a colored person.
"Their hides are best in May and June, and that's
the only time of year I care to trap 'em. They com
mence to shed their hair about the middle of July.
Then the hides won't bring nothin'. The prices we git
for good ones vary anywhere from twenty to forty
dollars. Besides, there's a five dollar bounty which

56 Highways and Byways of New England
you can collect by showing the hide to the proper
official. He slits an ear or punches a hole in it so the
bounty won't be collected a second time. The hide of
the bear I got the other day is just as black as a crow.
Come up to my house and I'll show it to you."
He led the way to a comfortable little dwelling on a
side street and stepped in to get a lantern. Then he
took me to the shed when the bearskin was nailed up
on an inside wall, and told how difficult the process
was of getting the skin off with the claws on it and the
ears and other parts of the head all complete, which
was the proper way if it was to be used for a rug.
Afterward he locked the shed and brought a bear trap
from the barn for me to see. It was a big, savage-
looking affair with stout steel springs and cruel, toothed
jaws. Presently we adjourned to the house piazza, and my
companion filled and lit his pipe. "Hunting runs in
in the family," he remarked. "My father was a trapper
and guide, and so was his father before him. He come
into this town when he was a young feller. The
region was about all woods then. It was a great timber
country, and some of the people lived in log houses.
Father was the first man who was ever paid as much as
fifty cents a day for his labor here. Others got anywhere
from twenty-five to forty cents.
"All he used to do at certain times of the year was
hunting. I've seen him take his gun when he'd just
got up in the morning and say to mother, ' I'll be back

June in the White Mountains 57
to breakfast;' and he'd start off across country and
not return for three days. He'd travel on and on look
ing for game. Come night he'd stop at some farmhouse,
and he was always welcome.
"One fall, when I was a boy, he had one hundred
and twelve fox skins hung up in the unfinished second
story of the house. He stuffed 'em with hay, and they
looked plump and full. They were hung up by the
nose. Most of our foxes were red, but now and then
we'd git a woods gray. Sometimes too, we'd shoot
what we called a Samson fox that you'd think, to see
it, had been in the fire and got its fur singed. It looked
so mean that the hide wasn't worth much. We'd git
some coon and mink, and quite a lot of sable or martin,
and once in a great while an otter.
"My father lived to be ninety-five. People called
him 'Old Man Thompson.' He knew all about wild
animals. A feller come to him one day and said he'd
tried again and again to keep red squirrels in a cage,
but they pined away and died. 'You ketch your
squirrel in a box trap,' Father told him, 'and don't let
it eat for twenty-four hours. Then give it a dose of
half molasses and half rum. After it gits over the
effect of that it'll have forgotten its wild life and will
thrive and be contented in the cage.'
"Nearly fifty years ago he caught the last wolf that
was ever seen in this country. A man had drawed a
dead ox out in his pasture, and Father saw the wolf
eating the ox. He set a trap and caught it. A long

58 Highways and Byways of New England
time after that I saw the tracks of two of 'em when I
was back on the mountains deer hunting. They had
been quite plenty here.
"The bears come out of their winter sleeping places
just as soon as the snow melts off. They're usually
fat then, but food is scarce until the berries git ripe in
summer, and before that time the bears are pretty
lean. In the spring they eat roots, and they'll tear a
rotten log or stump all to pieces to git the big ants that
are inside. Those ants are sour. I used to have a
Frenchman workin' for me who liked the taste of 'em.
He'd find 'em when he was chopping, and he'd take a
handful out and eat 'em. He said they tasted just like
pickles. "Bears dig out yellow wasps' nests, and if they can
git into a tree where there's honey they'll take that
every time. They're great on beechnuts. In the fall
they paw up the snow and leaves to git 'em. They
like apples, and I've seen where they've climbed up and
damaged a tree pretty bad, pulling in limbs and brushing
'em off to git the fruit. Bears are good climbers, but
they can't climb a small tree. It's got to be big enough
to hug or to hang onto with their claws. They eat a
good many wild turnips; and oh Lord! those turnips
are smarty — just like cayenne pepper. They're the
greatest thing in the world for a cold. Dry your turnip
and grate it and put it in hot water and sweeten it.
Then you've got a drink that'll roll the sweat right out
of you if you take a good dose.

^I^^^^^^H^^^^HI^^HHH

The old Tip-top House

June in the White Mountains 59
"I've got a camp over on Gale River, and one of my
bear traps is set there now. When I want to trap a
bear I try to find two old logs that lie about three feet
apart. Then I build up on top of 'em with other logs
to a height of three feet or so. I drive in stakes and
use wire to hold the logs in position and prevent 'em
from falling down or being knocked down by the bear.
Then I make a kind of a coop by plugging up one end
of the passage between the logs. I put bait at the far
end of the coop, and right in front of the bait set my
trap. The bait is any old refuse that I can git at the
meat market. Codfish is good, or salt pork, or lamb.
Honey is best of all. The bears like that awfully well,
but it's a little too expensive.
"I don't hitch the trap, because if I did the bear at
his first jump would jerk his foot out. A bear is a
drefful strong animal, and he's sure to git away unless
you have a good holt on him. The trap itself weighs
thirty pounds and has a chain five foot long hitched to
it, and on the end of that is a three-clawed grapple
which drags along and ketches on roots and things.
The grapple hinders the bear so he won't go a great
ways before he gits so tangled up he has to stop. He
does some awful scratching tearin', and bitin'. Good
land! I could show you the marks now made by one I
caught two years ago.
"There's just as many bears in these mountains as
there ever was, but they keep away from the villages
and farms usually, and people seldom have a sight of

60 Highways and Byways of New England
them. Besides, a bear does his stirring mostly at night.
If they see you or smell you they git out of the way.
Horses are all-fired afraid of 'em as a general thing.
They can smell 'em half a mile. That's more than a
man can do, but if you ketch one in a trap you can
smell him all right.
"When a bear's cornered you want to keep right
away from him. He's got sharp claws, and he can give
an awful blow. Let him git a good stroke at a man and
he'll take all the clothes off and some of the feller's hide,
too. Worse than a cornered bear is one that's got cubs.
"A few years ago, in May, three of us were out
a-fishing. We had a board shanty where lumbermen
had been, not far from a road. One of the fellers was
gittin' dinner, and I was in the camp layin' on the bed
when a tramp come and told us that just up the road
was two cubs and an old bear. He and another tramp
had been going along the road, but when they saw the
bears they didn't dast to go no farther. One of 'em
stayed to keep track of the bears, and the other come
running back to us. I took an old carbine we had, and
we all went with him, but the animals wa'n't in sight,
and the feller who was watchin' was so scat he didn't
know where they'd gone nor nothin'.
"The tramps went right along. They didn't stop for
no ceremony, and we hunted around till we found the
cubs up a tree. We had a meal sack and a rope, and
one of the fellers dim' the tree and got a noose over the
head of one of the cubs and let him down. But the

June in the White Mountains 61
cub squealed like a little snipe. He wa'n't used to that
kind of handling.
"The feller that was with me on the ground suddenly
dropped the bag. 'By George!' he yelled, 'there's the
old bear!'
"I looked up the hill and saw her comin' pell-mell.
My gun was right handy, and I grabbed it and fired.
I didn't hit her, but she turned and run into the woods.
We bagged the cubs pretty quick then and went back
to camp with 'em. Later we brought 'em to town and
tamed 'em. One was clever as a kitten, but you
couldn't go near the other without his cuffing you with
his paw if he could.
"About 1880 we had a bear hunt one Sunday morn
ing right here in the village. It was in July, and the
place was pretty well filled up with summer people.
A feller went to his pasture to fix his fence and saw an
old bear and three cubs, and he come after Father and
me. We'd done more hunting than all the rest of the
people in the town. I had a little dog that was half
hound, and I took him with me to see if he'd foller the
trail. The bears had gone farther back up on the hill,
but the dog ran along smelling the tracks as if he'd
always follered bears. We found 'em on the edge of
the woods and shot the old bear the first thing. Then
the dog took after one of the cubs, and the cub went up
a tree. We shot him, and the dog chased another down
toward the village and treed him so we shot him, too.
The third got away.

62 Highways and Byways of New England
"The people in the town heard the shooting and they
found out in no time that we were after bears. Lots
of 'em hustled up there on the hill — oh Lordy, yes!
women and men both. A good many come out of
church, and we had more of a congregation than the
preachers did. There was a regular mob around the
dead bears. The dog was the hero of the occasion. I
kept him till he died of old age. If I had him today I
wouldn't take a hundred dollars for him.
"The worst scrape I ever had with a bear was one
time when a neighbor who lived a little out from the
village come and wanted me to set a trap for a bear
that was ketchin' his sheep. Every few nights the bear
would git a sheep, and sometimes he'd eat a whole one at
once. I found where he went out through what we call
a slash or hedge fence. The fence is made by notching
small trees at about the height of four feet so the tops
will fall over but remain hanging on the stumps. Tops
and stumps form a kind of windrow thick enough to keep
the cattle from gittin' into the woods beyond.
"When the bear made a raid, as soon as he was back
through the slash fence, he would stop and skin the
sheep and eat it. A bear will skin a sheep as well as
you could with a knife. Then he rolls the skin up and
covers it roughly with sticks. The bear I was after
had e't part of the last sheep he'd caught and left the
rest, and I knew he'd return for it. I fixed the sheep
in the bushes so he would have to come up in just one
place to git it, and there I set my trap.

June in the White Mountains 63
"A few days later word was sent that the bear had
gone off with the trap. My father and I and two other
fellers went to foller him. In them days we tied a clog
of wood to the chain, and the bear had dragged it into
a clump of spruces. We saw where he had reached up
to bite the trees trying to git away. He'd take chunks
right out of 'em, and he had torn up some that were as
big as a stovepipe. The clog was hitched to a heavy
cable chain, but he finally broke that chain and got
away into the big woods where it was hard tracking
him. He went round and round and criss-cross and
every way. Sometimes he lay down. Then he'd git
up and go on.
"We follered that bear much as ten mile before we
saw or heard anything of him. He was on a mountain,
and he started to run and the trap rattled on the
stones that were there. A young feller named Brown
and I were ahead, and we took after him and left the
others behind. Just as soon as we come in sight of him
he stopped and looked right at us. We stopped, too.
He was a good big one, and he looked pretty sassy.
I'd brought along a shotgun, and I took aim at one of
his ears and shot six times. I knocked him down every
time, but he jumped up afterward. Oh gorry! he'd git
right up on his hind feet and snort like everything.
" I used up all my cartridges, and Brown and I went
to work with our jackknives, and cut some clubs as
big as my arm. We thought the bear was about dead.
Brown struck him with his club on the nose but didn't

64 Highways and Byways of New England
jar him a mite. It just made him all the madder. He
run and stuck his head under a log. I pulled the
bushes away, to give him a swipe, but he dodged back.
Then Prown whacked him and lost his balance. That
gave the bear a chance to make a grab and put two of
his tushes through Brown's wrist, and two through his
hand. He made a snap just as a dog would and then
let go.
"By that time Father and the other feller had got
along. That feller was a man who would weigh two
hundred pounds, and now he thought he'd try his
hand. He took a club and struck that bear right over
the top of the head. The only result was that the bear
started for him. I sung out to him to git out of the
way, and he did.
"'Twas almost dark then, and I told the others,
'You can play with that bear as much as you want to,
but I'm done until I git more ammunition.'
"We all went down the mountain. Brown's wounds
pained him terribly, and he like to have lost his hand
before he got through. He never's been bear-hunting
since. "The next morning I went back to the mountain
with the shotgun and about twenty men come along
with me. The bear was gone, but after follering his
trail half a mile we found him. He was among the rocks
:.nd ledges and slash where 'twas rougher'n blazes, and
Le had crawled into an old mess of logs. He riz up and
I shot him. Then he started toward us, and the fellers

June in the White Mountains 65
that was with me scattered every which way and clim'
the trees. He didn't go but a few steps when I let him
have one more charge, and that finished him.
"We hitched a rope to him and dragged him trap and
all a mile or more out of the woods and then put him on
a buckboard and brought him to town. He was a
monster, but he only weighed three hundred pounds.
There wasn't an ounce of fat on him. He was awful
poor. I saved his hide, but the meat was no good.
You couldn't eat a piece of it no more than you could
the sole of your shoe it was so tough. He was a regular
old racer."
The White Mountains include no less than twenty
bold peaks and abound in wild valleys, deep gorges,
lakes, and cascades. They were held in much reverence
by the Indians who believed them to be the abode of
the Great Spirit and affirmed that no one who scaled
the sacred heights returned alive. This, however, did
not prevent the first white who wandered into the region
in 1642 from climbing Mount Washington, the noblest
height of all. He found many crystals which he mis
took for diamonds, and for a long time the mountains
were called the "Crystal Hills." The first settlement
among the mountains was made in 1792 by a hunter.
About ten years later a small inn was built, but fifty
years more passed before there were any hotels.
I was eager for a close acquaintance with the monarch
of the mountains, and one morning I set forth on foot
from Bretton Woods to scale it. The distance across the

66 Highways and Byways of New England
lowlands to the base of the mountain was six miles,
and nearly all the way the narrow road was hemmed in
by forest. As I looked ahead the road seemed about
to come to an end at every turn and to lead nowhere.
It rarely afforded the least glimpse of the heights that
I knew loomed so near. The only gaps were made by
streams whose noisy waters writhed and leaped amid
the ledges and boulders of the hollows. I constantly
heard the birds calling in the vernal bowers around, and
now and then there came to my ears the cheerful
chatter of a chipmunk or squirrel. Sometimes I saw
the hoofprints of a deer in the roadway. But I seldom
caught sight of any of the forest animals either furred
or feathered.
After I reached the foot of the mountain I went on
beside the cog railway that ascends to the summit. For
a mile or two the tracks were in the center of a broad
grassy space cleared through the woodland, and there
was a faint path in the sward so that the climbing was
not especially arduous. Occasionally I stopped to
rest and look back on the broad landscape of almost
unending forest, and the maze of dreamy mountains
that bounded the horizon.
As I went higher the route became rough and rocky,
and I walked on the ties for the most part. The rail
road was on a trestle only slightly above the level of the
ground, unless it crossed a depression. But the ties
were greasy and slippery and had gaping holes between
them, and when the trestle was exceptionally high and

The Presidential Range f torn Bretton Woods

June in the White Mountains 67
dizzy I abandoned it. A misstep would perhaps mean
a broken leg, or a train might come along and make
things awkward for me. So I preferred a tooth and
nail scramble down below over the big angular rock
fragments. The trees steadily diminished in size, and at the
height of three thousand feet they were not half as
large as those in the valley. At four thousand feet they
were mere shrubs, scraggly, stunted, and gray with age
and shaggy moss. Presently even these pinched earth-
hugging birches and spruces found the soil too thin and
the warfare with the elements too strenuous, and there
was nought but a dun waste of shattered, lichened
rocks with intervals of coarse grass, moss, diminutive
blueberry bushes, and a few dainty blossoms. The-
rock fragments of this blighted upper region looked as
if they had lain there unchanged for ages. Roundabout
were desolate forbidding heights frowning down on
many a yawning gulf whose steep slopes were scarred
with bare yellow streaks left by landslides.
Occasional patches of snow lingered on the upper
slopes, and the air had grown much colder. A gusty
chilling gale was blowing that threatened to carry me
away bodily, and whenever I came to a sheltering ledge
or water tank I hastened to get in its lee and catch my
breath. The railway went up and up interminably as
if it aspired to reach to heaven, but at last I saw a
scattered group of buildings on ahead, and in a few
minutes was at the summit. Sober clouds overhung

68 Highways and Byways of New England
and sometimes enveloped it, and though the lowlands
had their drifting patches of sunlight no ray struggled
through on the mountain top.
A train had come up from below, and here and there
were groups of sightseers in fluttering wraps. "This is
the coldest place I ever came across," one of them was
saying. "You need all your furs and winter clothes on.
I want to look around, but every few minutes I have to
go in and get warm."
The chief refuge was the Tip Top House which rested
on the summit among the rocks like a stranded Noah's
Ark. It is long and low, has walls of stone, and its
roof is made secure by anchoring it with numerous
cables and rods. There is plenty of need- of having
everything in trim for rough weather, for the wind has
registered here the amazing velocity of one hundred and
eighty-eight miles an hour. As to temperature the
cold is capable of sending the mercury down to fifty
degrees below zero.
The interior of the Tip Top House with its low
ceilings and rude furnishings could hardly have been
any more primitive when the building was erected in
1853. Long before that visitors had begun to come to
the mountain in considerable numbers. A bridle path
was cut to its top in 1819, and the next year some
gentlemen stayed on the summit over night and named
the different peaks. The cog railroad was completed
in 1869.
I concluded to go down on the train. It consisted

June in the White Mountains 69
of a single car and a curious caricature of an engine,
both constructed to run on a steep slant. Presently
the sightseers clambered into the car, and the dumpy
engine got into motion for the three mile trip to the
base. It crept along at a snail's pace with much hissing,
creaking, and rumbling, as if fearful of losing its grip
and making a wild dash down the mountain to destruc
tion. Most of the passengers were cheerful and talka
tive, but there was one fat man who seemed to have
been frozen stiff. His hat brim was turned down all
around, and a sweater was wound about his neck. As
he sat there silent and immovable, he had much the
appearance of a mud turtle with its head almost with
drawn into its shell. We were nearly down the moun
tain before he began to show signs of life.
In the mild lower region there was little hint of the
savage gale that blew at the summit, and I rambled
away through the forest toward the Crawford Notch.
It was warm on the sheltered roadways, and whenever
a roadside sign informed me that a spring was near I
was tempted to pause and drink a cooling draught.
But always the vicinity of the springs was the lurking
place of a horde of bloodthirsty midgets, flies, and
mosquitoes, who quickly drove me back to the high
way from the otherwise inviting nooks. I fared better
when I sought for water in some woodland brook
tinkling among its green, mossy stones.
One of the characters of the region whose fame has
lived after him was a man commonly known as "English

70 Highways and Byways of New England
Jack." "He was an awful rough old fellow," a local
dweller explained to me. "He'd been at sea and got
wrecked on an island where he had to eat snakes and
frogs and roots, and all such things. If he could find a
snake he'd take it to a hotel and eat it before the guests,
and they'd give him money. His home was right at the
rocky entrance to the Crawford Notch up in the woods
just out of sight from the highway. There was a good
path to it, and a sign by the roadside invited people to
come to see 'The House that Jack Built.' Lots of folks
would go up there and look around, and they'd pay
him ten cents or a quarter or so apiece. He certainly
was an odd old stick and a great talker, and I presume
he. told a good deal that wa'n't true. He had some
trinkets to sell and a tame bear and a tank of big trout
that he exhibited. One day he got boozy and went to
foolin' with the bear, and, I snum ! if help hadn't come
Jack would have been killed. After being clawed so
bad he had the bear shot."
The house was still standing, and when I approached
the Notch I turned aside onto a path that led to it.
This took me through woodland on the shadowed side
of a hill where the air was cool and the light was dim
and the surrounding forest full of eerie mystery, and
then I came forth onto a grassy knoll brightened with
sunlight. There stood a ruinous shack of curious
architecture with the forest boughs throwing out pro
tecting arms over it. The walls were partly of logs and
partly of odds and ends of boards. Inside was a chaos

June in the White Mountains 71
of broken furniture and rubbish, and the whole house
was disintegrating and threatening to fall to pieces.
Up in the heart of the Notch occurred in 1826 the
most noteworthy tragedy of the mountains. An
occasional life has been lost in winter storms, and there
have been some serious accidents to travellers on the
roads, but the catastrophe in the Notch excels all others
in its appeal to the imagination. Here was a rustic inn
occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Willey, their five children
and two hired men. At dusk on the 20th of August a
storm burst on the mountains and raged with great
fury through the night. Every tiny stream became a
torrent, and the valleys were flooded, and the roads
were impassable.
Two days later a traveller succeeded in getting to
the Willey House, which he found standing in woeful
desolation. An avalanche of earth, rocks, and trees
had descended from the mountain and barely missed
carrying it away. When the traveller pushed open the
door a dog disputed his entrance and howled mourn
fully. The lonely cabin had no other inmates. Beside
the beds lay the clothing of the members of the house
hold, indicating a hasty and frightened flight. Ap
parently they had become aware of the danger that
threatened, and had run forth seeking safety only to be
overwhelmed. If they had remained in the house they
would not have been harmed, for the avalanche-
divided a little back of the dwelling and rushed by on
either side leaving the frail structure standing, though

72 Highways and Byways of New England
some of the debris struck it with sufficient force to
move it slightly from its foundations. The bodies of
Mr. and Mrs. Willey were found later, but not those
of the rest of the household. For twenty-one miles
down the valley the turnpike was demolished, and
more than a score of bridges were swept away. Some
of the meadows were buried several feet deep with
earth and rocks, and there were great barricades of
trees that had been torn up by the roots.
From the Crawford Notch I walked back to Bretton
Woods where I arrived just after sunset. But beyond
the dusky lowlands a warm glow lingered on the big
blue heights of the Presidential Range that bulwarked
the east, while above them were clouds delicately
flushed with tints of rose and saffron.
Notes. — The manifold attractions of the mountains can only be
appreciated by making an extended stay. The central group of
heights is called the Presidential Range from the fact that the
various peaks are named after the early presidents. Next in im
portance are the neighboring Franconia Mountains. On the
eastern side of Mount Washington the only highway up the moun
tain starts from Glen House, eight miles south of Gorham. Auto
mobiles can make the ascent. Accommodations are provided at
the summit for persons who wish to stay overnight. One of the
clefts in the mountains which particularly deserves a visit is Dix-
ville Notch, which with its crags and pinnacles is more Alpine in
character than any other portion of the granite hills. The roads
are in the main excellent, though the grades are sometimes steep.
The intending visitor should have a good guidebook and some of the
attractive pamphlets published by the railroads.

IV

A NEW HAMPSHIRE PARADISE
I WAS at Windsor on the Vermont bank of the
Connecticut approaching an old covered toll bridge,
which I planned to cross, for on the opposite side
of the river was the paradise. But the sky was gloomy
with clouds, and rain began to fall. Even paradise, I
was afraid, might be somewhat unsatisfactory in a
downpour, and I betook myself to the shelter of the
tollgate-keeper's piazza adjacent to the bridge entrance.
The keeper himself sat there on guard watching the
teams and individuals coming and going. He usually
called out a greeting to those who went past, but only
occasionally did he collect toll.
"It's like this," he explained; "most of the local
people buy yearly passes at from two to fifteen dollars
according to the amount of crossing they do. That
gives the right of way to a man's teams and all his
family. Now and then I have a little dispute as to
what is a fair rate. One woman told me this spring she
just wouldn't pay what I charged. 'Well,' I says,
'you can make up your mind on which side of the river
you want to stay, and then you can stay there. You
can't cross this bridge.'
" So she paid. For footmen we have a lump rate of

74 Highways and Byways of New England
ten cents a month. To cross a single time we charge a
man two cents, but most of them pay three cents to go
over and back. A good deal of our business is due to a
saloon near the other end of the bridge. There's pro
hibition on our side of the river, and a pile of men go
over there every day to get their bitters. Take it
Saturday night, and there's a string of 'em all the time,
and they don't give a hurrah what the weather is. They
can buy the liquor any way they want it, from a glass
to a barrel. The saloon bottles up and ships off a good
deal to the prohibition towns, and it makes more money
than all our merchants here in Windsor put together.
But it has to be pretty careful and quiet or it would get
shut up. I never saw that business handled so de
cently, and they rarely let a man drink so much that
he makes trouble.
" I don't have much trouble, anyway. Once in a
while I see a team coming across trotting, and then I
drop the gate down and collect a two dollar fine, though
if the party is ugly about it we may kind o' com
promise. You see where the gate has been mended.
I dropped it one time to stop a runaway; but I won't
try that again. The horse smashed right through, and
a little farther along two fellers thought they could
bring the horse to a standstill by holding up a blanket.
That didn't do any good either. The horse kept
straight on and tore the blanket all to tatters.
"There's ten more just such toll bridges as this on
the river between Vermont and New Hampshire. They

The toll-gate at the entrance lo the bridge

A New Hampshire Paradise 75
belong to private companies. I suppose the public
ought to own 'em so travel would be free, and there's
attempts being made to bring that about. The state
legislatures have tackled the subject, but New Hamp
shire owns to high-water line on this side of the river
and most the whole length of the bridges is on New
Hampshire territory. The benefits would be equal;
but the two states don't agree about the proportion
each ought to pay to buy out the bridge companies.
Then, too, the advantages gained would be almost
wholly for those who lived close by. The other
parts of the state don't see any gain for them, and
they're inclined to fight being taxed for such a pur
chase. So there's a hitch and a haul and we don't get
nowhere. "This bridge was built about forty years ago. The
one we had before was washed away in a big flood.
That was in February 1866. An ice jam formed below
here, and the water dammed back and lifted off the
bridge. It hung together long enough as it went down
stream to smash a hole through the next covered bridge,
but the ice and water finally tore it all to pieces."
In the midst of the shower the tollgate-keeper called
out to a man in a buggy, "A little damp this morning,
ain't it?"
"Yes, in some places," the man responded cheerfully.
When the scud was over he greeted another passer
with the query, "Is it done raining, Tom?"
"I do' know," Tom said. "May be letting go to get

76 Highways and Byways of New England
a new hold. It looks promising enough just now, but
I bet you we're goin' to get some more."
One individual who drove by was a peddler of hulled
corn. "And he sells quite a little around," the gate
keeper observed. "But I don't relish it. They do the
hulling now with soda, and the corn ain't got that lye
taste the old-fashioned sort had. I can remember as a
boy how my grandmother used to take a bag of wood
ashes and put it right in the kittle with the corn, and
her hulled corn tasted first-rate. We e't it with milk."
The sun was now shining brightly down on the wet
earth, and I paid the keeper of the tollgate three cents
and went across the bridge to Cornish. Somewhere in
the township, far back from the river, there is a village;
but it is not in the paradise portion, and no one
seemed to know exactly where Cornish village is. I
did not attempt to discover it myself; for I was quite
content with the region in which I then was. The
combination of pleasant vales and big irregular hills is
so charming that it has taken the fancy of a gradually
increasing colony of artists and authors, and of certain
other persons who have taste and wealth, if not genius.
Cultivated fields and pastures intermit with patches
of woodland where the trees grow undisturbed to full
stature. Streams of varying size abound, and to the
southward rises the mighty form of Mount Ascutney, a
lonely blue peak that presides over and lends dignity
to the scene. The giant mountain did not at any time
fully reveal itself on my first day in the region. Even

A New Hampshire Paradise 77
after nearly the whole sky had cleared it continued to
sleep among the clouds, and a cloud cap was still resting
on the summit when night came.
It was early September, and the grasses and other
wild growths formed rank tangles along the borders of
the roads and fields. Conspicuous in this plant-world
jungle were the podded milkweeds and the blossoms of
the wild sunflowers, asters, goldenrods, and stout-
stemmed thistles. Another characteristic of the begin
ning of autumn was the astonishing abundance of
insect life. The air was everywhere melodious with
tiny trills and pipings, and at midday the cicadas
shrilled their long-drawn song of heat. If I crossed a
field a squad of grasshoppers leaped away each time
I took a step, and I found insects of some sort in every
nook and cranny that I chanced to observe. Once I
paused to look at a clump of goldenrod. Numerous
flies and many-colored bugs and bees haunted its
flower-clusters. But these honey-hunters did not
comprise all the insects present there; for down below,
amid the leaves and stems, certain bloodthirsty spiders
had spread their snares and, head downward, in the
middle of their nets, they waited for such of the un
wary lovers of the bloom as might happen to blunder
into their traps. Evidently paradise was not all it
might be among these little wild folk and I suppose
it is only the human residents who feel the uplift of the
beautiful environment.
Some of the city people who have chosen to own

78 Highways and Byways of New England
homes in -this region stay merely during the warm
weather, and others through the entire year. Each
family has selected the spot that most appealed to them
amid the medley of rough pastures, wooded hollows
and old farm fields, and has there erected a mansion
and turned the immediate vicinity into an oasis of
lawn and garden, fountains and terraces, hedgerows,
and ornamental trees and shrubbery. These homes
and their surroundings are often wonderfully charming,
and some of the gardens with their tints of rainbow are
like bits of fairyland; but the landscape as a whole
continues half-wild, and the intervals between the
widely scattered mansions are for the most part
ordinary farming country.
A few of the old farms have been bought entire, but
more often the purchase is of a comparatively limited
number of acres. To quote one of the natives, "Most
of these people don't care about bein' near their neigh
bors or livin' on a main highway, or even about owning
good land. It seems to suit 'em best if they can put
up a house way off in a pasture. They'll buy the
rockiest, meanest land we've got — the very worst spots
that are to be had. It's strange, ain't it, goin' off in a
pasture to live; but they must like it, I suppose. Last
year a new man bought a patch of that rough land and
paid six thousand dollars for it. The farmer 'twas
bought of had been quite a lot in debt; but he got
twice what his whole place was naturally worth, and
since then he's been aboveboard. Of course everybody

A New Hampshire Paradise 79
knew the price that was paid, and the assessors tried
to tax the buyer at that rate instead of what the land
had been paying in the past. They were a little too
cunning and they slipped up in that scheme. If they
hadn't pushed on to him so hard they'd been all right;
but he wouldn't pay the bill they sent him and said
he'd spend twenty thousand dollars fighting 'em before
he'd stand such a tax. So they finally backed down.
"When a city family comes and builds a house and
settles in it, you might think they'd got everything
right and the place fixed up for good; but they ain't
contented to leave well enough alone. They're always
improving and changing, tearing down, and adding on.
They are sure to spend a great deal more than they
expected 'twould cost 'em when they started. I know
one man who's spent ten times what he intended to
lay out. He made his first mistake by putting up his
house way off in the woods. There hain't no other
fine house anywhere near him. In order to connect
with the highway he built a road down the side of
the ridge on which his house stands. That road cost
him a thousand dollars, and it couldn't be used, after
all, it was so steep. His cellar, too, was a big expense.
It is blasted out of the solid rock. I'll give you one
more instance which shows his way of managing. He
set out an orchard, and it was doing first-class; but a
friend of his told him it ought to be somewhere else.
So he pulled it up and changed it to another location."
From where we were standing we could see one of

80 Highways and Byways of New England
these handsome modern country mansions a mile or
two away across the rude uplands. It had a delightful
perch on the summit of a lofty hill overlooking the lower
hills and wooded glens far and near, and its white-
walled magnificence with Lombardy poplars standing
sentinel about was quite enchanting.
"A woman built that place," my companion said.
"When she first looked around in this region she selected
a spot over to the eastward right up on a pine knob;
but after she'd bought it she discovered that it had
no water. She paid a pretty good price for the sake of
having a piece of pine timber. It wouldn't do for her
house site, and then she got this hill yonder. She was
a genius — quite a poet; but in the course of a few
years she died, and her sister became the owner of the
property. This sister wa'n't gifted like the other
woman, and yet if she got excited you might think she
was gifted, too. Let her have the idea that the butcher
was charging her two cents a pound more than his meat
was worth, and she'd step right out and tell him what
she thought of such doin's. Oh, she was fluent, and if
he tried to explain, she wouldn't listen, but kept straight
on till she'd said her say. Then she'd turn around and
march into the house.
"Look down there toward the low ground. Just
where the woods end is a big field with cattle in it.
Those are Mrs. Churchill's cows — that is, everybody
calls 'em her cows. She's the farmer and the business
man of the family. Mr. Churchill is something of a

A New Hampshire Paradise 81
politician, and a smart, nice feller, but kind of aristo
cratic. He tries his best to be easy and companionable
with us ordinary people; and yet that aristocraticness
crops out in spite of thunder. He started in to run for
governor last year, and he rattled the thing up good, I
gorry! They defeated him, but they ain't got him
quieted yet.
"His house is over in the woods beyond where the
cows are, and it's a fine one, I tell you. I often wonder
that he didn't buy better land while he was about it.
That farm is nothing but an old sandbank, anyway.
Gracious ! you can't raise a decent crop on it, the land
is so terrible poor, and in some places the soil won't
even grass over. Yes, and this dry season has pretty
much knocked Mrs. Churchill out in the farming line.
"Of course all these new folks that have come in here
are very different in their tastes and interests from us,
and we don't associate much with them except as we
do work about their places. Now, last night they got
up an entertainment and give it in a hall in the village
just north of here. Tickets was two dollars apiece, and
they had singing and tableaux and a play; and every
darn thing was in French. 'Twa'n't for the world's
people. You might think we'd meet 'em at church,
but they are not a church-going class — at least not here
in the country. They spend Sundays playing cards
or doing anything else that happens to strike them, and
Sunday nights they have parties.
"In one way, though, they have really taken hold

82 Highways and Byways of New England
with us — and that is in starting a village industry
business among our women. They've got the thing
going and it's a success. Making artistic rugs is the
main work. One of the leaders of the rug-making
circle lives in the first little house up the road. Call in
and ask her about it. She c'n tell you more'n the
Almighty, and there's nothin' pleases her so much as
to unwind."
Another of the local dwellers had now joined us, and
he asked, "But will she stop when she gets run down?"
"I never stayed long enough to find out that," the
first man replied. "However, they've got quite an
industry and no mistake."
The opinions this man expressed of the newcomers
and their homes and habits interested me scarcely less
than the region itself, and when I met others of the
original occupants of the vicinity I pursued the sub
ject further. In particular I had a long chat one even
ing with a man I came across fishing in a little millpond
near the road I was travelling. First he enlightened
me as to the luck he was having.
"I ain't ketchin' nothin'," he said, "and I wish I'd
gone to the river. The children are always teasin' me
to go there, and I usually get a nice mess to bring
home. One bass I ketched weighed five pounds. A
few weeks ago when I was gettin' more'n I wanted to
eat I put a pickerel and a bass into the watertub at the
place where I work. Fish are a drefful nice thing in a
watertub. They keep every bug and worm out. If a

The fisherman

A New Hampshire Paradise 83
fly gets on the surface, it won't be no time before you'll
hear that water splash, and the fly's eaten. It's fun
to see them fish swim round in there. I feed 'em bread.
That's the best thing for fish; but once in a while I
get 'em some shiners, and if I throw in just a single one
both the two big fish get hold of it, and they'll fight
terrible before either one'll give up.
"I ain't workin' today, and I s'pose my boss won't
like it; for help is awful skurce. Since these city people
have settled here a laboring man needn't never be out
of a job unless he wants to be, and he is sure of good
wages and his pay every Saturday night. They've
made a big change in the look of things, and if the folks
who was here forty years ago was to come back they
wouldn't hardly know where they was. Those old-
time houses was quite different from what you see now;
but the people who lived in 'em knew how to farm.
We don't raise any such quantities of corn and grain
and hay as they did. The land needs takin' up and
cultivating once in four or five years to get real good
crops. But now a great many of the fields are mowed
year after year and never teched with a plough. All
that the present owners care to do is just to keep things
about so. They ain't farmin' to make money, and they
don't quarter pay expenses.
"It suits 'em to own fine cattle, and where I'm
workin' they've got a cow-stable that's better and
cleaner than lots of houses. We scrub it out with
brooms and water every day, and the cows have their

84 Highways and Byways of New England
bags washed and wiped before they are milked. Each
cow's milk is kept separate and weighed and recorded.
The herd gets the best of feed, and the milk is richer
than the average and ought to bring a better price, but
it all goes to the creamery at five cents a quart same as
any farmer's.
"There's a lot of nice chickens and turkeys on the
place. I believe the turkeys count up sixty-five in all.
One of the old ones stole a nest and hatched out sixteen.
That brood is kind o' wild and ain't been to the house
yet. Turkeys are great hands to eat grasshoppers and
crickets, and they'll go through a field just like a com
pany of soldiers keeping abreast of each other and
cleaning up every insect as they go. When we are
mowing, the machine drives the bugs and things toward
the center of the field and they are very thick in the
patch of grass that still stands after we get most done.
The turkeys seem to know they can find more there
than anywhere else, and when we near the finish they
take a swath and follow just as fast as we mow.
"Very few of the farmers I used to know are here
now — and you can't blame 'em for lettin' their land go
when they was gettin' such high prices for it."
The most notable member of the colony which dis
covered and in large part made this New Hampshire
countryside the paradise that it is, was the sculptor,
Augustus St. Gaudens. He had recently died, at the
time of my visit, and I heard many reminiscences
illustrating his characteristics. The rural folk all had

A New Hampshire Paradise 85
a warm affection for him, and in their way eulogized
him as highly as could the sculptor's intimate associates
in his own realm.
"St. G. was a number one man," a Cornish resident
I encountered in my rambles affirmed. "He never
put on any airs, and in meeting and talking with the
people that live around here he seemed to be one of us.
He was just as companionable and simple, too, with
the servants who worked for him, and often they come
near forgetting he was their employer. I recollect how
he once helped some servants who'd just got here,
strangers from the city, to find their way. They were
walking to one of the big houses where they were goin'
to work, and when they got there they told how they'd
met ' a real nice old gentleman ' down the road who gave
them directions through the woods. That nice old
gentleman was St. Gaudens.
"It was his habit to have his own servants come into
his studio just before any work of his was goin' to be
shipped away so they could see it. One time when
everything was ready to take down a new statue, and
the workmen were settin' around waitin', two or three
of the maids was busy in the house and couldn't come
right then. Some of Mr. St. Gauden's family thought
it was pretty expensive waiting with the pay of the
workmen running on, and that the job ought to be
started at once; but the sculptor wouldn't hear of
touching a thing till all the servants could get there to
see the statue.

86 Highways and Byways of New England
"He was very patient, usually, and he'd hear the
most long-winded caller to the end without showing a
sign of irritation, when I knew he was so nervous he
couldn't hardly hold himself together. But he wa'n't
afraid to speak in meeting if he got riled, and those
who knew him at all knew enough not to speak to him
when he was studying.
"His work brought him a good deal of money; but
I guess he spent it most as fast as it came to him. He
was always doing things over about his place. If he
thought some stone steps would improve a terrace, he
got seventeen or eighteen men and had the steps put
in. Then pretty soon he'd think they'd be better some
where else, and he'd have his gang of men come and
tear up where he wanted the steps moved to, and after
the moving was done they'd turf over the old place.
That's the way things would go, and it was the same
in his studio — he was sure to be a great while finishing a
piece of work because he was forever thinkin' he could
improve it.
"There never was a man more generous. For in
stance, he was comin' home from Windsor one winter
day, and he drove along to where a poor family lived
and saw four of the children sliding down hill. But
they only had one sled, and he says, 'Is that all the sled
you've got?'
"They says, 'Yes;' and what does he do but turn
smack around and go back to Windsor and buy three
sleds so those children would have one apiece.

Old-time natives

A New Hampshire Paradise 87
"Then I know one time when a man who'd worked
for him a number of years was goin' to move away, and
St. G. says to him, 'I've never felt as if I paid you
enough;' and he took his check-book and wrote him
a check for one hundred dollars.
"In the latter part of his life he hadn't been well for
a long time and he suffered a good deal of pain; but
when he first come here he was as well as any one, and
he'd go out and play ball and was one of the boys
among boys. He never complained, no matter how he
suffered. One peculiar thing was that he was always
cold, poor man. There might be a great big fire in the
fireplace and the furnace goin' for all it was worth,
and his wife would be roasted, and yet he was cold.
"Well, he's gone now, and his body was cremated,
and his ashes are buried over in Windsor. He wanted
'em sprinkled over the flower-garden; but you know, if
they'd done that they never could rent the place. Yes,
he's gone, and he was a number one man. I don't
suppose we shall ever see his like here again."
Notes. — Cornish is in a region that is distinctly rustic, far from
any big town, and with much in life and nature around that is raw
and half wild; yet here you find many magnificent estates of people
of wealth and fame including statesmen, authors, and artists, and
it has even been the summer home of a president of the United
States. Mount Ascutney, 3,320 feet high, is one of the striking
features of the vicinity. Twenty miles north is Hanover, the seat
of Dartmouth College, where Daniel Webster graduated. The
main roads in the region are good gravel or dirt. The less said about
the others the better.

ON THE SHORES OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN
WHEN I looked on the map and saw, adjacent
to the Vermont shore of the lake, Grand Isle
with the towns of North Hero and South
Hero on it, the romantic appeal of those names was
irresistible, and thither I journeyed. I soon learned
that "Grand" referred to size, not scenery, and I failed
entirely to discover the significance of the two "Heroes";
yet, my acquaintance with the undulating, rich-soiled,
well-tilled island was nevertheless very satisfying. The
place I chose to stop at was a rustic village on one of the
ridges where the scattered homes reposed amid shade
trees and orchards. I lodged in a stone-walled old
hotel at a cross-roads, and just across the way was a
wooden store before which a number of farm teams
were usually to be seen hitched while their owners
traded inside and swapped the news of the neighbor
hood. Most of the teams had been driven in from the
region surrounding to bring milk to the creamery, for
dairying is a chief source of income. Great herds of
cows grazed in the pastures, and alfalfa was growing on
many broad fields to furnish feed for them.
One afternoon I called on an old resident of the
vicinity, a man eighty years of age. While we talked

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 89
he sat by the dining-room stove with a cat in his lap.
His wife, who had been blind and deaf for several years,
presently came feeling her way to him from the next
room. She had somehow sensed the fact that he had a
caller, and wanted to know who was there. He replied
in a sign language on her fingers, and she went back to
the other room.
I questioned my host about conditions on the island
as he had known them in his youth, and he said: "When
I was a boy this country was much wilder than it is
now and lynx still lived in the woods. They wa'n't
afraid to tackle sheep and made considerable trouble
for us. A lynx was an ugly feller to handle if you got
him cornered. Once our geese got away, and I went to
the lake lookin' for 'em. While I was there I saw a
lynx slide down the rocks to the edge of the water, and
I watched him lickin' it up. Afterward he ran back up
the rocks. I wa'n't old enough to be out on a hunt,
with a gun, but some of the men follered the lynx and
shot him in a swamp. Later they had him at the store
stuffed. "I can recollect too, when I was a youngster, we had
quite a stir about a wolf. It was in winter, and they
chased him with hounds over the ice to another island,
but he got away. There used to be lots of eagles
around, and we'd see 'em flying day after day, or sitting
on a dry tree. We still have a fair number of foxes and
they do a bad business for people that keep turkeys.
"Great flocks of wild geese used to fly over, and

90 Highways and Byways of New England
they'd stop in the marshes and buckwheat fields.
When I'd be out milking the cows in the yard in the
spring, I could hardly look up without seeing ducks or
geese going north. I often killed 'em. Sometimes we'd
ketch 'em alive and tame 'em to put out as decoys.
One man here had a tame wild goose that went away in
the fall with a wild flock, and after two years it come
back. They always fly in a V shape with the old gander
ahead. If you can shoot him first you have a chance
to fire several times at the others. They're all mixed
up and keep flying round and round to get another
leader. While they're travelling they're sure to be
squawking, and when they plan to light they're still
squawking as they circle about to see if the coast is
clear. But as soon as they've lit they're all still. If
they're in a buckwheat field you won't hear a sound,
and the old gander will be watchin' every minute with
his head up while the rest are eatin'.
"Our farm ran to the lake, and we had a splendid
fishing-ground. When there come a lowery day we and
some of the neighbors would go down and draw a
seine. We'd perhaps take along a two gallon jug of
hard cider, and we'd have quite a visit and a good time.
I don't recall that the cider had any bad effect. To get
drunk on cider a feller would have to be quite an h-o-g.
He'd have to swill down a lot of it. We caught pike
and pickerel and muscallonge and shiners and suckers,
and we'd get perch by the quantity. It wouldn't be
possible to make any such hauls now. The law has got

The waterside — Lake Champlain

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 91
the thing cornered down so you can't ketch small fish,
but the lake is pretty well drained of 'em, big and little.
We threw back what we didn't want. Some we salted
down. We still eat a good many lake fish, but there's
none of 'em taste as good to me as they did when I was
a boy. "I think I'll have to take a pull at my pipe. I smoke
occasionally and sometimes oftener. Seven or eight
years ago I smoked one cigaret. I've never wanted any
since. That cured me.
"Talking about changes, we used to get our mail
once a week. Later, when we got it twice a week we
felt as if we lived in the city. Now we have rural de
livery every day, and I'm expectin' the next thing
they'll send some one along to read our letters to us.
"The main part of farming here in my young days
was keeping sheep. Lots of farmers had two or three
hundred and sheared 'em for their wool. Now we've
shifted to cows, and that's been a big thing for us. It's
knocked the mortgage off from a good many farms.
Our cream is taken to the cooperative creamery, and
when our cows get old we sell 'em for beef, and there's
a rendering company that will pay us something for
our sick cows. The meat of those sick cows ain't sup
posed to be eaten, but I guess some of it gets mixed in
with good meat and goes where it hadn't ought to go.
"Of course not everybody's prosperous. Some owe
money that they can't pay and drop behind a little
every year. When they get going that way they're

92 Highways and Byways of New England
pretty sure to have a slide into bankruptcy. The
people they owe get uneasy. If a man is gaining and
going up it's all right, but if he's going down it's all
wrong. "One cause of failures is this auto business. A man
working for a salary, in such a place as Burlington over
here on the mainland will have a little home that's
paid for and he's quite comfortably fixed. But he
concludes that he's got to have an auto to keep up with
the procession. So he mortgages his place and buys
one. Then he has to take a day off here and a day off
there to make trips in his new machine. By and by his
employer says, 'Well, I'll have to look for another feller
to fill this man's place;' and he loses his job. In town
and country both there's a good many people with autos
who wish they had their money back. It ain't the first
cost that counts. It's the wear and tear and the expense
for ensilage — no, that ain't the word. I mean gasolene.
It balked me just for the second. My mind don't work
as good as it used to.
"Have you noticed our apple orchards? This is a
great region for apples, but the tent caterpillars and
little green forest worm are raising the mischief with the
trees. The leaves are about all gone and the orchards
look as if a fire had been through 'em. They've mostly
turned into butterflies now and quit eating, but they've
left their mark and they're goin' to play the trees out.
"The railroad has built causeways to get on and off
the island, and we go across in teams at the sandbar

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 93
bridge. We've got pretty good connections with the
rest of the world except at the end of winter. Then,
after the ice gets rotten enough to break up, it will
sometimes shove, and the ice and floodwood will be
piled up on the causeway at the bridge in such masses
that the road is blocked for three weeks. Before the
bridge was built we would ford the bar in the spring
when the water was so high that the horse had to wade
for a mile, and we'd put our feet on the dashboard to
keep 'em dry. I didn't want to be driving through after
dark very much. If you got to one side a little it was
dangerous. In summer I've been across when the water
was so low that I could wade it with such a pair of
boots on as I'm wearing now.
"Most every one is rigged out with shoes these days,
but I ain't ashamed to have anybody know that I
wear boots. People say to me, 'Why, you wear boots
yet!' and I say, 'Yes, I was born with boots on.'
"I like 'em better than shoes. They're handier. I
can't get down to lace up shoes, and besides if you wear
shoes on a farm some obstruction is getting into 'em
every little while, and the thistles prick through your
pantlegs. But I don't know as I've seen anybody
who's stuck to boots as I have, and there's only one
place in Burlington where they can be got. Every one
wore 'em in old times. Even the girls wore 'em by
spells going to school through the snow in winter and
the slush in spring.
"Once a year a shoemaker, on his rounds about the

94 Highways and Byways of New England
neighborhood, would move into a room of our house
and make boots for the whole family. We had one
shoemaker here in town who couldn't be beat in New
York City, and he had some very stylish customers
who lived large places at a distance — fellers that looked
just as if they'd come out of a bandbox. He'd fit 'em
with boots that were so tight they'd break three or four
pairs of galluses tryin' to get 'em on.
"We had a good deal of Canadian help in summer.
Men would drive down from Canada in a two-wheeled
cart drawn by one horse. There'd be six or eight of
'em standing up or sitting around on the edges of the
cart. They'd get along any way to reach the States
and work four or five weeks for a dollar a day. Now
we have to pay two dollars a day. You pretty near
have to pay a man if you stop him to inquire if he'll
work for you. They're educated to get as big prices
as they can and give as little as possible in return. We
used to go out and in half an hour hire half a dozen men.
Now you can't hire one man in half a dozen days. The
laboring day was calculated from sunrise to sundown.
At present, if you get a man out before seven o'clock
you have to pull him out, but we expect him to keep at
his work more steadily than if his hours were longer;
and there ain't no use talking — a feller can't hold out
from sunrise to sundown in a long summer day and do
good work. The men had to have a lunch in the middle
of the morning, and again in the middle of the after
noon. I've carried many a lunch to the mowing field

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 95
when I was a boy. The food was put into a market
basket or wooden pail together with a bottle of liquor
and a couple of tumblers. Toward ten o'clock in the
morning a worker would sit down and eat a doughnut
and a good slice of bread buttered and doubled up, and
drink a tumbler of liquor. That would hold him to
gether until dinner time. Now and then there was hot
biscuit for lunch and perhaps cake.
"Mowing was done with scythes. All the men
would mow in the morning until the dew got off.
There'd be six or seven of 'em, and at the end of a
swath they'd stop and whet their scythes and tell a
story or two and have a laugh before they went on.
We had more fun then working than we do now. Some
of the men mowed all day, but most of 'em quit mowing
after a while to get the hay dry and into the barn. It
was quite a job to spread out the swaths that were left
by the mowers. Furthermore all the hay had to be
raked by hand. While I was a youngster they sent me
ahead to rake the first swath. Two fellers raking on
each side completed what was called a windrow, and
the hay in the windrows had to be bunched up and
pitched onto the two-wheeled ox-carts.
"Everybody used to have oxen, but now I don't
know of a yoke of oxen in town. An ox-team will do lots
of work if properly managed. It will do as much
ploughing as a span of horses. But if you use the gad
too much and get your oxen vexed and they don't know
what to do they'll be mean same as a balky horse.

96 Highways and Byways of New England
Some of our horses and cattle are superior to the human
animals that own 'em. I saw a man pounding a horse
the other day, and I said to myself, ' If I was that horse
I'd show the feller how the calks were fastened on my
shoes,' and it would have been serving him right.
"Before the railroads got so numerous there used to
be a great deal of traffic on the lake. The water was
dotted with schooners and sloops up to twenty-five
years ago. You couldn't look out on the lake without
seeing ten or a dozen of 'em. Now we don't see one a
week. Most of the crossing at the ferries was done in
what we called old scow boats. They was rigged with
a big sail. We get some heavy waves on the broad part
of the lake, and I've even known one of those flat-
bottomed scow boats to be upset.
"Most of our teaming in winter was done on the ice.
The ice made a good road, and the horses would slide
right along. The lake froze from shore to shore, but
here where it is so wide there was only crossing for a
few days or weeks, however cold the season. Horses
often broke through, but they seldom drowned. If a
man was alone and his horses went in he'd have to
wait for help, and about all he could do was to keep the
horses' heads up. When a man on shore heard any one
calling and saw that a team was in trouble he'd hitch
up, put a plank in his cutter, and go to the rescue.
Sometimes those would come who were so scairt that
they were worse than no one at all. If you could get
the horses' for'ard feet up on the ice they'd usually

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 97
struggle out themselves. Often we'd choke 'em a little
and get 'em strangled to make 'em throw themselves
out. But if the ice was rotten or springy they were
apt to slip back in. The ice was weak around the reefs,
and we would keep away from them. There ain't but
very little teaming now, and I didn't hear of only two
teams getting in last winter.
"When I was a boy 'twas a main travelled road
through here. That made quite a market for the hotels,
and there was lots of doings at the corners. Travellers
couldn't get by a hotel without stopping for a drink.
They had to have it in winter to get warmed up on,
and in summer to get cooled off on. They drank gin
or brandy or whatever their thirst called for, but most
of what was known as 'new rum.' That was a little
cheaper than the other kinds of liquor, and the stores
bought it by the puncheon, and people bought it by
the jugful. Everybody drank. Even the minister
wasn't afraid to tip the tumbler.
"I can recollect long strings of horses from Canada
going through here to be sold every winter. Usually
there'd be twenty or thirty horses in a string, but some
times there was so many they'd reach for pretty near
half a mile. Their halters was tied to a rope that
extended from the leader to the last horse. A man rode
the leader, and several boys were scattered along on
the horses, and a sleigh follered behind.
"You notice we have a good many zigzag rail fences
around our fields, but we don't make any new fences

98 Highways and Byways of New England
of that sort. Rails are getting scarce nowadays.
They're split out of cedar, and there ain't much cedar
growing. It's a bother even to get enough cedar posts
for wire fences. Every field large and small used to be
fenced, and we had to keep a good fence along the
road because people let their cattle run and feed in the
highways. There'd be gates across the roads in some
places that travellers had to open and shut. On either
side of the rail fences at the angles a stake was driven
down, and a short board with holes bored in it was
slipped over the ends of each pair of stakes to hold 'em
in place, and a top rail rested on this cap.
"We generally made our hog pasture fence of boards.
Hogs will root under most any fence, and they'll
squeeze pretty hard on a board when they get started.
Those old-time hogs was great runners. Now what
we call a hog decent to be e't is so fat he can't do much
running. But I've seen hogs that we wanted to
butcher get away and run all over the garden. We'd
set the dog onto 'em to help tire 'em out so we could
ketch 'em. Once a Frenchman who was working for us
grabbed hold of a hog by the ear when it started to run
and got right on its back. But it ran through a goose
berry bush. You know what those are. They've got
thorns on 'em. The hog came out first best and the man
got well scratched. He let go and talked all kinds of
language for a short time.
"A poor line fence makes trouble for you unless you
have a pretty good lot of philosophy to fall back on.

At work in the garden

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 99
People generally cal'erate to look after their fences now,
but in earlier days they often neglected 'em, and their
cows or sheep or horses would do damage on their
neighbors' premises. That stirred up feeling, and there
was jawing and cursing and perhaps a fight. Some
never got over it. Such affairs made work for the
lawyers. "We always had a lawyer in town ever since I was
knee high to a johnnycake until about thirty years
ago. If he saw a little disturbance starting between
neighbors he'd work on the one that he thought would
crowd the most so as to get a fee out of the row. While
we had lawyers there was always lots of quarrelling,
but when they quit doing business here it cured the
thing right up.
"The cases were tried on the island, and Pixley, the
constable, had to collect the juries. One day I see his
old sorrel mare comin' up the road, and I knew, just as
well as if he had telephoned, that he was goin' to sum
mon me for a little petty suit. So I went in and sat
down in my shirtsleeves with my boots off and my feet
on the stove hearth and an old tippef round my throat
as if I was played out. Pixley stopped and come in,
but I couldn't talk out loud. All my answering was
done by whispering or nodding. Well, I didn't lie, but
you might just as well call it that.
"'I declare!' Pixley said, 'you got an awful cold,'
and he went off to look for some one else.
"By and by I hitched up and went to see the case

ioo Highways arid Byways of New England
tried. I left my horse under the store shed and walked
into court. The constable saw I'd tricked him, and he
said, 'Next time I go after you you'll come even if I
have to take you right out of bed.'
"'Pixley,' I said, 'you ain't big enough.'
"We lived rather more than two miles from the
church, and a load of us would drive there to meeting
in a three-seated wagon. The church pews were regular
pens. If we had 'em in a barn we'd call 'em box stalls.
The walls were so high that when I was a little shaver
and wanted to make faces at any other boy or girl I had
to stand up on the seat to look over. The pews had
doors and the last person in had to turn a button to
keep the door shut. There were no cushions — nothing
but the bare boards, unless you carried a shawl or some
thing to sit on.
The minister preached a sermon in the morning, and
then he had to give us another in the afternoon, and
there wa'n't hardly a person in a hundred could digest
what there was in one. When those old-fashioned
ministers preached a sermon they couldn't usually get
along without bringin' in about hell fire two or three
times. That would scare some, but others would have
to laugh right in church, and people used to joke on
the subject. If a man said: 'I ain't goin' to winter
here. I'm goin' to get where it's warmer;' some one
else would say, 'Well, you wait a little while and you'll
be where it's warmer.'
" Between the two services there was time for Sunday-

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 101
school and lunch. The people who came from a dis
tance ate their cake and cheese and whatever else they
brought in the vestibule or right in the pews, but the
children would perhaps take a handful of the food and
go outdoors to eat.
"We kept our minister for fifty years. He could
have got four or five times what we paid, but he said he
was one of us and wouldn't leave for the big offerings.
For funeral sermons or anything of that kind he was
in demand all around. He was one of the flowery kind,
and even if the dead person had been mean and done
bad things he'd smooth it over, or if the feller had never
amounted to anything the preacher would make him
out to be quite a man, and that caused the man's friends
like the preacher better than ever. He'd fix it so nice in
speaking about the deceased in the funeral sermon that
though parties were there who'd been quarrelling with
the departed tears would start from their eyes just the
same. Theminister lived to be a very old man, and itwas
only a few years ago he had the sickness that upset him.
"The island used to be full of children, but the young
people as they grew up went West, and they went South,
and they went to the towns. Some have probably done
a good deal better than if they'd stayed, and yet I think
the majority would have been fully as independent and
enjoyed themselves more if they'd continued to live on
the farms here."
Another acquaintance who furnished me with con
siderable information was an elderly French fisherman

102 Highways and Byways of New England
whose home was a queer little shack in some bushes
near the shore. The structure was about six by eight
feet with a tarred paper roof. Near by was a garden in
which the fisherman raised a few vegetables, and just
over an adjacent fence was an apple orchard much
devastated by worms.
" I had to kill them worms here all day one spell," he
said. "They're kind of a brown color and an inch and a
half long, and I guess they got a thousand legs on 'em.
They crawled everywhere. I'd see 'em as I was goin'
along the road, and I'd step on 'em. They're a mean
thing, but now they've chawed and gone away. People
say they change into butterflies, but I don't know
whether they do or not."
While we were chatting rain began to fall, and the
man invited me into his hut. I could just stand up
under the ridge. The walls and roof boards were pasted
over with wallpaper. A bed was built in across the
back, and I sat down on that. In the corner at one side
of the door was a tiny stove tawny with rust, and near
it was a little pile of firewood and a chair. There was
a shelf full of crockery, and there were fishlines, a gun,
a lantern, a mirror, and a clock that ticked loudly.
Light was admitted through two small sliding windows
under the eaves. The man said that he prepared for
winter by banking up around the outside with dirt to
the bottom of the windows. A trap door in the floor
allowed him to reach down into a cellar hole where he
kept his potatoes, fresh meat, bread, milk, and butter.

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 103
Presently a boy from a neighboring house came in
and occupied the chair. The man sat on a box beside
the stove. He had started a fire, for the day was chilly,
and the stove drew the air in through its damper with
noisy vigor. "Come, don't growl too hard," the fisher
man admonished.
Then he turned to me and said: "I feel kind o'
sleepy. A friend who's got a farm up the lane was
callin' on me last night. 'Bout ten o'clock he began
to say, 'Well, I guess I'll go home,' but it was after
midnight when he left. I was sorry for his wife. She
always sets up till he comes in. He spent the whole
time here talkin' about himself — stuck to that one sub
ject like a puppy to a root — and it's just the same every
call he makes on me. According to his tell he could do
more work than a man when he was thirteen, but I've
never seen him exerting himself much."
"This rain will give me another chance to pick night
crawlers," the boy remarked.
"What are those?" I asked.
"Some call 'em angleworms," he replied. "We had a
good rain yesterday, but before that there was a long
dry spell, and you could dig for an hour and not get
enough crawlers to fish half a day. But last night I got
a quart in ten minutes. They always come out after
dark when the ground is wet, and you can begin to pick
by eight o'clock on the road or any land that ain't
covered with growing things. The garden is the best
place. We go after 'em with a lantern and a can. They

104 Highways and Byways of New England
have about an inch still in their hole, and you've got
to grab quick or they crawl back in. So we walk careful
and take care not to jar the ground and scare 'em. We
can sell 'em for from twenty-five cents to fifty cents a
quart to the campers. They go like hotcakes.
"The campers are always wantin' bait. After harvest
we get crickets for 'em. We find the crickets under the
stones. Sometimes we pick grasshoppers and sell 'em
to the campers at fifty cents a hundred. They'd rather
have those than any flies they can buy in the stores."
"White grubs are great bait for bass," the fisherman
affirmed. "Once in a while I go in the swamps after
little green frogs. By gol! it's quite a job. They're
lively hoppers, and they're such a size and color that
you got to keep your nose almost on the ground to see
'em. The campers are glad to get 'em at three cents
apiece. "There's some big fish in the lake. I've known
pickerel to weigh twenty pounds, and I've helped ketch
a sturgeon that was over two yards long. You get a
sturgeon like that in spawning time and just the spawn
is worth thirty-five or forty dollars. Do you see that
big strong hook hangin' on the wall? It's much as
three feet long, handle and all. I use that when I
ketch a fish that's too large for my line. If I once hook
him under the chop with that he has to do some kickin'
to get away. He's got to come whether he wants to or
not." "Sturgeon meat is so oily it ain't fit to eat," the boy

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 105
said. "I like hornpouts 'bout as well as any fish. A
hornpout is all meat after you take the backbone out.
Some of 'em weigh two pounds. I don't care for eels.
They look too much like snakes. They'd have to be
parboiled and cooked pretty darn nice for me to eat,
and then I shouldn't want to know what they was.
Did you ever notice that you have no luck ketchin'
fish when it's thunderin' around ? Brook trout will be
bitin' awful nice, and if it starts to thunder they'll stop
right off."
"You look out of the door," the fisherman said to
me, "and you can see down toward the water a fishin'
shanty such as is used a good deal on the lake in winter.
It's nearly as large as this house of mine. We can put
it on a sled and go anywhere we want to with it. If the
fish don't bite in one place we go to another. Most
generally there are three holes in the bottom of a shanty,
and right under each hole we chop through the ice so
three fellers can fish.
"I didn't build this house, and I haven't always had
it here since I owned it. Golly, no! It's been moved
over a hundred times, I guess. Old Man Akey had it
for his fishing camp just before I bought it, and there
was one while that eight people lived in it. The old
man's son, Billy, had put up a tent near his father's
camp and was stayin' in it with his wife and kid. One
night there was a storm with thunder and lightning and
the rain poured down in sheets. The wind got to be
such a gale that it was too much for the tent, and it

106 Highways and Byways of New England
blowed the whole business off into the lake about
twelve o'clock at night. 'Fore Billy and his family
could crawl into this shanty they was wet through. The
whole party slept in it for the next two weeks. Old
Man Akey and his wife and baby had the bunk you're
settin' on. Billy and his wife and baby were up above
in another bunk, and two big strapping boys slept on
the floor with their feet sticking outside through the
door. The shanty was just as full as an egg, as the
feller says."
While I was on Grand Isle I explored to some extent
both its mild eastern shore and the bold bluffs with
which it fronts the broad expanse of the lake to the
west. The latter water-front was particularly delight
ful. Here was a succession of outreaching points
against whose craggy cliffs the crested waves crash
when the wind is high, and when the day is quiet the
ripples dance and sing at the base of the rocks. The
crags are crowned with dark-foliaged cedars, and
between the points are rounded coves, pleasantly
secluded, with shelving beaches of pebbles or sand. My
visit to this part of the island was made on a doubtful
day when one misty shower followed close on the heels
of another with occasional intervals when the sunshine
shimmered faintly through the clouds. I had a wide
view over the gray waters of the lake, alternately
darkling and brightening in the shifting light, and there
were islands — dusky near ones and hazy distant ones, —
and on the far shore were the beautiful Adirondacks,

On the Shores of Lake Champlain 107
now obscured by a thin veil of rain, and then revealing
themselves height piled on height, growing more dreamy
and evanescent in the distance till they melted into the
sky. Notes. — Not far from where I sojourned is Burlington, Vermont's
largest city, on steep rising ground fronting the lake. Here Ethan
Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga, is buried in Greenmount Cemetery.
The site of the house where he spent his last years is now Ethan
Allen Park. Rock Dunder out in the lake was mistaken by the
British for a United States vessel in 1812 and was peppered with
shot. The Battle of Lake Champlain between the British and Yankee
fleets was fought one September morning in 1814 west of Grand Isle
near Plattsburg, New York. Both fleets were almost battered to
pieces, and, though the British were defeated, their vessels got away
because the victors had not a mast left fit to carry a sail and were
unable to follow.
The lake is a favorite summer resort, and is noted for its superb
views and rare historic associations. The first white man to see it
was the explorer whose name it bears. He visited it in a canoe in
1609. The most delightful way to see the lake is to voyage on one of the
steamers which calls at the important ports and enables the traveller
to observe the various points of scenic beauty. The highways of
the region include some gravel and some macadam, but you cannot
depend on anything better than fair country roads.

VI

THE VILLAGE OF THE SEVEN TAVERNS
IT is a retired little hamlet among the Vermont hills,
and the seven taverns, though the buildings still
stand, are taverns no longer. The days when they
furnished shelter and conviviality to the public date
back to the time when stage-coaches were the chief
means of conveyance for travellers. Then the village
was on a main turnpike — a private road with toll
houses at frequent intervals — and the region was
thickly settled for a farming community. Now only a
handful of the people remain, and the traffic which
formerly enlivened the highway passes on the rail
road through the depths of a wooded valley a mile
away. One of the old taverns was my stopping-place. It
was a substantial building that had not been much
changed since it was erected. The ceilings were low,
and the doors were quaintly panelled and had antique
hinges and latches. There was a big vacant dining-
room, and a bar-room with a counter and shelves for
liquors, and in the upper story was a spacious spring-
floor ballroom. The structure was not in the best of
repair, and the floor boards were apt to teeter beneath
one's tread. In heavy rains pans had to be set here and

Washing-day

The Village of the Seven Taverns 109
there in the kitchen to catch streams that found pas
sage through the rear roof.
At the time of my visit in early autumn the country
around was particularly charming. Touches of color
showed in the foliage, the clusters on the wild grape
vines had begun to turn purple, and the waysides were
aglow with goldenrod. Up and down the steep hills
crept the roads with many a graceful curve; and
staggering board fences, patched and weather-stained
and lichened, separated the highways from the scrubby
pastures and irregular tracts of mowing-land. Now and
then in my walks I came on a deserted home with
broken windows, loosening clapboards, and a grassy
dooryard long a stranger to the daily tread of human
feet. Many of the old houses had disappeared alto
gether, and nought marked their sites but bushy cellar
holes. Often when the house was gone, or a complete
ruin, the barn was still in use. It perhaps had lost its
doors and sagged sideways, but it was repaired enough
to afford shelter for some of the thin weedy hay from
the wornout fields.
My first day in the region was Sunday, and after
breakfast I sat down on the piazza that ran the whole
length of the tavern front. A typical Sabbath quiet
pervaded the village. To be sure the roosters in the
various backyards were stridently challenging each
other, and I could hear the cawing of crows and the
faint far-off tinkle of cow-bells on the big hills that
mounded around; but human activity had well nigh

no Highways and Byways of New England
ceased. The hamlet's only two places of business, a
brick store and a blacksmith's shop, were shut, and I
observed no one working except a man washing a
buggy in the doorway of the tavern barn. The villagers
have a companionable way of shouting a greeting to
such passers on the road as are known to them and when
a man in overalls came plodding along the highway the
buggy-washer called out to him, "Hello, Tom, did my
cow trouble you with her noise last night?"
Tom turned aside from the roadway, took his pipe
from his mouth and remarked: "I never wake up till
the alarm goes off in the morning, no matter what
noises there are around. Say, I gorry, you could hitch
that cow to my bed five minutes after I've crawled in,
and she could beller as much as she pleased, and 'twould
never wake me. I tell you, Holt, you take a good honest
man that works hard all day and eats three square
meals, he can sleep like a hog all night."
"You don't mean 'sleep like a hog,'" Holt said.
"You mean 'sleep like a man.'"
"Well, I don't know," Tom responded, "I expect I'm
half hog; feel them brustles."
He took off his hat and lowered his close-cropped
head for inspection; and Holt after running his fingers
over the other's hair agreed as to its stiffness.
Pretty soon Tom moved on, and I made some inquiry
of Holt about a big, square, vacant house across the
road. "I'll go in and ask Ma," was his response.
He left his work and I followed him into the house.

The Village of the Seven Taverns in
"Ma" was Mrs. Stowell, my landlady. She was not
Holt's mother, but an elderly relation, and he always
referred to her any questions concerning the past.
"That house has been empty for several years now,"
she said. "The last person who lived in it was an old
lady who stayed there all alone. I used to enjoy calling
on her, she kept everything so neat, and no matter how
early you'd go over in the morning her hair was fixed
in waves as nice as could be. It was very pleasant to
look across and see that front room lit up in the evening.
She was always busy, and you'd think from the way
she worked that she had a large family. Why, she'd
get up at daylight Monday, and yet have so much to do
around the house that she wouldn't get her washing out
till four in the afternoon."
My landlady had in her hand a stick with a leather
flap on the end, and as she talked she moved about
spying out the flies and smiting them with the flap. " I
have screens everywhere," she said, "but the flies
manage to get in some way or other."
"What did people do before they had screens?"
I asked. "I often think of that," she replied. "There was no
such thing when I was young; but we had thick, green
paper curtains, and we'd roll them down to darken the
house, and then we'd break some small limbs off the
maple trees in the yard and brush the flies out."
On a bare hill a short distance up the road stood a
great white barn of a church, but service was only held

112 Highways and Byways of New England
once a month and attracted few attendants. It is a
spireless structure built in 1787 and is even now prac
tically what it was in the beginning. Inside you find
the old square pews with seats on three sides, and the
high pulpit overhung by a sounding-board and having
the deacon's seat against the front below like a little
cage. The older people can remember when every Sunday
the meeting-house was full, and how the worshippers
"would sing for all they was worth." A local resident
named Devens whom I found on Sunday afternoon
loitering in the cemetery which adjoined the churchyard
with a companion he called Todd, explained the present
situation by saying, "I'd rather take my rod and box
of worms and go sit down side of the river than hear
the best minister that ever was. About the only persons
that go to hear the preachers nowadays are a few of the
women and children with nothing else to do; and nine-
tenths of the women are there just to show their new
clothes. Let a woman get a new hat or coat, and she's
at church the next Sunday, sure.
"A good many men used to go hunting on Sunday;
but there's a law which says you mustn't, and lately
they've begun to enforce it. So you're liable to be
gobbled if you carry your gun that day. It's a law
made for rich people. They've got leisure to hunt when
they please, but Sunday is the only chance for poor
men. Perhaps, though, those that work all the week
ought to rest on Sunday, and now they've got to. When

A colonial pulpit

The Village of the Seven Taverns 113
I was a boy we never thought of such a thing as Sunday
hunting or fishing. No, sir! no, sir! We all went to
meeting and Sunday-school and read the Bible — and it
was a long day. The kids now spend it quite different.
If they read anything it's these Wild West novels, and
on Monday they go and shoot somebody.
"The meeting-house was built by the town, and four
gallons of rum were voted to be served at the raising.
That was a time when every one drank, and you
couldn't have any sociability without rum. But they
had distilled liquor then, and if a man got drunk on it
his head wa'n't bigger'n a bushel basket next morning.
It's all made of drugs now."
"Considerable cider brandy was distilled at one
time right here in our village," Todd said. "This used
to be a lively place then with all its taverns and other
business; but when the railroad was built about 1850
that give us a setback."
"Yes," Devens commented, "the railroad did away
with the four-horse coaches that passed through here.
I can remember 'em. They was loaded right down with
passengers and there was trunks piled way up behind —
all they could get on. In those days, too, every farmer
would go down to Boston once or twice a year with a
load of produce drawn by a yoke of oxen or perhaps
two yoke. They'd have some dead pork and a little of
one thing and another to make up the load and usually
went late in the fall after it was cold enough to freeze up
the meat. A whole string of fellows would travel to-

1 14 Highways and Byways of New England
gether, and when they stopped at the taverns they'd

treat."

"You recollect Old Bailey, don't you?" Todd said.
"He drew for the stores and was going back and forth
all the time. It took him a fortnight to make a trip.
He had a six-horse team and put on a ton to a horse
in his canvas-topped wagon."
"Why, good Lord!" Devens exclaimed, "Uncle
Luke White drove hogs to Boston for years. But it
didn't take much gumption to drive hogs then; for
they grazed in the pastures and was used to bein' out
doors. Once in a while a man would drive turkeys to
Boston. He had to stop when it was dark whether he
wanted to or not because the turkeys would go up in the
trees to roost."
"Speakin' of the times when the railroad was built
reminds me of the Lawrence boys," Todd said. "They
was livin' up at Hardscrabble, and the railroad went
across their property. The damages they got was too
small to suit 'em, and the old woman went and greased
the rails. That bothered the trains some, but it didn't
stop their running and then the boys started to raise
hog by piling ties on the track. So the railroad sent
officers to arrest 'em. The boys got warning somehow
and come down here, forty miles. That was a long way
in those days; but they were caught and fined just the
same." Not far from where we sat were several white stones
decorated with a hand pointing upward. I asked some

The Village of the Seven Taverns 115
question about them and was told that they were
erected by a man named Leverett Lowell in memory of
his wives. One after another he lost four and bought
a stone for each of exactly the same pattern. "His
own stone stands at the end of the row," Todd remarked,
"and there's a motto on it — 'at rest' — kind o' appro
priate, ain't it?"
"You know he married a fifth time," Devens said,
— "took old Mother Houghton. She was a holy terror.
Her former husband was a big burly saloon keeper, but
in spite of his size, when he got drunk she'd throw him
into a closet and keep him there until he was sober.
She and Lowell didn't agree very well and they got a
divorce; and then he wanted to marry again — the old
crank — though he was well along in years and so fat
and helpless that when he drove anywhere they had to
run with a chair for him to step on getting in and out of
the wagon. Yes, and the person he picked out was a
little young girl only sixteen or seventeen years old.
But his own children wouldn't let him make that
match." "There's a tomb up to Cuttingville you ought to
see," Wilson said to me. " It cost seventy-five thousand
dollars and is the burial place of a family of four — a man
and wife and their two children. The wife and children
each has a life size bust in the tomb, and there are
mirrors so set that the busts are repeated and look as
if they extended in long rows way off into the distance
till they get so small you can't see 'em. The man him-

1 16 Highways and Byways of New England
self is carved in a full figure, which is dovetailed into a
step outside. He's got his hat in his hand and seems
to be just going in; and the work is done so natural
you can even see the stitches in his buttonholes."
"But let me tell you," Devens said, "do you 'spose
that man's gone to heaven? He had a poor sister that
was on the town there; and he wouldn't help her
because he claimed she'd had just as good a chance to
make money as he had."
"He was a mean cuss," Todd commented. "I'd like
to know what his heart was like."
"Lots of people in this world ain't got no heart," the
other declared — "nothing but a gizzard and a mighty
small one at that."
"There's a number of interesting stones in this old
cemetery of ours that I'd like to show you," Todd said,
turning to me.
He rose and led the way down the hill a little where
he called my attention to the following inscription :
In MEMORY of Mifs.
EUNICE PAIN who Died
June ioth 1805 in the 16th
year of her age
Behold & read a mournfull fate
Two lovers were fincere
And one is left without a mate,
The other flumbers here.

The Village of the Seven Taverns 117
I asked for the details of this pathetic romance, but
my guide said, neither he nor any of the villagers knew
more than was on the stone.
Another unusual inscription was —
In Memory of Mr. Jofiah White th
who Died Sep1 ift 1806 in the 96
year of his age
The descendants of Jofiah White at his death
Children 15, Grand Children 160, Grate grand
Children 211. Children Deceas'd 2, Grand Children
Deceas'd 26, grate grand children Deceas'd 35
"Some of the stones have the cost marked at the
bottom," my companion said. "Here's one dated 1808,
and this line of print way down level with the ground
reads: 'Price 29 Dollars & 96 Cents.' Notice, too, the
coffin chiseled up above with the initials of the man who
is buried here cut on the lid.
"Just beyond is the grave of an ancestor of mine who
was the first male child born in the settlement. That
distinction entitled him to a grant of land, and he was
given a piece of swamp down by the river, full of logs
and trash left by the floods. Twa'n't good for any
thing. He couldn't sell it, and when he came of age he
swapped it for a gun.
"The stone with the most curious inscription that
ever was in the burying-ground has been stolen. I

1 1 8 Highways and Byways of New England
remember exactly how it looked. It was an old slate
stone of medium size, and I could name a dozen other
persons who knew it as well as I did. The verse was —
'Here lays our darling baby boy,
He neither screams nor hollers;
He lived with us just twenty days
And cost us forty dollars.'
"You had to push down the grass to read the last
lines. One time they had a bee here to straighten up
the stones. I was away, but when I got back they told
me that stone I been speakin' of didn't seem to be there.
I offered to bet I could go right to the spot, for I had
been to read that verse a hundred times — I thought it
was funny. The stone was gone, though, sure enough,
and I couldn't find it, though I looked with all the eyes
I've got."
Later in the afternoon I called at the home of an old
resident of the region named Slade. He was in the
kitchen eating his dinner at a coverless table that
was pushed back against the wall. His wife was an
invalid and lay on a disheveled bed in an alcove beyond
the stove. Mr. Slade had his coat off, and his shirt
sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. "My wife was one
of them regular go-ahead women before she was took
sick," he said, chewing away meditatively. "That
was seventeen years ago, and I've had to get my own
grub ever since."
The aspect of the room was quite suggestive of a

The Village of the Seven Taverns 119
man's housekeeping. The stove was brown with rust, the
walls and ceiling were dingy, and there was an amazing
amount of litter. He evidently put things down and
piled them up wherever it came handy. When he
finished eating, he went and sat down in a rocking-
chair; but his wife routed him out of it. "Get up,
Edward," she ordered, "and let the man have that
chair. I want him to sit there where I can see him, and
if he looks like a good honest man I'll talk to him."
I changed places with Mr. Slade, and she said, "I
suppose when you go away you'll be tellin' a long
rigmarole about what sort of people you met here; and,
my dear boy, I want to advise you to take all the lazy
trollops- and the smart ones and mix 'em together so as
to get kind of an average that'll be fair to us."
Now and then Mrs. Slade groaned or sighed, or asked
her husband to bring her a drink of water, or to help
her to change her position. Once she suddenly ad
dressed him with the query, "Can I believe a word I
hear?" "What are you referating to?" he inquired.
"I understand," she said, "that since Lew Miller
has died the people where he was staying have brought
in a bill to comb all that was left of his property; and
they've been havin' five dollars a week right along for
takin' care of him, and they've got him to thank for
all the lace curtains and fine carpets that are in the
house." After this topic had been discussed Mr. Slade re-

120 Highways and Byways of New England
marked, "They say there's a bear over at Chester
playing 'possum around. Some one found several calf
pelts all cleaned out and rolled up just the way bears
leave 'em, and he saw the bear, too. 'Twa'n't an hour
before fifty men was on the spot, but they didn't have
a chance to do any shootin'. Bears will get off terribly.
It's a wonder the way they make themselves scarce.
They'll slip out of sight, and even if you foller their
tracks for days they'll get off."
"Ed," Mrs. Slade said, "perhaps it was a bear you
saw when you was goin' down to the station the other
night with your lantern." She turned to me and added,
"Yes, he saw suthin' and it frightened him so he hol
lered like a loon."
"I was squawkin' at the critter — I wa'n't frightened,"
Mr. Slade asserted.
"I guess you was," she said. "I wouldn't be a mite
surprised if you was scared right into your boots."
" It was that high," Mr. Slade explained, holding his
hand about two feet from the floor, "and light colored.
I stopped and it stood a rod or such a matter away
looking at me, and then, by gorry, I yapped at it and
it ran off as if the devil was after it."
"Edward," Mrs. Slade said.
"What's up now?" he asked.
"If you don't open the door and let in some air I
shall faint away," was the reply.
He opened the door. " Say Ed," the invalid observed
as he returned to his seat.

Capturing bees

The Village of the Seven Taverns 121
"What shall I say?" was his response.
"You remember Herbert Scott's wife?" she re
sumed. "I ain't so bad to take care of as she was,
ami?" "Nowhere near," Mr. Slade declared, reassuringly,
and she said, "They never any of Herb's family had an
ache or a pain but that old Mother Slade must go to
them, night or day; and yet I don't s'pose they care a
cob about my sickness. Herb's wife was an awful
nervous thing, and in that long sick spell of hers, if you
give her a drink of water and let fall two drops of it on
her she'd have a chill and send for the doctor. When
she was well she'd spend a good share of her time sitting
in front of a looking-glass making up faces to see how
bad she could look."
"Oh, no," Mr. Slade objected, "Mamy wa'n't seein'
how bad she could look. She was just makin' fancy
faces." "She wanted to appear like city folks," Mrs. Slade
continued. "But let me tell you — city people don't
make such a fuss about their expression, *and eating
with a fork and all the other little polite tricks. I've
been in the city as much as once and a half, and I know."
"Here comes Hattie and Jim," Mr. Slade said, glanc
ing out of the window. "They are our daughter and
her husband," he explained to me.
With them were several of their children, the oldest
a red-headed fourteen year old boy, who at once began
a friendly squabble with his grandfather. "Jimmy has

122 Highways and Byways of New England
been away for three weeks," his mother said, "and
since he's got back, I'll be plagued if he can come into
this house without pickin' a row with the old man."
"My daughter here is slim and don't look very
strong," Mrs. Slade said; "but she's tough, and she
does her own work and goes out five days in the week
to help at the neighbors' houses."
"It don't take her all day to do a little job like it does
some people," the boy remarked.
"Oh, fiddlesticks!" was Hattie's comment.
"We been speakin' of Herb's wife," Mr. Slade said,
"What was't he used to call her? Do you remember,
old woman?"
"Yes," Mrs. Slade responded, "he called her a
chromo — a hand-painted one."
"If a man was to call me that I'd break his face,"
Hattie declared.
"If you was able, you might — if you wasn't you
wouldn't," Jim said. "But you'd be madder'n an old
wet hen. I know that."
Two of the little girls were having a row in a corner
which the mother now interrupted by saying, "Susy,
come here."
"The little girl, however, was loth to obey, and her
mother went on to remark, "You're too big to be licked
when people are around; but if I have to go after you,
you'll hear from it."
Jimmy had begun eating a crab-apple he found on
the table. "Gramp," he said to Mr. Slade, "this

The Village of the Seven Taverns 123
apple's sourer'n swill. Every time I set my teeth into
it the sourness draws my left eye right together."
"Would you rather have that kind on the window-
sill?" Gramp asked.
"You bet," Jimmy replied, reaching for a couple.
"Them are from the pasture. I call 'em brickbat
sweets." "This boy," Gramp said, patting Jimmy's red head
affectionately, "has never had an absent or tardy mark
from the time he first started going to school."
"I hope we don't have the same teacher again that
we had last year," Jimmy said. "She was the ugliest
old thing that ever kept school in the world."
"She would everlastingly whale 'em," the boy's
father declared; "and she'd make the ones she whipped
go out and cut the sticks to do it with. One kid, after
he'd cut the stick, broke it up and skinned for home."
"We used to have forty scholars or more in this
school," Mr. Slade observed. "Now they transport
children from two other deestricts here and have in all
less than twenty. When there ain't as many as seven
school children in a deestrict it's the custom to ship 'em
off to some other so as to get enough to make a quorum."
"I was over at North Walpole yesterday," Jim said,
" and passed the old Willis House. That's been haunted
now more'n thirty years, ain't it?"
"Yes," Mr. Slade replied. "When the first owner
died it was rented, and tenant after tenant tried livin'
in it and left. They said a ghost walked in one of the

124 Highways and Byways of New England
rooms at night and they'd hear all kinds of noises. The
present tenant, though, is a phlegmatic sort of a feller
who's been in the house a good while, but he's got the
haunted part boarded up."
"That'd'a' been a good house for the Spiritualists to
have meetin's in," Jim commented.
"They used to have seances and circles where I lived
before I moved here," Mr. Slade said. "My mother
got bent that way, and Uncle Bill was red hot. Not
long after Father's death there was a medium at our
house and he gave each of us a message. He claimed
Father was talking through him. I came in at the tail
end, and Ma thought my message sounded like Father
exactly. But I said, 'No it don't in any way, shape or
form. It's a humbug from beginning to end.'
"From what I saw I concluded that the mediums all
played for the dollars and that their hearers was duped.
Two of their believers were our nearest neighbors — a
man and wife who agreed that whichever died first
would come back once in a while and tickle the other's
hand. Well, the wife died, and the man said he often
felt his hand tickled and knew the spirit of his wife was
with him.
"Then there was a girl who would sit down to the
organ, and some of the famous dead musicians would
take possession of her and play through her fingers. But
they played tunes that run her hands right out beyond
the keys which was on the organ, and her folks had to
get her a piano. She worked that pretty clever."

The Village of the Seven Taverns 125
Just then one of the little girls ran in shouting that
Dan and Kit were in the orchard. "They're horses
belonging to a neighbor," Mr. Slade said, as he rose to
go out. "Nearly every day they're turned loose to bait
along the roadside, but they spend most of their time
in the fields and eat up our apples and everybody else's."
The next morning when I looked out of my window
a drizzling rain was falling, and a man who was plodding
past with a coat thrown over his shoulders and the
empty sleeves flapping on either side, only added to the
melancholy of the scene. All that day the rain con
tinued to fall straight down through the quiet air with
a steady rustle among the leaves of the trees and an
equally steady drip from the eaves of the roof. When
I asked any one about the prospects of the weather
changing for the better, they would look up toward a
certain glen in the hills known as Bill's Notch, which
got its name from Bill Pulsifer, an early settler in whose
pasture the notch was included. If the fog still hung in
Bill's Notch the local residents were assured the storm
would continue.
At the dinner table Holt remarked that he'd been
thinking of "Grampa" StoweU, the man who built the
tavern. "I come into the room one time where he was
sitting reading a letter," Holt went on, "and asked him
for money to buy a guitar. He was getting old and
cranky, and I can remember just how he whirled around
in his chair and said, 'Don't be a-flutin' or a-fiddlin',
but 'tend to your books ! '

1 26 Highways and Byways of New England
"Grampa was a pretty clever old gentleman. Once
in the midst of a thunderstorm when he was on his
way to Millville he met a man from there who was
considered the biggest rascal anywhere about. Grampa
was on horseback — they didn't go in wagons much
then — and the man was on foot and had a woman with
him. They told Grampa, who was a Justice of the
Peace, that they was goin' to his house to get him to
marry 'em. 'Just as well here as anywhere,' he says,
and he reined his horse up under a tree to get a little
shelter from the storm, and raising his hand said —
'Beneath this spreading chestnut tree,
I declare you man and wife to be;
And none but Him who rules the thunder
Shall part this rogue and woman asunder.' "
"It is a lonely road to Millville," the landlady said.
"I've been worried a good many times when my hus
band had to come over it alone at night. I remember
once in particular when I knew he'd got a large sum of
money and was intending to walk from there, I kept
going to the door to listen. You recollect, Holt, he had
a habit of clearing his throat every little while; and
when I'd go to the back porch to call him to breakfast
I'd hark till I heard his 'ham!' so's to get some idea of
where he was. Well, that was the first I heard of him
the night I was speakin' of, and then I knew he was
almost home."
"You've had your share of worry," Holt said, "and

The Village of the Seven Taverns 127
I often think of how you took care of John G. so many
years." "Who was he?" I asked.
"John G. Stowell," Holt replied. "There's piles of
Stowells in this region, and we have to use something
besides the last name to distinguish one from another.
John G. went to Dartmouth College, and he was the
brightest scholar in his class."
"He was too smart for his brain," the landlady in
terrupted — "that's just what the matter was."
"He studied too hard," Holt continued. "Well, he
was ready to graduate, and there was a big assembly
gathered in the hall to hear the first exercises. Seven
other students took part; but John G. was the orator
of the occasion. At last it come his turn, and what did
he do but turn and jump right through a window, and
he ran all the way home — probably thirty miles. He
climbed in at a window and went to his brother Tim's
room. Tim woke up, and there was John G. standin'
by his bed very wild lookin' and excited. 'They're
after me, Tim,' he says, ' and they're goin' to shoot.'
"He was never right after that and had to have a
guardian appointed. He's often told us that it was a
mistake, his goin' to college, and he'd say, 'If father
had given me a darned good lickin' and set me to work
I might have amounted to something.' "
"John G. was queer in a good many ways," the land
lady said, "but shooting was the greatest thing with
him, and he wore a big piece of sole leather on his

128 Highways and Byways of New England
breast to protect him from bullets. He kept it in place
by punching holes along the edge and sewing it to his
shirt. For fear his enemies might come to shoot him
while he was asleep he always spent the night on the
kitchen floor with the windows open and the door un
locked so he could run and escape. A bundle he carried
about with him served as a pillow. The bundle was
nothing but his extra clothing done up in a big handker
chief; and yet he was afraid somebody would be med
dling with it and took great pains to tie it up hard and
fast, knot after knot, with a cord as big round as my
little finger. He had to pick and pick when he wanted
to untie it.
"He was afraid if he wore nice things he'd be killed
for what he had on. So when he bought a new pair of
boots he'd keep 'em rolled up tight to get 'em all
wrinkled before he'd put 'em on; and even then he'd
cut a slit or two in them to make sure nobody would
suspicion they were new. He always wore his worst
clothes on the outside and looked like a ragbag. But
sometimes when he was here he'd take off the shabby
outside things and shave and smooth down the other
clothes he wore, and then he'd say to me, 'Ain't I a
good-formed man?'
" 'Why don't you dress that way all the time?' I'd
ask. "'Nobody wouldn't kill me for them old duds,' he'd
say; ' but they would for these.'
"So he'd put on the rags again, and he'd wear all

The Village of the Seven Taverns 129
those extra things buttoned right up in the hottest
day that ever was.
"Often he had a notion he was being squeezed with
lard squeezers. 'They're squeezing of me to death,'
he'd say. 'I can't see 'em, but they're doing it all the
same. They just come right up behind me and put the
squeezers on.' Sometimes in the morning he'd tell us
they'd been squeezing him all night, and then he'd girt
himself with a cord to measure and see how much he'd
shrunk. "He wandered around a good deal, and the first
year he was here he was gone one time for ten weeks.
It was winter, and I never expected to see him again.
I thought he was in a snowbank somewhere; but he'd
been way up among the mountain farmers. Every
body knew John G. and he could always get kept; but
no matter where he went he'd sleep on the kitchen floor
with his clothes on, exactly as he did here, because he'd
got to be ready to run. We never had any idea how
long or short his stays would be with us. He'd get up
early some morning and go out in the road and throw
up his cane, and the direction it pointed when it fell
was the direction he'd take. I think, though, after he
started, he knew pretty well where he was going to head
up at night. If I asked him about his intentions he'd
reply, 'I'm goin' to find fresh air;' and off he'd go,
cane in hand, and with his bundle on a stick over his
shoulder. "Next to shooting he was in dread of being poisoned.

130 Highways and Byways of New England
He wouldn't eat with others and he wanted to watch
you prepare his food to make sure you didn't put poison
in it. One day he come in after having been gone a
week or so, and he brought his hat full of crackers from
the store and set it down on the wood in the woodbox.
I happened to go and get a stick to put in the stove,
and he jumped up and said, 'You've been pizening
them crackers — I know you have!'
"So he carried 'em out and throwed every one of 'em
on the ground, and went to the store for a new mess.
"He was very good about doing small jobs for me;
but he didn't always do 'em at the time I asked him.
'You're wantin' somethin' done all the while,' he'd say,
'and I ain't goin' to sweep up your backyard,' or what
ever it was I'd spoken of.
'"All right,' I'd reply, 'it won't matter a bit.'
"But by and by he'd come around and say, 'Well, I
s'pose you want that done,' and he would go ahead and
do it.
"He was quite a reader, and could converse on any
thing. One stormy winter evening, when my children
were small, he says, 'Mrs. Stowell, can't I lie down in
the sitting-room where the rest of you are ? '
"I said of course he could, and he lay there on the
floor while the children were studying their lessons.
Sometimes they'd ask him the meaning of a word, and
after he'd told 'em he'd say, 'Now I want you to parse
that word,' and if they couldn't he would."
"When the dances we used to have here broke up,"

The Village of the Seven Taverns 131
Holt said, "those that attended liked to get John G. to
make a speech. They'd chip in a dollar or two and
give him a few glasses of liquor to oil him up and he'd
get off some of the greatest declamations ever heard.
He had a beautiful voice to speak or to sing either."
"One day when he'd been with me about eight
years," the landlady resumed, " as soon as he sat down
to eat breakfast he began to talk pizen, and I see he
was terribly wound up that morning. He'd only taken
a few mouthfuls when he give a kind of a groan, and
his right hand dropped by his side. He'd had a shock,
and when I spoke to him he really didn't act as if he
knew much. We took him and laid him down on the
floor with his bundle under his head so he'd feel natural;
but he never come to and he died that afternoon.
"I'd always said that if I outlived him I'd have
people see him well-dressed for once, and I had his best
clothes put on, and he did look splendid in his coffin."
"I tell you," Holt said, "if the story of this old tavern
could be written with all the good and the bad things
that have happened here, and all the funny and the sad
things, it would make one of the most interesting books
ever published."
That was stretching the probabilities, and yet the
random revelations unfolded to me in my short stay
were suggestive of a strangely tangled web of both weal
and woe; and there was something of the same appeal
to the sympathies in the glimpses that came to me of
the past in other village homes. Much of the tragic was

132 Highways and Byways of New England
traceable to drunkenness, and I wondered if the fact
that the hamlet had been so numerously supplied with
taverns did not have something to do with the melan
choly record. The present, too, was sullied by the same
malign influence; and this I regretted the more because
I found the people so kindly and courteous and ready
to do anything they could to oblige me.
Notes. — The roads in southern Vermont are as a rule dirt or
gravel and fairly good. But off the main thoroughfares you not
infrequently find those that are hilly, winding, narrow, and poor,
though there is likely to be sufficient compensation in the beautiful
and unspoiled wild scenery.
One place in this section of the state that all visitors should see
is Bennington in the vicinity of which was fought one of the notable
battles of the Revolution. It was the home of Ethan Allen of
Ticonderoga fame. Among its attractions are a battle monument
over three hundred feet high and the Hessian Burial Ground.

Jinilifliimmpii »

.

At the door of a country store

VII

AUGUST IN THE BERKSHIRE HILLS
BERKSHIRE, the westernmost of the counties of
Massachusetts, sweeps straight across the state
from Connecticut to Vermont. It is a district
of mountains and tumbled lesser heights, and though
one or two of its valleys are broad enough to give a
sense of repose, even there the blue waves of the encir
cling hills are constantly in sight. From the up
lands streams come coursing down the wooded glens,
with here and there a foaming waterfall, and they go
on through the valleys, still swiftly as a rule, but some
times broadening into a pond or lake, and occasionally
set to work to turn the wheels of a mill.
Portions of the county, like Lenox and Stockbridge
are famous as the summer playground of millionaf|es
from the great cities, and there you find palatial man
sions in the midst of great estates that have all the
beauty in architecture, gardens, and grounds which
wealth can confer. In other parts of the county farms
predominate, sometimes bearing evidence of thrift and
prosperity, sometimes betokening shiftless poverty or a
dubious struggle against hard conditions. It has been
said that in the back country hill towns the ordinary
farmer is worth scarcely five hundred dollars and that

134 Highways and Byways of New England
important items in his property are a fifteen dollar
horse and a cheap watch chiefly valuable for swapping
purposes. When I started out to make an automobile trip in
Berkshire I entered the county from the east, and after
a long climb up an ever-winding dirt road that followed
a stream through the woodland I emerged from the
forest. The long road stretched upward as if it led to
the very sky, and by and by I came to a deserted house
and stopped to eat lunch under a tree in the yard. The
house had been snug and substantial in its prime, but
now the shingles were slipping off the roof, the walls
were out of plumb, and the underpinning was giving
way. Faint traces of red paint lingered on the weather
worn clapboards. Near one corner some neglected
rosebushes had become a thicket. The interior was a
wreck of falling ceilings, warped floors, and rubbish.
Even the great stone fireplaces were cracking and going
to pieces. Back of the house the barn had slumped
down, and there it lay a heap of decaying debris. The
fields around that once bore bountiful crops now pro
duced only thin yields of wild grass, and the stone
walls that in earlier days were so sturdy had become
ruinous, and brush flourished along their borders.
I was in the town of Peru, and somewhat farther on,
at a crossroads, was a church, a store, a schoolhouse,
and the town hall, all in a row, all wooden, and all
painted white. No more than five or six dwellings were
in the immediate vicinity. The spot is twenty-one

August in the Berkshire Hills 135
hundred feet above the sea, and is the highest inhabited
land in Massachusetts. So exactly is the church
perched on the summit of the watershed that the rain
falling on the west roof goes into the Housatonic and
what falls on the east roof goes into the Connecticut.
Each of the four roads plunges boldly down into a vale
only to mount ridges beyond and it continues its
undulating course mile after mile.
A century ago the town had a thousand inhabitants,
but they have steadily decreased ever since until now
there are scarcely two hundred. The bleakness of the
situation, especially in winter, the stony soil, the
difficult roads, and the feeling that life in such surround
ings is dull and that the returns for labor must be small
at best has made the people drift away to regions they
fancy are more favored.
I visited a neglected cemetery off on a hillside that
overlooked the group of buildings at the corners. It
was bounded by stone walls, a few unthrifty trees grew
in it, and the straggling gravestones were nearly hidden
in weeds and brush. In places the ground was gay with
patches of scarlet bunch-berries. Blueberry bushes
flourished too and were loaded with delicious fruit. I
mentioned my enjoyment of the blueberries to the
storekeeper when I returned to the village. " So you've
been robbing the graves," was his comment.
The store was architecturally plainer and less preten
tious, than many barns, and its- austerity- was unre
lieved by a single near tree. There it stood beside the

136 Highways and Byways of New England
road exposed to the summer sun and the onslaughts
of the winter storms, yet whatever its shortcomings in
structure and environment it was the business and
social center of all the mountain region around. Out in
front of it the ground was much cluttered with an ac
cumulation of timber, wagons, sleds, farm machines,
rolls of wire, boxes, barrels, and other miscellany.
Inside it was crowded to the doors with goods of mar
vellous variety. The merchandise had encroached on
the aisles till one could hardly move about, and it was
stacked against the post office boxes so that they were
almost hidden from sight.
I looked on while the proprietor made a sale of foot
wear to a young fellow whose horses, hitched to a
wagon loaded with grain, were waiting for him out in
front. "There's a ripping good shoe, Henry," the
merchant said convincingly. He turned it this way
and that, felt of its leather with evident admiration,
and handed it to his customer who was soon persuaded
to buy.
A short time before burglars had broken in the back
entrance and blown off the door of the safe with nitro
glycerine. The storekeeper only became aware of what
had happened when he opened the store the next morn
ing. He found that the explosion had stopped the clock
on the wall near the safe with the pointers at five
minutes past three, and that the burglars had carried
off some loose change and possibly two dollars worth of
stamps.

August in the Berkshire Hills 137
One of the men loitering on the platform at the en
trance to the store was a woodland worker whose
employer owned a portable sawmill. He had me go
with him out into the road and pointed to the mill
nearly concealed among the trees off on a neighboring
slope. "We broke down yesterday," he said. "That's
why I'm doin' nothin' today. We move around from
woodlot to woodlot. This feller that I'm workin' for
has been at it with his mill for the last thirty-five years.
He hires ten or twelve men and keeps a couple of teams.
We have a shack to live in that is made in sections so
it can be taken down and put up in a new place. We do
our own cooking. Some of the spruce trees we're
cuttin' now are two foot through on the stump. We're
at it all the year, winter and summer. One season is
just as good as another except that in hot weather the
wood is gummy and makes the saws stick."
The church on the hilltop was of a finicky suburban
type, but on the same spot there formerly stood a
simple, dignified old white meeting-house. One Sat
urday evening in February the janitor went in and
started the fires so that the edifice would get warm for
the services of the next day. Shortly afterward the
building was in flames, and on that high ridge the blaz
ing beacon could be seen for many miles around. The
people of the vicinity turned out, and quite a crowd
gathered, but it was impossible to fight the fire or to
save anything. A "terrible" wind blew, and for a time
the store was in danger from the flying brands. Men

138 Highways and Byways of New England
climbed up on the roof and threw pails of water over
the shingles, and the night was so bitterly cold that
the water froze as fast as it fell.
Late in the afternoon I descended the hill westerly
a few miles and found lodging at an old farm which
had been transformed into a summer boarder resort.
A long two-story annex encircled by a broad piazza
adjoined the house. It was a sort of barracks rudely
partitioned off into sleeping apartments. No lath,
plaster, or paint were used, and the walls and floor
were one board thick. After I had retired I found that
the noises from the rooms on either side all came
through, and what with the talking and singing and
walking about inside of the building and on the piazzas,
the dancing and the thrumming of the piano, sleep was
out of the question. Finally some man dropped his
shoes on the floor above. I started up with the impres
sion that there had been an earthquake. Surely, if any
one had come to this resort to get into the quiet country
and cure a nervous breakdown such a racket would
have finished him. But so far as I am aware the people
were satisfied and enjoying themselves, though I could
not help feeling that their loafing was rather uneasy
and objectless.
The farm people and their helpers, on the other hand,
led a life that was genuinely strenuous. They worked
early and late, and various makeshifts served for their
sleeping apartments. Some had bunks in the barn,
some occupied tents in a field across the road, and the

^ noo& *rao«g *A; AjV/j

August in the Berkshire Hills 139
old farmer slept in a room roughly fixed up in a shed.
When he came out in the morning smoking his pipe
and sat down on the piazza I got to windward of him
and asked what crops were raised in the region.
He puffed meditatively once or twice and then said :
"Well, we raise potatoes and corn and buckwheat and
considerable hay and oats. Our season ain't really long
enough for corn. This year we had a backward spring,
cold and wet, and now the corn is just silking out.
There'll be more stalks than ears. We've already had
frost in low places, and only now and then an ear will
get ripe, but we'll husk it all just the same and feed the
soft corn to the pigs.
"When I was a young man I bought a hundred acre
farm up in Peru with a good house and three barns on
it for eight hundred dollars. The house alone couldn't
have been built for that money. Pretty well-to-do
farmers lived there in them days. But one after another
they moved away or got old and died. They all had
good dairies and herds of young cattle, and they made
butter and cheese. Lots of sheep were kept, and I
remember one man had a thousand. Now there are not
any the dogs raise havoc so. It's fine country for
sheep, and I think they may have 'em again up there,
but the pastures are run out, and new fences would
have to be made. A cattle fence won't keep 'em in.
You've got to have more wires, and barbed wire won't
do because it pulls out too much wool. We used to
have brush fence and fence made of spruce poles, and

140 Highways and Byways of New England
there were fences of rails split out of swamp ash. But
the old wooden fences have about all rotted down.
"I brought up most of my fifteen children in Peru,
and some of 'em died there, but I wouldn't have 'em
buried in the Peru cemetery. That's a bad spot. It's
so wet that I've seen graves, after they were dug, half
full of water. The people would put in spruce brush so
the coffin, when it was lowered, wouldn't go right into
the water. That was too shocking for me, and I buried
my children down here.
"Finally I moved onto this place, and I kept thirty
cows, but as time went on it got so I couldn't get help
to milk so many or raise enough to feed 'em. The only
men that came along askin' for work were tramps and
drunkards. They were all in rags, and the first thing
I'd have to do was to furnish 'em with shoes and shirts.
They'd stay a couple of weeks until about five dollars
was due 'em, and then they'd want the money, and off
they'd go. It was enough to try the patience of Job,
and I give up. That's why you'll find the barns and
other buildings here, which ought to be full of cows and
stock, nearly empty.
"When I bought the place I could hire help for
reasonable wages, but now a man wants thirty dollars a
month and board, and he can't begin to earn what he
asks. That's been my experience. Since we've gone
into the summer boarder business we have to hire a
good many girls, but none of 'em wants to wash dishes.
They're willing to wait on table, but the rest of the day

August in the Berkshire Hills 141
they don't want to do nawthin'. It ain't because
they're not able to do the work. They're good eaters,
and they sleep long enough, and they're stout, but if
you hire one of 'em she expects there'll be a man around
to wait on her. He must get the wood and water and
make the fires and fetch the potatoes and do all the
rough work, you know, while she looks on."
By the time the chill of the early morning had been
tempered by the bright sunshine I was again on my
way. The weather was ideal, and whenever I was out
in the open country either on the hills or in the culti
vated valleys I had superb views of the mountains,
with a splendid blue sky above on which the stately
cloudships sailed. Most of the big upheaving mountain
ranges had tilted fields and pastures on their lower
slopes, and then the green woods swept up over their
summits, but occasionally a great rounded height was
patchworked with cultivated lands to its very top, and
on certain other heights the forest crept down to the
valley depths and even arched and shadowed the low
land roadways.
The Berkshire road is a continual delight. Perhaps
it was most appealing to me when from the verge of a
hill I overlooked a long stretch of it with bordering
homes, fields, and fences, orchards, and shade trees — a
human thoroughfare travelled for long years past by
rich and poor, by workers and by pleasure-seekers, by
school children and by churchgoers, by lovers and by
mourners. Often it flowed gently on for miles up and

142 Highways and Byways of New England
down the little hills between the mountain ranges, but
it was ever winding, and changes and surprises in the
scene were constant. In the wilder sections there were
yellow masses of goldenrod and wild sunflowers beside
the way or along the field divisions and the streams,
and sometimes there were jungles of joe-pye weed
capped with mauve-tinted bloom, and occasionally
high-bush blackberry vines drooped low with a weight
of fruit close to the wheeltracks.
One of the pleasant little valley towns that I visited
was Lanesboro, to which I was attracted largely by the
fact that it was the birthplace of "Josh Billings." His
real name was Henry W. Shaw, and the old Shaw house
where he passed his early years still looks down from
its position on a high plateau of a western hill. The
humorist is buried in the village cemetery, where, in
accord with his wishes, an enormous rough block of
marble from a local quarry marks his grave.
A townsman recalled that "Squire Shaw," the father
of Josh Billings, was the richest, most prominent man
in the region. He had marked ability, knew more
theology than the minister, and more law than nine-
tenths of the lawyers. The town always elected him
to the legislature when he wanted to go. In Boston, if
his support was gained for a measure, that measure was
considered as good as passed. He was a forcible speaker,
and he could shed tears and work on the feelings of his
audience, and yet be as cool as a cucumber inside. The
squire often went to the store where the post office was

August in the Berkshire Hills 143
and sat for an hour or more to talk politics, and the
villagers liked to listen to him. He had his failings,
but his wife was "a devoted Christian woman," the
daughter of one of the nabobs of the town who owned
five or six farms.
Josh had an older brother, Bob, who inherited
twenty thousand dollars when he came of age, and that
spoiled him. He began to carouse, chose wild young
men for his companions, kept fast horses, and drove
from town to town and tavern to tavern. One of his
pranks was the stealing of the bell-tongue from the
Lanesboro meeting-house steeple. On another occa
sion, when there was a revival meeting at the church
he hitched up his best horse and drove round and
round the building all of a winter afternoon until the
meeting came to an end. He married the sister of one
of his cronies, and his father gave him a farm, but Bob
wouldn't settle down, and finally he drifted West,
where he died.
"Hen Shaw," as the humorist was commonly known
in his youth, was a reticent boy, and didn't seem to
care about having companions. Presently he was sent
off to Hamilton College. Then it was whispered around
that he had run away and joined a circus. But no one
dared ask the old squire whether the rumor was true
or not. In two or three years Josh returned home.
Once a menagerie came to town, and he went in and
showed up the animals. He drew a crowd by his
quaintly humorous descriptions and comments.

144 Highways and Byways of New England
As a man he was over six feet tall and large-framed,
but round-shouldered, spare, and bony. After he
began to write he let his hair grow long and cultivated
oddity in his appearance. He married a local farmer's
daughter, whose folks objected to the match, because
they thought he was shiftless, while his own folks were
no less displeased because her family was less aristo
cratic than theirs. So the courtship was mostly con
ducted on the village street.
Josh had not been brought up to systematic habits,
and he was undoubtedly physically lazy and disin
clined to exert himself. This, however, did not prevent
his winning fame as an author and making a fortune by
his writing and his lecture tours. He came to Lanes
boro every summer and boarded at the hotel, where he
enjoyed sitting around and talking to congenial friends
and acquaintances, or he might visit the store and loiter
there chatting and cracking jokes. Now and then he
would go fishing.
In his day and generation he added not a little to the
world's gayety. He was a keen judge of character, and
his whimsical wisdom and the genuine originality of his
vein of humor and his fantastic spelling will long be
remembered. One of the Berkshire Edens, it seems to me, is New
Ashford. Yet it is an Eden that is apparently unap
preciated and likely to disappear off the map, for its
dwindling inhabitants now number scarcely a hundred,
and there are vacant houses even in the village center.

August in the Berkshire Hills 145
The place is in a tangle of steep hills, with rocky
streams coursing down the hollow, and rough, irregular
fields here and there crowding back the woodland. In
one of the valley nooks was a tiny white church, and
near it a lowly, one-room schoolhouse that clung to a
slope by the wayside with a cornfield and a barnyard
coming close up to its walls. The hamlet certainly was
not thriving, but in picturesque charm it was a rustic gem.
I stopped there over night with a courtly old gentle
man who had been selectman for thirty-six years. The
rest of the family consisted of a mild faded wife, and a
grim silent daughter. As we sat talking after supper
my host said: "I'd like to sell out so my wife and I
can have a little rest. It's time we stopped, but you
can't sell a farm here. You'd have to hire some one to
buy, and we don't feel like giving away our land after
putting so many long years of work on it. So here we'll
probably stay until we die. I keep ten cows, and my
wife makes thirty pounds or more of butter a week. I
drive twelve miles to Pittsfield with a load of our farm
produce every Saturday. All the women there look for
me on that day.
"Last week, when I was down there I had to testify
in a law case. I didn't have to go to court, but to a
lawyer's office, and a phonographer who wrote short
hand took down all that I said as fast as I spoke. I
saw what he wrote, but I couldn't make out the first
thing. It looked as if a spider had stepped on the paper
and walked across.

146 Highways and Byways of New England
"This daughter who is living with us is not right in
her head. She married a man who drank. He was
smart, but he liked liquor too well, and that spoiled
everything. She's all the time imagining that he's
tormenting her. About the only comfort she gets is in
painting. You see the pictures on the jars and things
here in the parlor, and those sheep in the frame on the
wall. She painted 'em all, and I think she does it pretty
good. "You must excuse my clothes. I've been fishing
today and I look like the old scratch. I went to a
stream in a hollow where there's a lot of coons, and I
never got a bite. A coon fishes just as well as any man,
and they've cleaned the stream out.
"There's a trout pond back of the house that I made,
but year before last it went dry. We had no rain for
weeks, and the water went down and down, and the
brook that flowed into it sank away to nothing. When
the pond had dwindled to a pool we could see the big
trout sailing around in there, and finally a cousin who
was stopping with us caught them all. But he had a
job, for a trout is a terribly tigery fellow. We had fish
to eat and to throw away, but I wouldn't touch them.
I'd as soon have eaten my own grandfather. I don't
like to eat any of our wild creatures that we see growing
and running about. I couldn't eat a rabbit or a squirrel
or a partridge — not if I knew it.
"When I was a boy this town had four times as many
inhabitants as it has now, and they made a better living

Harvest time

August in the Berkshire Hills 147
than the smaller number does at present. Only one
child was born in the place last year. There's no store
here, and if there was we'd run it into the ground in
short order. Such times as we was without money we'd
go to it and get trusted, but if we had ten cents cash
in our pockets we'd go to Pittsfield and spend it.
"There used to be three taverns in this little town.
That big old-fashioned house near the church was one
of the most noted hostelries between Canada and Long
Island Sound. Everybody could get drunk there and
enjoy himself. The town had such repute as a roister
ing place that people used to say any person who was
born and lived up to manhood and died without coming
to New Ashford died a fool. About all the people drank
in my youth. My father was a temperance man, but
he would get ten gallons of rum every year for his two
hired men to drink through haying.
"In those days great droves of cattle went through
here on their way to Connecticut. They'd stop in the
village over night. We've kept enough in a year at
four dollars a hundred head to come to one hundred and
fifty dollars. The cattle would be turned into our
pasture, or, if it was autumn, into the mowing, and the
drovers would bunk in anywhere about the house or
barn. "Jim Fisk, the New York financier, passed through
here often as a young man driving a cart like a circus
wagon with four horses attached. He was a high-toned
peddler. His father visited the town too, and would

148 Highways and Byways of New England
stop at the tavern. It was said that once when he was
there he lied and so cheated a man out of ten cents.
Later Jim was told of what his father had done, but
he said : " I don't believe it. He wouldn't do anything
as small as that. He wouldn't lie for ten cents, but he
might tell ten lies for a dollar.'
"We have a saying here that our church was built by
the devil. You see, there was no church in the place
for a long time after the region was settled. One night
a lot of the local men were in the bar room at the tavern
drinking and they got to saying it was too bad the town
didn't have a meeting-house. So, although they were
as wicked a set of men as ever lived, they subscribed a
hundred dollars apiece on the spot. I can remember
when the church was building, and how I, like a little
fool of a boy, climbed up one of the pillars of the gallery
and slid back and scraped my shins.
"A student from Williams College preaches for us.
He comes down with the stage driver Saturday and
goes back Monday. A woman at the corner boards
him and keeps him posted as to what is going on in
town. She's one of the kind that feels it her duty to
let the world know all that she knows. We pay this
young man two dollars and a half a Sunday. He's
poor and he's learning to preach, and he's got a girl
he's going to marry as soon as he gets through college.
So it's a very good thing for him."
Nothing can be more attractive in half wild rural
roadways than those that wind through the glens of

August in the Berkshire Hills 149
New Ashford, and not many miles away, at Williams-
town is the most beautiful town street in the county.
I doubt if this is excelled in America. It is impressively
broad, there are noble trees and velvet lawn, it undulates
piquantly up and down the hills, here and there along
it are simple old college halls that have the charm of
venerable age, and modern college buildings of great
architectural grace, while roundabout are the serene
blue mountain ranges.
While I was loitering on the grass of the park-like
street a man came shambling along and accosted me.
He had been drinking, and his breath was odorous and
his clothes dirty, and the flies swarmed around him as
if he was a choice morsel. He was bound to talk, and
I maneuvered to get where the wind would carry his
aroma away from me. I did not care for his opinion as
to how the president of the United States ought to run
the country, and I asked him a question about Grey-
lock, the loftiest height not only of those within view,
but of all in the state.
"You see that nearest mountain," he said pointing.
"You think that's pretty high, don't you? Well, it
looks so; but you get on the top of Greylock and see
this thing here — why, 'tain't nothing' only a little
haystack. I used to live at the foot of Greylock on the
western side. The first time I was ever on top of the
mountain was when I was sixteen years old. There
was a circus right over the other side of the mountain
at Adams, and I wanted to go to it and spend seventy-

150 Highways and Byways of New England
five cents that I had. So I started off to walk over the
mountain, though I was a good deal scared because I
didn't know but I might run against a catamount or
something. I went right up to the highest part of the
mountain. It was steeper on the other side, and pretty
soon I come to some ledges where I couldn't see no
path, and the rocks seemed to go down so perpendicular
and so far that I thought I could jump right down into
the town. But I found a great big pine tree growing up
from below, and the top was close enough to the edge
of the cliff for me to get into the branches, and I slid
down it as nice as a pin. After a while I got to Adams
and I had a great day at the circus and spent my
seventy-five cents."
It is from the valley at Adams and the slopes east of
the town that Greylock is seen most imposingly. The
mountain rises in steep inclines and precipices to a
height of thirty-five hundred feet, and seems twice as
big as when viewed at a distance on its less abrupt
approaches. Probably it is most beautiful when its
lofty form peers out vaguely from the mists like a piece
of heaven.
The last place where I stopped in the county was
Savoy, another of the unthriving smaller villages. It
was far up in a hollow among the wooded ridges, and a
clear trout brook flowed along only a stone's throw
from the cluster of houses that huddled about the two
little churches. One of the industries of the region was
the gathering of ferns. A wagon piled high with large

August in the Berkshire Hills 151
boxes full of the ferns passed through the hamlet while
I was there on its way to the railroad. The ferns were
to be shipped to a city and kept in cold storage until
there was a demand for them in the fall and winter.
"Some of the people here make six or seven dollars
a day picking those ferns," an old man in the village
informed me. "They don't any of 'em want to farm,
and when they get a good chance they move away.
Twenty-five years ago these two churches used to be
full every Sunday morning. The people drove in from
all around. Now there are fewer of 'em and they don't
care much about going to meeting anyway. The
Methodist church is not used, and they can't raise a
congregation of thirty in the other.
"I had a hotel here when I was younger. It was a
long, two-story building with a good-sized wing. There
was a big dance hall in it, and people came here to dance
from the valley towns and everywhere. They'd eat a
turkey supper and then dance most all night. I had
old Dick Briggs up from North Adams to call off.
Besides, I hired from there a band of six pieces, and if
they got blowed over the fence on the way home I was
expected to pay the damages. Yes, once the wagon
they was in blew up against a fence down in the valley,
and the fellow with the big fiddle went over the fence.
They sent me a bill for damages afterward.
"There was lots of trout them times, and I kept men
fishing for 'em and had trout suppers and dinners that
people were glad to come a long distance to get. One

152 Highways and Byways of New England
of my patrons was a young man who was the son of a
wealthy manufacturer, and he'd make things howl
around here. Oh, he was a highroller! One of his tricks
was to take a bundle of hay out in the road, buy a
gallon of kerosene to pour on it and have a bonfire. He
went to college, but I don't know whether he got any
education or not. His father made him treasurer of
the mill, and one time he went off to a yacht race and
lost seventy-five thousand dollars betting. He took
the payroll money to settle with, and then his father
had to make good the loss.
"A young physician had an office at the far end of
the hotel, and one spring evening he filled his stove full
of dry stuff and went off and left it burning. He ate
supper and then stood out in front of the hotel talking
with some feller who'd been fishing. The next thing we
knew fire was coming out of the roof over the doctor's
office. The garret was all one long apartment full of
rubbish, and the fire went through there as fast as a
horse could run. Of course the neighbors all came to
do what they could and they carried out the feather
beds and threw the mirrors and breakable things out
of the windows. The hotel barn would have burned if
men hadn't got onto the roof and spread wet blankets.
I was a big fool for saving that barn. It wasn't worth
much separate from the hotel, and I had five hundred
dollars insurance on it."
Notes. — Berkshire, with its great variety of scenery, both rugged
and pastoral, is one of the most attractive resort regions of New

August in the Berkshire Hills 153
England. At Lenox there is not a hilltop or a valley but has its
splendid house and far-flung attendant gardens, and each mansion
commands some natural mountain vista of great beauty. One of
the striking charms of the larger towns is their broad tree-lined
park-like streets. The historic and literary associations of the
country make a strong appeal to the pride of the residents and the
interest of the visitors. In the Stockbridge Valley the Housatonic
or "good" Indians had their chief abode. The credit of Christian
izing them belongs to John Sargent, who came into the wilder
ness here at the age of twenty-four mastered their language,
and preached three or four sermons a week to them. At the
west end of Stockbridge's Main Street is the old Indian burial
ground. In 1 75 1 that greatest of colonial preachers, Jonathan Edwards,
came to Stockbridge to assist in the task of converting the red
heathen. His grandson, the notorious Aaron Burr, spent a part of
his boyhood in the town. The poet Bryant for a time practiced
law in Great Barrington, and found inspiration in the vicinity for a
number of his poems. Hawthorne lived at Lenox when he wrote
"Tanglewood Tales." Holmes had an estate in Pittsfield, and
Longfellow passed his summers in one of the town homes and there
wrote "The Old Clock on the Stairs."
At the north end of the country is Williamstown with its famous
college, and Greylock, monarch of the Massachusetts mountains.
A road ascends to the summit of the mountain, and in good weather
automobiles can make the trip. Through Williamstown and
easterly over Hoosac Mountain passed the trail of the Mohawks,
and this is still dimly visible in places.
The main highways of Berkshire are excellent for motoring, and
most of the byways are passable except in unfavorable weather.
As for the mountainous sections, these are the tramper's paradise
with their enticing paths and woodroads. The region is at its best
in spring when the leaves and blossoms are putting forth, or in
autumn when the foliage is aflame with tints of scarlet and gold,

154 Highways and Byways of New England
but the beauty of midsummer and the white glory of the winters
are scarcely less worthy of being enjoyed.
Balanced Rock is the county's greatest natural curiosity. This
is reached by a pleasant drive northeasterly from Pittsfield. Its
height is eighteen feet, its weight about one hundred and fifty tons,
and it rests on one square foot of surface; and yet it is so evenly
balanced as to be readily swayed by a man's weight.

The foreign-looking Main Street

VIII
THE PORT OF THE FISHERMEN
THE fame of Gloucester as the greatest of
American fishing ports, and the fact that so
many of its inhabitants spend their lives in an
unusually picturesque and dangerous calling lend it a
peculiar charm. It is on the rock-ribbed outreach of
Cape Ann, and from the summits of its steep hills you
can look far off over the hazy ocean, while on the nar
row, irregular streets of its waterfront with their noisy
saloons and numerous dingy, broken-windowed build
ings you see many weather-browned sailor folk and get
frequent glimpses of the fishing-vessels lying at the
wharves. Then, too, there are odors — salty, fishy smells
that are agreeably suggestive when not too pronounced,
but which in some sections make you step along in
haste to escape them, and there are times when the
entire town is enveloped with the aroma from certain
outlying glue factories.
My acquaintance with Gloucester began on a summer
afternoon when it was in gala attire celebrating an
Old Home Week holiday. The business streets were
crowded, and I was glad to get off them down to the
wharves. There I found everything very quiet, the
buildings closed, the acres of flake yards, where the

156 Highways and Byways of New England
fish are dried, vacant, and almost no work being done.
Presently I happened on a group of loafers — "old
Homeweekers," they called themselves. They were in
a spar yard — a space strewn with chips and shavings
and long, straight logs, some in the rough, and some
smooth and round and nearly ready to be fitted onto
the vessels. The loafers were socially inclined, the more
so, no doubt, because they had been indulging rather
freely in whiskey. One of them had fallen into the
water. He looked bedraggled, yet was cheerfully smok
ing his pipe and seemed to think his ducking had been
quite a humorous performance.
The most voluble of the group slapped me familiarly
on the back and said: "I'll tell you just how it hap
pened. I'll give it to you straight. Our friend here fell
in — we have those occasions that way, you know. He
stepped into a dory, and it tilted and tipped him out.
The rest of us shouted, 'Man overboard!' and started
to run to help him. But he was in no special danger.
It was low tide and the water was so shallow he could
stand on the bottom and hold on to the side of the boat.
One of the soberest of us soon got him by the collar
and drew him out to give him one more drink on shore."
When this narrative was concluded I resumed my
rambling, and by and by I came across a skipper and a
sailor on a rather small and rusty schooner. We ex
changed greetings and I climbed abroad. The deck was
cluttered with ropes, anchors, coils of fishlines, and
similar truck, and near the bow was a nest of dories —

The Port of the Fishermen 157
several rowboats set one inside of the other. The
skipper was looking over his fishing-gear and trying to
figure out some problem in connection with increasing
the number of hooks on the lines. He thought he ought
to solve the difficulty easily; for when he was a lad he
had gone through one book of algebra and started
another. "Yes," he said, "I was well educated, and
at the age of fourteen I knew five different languages.
My parents were Swedes living in Finland; so I learned
to talk their language and the language of the country,
and it was easy in the town where we had our home to
pick up Russian, German and English. Finland is a
fine country, if it wasn't for the way the Russians treat
the inhabitants."
"Ah, dose Russians!" the sailor exclaimed. "I don't
know why dey are so savage. Dose are der people, by
gosh, dat der missionaries ought to be sent to civilize!"
"Well," the skipper said, continuing his personal
story, "I went to sea because that was the only way to
get rid of bad companions I'd fallen in with; and the
men ain't all angels on the sea, either. I've sailed most
everywhere — had eight days in a week crossing the
Pacific, and all that sort of thing."
But of late years he had been the captain of a
Gloucester fishing schooner. "It's curious, the way
we manage," he said. " I take this vessel which belongs
to a firm here, and go off with it and handle ten or
twelve thousand dollars that the fish we catch during a
year sell for, and never give any security. It's the same

1 58 Highways and Byways of New England
with the rest of the skippers. There's no class of shore
people who could get trusted that way. When we are
starting off on a trip we buy food, bait, ice, and such
things all on tick, to be paid for at the end of the voyage.
One-fourth of one per cent of the total receipts goes to
the Widows' and Orphans' Fund, and a quarter of the
balance is for the boat, and the rest, after taking out
the expenses, is for the fishermen. There are ten men
go on this boat. Suppose we come in with a stock of
one thousand dollars. The boat gets two hundred and
fifty, and the expenses are about two hundred. That
leaves five hundred and fifty dollars, or fifty-five dollars
apiece. "We all share exactly alike except the cook, who is
given ten dollars extra. You see it depends more on
him than on any one else whether we have a good voyage
or not. He can make the trip shorter or longer just as
he pleases. If he ain't kept good natured he'll like
enough oblige you to start for home before you've got a
full fare. For instance, he may use the water to ex
treme, taking fresh when salt would do just as well.
I've had plenty of water on board for four weeks, and
it would hardly last half that time. Then he may boil
for one meal food enough to last two days and heave
overboard what ain't eaten.
"After we reach port, the minute the fish are out of
the vessel, we get a check for 'em, and if it's before the
banks close we settle up that day and every man is at
liberty. The captain's share is the same as that of the

The Port of the Fishermen 159
others; but twice a year the owners pay him from
three to ten per cent of what the boat itself has earned.
There's a sharp competition to get the skippers that
make the biggest catches, and such men can command
fancy pay.
"The money the fishermen receive goes in all sorts
of ways, good and bad. Some sailors, even if a trip
netted 'em a hundred dollars a day, would spend it as
freely as they made it, and you can't get 'em to go
again till their money's all gone. The vessel lies in
port a couple of days or so and then starts on another
cruise. I used to take four or five fishermen and the rest
greenhorns; but the greenhorns so soon got to know
more'n I did that I ain't goin' to break in any more.
"The skipper has got to deal square with his crew,
for if he ain't pretty honest they won't go with him.
One poor settlement and they are done. Then, too, it's
impossible to get the men behind the gun unless he's
generally successful. If he don't make money they'll
find places in other vessels.
"We have to go farther and work harder to get a
cargo of fish than we used to. Fifty years ago boats
would come into Boston so loaded with fish they
couldn't sell 'em all and would have to go out to sea
and dump the rest overboard. We don't dump any
fish nowadays, and if it wasn't for the hatcheries there'd
be a complete famine in 'em. They're nowhere near
so plentiful, but we make as much as ever we did be
cause the price is a great deal higher."

i6o Highways and Byways of New England
This skipper spoke rather lightly of the dangers of
the business, though he mentioned a recent trip when
they had a thrilling experience in a fog. They heard a
great steamer coming. Not a breath of wind was stir
ring, and the schooner lay helpless right in the path of
the approaching monster; but their fog-horn was heard
in time to allow the steamer to stop its engines and shift
its course, or the little boat would have been crushed
like an eggshell.
When a schooner arrives on the fishing grounds the
dories are hoisted overboard and, with two men in
each, go out to set the trawls. A trawl is a line about a
mile long from which a thousand hooks hang on smaller
lines two or three feet in length. At each end of the
trawl is a keg float, and these floats are marked with the
vessel's name. They are anchored, and the trawl rests
on the bottom. In fine weather the dories are out
early every day taking up the trawls. A boat starts at
one end of a trawl, and as fast as the men remove the
fish from the hooks and put on fresh bait they throw
the line overboard. The schooner itself does not
anchor, but cruises around in the neighborhood of the
trawls. While the dories are out the captain and cook
who remain on board handle the ship and keep a sharp
lookout for possible danger.
The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are the great
fishing-ground on this side of the Atlantic, and there
you find vessels all the year round. It is a chilly and
foggy region, and in winter its dreariness and danger

The Port of the Fishermen 161
are increased by frequent gales and snowstorms. If
sky or sea show any hint of threatening weather while
a schooner's crew is out a recall signal is hoisted. But
sometimes the gale rises so suddenly that one or more
of the dories to leeward fail to get back. The strong
tides of the Banks and the shoal waters help to pile up
the great combing seas, and very likely it is bitterly
cold. What chance have the fishermen in their frail
little crafts to withstand the keen blasts and rag
ing waters? Not infrequently a dory with two dead
bodies in it, or more often empty and perhaps tossed
bottom-up by the waves, is all that tells the story of a
lost boat and its crew.
Every year, too, dories go hopelessly astray in the
sudden winter fogs. The fishermen who fail to reach
the schooner find themselves enveloped in a dense
chilling mass of gloom, without food and without water.
One would think each dory might carry a few emergency
supplies, but the fishermen seem to prefer to take
chances. When the fog lifts they have drifted many
miles and are being borne by winds and currents they
know not whither. Sometimes they make land or are
picked up by a passing vessel; but usually, death
comes after long days of hunger and thirst, hands frozen
to oars, and possibly madness. When the schooner on
which they sailed returns to port it enters the harbor
with its flag at half-mast.
Winter is the time especially to be dreaded, yet one
of the most destructive gales in all the tragic list was

1 62 Highways and Byways of New England
in the summer of 1873. It occurred on a Sunday, a
very peaceful day in Gloucester, and no suspicion was
aroused for the welfare of the fleet until Tuesday when
news arrived of a terrible storm to the eastward all
along the Canadian coast. Houses were blown down,
trees torn up by the roots, and the tidal wave which
accompanied the storm carried the wrecked vessels far
above high water mark and left them stranded.
Gloucester lost one hundred and twenty-eight men, a
number greater by far than in any one previous gale.
There is perhaps no other business which is pursued
at such a fearful hazard to life and property. Insurance
rates on the vessels are from eight to ten per cent, a
year; and until comparatively recently the records
showed an average annual loss of about sixteen vessels
and one hundred and nine lives. The grimness of these
figures is emphasized by the fact that though Gloucester
contributed a large number of men to the army and
navy during the Civil War, yet decidedly more of its
citizens were drowned on the fishing voyages than
perished from the casualties of the war for the same
period. But no matter how many victims the sea may
claim, new men are always ready to take the vacant
places, and there is no halt in the procession that leads
to an ocean grave. It is to be noted, however, that for
some time now there has been an almost complete
elimination of the foundering at sea of vessels with
entire crews. This is due to a change in the design of
the fishing-vessels which at present have greater depth

The harbor

The Port of the Fishermen 163
and a lighter stern than the old type. This has reduced
the fatalities fully two-thirds.
When a schooner is on a cruise the decision as to just
where it shall fish depends a great deal on the depth of
the water and the character of the bottom. By con
stant sounding with the lead line an expert captain gets
to know the realm beneath the waters very thoroughly.
The lead has a hollow at its lower extremity in which a
little grease is inserted so that a sample of the sea
bottom may be secured. The story is told of a certain
old Nantucket skipper who could invariably tell just
where he was by examining the soil his lead brought up.
In order to perplex him, his crew once put some garden
loam from the home island in the cup of the lead, made
a pretense of sounding, and then asked the skipper to
name the position of the vessel. The old fisherman
tasted the dirt on the lead — his favorite method of
determining its individuality — and suddenly exclaimed,
"Nantucket's sunk, and here we are right over Ma'am
Hackett's garden!"
Whether the fish are decreasing or not is a question
on which there is considerable difference of opinion.
Life multiplies in the sea wonderfully, and at the same
time the water is a scene of boundless destruction.
There is perpetual warfare among the fishes, and the
rulers of the deep are the strongest, the swiftest and
the most voracious. The carnage is appalling; but
without it the ocean would soon be unable to contain
its inhabitants. Probably few fishes die a natural

164 Highways and Byways of New England
death, and some seem to have been created solely to
devour others. It is doubtful if there is any species
which does not feed on some other species or its own.
Compared with the enormous consumption of fish by
birds and by each other, the destruction due to the
agency of man, with all his ingenious fishing devices,
dwindles into insignificance; and yet it may be just
this additional slaughter which disturbs nature's nice
balance. The shore fisheries are certainly not what they used
to be; but there are men well- versed in the business
who claim that on the Banks, cod, hake and haddock
are as plentiful as ever. Halibut, on the other hand,
are acknowledged to be constantly decreasing. As to
mackerel and herring it is not easy to decide. They are
migratory fish that come and go, some years abundant
and other years few; but why, no one knows. If there
is a gamble in any form of fishing it is in the pursuit of
the mackerel. A fleet fits out in the spring to meet
these fish coming north, and half the vessels "won't
get enough to pay their grub bill," while the rest will
make good profits.
The number of fishermen who go from Gloucester is
about five thousand, but the majority of them are
natives of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and New
foundland. As a class they are a whole-souled and
admirable type of manhood, equal or superior in char
acter and thrift to the average of humanity on shore.
Probably one-half of the five million dollars in the

The Port of the Fishermen 165
Gloucester savings banks is deposited to the credit of
fishermen. Their usual earnings are about eight
hundred dollars a year outside of board. Some of the
captains clear five or six thousand dollars. The crews
are made up of picked men, for skippers won't take
weaklings or loafers. A good many of the men must
have their blowout when they get ashore, but not more
than a quarter of them are hard drinkers, and fully as
large a proportion do not drink at all. Most of the
blowsy, sodden loiterers one sees in the neighborhood of
the Gloucester waterside are of a quite different class
from the fishermen. They are what is known as
"lumpers" — that is, they are shore workers who dis
charge cargoes and do other jobs about the vessels and
wharves for a lump sum.
These fishermen are rarely illiterates. Practically
all of them are able to read and write and to transact
without assistance the necessary business connected
with their voyages. You will not find a man but that
can figure out what is coming to him and he knows the
amount to a cent, though some of them might not be
able to figure anything else.
Perhaps their most remarkable trait is courage, for
they brave death with apparent unconcern. A Glouces
ter citizen told me of a voyage he made in a fishing
schooner which encountered a fierce storm one night
in a bay of Prince Edward's Island. They were en
veloped in inky darkness and when they attempted to
escape to the open sea the wind was dead ahead. A

1 66 Highways and Byways of New England
seine boat in tow behind filled and turned over, and the
jib broke loose from the mast and trailed in the water
at the bow. Several attempts were made to get out on
the jib-boom to cut away the retarding sail, but the
waves broke so furiously over the bow that the men
could not withstand the sledge-hammer blows of the
toppling crests. The captain declared the boat could
not weather the night. Yet not one man of the eighteen
that composed the crew showed the white feather. The
only uneasy creature on board was a dog in the cabin,
and he was howling with fear. Every time he felt him
self dashed about, as the vessel careened wildly amid
the waves, he let forth an agonizing yelp.
The captain, on whose decisions depended the fate
of the vessel, had concluded they could not beat around
the headland into the open sea, and that they were
sure to go on the rocks. The only chance he saw for
saving any of their lives was to turn and drive directly
for the shore. He therefore jibbed, and a few minutes on
the new course would have sent them all to the bottom.
But after a moment he again turned the prow seaward
and they finally succeeded in clearing the dangerous
point — and through all the terrors of the night the crew
never evinced the least symptom of fear.
One curious characteristic of the sailors is their faith
in superstitions. In particular, they have an ineradi
cable belief in "Jonahs." A person or thing that causes
a poor voyage is a Jonah. If a single new man joins a
crew and there is a small catch of fish that cruise, he

.>*<*'¦¦"' f^^wf;

?Kk

Cleaning fish

The Port of the Fishermen 167
is a Jonah. One man is known to have hoodooed three
schooners thus in a twelve-month. Very strange in
stances are related of ships "losing their luck" when a
certain man sailed on them, and regaining it when he left.
If a cake of ice is accidently dropped overboard
when a vessel is preparing for a fishing trip the voyage
will be fortunate; but if the hatch should fall into the
hold there will result some dire disaster. Scarcely less
serious is the trouble that will follow if, when the hatch
is taken off, it is turned bottom up. In such a case there
is sure to be a good deal of excitement and apprehension
on board.
If you watch a ship out of sight you will never see it
again. It is unlucky to have an umbrella brought on board.
It is unlucky to drive nails on Sunday.
Whistle for a breeze when it is calm; and if you
would have the wind fair stick a knife in the after side
of the main-mast.
If a bee or a small bird comes on board it brings good
luck; but ill luck results when a hawk, owl, or crow
alights in the rigging.
A horsehoe nailed to the mast is a protection against
witches. Have nothing to do with a man who comes on board
with a black valise, and don't ship with him; for he is
sure to be a Jonah. Sunday sail, never fail,
Friday sail, ill luck and gale.

1 68 Highways and Byways of New England
This last saying has lost much of its old-time influ
ence, and Friday is a not unusual sailing-day if the
weather is favorable.
On one of my rambles about the wharves I chanced
to observe several cats on a schooner that was preparing
to leave; and a member of the crew told me that it was
very common for vessels to carry a few pet cats. "The
sea seems to suit 'em very well," he said, "only they
won't come on deck when it blows because it's too wet.
In fine weather they're out around most of the time.
We've got lots of rats and mice in the ship, but the
cats don't often catch 'em there's so many places for
'em to hide. In the spring we smoked the ship out with
sulphur to sinother 'em, but they wa'n't all killed, and
they're gettin' plenty again. They eat up piles of things
for the cook — oh, gracious, yes! and clothes. Some
times, too, they run over you when you're asleep and
wake you up."
The vessel next to that which carried the cats had
just reached port with a cargo of salt, and its skipper
attracted my attention. He was walking the deck in
evident unrest, and a dent in his derby hat added to his
aspect of hasty vigor. Presently an old Irishman
appeared on the wharf above, and the skipper called
out, "Are you one of the shovellers who are going to
unload this cargo?"
"Yes," the newcomer replied.
"Well, there'll be three others," the skipper said,
"and a pair of horses. You holler when you see them

The Port of the Fishermen 169
horses comin' — them black and blue horses with stripes
around 'em," he added with a twinkle in his eyes.
I did not await the advent of these remarkable
beasts, but wandered into a near-by flake yard where a
squad of men was busy spreading salted fish on the long
lines of slatted rocks to dry. "Doesn't the salt have
any bad effect on your hands?" I asked the workers.
"No," the boss said, "it toughens 'em; and if you
have a cut finger or anything of that sort the salt will
help it to heal. The cut may smart, but it's gettin'
better just the same. Salt is healthy inside or out. I
eat much as a pound a day. I can't get mackerel any
too salt to suit me, and I just cover my beef or pork
with it. The doctors used to say salt dried up the blood,
but now they prescribe it as a medicine."
A companion then told what his taste was in regard
to salt. After that they compared notes as to how their
fathers liked it, and started in on their grandfathers,
when I concluded I didn't care to pursue the subject
to any more remote generations and came away. On a
neighboring street I stopped to speak with a short
elderly man who was leaning in comfortable leisure
against a telephone pole at the edge of the sidewalk.
He proved to be one of Gloucester's notables — a success
ful merchant, and the inventor of various improvements
in fishing apparatus. In the course of our chat he
became reminiscent, and said, "When I was a boy, I
had a mother and younger children to support, and I
could only earn five dollars a month on shore; so I went

170 Highways and Byways of New England
to sea. The years slipped along and I made some
money, and finally went down to Texas. There I lost
seventy thousand dollars through a rascally relative,
and then I come back here to start over again. One
thing that I knew was needed was a good foghorn.
Until about 1880 our fishing schooners didn't have any
at all, and the men would blow a conch shell or a tin
horn. Then a clumsy imported mechanical horn was
introduced. Well, I spent two years with my head
between my knees thinkin' it out — that's the reason
I'm so round shouldered. But I was determined to
make my foghorn so perfect it never could be improved
any more; and I did."
He had a combination store and manufactory not
far away and took me to see it. There he sold all sorts
of nautical supplies and handled more fish-hooks than
any other concern in this country. It was a big ram
bling wooden structure, a curious labyrinth to explore,
and the business had grown from a little shop that
occupied only a few square feet of one floor. "But I
begun small," he said, "so if I didn't succeed I wouldn't
have far to fall."
Gloucester has not many men perhaps of this inven
tive type; but self-reliance, courage, and all-around
ability are general, and it has as much of the romance
suggestive of the days of fable as one could find any
where in our modern American world.
Notes. — Gloucester is thirty-eight miles from Boston. There is
macadam road all the way. The visitor finds much of interest in the

The Port of the Fishermen 171
old buildings of the city and its fishing industry and in the pictur
esque features of the adjacent shore and region inland. Norman's
Woe, made famous by Longfellow's "Wreck of the Hesperus," is off
the suburb of Magnolia.
Half way to Boston is old Salem, which ranked tenth in size
among the cities of the country at the end of the colonial period
but is now the one hundred and twentieth. Here are many historical
houses, including the birthplace of Hawthorne, and the old witch
house, once the residence of Roger Williams, built in 1635. The city-
has one of the best historical museums in the country, in connection
with which has been preserved the quaintest little colonial church
in existence.
Somewhat beyond Salem is Marblehead, one of the most interest
ing of American seashore resorts. The old town house was built in
1727. Other noteworthy features of the place are the old fort,
the old powder house, and the Skipper Ireson house.
Of the Massachusetts coast towns north of Gloucester probably
none would better repay a visit than Newburyport. Here are many
old residences, of which the best known are the birthplace of Wil
liam Lloyd Garrison and the Lord Timothy Dexter mansion. The
old cemetery merits a visit. On the beach in the vicinity is the
Devil's Den Cave where during the witchcraft delusion the devils
were supposed to dwell.

IX

THE LAND OF THE MINUTE MEN
IN the tragic beginnings of the War for Independ
ence the minute men played a conspicuous part,
and not only their deeds, but the name bestowed
on them, appeal keenly to the imagination. They were
called into being by the first Provincial Congress of
Massachusetts which met in Concord in the autumn of
1774. A conflict with the mother country was plainly
at hand, and these bodies of minute men were to be
ready at the briefest notice to hurry armed and
equipped to points where danger threatened.
The region especially identified with them is in and
about Lexington and Concord and few historic spots
are so easily accessible or so richly repay a visit. The
former is only seventeen miles from Boston, and Con
cord is six miles beyond. My trip was made in the
latter part of April at the very season of the old combat
which was the precursor of the long war for freedom.
I reached Lexington Common in the dusk of evening.
The sod was turning green, and the elms were begin
ning to tassel out. Robins sang among the trees,
and I could hear frogs piping in the marshes. I
secured lodging near by, and then night came — a chilly,
moonlit night, the exact counterpart, I fancied, of the

The Lexington minute man

The Land of the Minute Men 173
night of the eighteenth of the same month back in
1775- With the first gray of the morning I awoke and looked
forth from my window out over the quiet village vague
in the pallid dawn. That was just about the hour when
the British troops had arrived on their march from
Boston. They knew that the Massachusetts rebels had
been collecting military supplies at Concord, and these
supplies they proposed to destroy. Every farmer's
barn in the place, the town house, the tavern shed, and
the miller's loft, served as storerooms for provisions and
munitions of war, and had the British succeeded in their
undertaking they would have seriously crippled the
incipient rebellion. Eight hundred strong, they
stealthily left Boston at ten o'clock in the evening just
as the moon rose, crossed in boats to Cambridge, and
began their march.
But their departure did not escape the attention of
the Boston patriots, who promptly displayed a signal
light from the spire of the Old North Church, and soon
messengers on the mainland had mounted their horses
and were galloping away along the country roads to
carry the alarm. One of the messengers, Paul Revere,
reached Lexington about midnight, and a few minutes
later the meeting-house bell was ringing to bring to
gether the minute men.
The meeting-house stood on the corner of the triangu
lar two-acre common where the road comes from
Boston, and just across the highway to the east was

174 Highways and Byways of New England
Buckman's Tavern. Roundabout, fronting toward the
green, were several farmhouses, and a blacksmith's
shop. The common itself was rougher then than now,
and instead of having its present fine elms it was com
paratively bare. There the minute men formed in
ranks; but the cool, damp spring night was far from
comfortable, and when messengers sent out on the
Boston road returned and reported everything quiet,
they concluded Revere had been mistaken. Those who
lived near went home, but most, including their leader,
Captain Parker, resorted to Buckman's Tavern. The
night wore away and dawn was at hand when the men
in the tavern heard galloping hoofs approaching. They
hurried out, and a messenger halted his panting steed
and announced that the British were close at hand. Cap
tain Parker ordered his men at once to the common, and
had guns fired and drums beaten to rouse the region.
The minute men, about fifty in number, formed in a
double line near the northeast corner of the green, and
at a little before five o'clock, the enemy appeared and
marched onto the common from around the meeting
house. Major Pitcairn, the second in command of the
British expedition, ordered the Americans to disperse,
and some, impressed by his authority, and the over
powering numbers of the opposing force, were ready to
obey. Captain Parker, however, declared he would
shoot any man who left the ranks, and in conclusion
said, "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired on;
but if they mean to have a war let it begin here."

The Land of the Minute Men 175
When Major Pitcairn saw that the squad of country
men paid no attention to his command he discharged
his pistol, and with angry oaths called on his men to
fire. The first volley was sent over the Americans'
heads, but the second rank fired right into the midst of
the band of farmers. The Lexington men now scattered,
and in a desultory way discharged their guns at the
smoke-enveloped enemy, but inflicted no serious dam
age. Of their own number, Captain Parker and six of
his followers were killed.
The green has continued unaltered in size from
colonial days until now, and from it can be seen several
of the same dwellings that were there then. The most
notable of these is the Harrington house, to the front
door of which Jonathan Harrington, sorely wounded,
dragged himself after the fight and died on the thres
hold in the arms of his wife.
I chatted with a town employee who was picking up
twigs on the common and mentioned that I intended to
visit Concord. "Oh! you're going to the Holy City,
are you?" he commented.
That was his way of recognizing Concord to be the
Mecca of all pilgrims interested in history or literature.
My route thither was by the old hill road which was
the road traversed by the British. The country along
the way is still rustic, and though there is less wood
land than at the time of the Revolution forest patches
are by no means lacking, and there are numerous
brushy, ruinous stone walls, and many substantial

176 Highways and Byways of New England
old-time homes with the portly chimneys that show
they date back to fireplace days. The weather was
sunshiny and breezy, jubilant song sparrows trilled in
the thickets, and I saw frequent blue-birds and heard
the gentle call of the phcebes. Human life was also in
evidence; for the farmers were drawing wood, getting
out fertilizer, and ploughing, just as their predecessors
in the region had done at that season for generations,
even back to the time of the minute men.
Concord is a pleasant country town in a mild,
alluvial valley. The valley is not in itself particularly
attractive, but the village with its various venerable
houses, its white, wooden churches, and serene common
is wholly delightful. So are all the villages of the
region that have not been overrun by suburban Boston.
On my walk from Lexington I had passed a number
of roadside inscriptions, each locating the scene of
some important episode in the old British raid. The
one that was perhaps the most interesting marked the
spot where Paul Revere was captured. After warning
Lexington he had resumed his ride accompanied by
another courier, and they had not gone far when they
were joined by Dr. Prescott of Concord who had learned
of the foray and was hastening home with the news.
They gave the alarm at every house as they passed
until they were brought to a sudden halt by a recon-
noitering party of the enemy. Prescott was the only
one of the three to escape. He jumped his horse over
a wall, and by a circuitous route reached Concord

se -^wgsa

#%«* /A* &atfte was fought at Concord bridge

The Land of the Minute Men 177
about three o'clock. So there was time to get out the
minute men and to secrete many of the military stores.
When at length the British came, the minute men
fell back across the North Bridge, and the enemy took
possession of the village. They began to burn such
spoils as they could lay their hands on, and the smoke
rose in a cloud over the common. But they destroyed
very little compared with what remained untouched.
For instance, one of the dwellings they ransacked was
Colonel Barrett's. Some of the stores that they thought
to find there had been transported to the woods, and
the rest had been concealed in casks in the garret.
Over the casks Mrs. Barrett had put a quantity of
feathers, thus averting any suspicion, and no search
was made beneath. On the premises of another citizen
they found sixty barrels of flour. They beat open
several of the barrels and the flour was scattered around
the road so that the ground looked as if there had been
a fall of snow; but most of the barrels were dumped
unbroken into an adjacent mill pond. As soon, how
ever, as the British were gone, the Yankees drew off
the pond and got the barrels out onto dry ground.
Very little water had penetrated them and the flour
was only slightly injured.
Fighting began in the middle of the morning at the
North Bridge, and the three companies of British
troopers who had been posted there retreated in con
fusion to the town. The commanders of the expedition
began to be alarmed, and after some uncertain marching

178 Highways and Byways of New England
and counter-marching the entire force started for
Boston. They had gone scarcely more than a mile
when they were ambushed and the retreat became a
rout. Their pursuers preserved little or no order, and
every man chose his own time and mode of attack,
taking shelter behind buildings, trees, and stone walls.
The whole countryside was now aroused, and the in
vaders might have been all killed or captured had not
reinforcements reached them. The fresh troops formed
in a hollow square, and into the shelter of this square
their comrades hastened, many of them so overcome
with weariness and heat that they lay on the ground
with tongues hanging out and panting like a tired dog.
The fight ended only when they reached Charlestown,
where they were protected by the guns of their fleet.
Nearly one-fourth of those who started on the expedi
tion had been killed, and the American loss in killed
was about seventy.
That morning, when Major Pitcairn reached Con
cord, he had called for a glass of brandy, and as he
stirred it with his finger, said, "I mean to stir the
damned Yankee blood as I stir this, before night!"
He succeeded, but not with the results he had
expected. Concord's most important point of Revolutionary
attraction is the old bridge where was fired "the shot
that was heard round the world," though, really, I
think Lexington has first claim to that shot. The
present bridge is a simple open structure, of much the

The Land of the Minute Men 179
same appearance as the one which figured in the fight,
but the road across it is no longer a highway and comes
to a sudden end a little beyond the stream.
Not far away is "The Old Manse," which at the time
of the Revolution was the dwelling of Ralph Waldo
Emerson's grandfather, the Concord minister. From a
window the reverend gentleman watched the combat
at the bridge. The house is a ponderous mansion, far
back from the road and looks lonely, unsociable, and
even gloomy. Here Emerson himself lived when he
first came to Concord in 1834. Most of his early life
had been spent in Boston; but he craved "solitude,"
'and he resorted to Concord rather than to some other
country town because it was an ancestral home of the
family. In the Manse he wrote many poems and his
first published book; but after two years he moved to
a house on the opposite outskirts of the village. This
house, which continued to be his home until his death,
is a white, immaculate dwelling of generous propor
tions, open to the sun, and having a certain stately
cheerfulness, quite in keeping with the character of its
famous occupant.
In the spring of 1843 Hawthorne came to live in the
Old Manse bringing with him his bride, and he gave the
house its name. The villagers seldom saw him, for he
avoided the town in his walks and made no efforts to
cultivate acquaintances. It was his habit to bathe
every summer evening, after nightfall, in the river near
the old bridge where the battle was fought. The three

180 Highways and Byways of New England
years he spent at the Manse were for him a period of
distressing hardship, and he was compelled to return
to his native town of Salem where he received an ap
pointment in the Custom House. Six years later, after
after having achieved much literary success and a
measure of financial reward, he again resorted to Con
cord and bought and remodelled a house which he
called "The Wayside." It is a peculiar and rather
shapeless structure not far from the home of Emerson,
with a steep slope behind it clad with evergreens.
Hawthorne's next neighbor to the south was Ephraim
Bull, the originator of the Concord Grape. Mr. Bull
had moved from Boston to Concord on account of his
health, and grape-raising became a passion with him.
He planted in his garden the best varieties he could
obtain, but none of these could be relied on for a crop,
even in favorable seasons. Wild grapes abounded in
the vicinity, and from one of the seeds of these, dropped
perhaps by a bird, there sprang up a vine on the borders
of the garden that bore fruit of uncommonly good
flavor, with little of the foxy taste usual in its kind.
So Mr. Bull gave it care and cultivation, planted some
of its seeds, and watched and waited. Only one of the
seedlings proved worth saving; but that was the
famous Concord. He picked the first grapes from it in
1849, and the original vine still grows, while its progeny
have gone everywhere.
To the north, Hawthorne's nearest neighbor was
Bronson Alcott, who continued to occupy "Orchard

The Land of the Minute Men

i«i

House," as he called it, for a considerable period, though
his habit or fate during most of his previous married
life had been to move on an average about once a year.
In the library at Orchard House were held the first
sessions of the Concord School of Philosophy, and in
that same room Mr. Alcott's daughter Louisa wrote
several of her famous books for children. The house
seemed to me a somewhat finicky structure of the bird
cage order, but it was shadowed by an ancient elm of
noble size and proportions that relieved the architec
tural shortcomings of the dwelling.
Of the group of literary notables who in the middle
of the last century made Concord their home, Thoreau,
the most peculiar genius of them all, is the only one
who was Concord born. In 1837, at the age of twenty,
after graduating from Harvard, he for a short time
taught a school in his native town, and then he applied
himself to the business in which his father was engaged
— the manufacture of lead pencils. He believed he
could make a better pencil than was then in use; but
when he succeeded and his friends congratulated him
that he had now opened his way to fortune he responded
that he would never make another pencil. "Why
should I ? " he said. " I would not do again what I have
done once."
So he turned his attention to miscellaneous studies
and to nature. When he wanted money he earned it by
some piece of manual labor agreeable to him, such as
building a boat or a fence, planting, or surveying. He

1 82 Highways and Byways of New England
never married, rarely went to church, did not vote,
refused to pay a tax to the state, ate no flesh, drank no
wine, did not use tobacco; and in the estimation of his
fellow-townsmen he was for a long time simply an
oddity, but they at length came to revere and admire him.
His senses were remarkably acute. He could pace
sixteen rods more accurately than another man could
measure them with rod and chain. ,He could find his
path in the woods at night, he said, better by his feet
than his eyes. He could estimate the weight of a pig
or a calf like a dealer. From a box containing a bushel
Or more of loose pencils, he could take up with his
hands just a dozen pencils at every grasp.
It was his custom to spend a portion of each day in
the fields or woods or on the Concord River. He knew
the country like a fox or a bird. Under his arm he
carried an old music book in which to press plants, and
his pockets contained his diary, a spy-glass, microscope,
jackknife, and twine. If he saw in a tree a hawk's or a
squirrel's nest that attracted him he climbed up to
investigate, and he often waded into pools after water
plants. The best known episode in his life is the experience
he embodied in the book to which he gave the title of
"Walden." He was dissatisfied with society, and
wanted to prove that he could get along comfortably
depending wholly on himself for providing food and
other necessaries, and have plenty of time for enjoy
ment. So in March, 1845, at the age of twenty-eight,

Old stone fences that served lo shelter the attacking farmers

The Land of the Minute Men 183
he "borrowed an ax and went to the woods by Walden
Pond." This pond is two or three miles south of the
village, an irregular sheet of water with an average
breadth of half a mile. It is without visible inlet or
outlet and is remarkable for its depth and purity.
Thoreau bought an old shanty, tore it down, and
carried it piecemeal to the pond on a wheelbarrow. He
did all the work of making the house himself, including
the digging of a cellar; and the entire cost was less
than thirty dollars. The cabin had no lock, no curtain
to the window, and belonged to nature almost as much
as its owner did. Here he dwelt for a little over two
years, and then, he says : " I left the woods for as good
a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that
I had several more lives to live, and could not spare
any more time for that one."
The cabin became the property of a farmer who took
it away from the woods to his own premises; but the
spot where it stood is marked by a cairn of stones, to
which every lover of Thoreau's genius who goes thither
adds a stone from the shore of the near cove. Ap
parently the borders of the pond present much the same
aspect they did in Thoreau's time. Some portions of
the slopes along the water are still finely wooded, but
a little farther back are forlorn cut-off wastes growing
up to scrub oak. The pond's greatest charm of course
lies in past associations; and it is just this, beyond all
else, which lends fascination to all the region of the
land of the minute men.

184 Highways and Byways of New England
Notes. — The main roads in the region are macadam. These and
the steam roads and the trollies offer unusual facilities to the
sightseer. Boston is near at hand with its many attractions, his
torical and architectural as well as those connected with business
and pleasure. Cambridge, too, can be easily visited, where, among
other objects of interest, are Harvard College, the oldest and best
known institution of learning in the United States; the elm under
which Washington took command of the American army in July,
1775; the homes of Longfellow and Lowell; and Mount Auburn,
the oldest cemetery in the United States, and in which are buried
many famous persons. Another place particularly worthy of a
visit is Brookline, a wonderland of beautiful estates and charming
houses. It is the wealthiest town in America.

X

AUTUMN ON CAPE COD

MY acquaintance with the cape began at Sand
wich where it starts its outthrust into the
Atlantic, and I travelled in an irregular way,
with frequent stops, to its very tip. Autumn had
come. The days were still warm, but the nights were
decidedly chilly, and early in my jaunt a man whom I
interviewed in his cranberry bog informed me that there
had been a white frost on the low grounds the previous
night. "I was afeard our crop would be hurt," he said; "so
I was out till most twelve o'clock keepin' some brush
fires goin' around the edges of the bog. The fires ain't
expected to warm the air much, but they make a smoke
which settles over the level hollow of the bog and is a
kind of protecting blanket.
"We begin pickin' here early in September, and the
last of the berries ain't gathered until toward the end
of October. Often the bogs are three or four miles from
a village, and then the pickers have to make an early
start. They all go together in a truck cart. It's quite
a ride, I tell yer, bumping along, and they say they feel
as if they hadn't had any breakfast by the time they
get there. We pay thirty cents an hour for grown

1 86 Highways and Byways of New England
people and twenty cents for children; and they're
expected to hustle and keep steady at it. We ain't got
no use for loafers."
While he was speaking two men carrying guns came
into view on a road at some distance from us, and I
called his attention to them. "They've been huntin' "
he affirmed, "but I don't believe they've had much
luck. They're about forty years too late for first class
sport. Why, when I was a boy, you could go down on
the ma'shes and get a back-load of birds in a little while
— plover and curlew and snipes and such. Oh, Lord,
yes! all you had to do was to get behind a stone wall
and shoot 'em. I remember, too, when you could go
to the beach with a pole and line, and in half an hour,
standing right on the land, catch all the cod, mackerel,
and haddock you wanted. Now fish are scarce, and so
are the ma'sh birds, but we ain't worrying about that
if we get a good yield of cranberries."
My wanderings at length brought me to the elbow
of the cape, where I concluded to try walking on the
beach which fronts the Atlantic in an almost straight
and unobstructed course for a score of miles. I had
left the main road to go thither when I paused to speak
to a weather-reddened old sailor who was in his back
yard visiting with his pig. The pig was standing on its
hind legs and looking out of a little window in the rough
hovel that served it for shelter.
"Ain't that a nice pig?" the man observed proudly.
"It's just as tame and gentle as can be. There's a boy

A relic of earlier days

Autumn on Cape Cod 187
from my next neighbor's who likes to get into the pen
and play with the pig. He used to take it up in his lap,
but it's got so darned heavy now that wont do.
" I want to show you a pretty good flock of chickens.
Chick, chick, chick ! come on, you chaps ! I bought the
eggs in the spring for Plymouth Rocks ; but you see the
chickens are all colors. There's Wyandottes and
Rhode Island Reds and I don't know what not.
"We're havin' fine weather now; but Sunday and a
Monday it blew a living gale here. That was the line
storm. We always get a specially heavy one about the
time the sun crosses the equator. The weather has
been kind of unfavorable one way or another all the
year. We never had such late spring frosts and such
a long summer drought. Heavens! we were all dried
up here one time. I planted beans and they stayed in
the ground seven weeks before a single sprout showed.
Once in a while we'd get a little make-believe of a
shower that would last five or ten minutes and then go
away. So the crops have had a hard time. Did you
say you was going to the shore? I George! I'll hitch
up and carry you."
Pretty soon he was ready and we started. "This
horse," he said, "is just as good-natured and gentle as
my pig is. I never use a whip. He ain't fast, but he's
stiddy, and he'll go jog-jogging along same as he's
goin' now all day."
Scarcely was this eulogy finished when the horse
shied a little, and my companion exclaimed: "What in

1 88 Highways and Byways of New England
blazes do you see there! He thought he saw something
over in those bushes."
' I called his attention to some low vines that overran
the ground, whose leafage was brightened with the
sparkle of many little red berries. "Those are hog
cranberries," he said. "Sometimes fellers come from
Boston and pick tons of 'em. I asked the fellers once,
'What d'you dew with them old things?'
"They told me they made medicine out of 'em. Well,
I suppose people'll buy and take any sort of a mean-
tasting stuff if it's called medicine."
At last the rutted, rambling roadway came to an
end near three lighthouses standing in a group on the
verge of a sand bluff that dropped in a steep slant to the
sea a hundred feet below. I parted from the old sailor,
and half walking, half sliding, descended the bank.
Now I had old ocean before me, and my ears were filled
with the mellow, thunderous roar of its great breakers
pounding on the narrow beach. For the sake of the
walking I kept to the damp hard margin next to the
sea, though often compelled to beat a hasty retreat
when a bigger wave than usual sent its foam scurrying
up to my path. I had the company of many vessels
sailing along the horizon, but saw not a human being,
nor even a bird, except one lonely sandpiper flitting
over the huge, curling breakers. Mile after mile I went
onward, always with that same wild, exhilarating
turmoil of the sea on my right hand, and the yellow sand
bank looming on the left. As a whole the scene was

Autumn on Cape Cod 189
singularly desolate and monotonous, and the beach
itself furnished no variety save that here and there were
strewings of pebbles, a few shells and fragments of
seaweed, and at rare intervals a bit of wreckage.
Finally I came to a hollow that made a break in the
sand-wall, and I climbed to the upland. The sun had
disappeared in a low, western cloudbank, and a gray
gloom had overspread the earth. A faintly marked
road, which I presently discovered, seemed to promise
a safe conduct through the woods to the inhabited
portion of the Cape on the west shore, and I stepped
along it in haste lest in the increasing darkness I should
lose my way. Night had come in earnest when I
arrived at Wellfleet whose thoroughfares were bright
ened to some slight degree by a scattering of kerosene
street lights. I found a hotel and had supper. After
ward I sat down in the office where were the landlord
and one of his local friends whom he addressed famil
iarly as "Mac." Some mosquito bites that had been
inflicted on my hands during the day were still painful,
and when the landlord observed me rubbing the sore
spots he divined what was the matter.
"There's mosquitoes here on the Cape the whole
year round," he said, "and I do believe Wellfleet is the
worst place on God's earth for 'em. I tried to do a little
gardening last summer, but I couldn't. The mosquitoes
drove me into the house."
"And we only had an average crop of 'em," Mac
commented.

190 Highways and Byways of New England
"No matter what hour of the day or night I went to
my garden they were right there waiting for me,"
the landlord continued. "They ain't fussy about
workin' overtime."
"They have two gangs," Mac affirmed; "or perhaps
there's three and they work in eight hour shifts."
"I thought they didn't sing as much asusual this year,"
the landlord said. "They'd get right onto you and if
they found you a little bit tough they'd go off and set
down in front of you and whet their bills and then come
to jab again."
"I've been to some of our low meadows where they'd
almost carry you off," Mac said. " Seems to me one of
those meadows would make a good penetentiary. Just
tie your criminal there and let 'em punish him."
"He'd go crazy and they'd kill him in a little while,"
the landlord declared. "Up in the Maine woods I've
found 'em pretty thick along the trout brooks, but if
you built a smudge they wouldn't bother you. Here,
though, they are on to all those dodges. They are a
useless pest and ain't even good for fertilizer. I know
a feller who said he killed a lot and put 'em in the rows
where he was plantin', but it didn't make things grow
a bit better."
The next morning was dull and rainy, and though
the hotel cook was very sure at breakfast time that the
rain was "going to dry off" at once, the weather con
tinued dubious until late in the afternoon. Then the
mists lifted a little and I went for a ramble about the

Earning his living

Autumn on Cape Cod 191
town. It is a very tidy village, just as are all the other
Cape Cod villages. Indeed, the snugness of the Cape
homes is phenomenal; for though the houses are
usually small they rarely fail to be in good repair, well-
painted and neat in every respect. They plainly denote
a thrifty people; yet life seems to be peculiarly lei
surely, and there is very little activity apparent on the
roads, in the fields, or anywhere else.
A chance acquaintance of considerable experience
on the Cape, in commenting on these characteristics,
said: "I know an old Cape Cod sea captain who'd
been going on voyages ever since he was a young man,
and he begun to consider retiring. Well, his wife
thought that was the best thing for him to do. So he
got a little place and fixed it up and stocked it with a
few hens, and when that was done he had thirty-five
dollars in cash and a small nest-egg in the bank. Time
passed along, and now and then he'd go to the wharf
and catch what flounders he wanted, or he'd make a
trip down the bay and rake a few clams, or steal a few
oysters. He exchanged hens' eggs for groceries, and he
raised a little something in his garden. Nothin'
worked on the place but the hens. For seven years he
went on in the same easy way and found then that his
cash in hand was about the same as at the beginning
while his bank deposit had increased twenty-eight
dollars. "That's typical of Cape Cod. The people don't care
to exert themselves. There's no hurry and no worry.

192 Highways and Byways of New England
They live simply and the necessaries can be had with
astonishingly little effort. A man who goes out raking
up clams can earn from three to six dollars a day. But
he can't go when it's rainy, and he can't go when it
blows hard, and other days he won't go because those
are nice days to loaf. Offer him a job on shore at two
dollars a day and he'll tell you to go fly up your flue.
Such wages look so small to him he feels insulted.
"The water has been the Cape's chief dependence
for a living in the past, and I don't know but it always
will be. We can't have manufactories because the
people won't work, and we can't prosper at farming
because the soil is too poor.
"One reason for the absence of serious poverty is
that money don't slip away so easily as it does in most
regions. The inhabitants are safe-guarded by the fact
that there are no places of amusement, and a man has
very few chances to spend his earnings foolishly. But
in the days when every town along here had its fishing
fleet the sailors were a class who, as soon as they reached
port, were in a hurry to get rid of all their cash. They
wouldn't ship again till it was gone. That's because
they was afraid they might be drowned next voyage
and so lose any money they'd saved and get no benefit
from it.
"You may notice that the Cape folks are great hands
for telling yarns; and it's a curious fact that when a
voyager comes home and tells of the wonderful things
he's seen and heard and done, his listeners begin to

Autumn on Cape Cod 193
think after a while that the experiences were their own,
and they tell them as such. But they are a well posted
people. You see, after supper, they haven't much of
anything to do only to sit down and read the paper, and
so they pick up at least a smattering knowledge of most
everything. They are a very honest people, too, and
always do as they promise, though, I must say they
make the closest trades of any set I ever knew."
The chief industry of Wellfleet seemed to be the
getting of quahaugs — a deep water clam. "When I
first visited this region about three months ago," one
of the transients at my hotel said, "some men in the
hotel office got to speaking of quahaugs. The word was
new to me, and it struck my ears very funny. 'What
kind of a hog was that?' I asked — 'a cow hog?'
'"No, no!' they says, 'a quahaug,' and went on
talking. "I didn't want to show my ignorance, so I kept still;
but pretty soon I drew one of the fellows outside and
asked him to explain. 'I've never heard of any such
hog,' I says. 'Now what is it?'
"And he stooped down and picked up a shell that
lay by the piazza, and he says, 'There's a quahaug
shell;' and it was nothing but a clam shell. I've eaten
lots of those clams in Boston; and, just think! they
claim some of 'em are a hundred years old! Probably
those are the tough bitter yellow ones you find in your
chowder sometimes."
After leaving Wellfleet my next stop was at a village

194 Highways and Byways of New England
where, late one afternoon, I found shelter in the home
of a fisherman. While we were eating supper that
evening we fell to discussing the weather, and the
fisherman said: "We have it pretty rough here in
winter. The wind does blow like fury and chills you
to the bone; and yet the thermometer seldom gets
down to zero. I s'pose it's the dampness that makes
the cold so penetrating. If we had it as cold here as
they do up in New Hampshire we couldn't live on the
Cape at all."
"Everybody's glad to see spring come," Mrs. Fisher
man affirmed. "That's a great time here for shipping
Mayflowers. Some families will go all hands and spend
the whole day picking the arbutus under the pines.
At night they bunch up what they've gathered, put
damp moss or cotton round the stems, and in the
morning send it on the train. Herbert Rogers earnt
enough last spring that way to buy him a suit of
clothes." When we left the supper table the fisherman lit his
pipe and sat down for a comfortable smoke. "Don't
you think it makes a man old to smoke?" Mrs. Fisher
man asked me. "I tell Charlie he'd be ten years
younger if he didn't smoke."
"Cap'n Grozier ain't a smoker," her husband com
mented, "and he don't look very young."
"Why Charlie!" Mrs. Fisherman exclaimed, "he's
eighty-five. You couldn't expect him to look young."
"I do' know but you'd like to hear about a little

A glimpse of Provincetown

Autumn on Cape Cod 195
mix-up I had a while ago with a shark," Mr. Fisherman
remarked. "Oh, for pity's sake, Charlie, don't tell that!" his
wife interrupted.
But he went on in spite of her protest, and said:
"I caught one that would weigh two hundred pounds
in my net," he said, "and when I'd got him up part
way over the edge of my boat he nipped me just above
the knee by the slack of my pants. I felt his teeth
graze my leg. I gorry ! if he'd been a very little nigher
he'd have got me ! Well, I reached for my sheath-knife
and cut off his head. Then I tried to open his mouth,
but his teeth were clinched and I couldn't. So I walked
around in the boat tending to my work with that head
clinging to my pants. 'Twa'n't comfortable, and finally,
in order to get free, I cut off the piece of cloth that was
in the shark's mouth."
"I think it would be more interesting if you'd tell
about the big school of blackfish that was caught here,"
Mrs. Fisherman suggested.
"What sort of fish are those?" I inquired.
"They're something like small whales," the fisherman
responded, "and I've seen 'em that'd weigh a ton.
They're no good to eat, but we cut off the fat and boil
it in great big kittles by the shore for the oil. We used
to get 'em every year, but now only once in a long time.
The biggest capture we ever made numbered fourteen
hundred and five. They go just like a flock of sheep,
and all you have to do is to get behind 'em with your

196 Highways and Byways of New England
boats and drive 'em up on shore and lance 'em. When
it was known that this school of blackfish was in the
bay every boat in town went out to drive 'em. The
minister was there with the rest of us, and he give a
little girl a Bible afterward for tellin' him about the
blackfish in time so he could go. We all hollered and
pounded the sides of the boats and made as much noise
as we could. Everybody but the minister was swearing
and ripping out the toughest words they knew. You'd
thought they'd been ashamed to use such language
before him, but he was so excited he didn't notice it.
Besides, he was making such a racket himself that he
had no chance to hear the rest. Well, he had a good
strong voice and was a great hollerer anyway. He was
shouting: 'Praise the Lord! Bless the Lord for so
great a gift to this little place.'
"In two hours the fish was all run up on the shore
and killed, and when the time come to divide profits
there was fifty dollars for every man who had a hand
in the job, and that was most all the men in town."
After a pause the fisherman mentioned that he used
to go "wracking." One wreck he worked on was the
Jason laden with brown sugar. The cargo was still in
good condition, and the wreckers were paid five dollars
a day for their labor in getting it out. "When I begun
on the job," the fisherman said, "I took my dinner in a
three pint pail; but I noticed that every one else carried
a great big bucket, and that bucket didn't go home
empty either. So the second day I carried my dinner

Autumn on Cape Cod 197
in a pail that would hold twenty quarts, and as I was
goin' on board the boss said, 'What you got in that
pail, Charlie?'
" 'My dinner,' I says.
'"Your appetite increases,' he says — 'what for —
sugar?' "'Yes,' says I.
'"Well, it's all right,' says he, 'only don't bring a
barrel tomorrow.'
"Every night I carried home a pailful, and by the
time the work was done I had half a hogshead of that
sugar." A neighbor happened in just as this story came to an
end. He was an elderly man, and after he had sat and
talked for a while he fell asleep. The fisherman like
wise napped off, and a stentorian snoring sounded from
the adjoining sitting-room whither Mrs. Fisherman had
gone and settled down in a rocking-chair.
It was not late, but I thought the indications were
that bedtime had arrived, and I retired. During the
night the wind rose, and I learned at the breakfast
table that because it was a landward breeze the fisher
man had got up at four o'clock to go to the shore and
pick up the driftwood it brought in.
My journey on the Cape ended at Provincetown where
the tip of the peninsula hooks around like the clutch of
a hand. The town snugs along the inner shore in a
thin line of marvellously narrow and crooked streets;
and behind it are sandhills and marshes and stunted

198 Highways and Byways of New England
forest, and then a waste of dunes that rise in vast barren
billows and sweep away in sublime dreariness to the
Atlantic. Neither here nor anywhere else did the Cape
impress me as being strikingly beautiful, but it has an
interesting individuality, and certainly its inhabitants
are most picturesquely original.
Notes. — The main road the entire length of the Cape is state
macadam. Quaint old Provincetown has the most attractions in
and around it of any of the Cape towns, but interest is not lacking
wherever one wanders. While in this corner of the state the traveller
should visit Plymouth. The Mayflower cast anchor off shore here
December 21st, 1620, and you can see the identical rock on which
the Pilgrims set foot when the first boat load of them came to land.
The town has a notable historical museum, and many ancient
houses, and every sojourner will wish to see the quaint old cemetery
on Burial Hill.

XI

NANTUCKET DAYS

NANTUCKET has the reputation of being an
island of enchantment — not that it has any
special scenic charm, but it is a fragment of
New England comparatively little affected by the
changing customs and fashions of the mainland, and
with a quaintness and flavor of the past in its life and
homes that are all its own. For the most part it is a
windswept moor diversified with lagoons and ponds.
Nowhere does it rise to any striking height, and the
trees, except in the villages, are few and stunted.
The first settlers established themselves on the island
in 1661. Thirty years later they began to send out
vessels after whales, and for a long time Nantucket
led the world in this industry. Its whaleships in their
cruises visited all the waters of the globe. They wan
dered far from the lanes of commerce, and their captains
discovered no less than thirty of the islands of the
Pacific. One Nantucket whaleship was lost on the coast
of the Fiji Islands, and all the crew, with a single excep
tion, were murdered and probably eaten. At one time
Nantucket had nearly fourscore whaling vessels, and
voyages after oil continued to absorb most of its energy
until a cheaper lighting fluid was found in petroleum.

200 Highways and Byways of New England
Ten years later, in 1868, the last outward-bound whaler
crossed its bar.
When the steamer on which one journeys to the
island from the mainland has touched at Martha's
Vineyard and has again turned its prow seaward you
can see nothing ahead but the broad blue level of the
ocean, and some time passes before Nantucket's low
mass lifts above the horizon. As soon as you arrive in
port you observe among the medley of buildings on
the wharves many ancient fish-houses, and there see
little fishing vessels and power boats, dories, and
pleasure craft on the waters all around. Other boats
large and small are hauled out on the shore, laid up or
being repaired. The town huddles about the wharves
on land that terraces steeply upward, and as you look
toward it from the harbor you see its numerous roofs
and chimneys amid the green foliage of the trees, and
the dominating tower of the old Unitarian Church with
its gilt-domed cupola.
A little stretch of Main Street in the heart of the
town is bordered by small stores and other commercial
or public buildings. It is arched with elms, and on the
outer edge of the sidewalks are occasional settees. Here
was serenity and protection from boisterous winds and
burning sunshine, and people seemed very ready to
take full advantage of the inducements offered for
loitering. The paving is of cobblestones, and a number
of the other streets and lanes are similarly paved, while
on the outskirts there are rutted roads in the natural

Nantucket Days 201
sandy earth. Nearly all the streets are both narrow
and crooked, and some of the byways and footpath
alleys are quite surprising in their picturesque un
certainty. The houses are mostly wooden with sides and roofs
of shingles, and many of them, built by the old sea
captains, are of generous size, two or three stories high.
Paint is used sparingly, and when you view the place
from the hills in the rear it appears strangely gray.
Yet the houses are well-cared-for, and it is evident that
the people are prosperous and live in comfort. Possibly
this is because their isolation offers comparatively few
opportunities for spending. Fashion and society are
not so urgently enticing as on the mainland, and wealth
does not set a pace which those with more circum
scribed incomes feel impelled to imitate. The majority
of the houses are evidently old and they have small-
paned windows and the great chimneys of fireplace
days. They are set close along the streets, and have a
habit of thrusting a porch out on the sidewalk to which
steps lead down from the front door in either direction.
The town is very compact, yet there is space about its
homes for bits of lawn, hedges, vegetable gardens, and
an abundance of gay flowers.
The present population of the island is less than three
thousand. It had ten thousand in the heyday of its
prosperity. When whaling was abandoned a large por
tion of the younger inhabitants migrated to other locali
ties and real estate depreciated so that houses were

202 Highways and Byways of New England
frequently sold for from one to two hundred dollars.
At length, however, the island began to develop as a
summer resort, and its prosperity was to some degree
restored. "But it's not what it used be," one of the
elders affirmed to me. "The people have backslid from
the old habits of thrifty industry. Lots of 'em will do
anything to get shet of hard work. In summer they
fetch out their teams and set all day on their behinds
in front of the post office looking for a chance to drive
some one around. One day a man may make twenty-
five cents, and another day two or three dollars, and the
next day he may not take in a blame cent. In winter
they live off each other, and in their spare time gather
at their loafing places to- spin yarns."
I had the good fortune to lodge in one of the fine old
mansions. It has much panelled woodwork inside and
large low-ceiled rooms with the heavy timbers of the
framework showing here and there. On the first even
ing of my sojourn I found my landlord and his wife at
liberty and I inquired about the use of a platform with
a railing round it which was perched on the peak of a
neighboring roof.
"That's what we call a lookout or walk," the land
lord said'. "Nearly all the old-fashioned houses had
'em when I was a boy fifty years ago. Our harbor here
was a busy place, and people would often slip up to
their lookout with a spyglass to see what was going on
down on the water. They might go up there for other
Suppose a man had a row with his wife —

A Nantucket harbor nook

Nantucket Days 203
one of 'em would very likely go to the roof platform to
get a little solitude.
"We had a town crier here by the name of Billy
Clark from way back to the time of the Civil War until
he died a few years ago. He was drafted as a young
feller to go as a soldier, and for a while he was a fright
ened boy, but he was a little soft you know, and the
officials saw he wasn't fit for the army. They gave him
a furlough for ninety-nine years and twelve months.
Lawyer Macy was his guardian. During the war Billy
sold Boston Heralds. He was honest as the day was
long and he was so anxious to pay for his papers that
he kept sending on money to the publishers as fast as
he got it. By and by they wrote to him that he had
overpaid 'em. That didn't do no good, and they wrote
to his guardian, who spoke to him, and said, 'Billy,
don't send no more money.'
" 'Mr. Macy,' Billy said, 'I wish you'd mind your
Cwn business. I'll send all the money I want to.'
"He used to go through the streets crying out what
ever any one wanted to advertise. He had a good voice
for that originally, but in his later years his voice all
broke up so we couldn't hardly understand him. Every
time his birthday came around somebody in town would
make him a birthday cake. Oh, we certainly miss Billy.
In the whaling days he spent a lot of time in the tower
of the old church watching for returning vessels. He had
good eyes. Yes, I swanny! Billy could see farther than
you and I put together. When he sighted a whaler

204 Highways and Byways of New England
comin' and made out what ship she was he'd blow a
horn and come down and go to carry the news to the
captain's house. He'd tell Nancy, the captain's wife —
Nancy was a great name for women here — and she'd
give him fifty cents or so. Then she'd go up through
the scuttle in the roof to the lookout with her spy
glass." "But she wouldn't stay long," the landlady declared.
" She'd soon come down and set to work to bake ginger
bread so as to have some nice and fresh for the boys on
the ship and give 'em a treat. As soon as the vessel
come in over the bar with her load of oil and — "
"Delia, keep quiet a minute, will you," the landlord
interrupted. "You and I can't talk to this gentleman
at the same time, and I want to explain something. I
want to tell about this whaling business. The ships
used to be built and fitted out here for voyages that
were expected to last 'bout four years. The wives who
were left behind led a lonely life, and you can imagine
they weren't very cheerful when their husbands' vessels
left the harbor.
"I remember, one night when I was nine years old,
my mother came in the room where my brother and I
were asleep and woke us up and told us she'd just got
word from the owners of my father's vessel that the
ship was lost and he was dead. I never saw him long
enough hardly to know him. Often he wouldn't be at
home more'n two months between voyages. The ship
would start as soon as it could unload and get fitted

Nantucket Days 205
out. If a captain had good luck he'd retire by the time
he was fifty worth fifteen or twenty thousand dollars.
That was considered wealth in the old days. Of course,
some voyages weren't profitable. There was one cap
tain come home with only five hundred barrels of oil
after being gone fifty-two months. The owners lost
forty thousand dollars on the voyage, and they sold
the ship. She was a nice little bark, and the captain
bought a quarter interest in her and started out again.
He came back in thirty-four months just as the Civil
War ended with over three thousand barrels of oil,
and he got two dollars and twenty cents a gallon. His
share of the profits was sixty-five thousand dollars."
"Do you hear that bell ringing?" the landlady asked.
"That's the curfew. It's a warning for everybody to
get off the streets and that all lights should be put out
and the people go to bed; but no one pays any atten
tion to it. We have a rising bell, too. That rings at
seven in the morning, and there's a twelve o'clock bell
at noon."
"Two watchmen used to go on duty at the old church
after the curfew rang," the landlord said. "It was a
cold place up in the tower in winter, but they were
rigged up with heavy boots and thick clothes, and only
one man was in the tower at a time while the other was
in a room below where, there was a stove. They changed
every hour. We thought a good deal of that tower
watch. It served more for a fire alarm than anything
else. If the watchmen saw a fire they'd go through the

206 Highways and Byways of New England
streets, by gorry! blowing horns and hollering to beat
the band."
The landlady had risen and taken a sprig of English
ivy from a vase on the table. She handed it to me with
the remark: "Quite a little of that grows in our garden.
It's descended from some that a neighbor on a whaling
voyage brought from the tomb of Napoleon on St.
Helena. We have a great many pretty flowers in our
town gardens, and out on the moors are all kinds of
wildflowers that you can think of. Lots of Scotch
heather used to grow on the moorland, but people would
go to get it and pull it up roots and all. Very little is
left now. Only two or three persons know where that
little is, and they won't tell."
"My friend," the landlord said, "listen to me if you
please for a moment. Flowers are all very well, but,
by gracious! the moors are good for something else.
Huckleberries, blackberries, and blueberries grow on
'em. Us old-time Nantucketers would let them berries
rot on the vines, but we've got a colony of Cape de Verde
negroes here, and they go out in whole families after the
berries and bring 'em to the town to sell. The children
pick the same as the grown-ups. Why, heavens and
earth! those kids are 'bout ten years old when they are
born, and all ready to go right to work. The negroes are
poor and live in little shacks of homes often, but they
dress better'n the whites do. They spend everything
they earn on clothes, and you'll see 'em wearin' patent
leather shoes and pink stockings and yellow trousers.

Nantucket Days 207
"The island is very quiet at present. We don't get
many summer people here until after the Fourth of
July. You take these vacation visitors lookin' for a
lodging-place — they don't want this and they don't
want that. We have to deal with a good many blame
cheap people, and it's something fierce the way they
talk to you. Yes, sir, you put that in your pipe and
smoke it. They come into our house and tell us how
much they admire old-fashioned homes and furnishings,
and they look at one thing and another and exclaim,
'Oh, isn't this elegant! — lovely, lovely!' Lastly they
say, 'Now let's see what kind of beds you've got;' and
they'll punch their fists into 'em to see whether they've
got the latest springs. If you was to show 'em a corded
bed they'd drop dead. A person who's got health and
works hard enough to be dog-tired can sleep on the
floor, or out in the woods with his back against a tree,
and sleep well, but the people who summer on this
island must have spring beds, and they expect board at
the same price as twenty years ago. Our own Massa
chusetts people put up the worst kick of any on God's
earth. They are kickers from way back. They want
everything old, and they also want all the modern
improvements, and I don't know how in time you're
goin' to manage that.
"Delia, where's the almanac? I want to see how
the tide is. Say, look here, my friend, I'm going over
in my dory tomorrow to a shack I've got on the other
side of the harbor. Why don't you come along with

208 Highways and Byways of New England
me? That's a good place to go in swimming. You
can't drown there. The water's too darn shoal. At
some of the bathing places there's bold water where
you're likely to get out over your head before you know
it, and there's such a surf it's dangerous for swimmers
who are not expert. One mistake people make is stay
ing in too long. Some will be in that chilly water for
half a day. You got to use a little horse sense 'bout
that as well as other things.
"There are no automobiles on the island. The public
is against 'em. One man got one, but we wouldn't stand
for it, and he had to get rid of it. I'm goin' to tell you
just how we feel in this town. A great many of us have
money invested in horses and carriages and do quite a
business in hauling goods and going around with pleas
ure parties. The whole shooting match of such fellers
is against anything that will interfere with their profits.
Besides, our streets are very narrow. A man with an
auto wants to go like time, and there'd surely be acci
dents. We'll have flying-machines here before we have
automobiles." On the borders of the harbor was a row of fishermen's
huts set on posts to safeguard them from the encroach
ing of the high tides, and there I one day stopped to
chat with a man who greeted me from a hut door. I
looked in and saw that the walls and ceiling were
plentifully adorned with fishing implements. A ham
mock made out of an old net extended the full length of
the room. Outside were shells and fish-heads, strewings

Nantucket Days 209
of seaweed, pieces of wrecks, boats battered and aban
doned, and others new and trim on the oozy flats that a
receding tide had left bare.
"It's the fishing industry more than anything else
that supports Nantucket," the man said. "Just now
quahauging is the great thing. The whole bottom in
the harbor and for miles and miles outside is covered
with quahaugs. In the spring I go over to the ditch
that connects Long Pond with the ocean and ketch
herring on their way up to the pond to spawn. Evening
is the time for 'em, especially on stormy nights. The
more storms the better. They stop after a few hours,
and long 'bout 'leven o'clock the eels start to run out.
We spear a good many eels in the holes on the ma'sh
and in the cricks that make up around there. Some
times we ketch 'em almost as fast as we can jog. We
fellers around here call it joggin'. They're all sizes
from a shoestring up. The biggest one I ever got
weighed nine pounds. I've seen twenty-five men out
here on the harbor eeling in winter. We jog for the
eels through holes cut in the ice. There's more or
less fishing, clamming, and one thing or another all
winter. "Once in a while the harbor is frozen so you can go any
where on it, but the tide runs very strong here, and when
it makes out it generally clears some places so the
steamer that makes trips between Nantucket and the
mainland can work her way in and out. There are
times though when the field ice blows into the harbor

210 Highways and Byways of New England
and the steamer may have to quit running for several
days. I guess the longest time was three weeks. Then
supplies of kerosene and butter and some other things
may run short, but people know they are liable to be
cut off, and they lay in a stock of what they need. It
ain't so awful cold here. The ocean warms the air,
and it's very seldom that the thermometer gets below
zero." In my wanderings about the town I went up Joy
Street and was interested to find that this cheerfully
named thoroughfare led to the entrance to the cemetery.
Some signs apprised me that it also led to the Poet's
Corner, and when I came to a dooryard with its picket
fence adorned with numerous rhymed placards I
stopped to investigate. Similar signs were tacked to
the house and to a little shop that had half a dozen
nautical weathervanes on its peak. In the yard was a
decripit "one-hoss shay" and other antique vehicles
and curiosities, some genuine and some fake, and two
rooms in the house served as a sort of museum and
salesplace for souvenirs, peanuts, and root beer. The
signs were printed with a rubber type outfit and in
cluded not only poetry but jokes, sells, and conun
drums. They were such as these:
Now, my friends, listen to me,
There's no use now in talking
This is the place for you to see
When you go out a walking.

A cobble-paved lane

Nantucket Days 211
B GOOD LIKE I
AND NEVER LIE
Receipt for Coot Stew
Skin the coot, throw away all but the skin, nail skin
to a board, let stay nailed 48 hours, then eat the board.
God made the world and rested,
God made man and rested,
Then God made woman,
And since then neither
God nor man has rested.
What is it?
Luke had it before,
Paul had it behind,
All girls have it once,
Boys cannot have it,
Old Mrs. Mulligan had it twice in succession,
Dr. Lowell had it before and after and had
it twice as bad behind as before.
Answer: the letter L.
The poet had died not long previous after living all
alone in the house for nineteen years. A picture of him
on a souvenir postcard showed a burly man with side-
whiskers, an enormous broadbrimmed hat, and a sign
hung on his vest informing you that "This is me." He
looked like a pirate.

212 Highways and Byways of New England
From a pamphlet autobiography written the year he
died I learned that he was born at Nantucket in 1833
and left school when he was fourteen. During the next
forty-four years, most of which time he was off the
island, he changed his employment fifty-one times.
Among other things he worked on farms, tried black-
smithing, was a night policeman in Providence, drove
a New York City omnibus on Broadway, had a washing-
fluid store in Boston, was a clerk in a lawyer's office,
and peddled through the rustic regions with a tin-cart.
In most of the larger places where he sojourned, he
joined the fire department. He had the dropsy, the
smallpox, and yellow fever. His experiences included
service in the army through most of the Civil War, and
twice he was captured by the "Rebs" while doing duty
as a spy. When he at last returned to Nantucket to
make it his permanent home he set about earning a
living by going around from house to house with a
basket selling peanuts at five cents a bag. He prospered
and presently "opened up Poet's Corner for the enter
tainment of summer visitors." His poetic efforts seem
to have been limited to manufacturing supposedly
humorous jingles of a few lines each. In one of the
final sentences of his reminiscences he says, "I am now
seventy-eight years old, and I have never drank a drop
of tea or coffee, and I have never uttered an oath."
Not far from the home of the poet, on one of the
sandhills back of the town whence you can overlook
the moors sweeping away across the island with their

Nantucket Days 213
lowly shrubs and coarse grasses and stunted trees, is an
old windmill. It was built in 1746 and was used till
1892. Now it is taken care of as a relic of the past, and
a keeper is there in summer to tell its story and explain
to visitors its rude mechanism. I had been informed
that visitors as they gazed at its weather-beaten
shingled sides were apt to utter some such exclamation
as: "Why, those shingle must have been on there over
a hundred years ! I'd give a dollar if I could carry away
one of 'em as a souvenir."
"Well," the keeper would say, "I guess you can have
one if you want to pay a dollar for it."
So the visitor would go off with the shingle, but it
probably hadn't been on for six months. The keeper
had got some shingles from an old house that was being
torn down and used them to replace those he sold.
When I called at the mill I found the caretaker seated
just inside of the door smoking his pipe. He was a
stoutish vigorous man, who though no longer young
had a face which retained something of its youthful
smoothness and hair that had not yet lost its original
color. He wanted me to guess his age, and when I
suggested sixty-five he responded: "Well, sir, I'm
eighty, and I feel now as if I'd live to be one hundred
and eighty. The other day a man and his wife was
here to see the mill. She was quite a talker, and she
remarked that she hoped I'd live to be as old as her
husband. He was grayer'n a rat, and I said, 'By the
way, how old is he?'

214 Highways and Byways of New England
" 'He's sixty,' she answered.
"People wouldn't die so young if they lived mo'
plainer and didn't eat such rich food. They didn't
have all these fancy foods and drinks in the olden-time.
We got one grave down here in the cemetery of a woman
who was one hundred and twelve years of age. Cap'n
Grant who kept the mill before me was ninety-three
when he died, and he was just as straight as any timber
in the mill. But Nantucket's about as healthy a place
as there is in the Union anyway. We can't help getting
pure air, for we're twenty-four miles from the nearest
mainland. It's like being on a ship anchored in the
ocean. "I've seen people come here just like a rail — just
like a clothespin — and go away fat as pigs. I know
one woman who couldn't eat or sleep at home and
her doctor decided she had consumption. 'The only
thing I can do,' he said, 'is to recommend you to go to
some seaport place in the hope that it will prolong your
life for a few months.'
"So she came to Nantucket. At that time she
weighed ninety pounds, but she began to brace up and
to eat and sleep and at the end of the season she
weighed one hundred and twenty-three. Since then
she's been here every summer. She calls Nantucket
her second birthplace. Consumption wasn't what was
the matter with her. It was general debility.
" I'll give you another instance. An old lady relation
of mine come to Nantucket visiting. She weighed one

Nantucket Days 215
hundred and eighty-four pounds, but after she'd been
here three weeks her weight had gone up to over two
hundred, and she said, 'Let me get off this island
devilish quick!'
"There used to be more children in the homes here
than you find now. They numbered fourteen in our
family, and they all lived to grow up and marry. Look
here, I've seen twenty-four of us, husband and wives,
set down at once in our house with Father and Mother.
"This old mill is about as good as it ever was, except
that the long beam which slants down from the cap to
the ground, and which was for shifting the sails to face
the wind, is now rotten and has to stay exactly where it
is. One morning last summer, as I was comin' up here
I saw that the wind was just in the right corner to set
the machinery going, and it was getting stronger.
'Good Lord, let her breeze!' I said.
"Well, I'll tell you what I done. I got a bushel of
shelled corn and brought it to the mill. Then I put the
sails on two of the arms. If I'd put 'em on all four the
arms would have run away from me. I ground the
corn in no time and afterward separated the wheels
and let the sails keep whirling. The townspeople saw
the vanes going and they said it looked like old times.
That was a great day for the mill — you bet it was!
There was crowds of visitors here all the time.
"When I was a boy my folks bought corn of the
farmers and I lugged up to the mill many a bag on my
back. Mother made corn cakes. I golly! I've eaten

216 Highways and Byways of New England
lots of 'em, and they tasted good too — oh, fust rate.
Also she made johnnycake and what old-fashioned peo
ple call Injun dumplings. The dumplings was pieces of
meal dough flattened out and cooked on top of a stew.
"You notice the mill has two doors. That's because
the sails are sometimes whirling right across one door
so it can't be used. The tips of the arms come almost
down to the ground. If one was to hit you good you'd
never know what hurt you.
"There was four of these mills up here back of the
town once. Lots mo' land was cultivated on the island
then, and the farmers raised plenty of corn and rye
and wheat so that the mills had all they could do in
winter. The farmers grew big crops and they had
thousands of sheep grazing on the moors. But the
generation now is too darned lazy to go into farming,
and the farms are all goin' to ruin. There ain't enough
raised on most of 'em to feed a cat.
"At the time this mill was built Nantucket was a
stronghold of the Quakers. They had their meeting
houses and schools, and in 1800 more than half the
inhabitants were of that faith. Once when I was a boy
I went to one of their meetings. Nobody said anything
and I just sat there and twiddled my thumbs. Human
nature couldn't stand the severity of their customs.
They had no use for art, music or games, or for books
of fiction, and when the society began to disown
members for breaking its rules its decline was rapid.
None of the Friends are left here now.

Nantucket Days 217
"One of the best men that ever lived on the island
was Edward W. Perry. He owned a coalyard down on
one of the wharves and never fenced it in. Every
winter when he was buyin' coal he got forty ton extra
for the poor to lug away. Once Cap'n Reno called at
Edward W. Perry's office and told him he'd seen seven
teen men comin' from his coalyard, each with a full
bag over his shoulder. He thought the owner would
want to put a stop to such wholesale stealin', but
Edward W. Perry said, ' Cap'n Reno, if you hadn't gone
to the post office after your mail you wouldn't have seen
'em.' "He was rich. He didn't care. Why, he'd even
have some coal dumped up on the edge of the town
when he thought the weather was too cold for the boys
to come down on the wharf. Well, I tell you that
Edward W. Perry was a man !
"I never saw any coal burned when I was young
growin' up. We used wood and peat. People would go
out in the swamps and dig the heavy black peat mud,
and after it dried many and many a load was hauled to
town to sell to the old rich fellers. It took plenty of
fuel to heat our houses with their big fireplaces. Once
the island was covered with large oaks, and roots used
to be often found in the peat bogs as big as a man's
body. "In the summer of 1846 when I was twelve years old
we had the big fire that burned out three hundred and
sixty-three buildings in this town. The fire was dis-

218 Highways and Byways of New England
covered at five minutes to eleven Dy two men who were
comin' down Main Street from courtin'. They smelt
somethin' like cloth burnin', and they put their noses
to the keyholes of the stores along and finally come to
where the fire was in a hat and cap store. There'd
been no rain for three weeks, and the town buildings
was like powder. It took all the wharves and walked
up Main Street and made a big hole in the place. I
didn't go to it but kept runnin' out of the house to look
and then runnin' in. Father was in his schooner sword-
fishing thirty miles away, but he saw the light and said :
'That fire sprung from my house, I've got so many
children. They must have been playing with matches
or somethin'. He started for home right off.
"In those times several watchmen were on duty in
the town every night, and I can remember waking up
and hearing one of 'em goin' through our street and
calling out, 'Twelve o'clock and all is well.' It was a
part of their job to keep us boys quiet. If they found
us stealin' grapes or into other mischief they'd get after
us. I've had 'em chase me more'n once. They carried
a hook. It had a wooden handle three feet long, and
the hook was just right to ketch us round the neck or
to slip round a feller's leg and trip him up. We called
the watchmen hookers. Often we'd holler out to 'em,
'Hookaar! hookaar! ketch us if you can!'
"If we did get caught the watchman would take the
wooden end of his hook, slap our setdowns, then give
us a kick and say, 'Get out ! ' Ah, those good old times ! "

The old windmill

Nantucket Days 219
The chief pleasure resort and watering place of the
island is Sconset on the exposed Atlantic shore. You
can go thither from the old harbor town by a queer
little narrow gauge railroad. The distance is eight miles
over the sober rolling moorland. When you reach
Sconset you find great billowing sand dunes, and
wooden hotels and summer cottages, and a cluster of
humble one-story homes of islanders that are mildly
picturesque in their irregular architecture and embower
ing of flowers and vines. A steep sandy beach fronts
the gray hazy waste of the sea with its restless waves,
its smoke-plumed steamers, and white-winged sailing
vessels. I visited a fish-house on the edge of the terrace that
the village occupied. A man inside was cleaning fish,
and another man was poking over the contents of a
bucket of waste and extracting some heads and meaty
skeletons. When the latter had his hands full he came
out and started to descend a steep narrow stairway
that led down the bank to where, on a lower level amid
the sand, was a scattered settlement of shacks and
small cottages. "I'm a-comin', God bless you," he
called out, and I ventured to ask him who he was
talking to.
"A friend of mine lives in that yellow house down
there," he replied, "and I've got a lot of baby chickens
under his piazza. I'm carryin' 'em somethin' to eat
and it was them that I was speakin' to."
He returned after a while and paused to get his

220 Highways and Byways of New England
breath at the head of the stairway. "That's a good
place for my chickens this time of year, eh?" he said.
"In winter I have 'em with me at my home in Nan
tucket. This is no place for chickens or people either
in our winter storms. When you get a nor'wester here
then, by gol! you know it, and there's only about a
dozen families stay the year round. How the dickens
they keep from freezing I don't know. You see that
small house just beyond my friend's. A poet lives in
that. I don't believe he's very prosperous. Two-thirds
of the poets starve to death anyhow. They don't need
much to eat either. A person who don't do nothin'
don't have no appetite to eat nothin.'
"Seems to me I hear it thunder off in the distance,
and I see the sky is gettin' overcast and the wind is
blowin' up strong."
He had hardly made this remark when a fleshy
elderly woman appeared on the scene. She was his
wife. "There's goin' to be a tempest," she declared,
and she insisted that he should come home.
"Holy smoke! what for should I go home?" he said.
"Do you want to sit in my lap and have me rock you?
That storm ain't comin' here. Lord, no! We won't
get enough rain to wet my shirt."
But he went, and I accompanied him to his little
low-roomed shell of a house near by. We reached
shelter just in time to escape a spatter of rain.
"They're gettin' a good storm somewheres away from
here," my host said. "Like enough it's a-pourin' on

Nantucket Days 221
the other side of the island. Here comes my cat. We
have to treat our cats pretty well or they go off and
stay in the swamps. They ketch moles and birds and
little rabbits, and they raise up young ones there.
Rabbits are very plenty in the swamps and scrub oaks,
and they're good eating in winter. They find plenty of
stuff to live on and are as fat as butter then.
"I've got a sore thumb, and I'm keepin' it tied up
at present. Yesterday morning at three o'clock just
as day was breaking I started out bluefishing in my
dory. Well, sir, I got one more fish than I wanted. I
had him in my hands when a big sturgeon jumped out
of the water close by the boat. The sturgeons get as
lousy as a cuckoo, and they come up that way to shake
themselves. This one fell back with a splash that sent
the water flying all around and pretty near drowned me.
At the same time the bluefish bit my thumb. There
ain't a man in the world can sharpen a saw as sharp as
the teeth of a bluefish. Each tooth is just like a lance,
and my thumb was bitten clear to the bone. I've seen a
feller lose half his heel that way. I caught six after I
got bit, and then my thumb was paining me so that I
said to myself, ' I guess you'd better go ashore, you old
fool;' and I went.
"That man at the fish-house is a Portugee. Me'n'
him used to go pardners fishing. One July day when
we was five mile off shore in our dory there come up a
sudden storm. It thundered and rained and the wind
raised a heavy swell. When we was down in the

222 Highways and Byways of New England
trough of the waves we could only see the heavens
above, and when we were on the crest we could see all
of Nantucket Island. I said to my pardner: 'Old boy,
we've got caught. We'll have to bid farewell to Nan
tucket unless we have a streak of good luck.'
"The waves would have turned our boat over like
a shingle in no time if we hadn't had two hundred and
some odd bluefish in it. They served as ballast, and
they were the only thing that saved us.
"When I was thirteen, at the time of the Civil War,
I ran away to join the navy. I was a powder monkey,
and it was my job to lug bags of powder up from the
magazine to the guns. After the war I went on voyages
and knocked around all over the world. But at last I
come back to Nantucket. I landed with just a dollar
in my pocket, and an old feller with a hack took me
up to my mother's home. I gave him fifty cents, and
went and bought a pint of rum with the money I had
left. Oh, I used to be hail fellow well met! The tougher
the crowd I got into the better I liked it, and now I'm
no good.
"I come back here broke. I'd seen men lookin' for
work and prayin' to God not to find it. I'd seen men
loafin' and lettin' their wives support 'em at the wash-
tub. They wasn't fit to be classed as men. They
ought to have been strung up or put on a desert island.
I'd seen men makin' believe they was drunk so a cop
would collar 'em, and when they was sentenced to three
months at the state farm they was happy as a dog with

Nantucket Days 223
two tails, because 'twas a good place to spend the winter.
I've no love or respect for that class of people. What
I did was to fish and peddle what I caught on a wheel
barrow around town.
"Time went along, and for better or worse I married.
I knew things couldn't be any worse. The woman was
a widow with two children, and people said I was a
blame fool to marry her. I'd have been a blame fool
if I hadn't married her. She's a pretty good old gal,
and now, thank God! I've got a home. If it wasn't
for her I'd be in Davy Jones' locker.
"She's a good cook, and we have the best there is
on our table as far as sea food is concerned. I'm
tellin' you there's as much difference between fresh
fish and those you get inland as between cheese and
chalk. I bring in a fish I've caught that's hardly dead
yet. 'Here you are, Ma,' I say; and she washes him
up, rolls him in meal, and in a few minutes he's in the
frypan. You can eat such a fish with a relish. But
the sweetness is all gone out of cold storage fish. It
ain't worth a cuss.
"For several summers we boarded some concreters
at our house, and they bargained we should feed 'em
on fish. No meat for them. So they had fish cooked in
all kinds of ways, and we'd make fishballs, and we'd
put cold fish in their dinner pails. I told 'em that when
they got home they'd have fishbones comin' out behind
their ears. I'd get clams for 'em, and a peck wouldn't
be a flea bite to them fellers. 'Don't eat the shells,'

224 Highways and Byways of New England
I'd say. T want to feed those to my hens.' They
wanted somethin' good and plenty of it. They didn't
want to be served the way they would be at some hotels
with a little mess of this and a little mess of that —
forty-nine different messes, and hardly enough in any
one for you to get used to the taste of it."
About this time my host's wife came in and asked
him for the key to the shop. He explained to her that
he had gone into the shop not long before and left his
bunch of keys on a bench, and when he came out he
had shut the door, which had a spring lock on it, and
he hadn't made up his mind how he was going to get
it open. She went out, and a few minutes later we followed
and found she had pried back the lock with a kitchen
knife. He patted her affectionately and remarked,
"The next time you go to town, if you'll promise to be
a good gal and not overload your stomach I'll give you
five cents."
Note. — To go to Nantucket you can start on the short sea voy
age at either New Bedford or Woods Hole. The boats stop at
Martha's Vineyard, which has attractions of its own that might
well lure the traveller to pause there and make its acquaintance.
But Nantucket itself excels all other New England islands and
coast resorts in the charm of its unspoiled quaintness, and a first
visit to it is sure to be a delightful experience.

XII

ALONG SHORE IN RHODE ISLAND
NO more fascinating character is to be found
among the savages of our early New England
history than King Philip, at whose hands the
colonists suffered so much; and when I thought of
visiting Rhode Island I decided that what I most
wanted to see was Mount Hope, where, long years ago,
this famous Indian chief had dwelt and where he met
his tragic death. I expected as soon as I got into the
vicinity of the mountain to see it rising against the sky
in at least moderately imposing proportions; but one
is obliged to have a quite favorable position to see it at
all. In fact it is nothing but a hill, and not much of a
hill at that, and I wandered astray again and again on
the local roadways as I searched for it one autumn
morning. The region between it and Bristol, the nearest town,
two miles distant, is for the most part one of park-like
fields that have fine trees along the borders, and sturdy
stone-wall fences. This used to be farming country,
but the better farms have been taken by city people
who want a place for rural retirement in the summer,
and the little farms have fallen into the hands of immi
grants from Portugal. I sometimes saw men digging

226 Highways and Byways of New England
potatoes or cutting corn, but the cultivated fields were
few, and agriculture as a means of livelihood is almost
a thing of the past.
At length the pleasant, pastoral country was left
behind and I came to bleak unfenced uplands whence I
could look off on the sea overhung by a pearly haze and
with a dazzling pathway across its surface sunward.
Here I happened on two little boys watching some
grazing cows. They were sitting among the bushes and
ripened October grasses and weeds in a slight hollow,
where the sun shone warm and they were somewhat
sheltered from the brisk, cool wind that was blowing.
The cows needed only occasional attention, and the
hours of their vigil that chilly day must have dragged
slowly. I tried to talk with them, but with slight
success, for they were shy little Portuguese whose
knowledge of English was very slender.
Mount Hope was now close at hand and I soon reached
its bare, rounded summit. The land was thinly-
grassed pasturage, and the turf was variegated with
stunted goldenrod and white and purple asters, and
there were multitudes of branching thistles, some of
them still in blossom, but most gone to seed and dry-
stalked. In spots grew clumps of huckleberry bushes
and gay-leaved patches of little sumacs and poison ivy,
while now and then occurred gray outcroppings of
rock and neglected lines of stone-wall that the frosts
had heaved into chaotic ruin.
The hill owes its name to the Indians who called it

The seaward view from King Philip's Seat

Along Shore in Rhode Island 227
Monthaup, a title easily Anglicized to Mount Hope. It
is the highest lift of land in all the rather level country
around as far as the eye can reach, and it occupies a
commanding position at the end of a peninsula hemmed
about by irregular inlets from the sea. The steep
southern side fronting toward one of the broader water
ways is broken by a rude crag of lichened quartz, and
on the slope below the crag King Philip's home village
had stood. The place was sheltered from the rough
northwest winds, and there was a cool spring of water
at the foot of the cliff. Moreover, close by the spring
is a niche in the rock known as "King Philip's Seat."
Possibly he used to sit there and meditate while he
gazed off over the inlet to the wooded slopes of the
shore beyond. Certainly the niche is in form very well
suited to its traditional use, and it would be much more
perfect if visitors did not have the habit of chipping off
pieces to carry away for mementoes. The spot is
naturally very attractive, but unfortunately it is a
picnic resort that has failed, and scattered roundabout
are all sorts of ramshackle buildings — big and little,
broken-windowed, leaky-roofed, and dubious in general.
For a long time the savage dwellers of the region were
friendly with the whites, and Philip's father, Massasoit,
not only ceded them land when they wanted it, but
fed them when they were starving. Philip, as he grew
older, perceived the increasing power of the English
with alarm. They were overrunning the whole country,
and the domain of the Indians was constantly contract-

228 Highways and Byways of New England
ing. So at length he determined to act, and he jour
neyed from tribe to tribe inciting them to unite to drive
the white men back whence they came. The struggle
began in 1675, and many an exposed English village
was wiped out, and hundreds of the settlers' lives were
sacrificed. But the savages suffered far more than their foes,
and one by one the confederate tribes abandoned
Philip to his fate. His brother and most trusted fol
lowers fell in battle, and when at length his wife and
only son were taken prisoners, he exclaimed: "My
heartbreaks! Now I am ready to die."
The child was a boy of nine, and the Puritans, who
had owed so much to his grandfather, sold him as a
slave to Bermuda. King Philip was forced to seek
refuge in the deepest recesses of the forest, yet even in
these dire straits he put to death one of his adherents
who presumed to speak of making peace.
After a time he wandered back with a few followers
to Mount Hope and encamped to the northwestward of
the mount on a knoll in a swamp. Captain Church, the
leader of the forces fighting Philip, learned of his foe's
place of retreat through an Indian deserter, and at
once started with a well-armed company to prevent
the chief's escape and end the war. The English com
mander ordered his men to approach Philip's camp by
night from the more accessible side as silently as possi
ble, and when within a few rods to lie in wait till day
light. Meanwhile he posted a squad in ambush on the

Along Shore in Rhode Island 229
other side. Morning came, and one of Philip's Indians
caught a glimpse of their lurking enemies. At once he
and his companions made a rush to escape. Philip,
however, ran straight on two of the party in ambush — a
white man and an Indian, who both attempted to shoot
him. The Englishman's gun missed fire, but a bullet from
his companion's musket penetrated the heart of Philip,
and the warrior fell forward on his face with his gun
under him in the "miery swamp."
Our pious ancestors were wont to call Philip "a
damnable wretch; a hellish monster; a bloody villain;"
etc., but later estimates see in him a patriot rising in
righteous indignation to avenge his people for their
wrongs, and to protect them from the steadily increasing
encroachments of the whites. Devastation marked the
path of his warfare; but he committed no act of in
humanity so dreadful as that of the whites when they
burned the old men and the women and children in the
wigwams of the Narragansett village that they success
fully surprised, and his treatment of his English cap
tives was decidedly more generous than that accorded
to the Indians. For downright brutality the Christian
English rarely allowed the heathen savages to outrival
them. Tradition has identified quite definitely the spot in
the swamp where Philip fell, and I sought it out, push
ing along through the delicate sprays of the green under
wood and picking my way amid pools and mud bright
ened as if with bits of flame by the gold and scarlet of

230 Highways and Byways of New England
early-fallen autumn leaves. The sunshine flickered
down into the still depths, and when I looked up I
caught glimpses of blue sky and drifting clouds; and
I heard the breeze rising and falling, now a soft whisper
amid the foliage, now a mellow roaring that thrashed
the upper leafage into a wild tumult. Probably the
present appearance of the swamp is much the same as
it was when the brave chief met his fate; and to recall
the incidents of that grim tragedy on the very ground
where it occurred is an impressive experience.
At length I returned to Bristol, an old seaport, which,
though it has grown and changed, still retains hints of
a romantic past. Particularly interesting are the
ancient resident streets near the waterside with the
thickset homes snug to the sidewalk and not infre
quently encroaching on it with their quaint little porches
and steps. Then, too, there is in the heart of the town
a broad common with graceful elms lining every border
and . all the criscrossing paths. Its shadowy green-
turfed repose was very delightful, and here I made the
acquaintance of two elderly villagers who were having
a companionable chat on one of the benches under the
trees. The more venerable of the two lived in a tiny
cottage near by, and when he rose to go home he in
vited me to accompany him. I was glad of the chance
to visit with him further, and we walked along together
to his dwelling. He took me around to the back door
from which a narrow path of irregular-edged flagging
led to some latticed grape-arbors hung full of fruit;

At the edge of the water

Along Shore in Rhode Island 231
and beyond the arbors was a little garden. The old
man delivered to his wife the basket he carried with its
various packages from the grocery, and the three of us
sat down in the kitchen and talked about the town as
it used to be.
"I'm over eighty," the man said, "and I c'n remem
ber when Bristol was an important port. A great many
well-to-do sea captains lived here who bought their
own freight and went where they was a-min' to to sell
it. They tended to all the business themselves. Six
teen whaleships was owned in the place and about the
same number of merchant ships and a lot of brigs. Our
wharves extended along shore a mile, and I've seen 'em
all loaded, and a square-rigger lying at every wharf.
There was ships from all over the world; and when
one of them old square-riggers come in or went out
with every sail set and flags flyin' it was somethin'
worth lookin' at.
"Those was days when business was lively here in
Bristol, and Water Street was full of people and teams
all the time. On the ships hundreds of men was at
work h'istin' out the oil and hemp and iron, and the
sugar, coffee, and molasses and all those sort of things.
On shore there was lots of coopers makin' casks for the
whalemen, and blacksmiths' shops makin' harpoons
and chains, and there was shoemakers makin' shoes
for the sailors who was goin' on voyages to be away
perhaps two or three years, and there were tailors'
shops makin' clothing for 'em; and we had a big ship-

232 Highways and Byways of New England
yard here, and sail lofts makin' sails, and several rope
walks, some on 'em five or six hundred feet long. How
the ways of workin' have changed! Why, with the
machinery that's been invented, more rope can be made
now in a building fifty feet square in one day than an
old-fashioned rope walk could make in a month. It's
the same way with other things. If you're goin' to
have a new house these days the heft of it is got out by
machinery; and in fact steam and electricity have a
big share in about all the jobs that's done. But even
if we did used to do everything by hand, nobody didn't
realize they was workin' so awful hard.
"There was no railroads here, and in winter when the
ice kept ships from reaching Providence they came to
our wharves, and all the farmers around would turn
out with their oxsleds to carry the freight by land the
rest of the way. They'd get loaded up — a string on 'em
the length of two squares — and all start off together
about midnight, and get back the next night, each with
a load to go on the vessels.
"When I was young we shipped great quantities of
onions from this region. Acres and acres was grown
here, and lots o' people didn't do anything else but
raise that one crop. We'd bunch 'em by braiding the
tops with four strands of rye straw. The bunches
would have the big onions at the bottom and gradually
taper off to little ones. About twenty bunches made a
bushel. I've sot on a stool many a time half the night
bunchin' onions, and three or four men helpin' me,

Along Shore in Rhode Island 233
when I was in a hurry to get 'em off. You could pick 'em
up and braid 'em into bunches with that air rye straw
almost as fast as a hen can pick up corn. We'd load a
thousand bunches on a cart to wunst and carry to the
ships, and they was handled careful, I tell you. They
went to Cuba and Tangier and Porto Rique and all
around, and they usually brought big prices. Some
farms wouldn't get through bunching and selling till
March, and then it was most time to begin work on the
next crop.
"One of the first things I c'n remember is the gineral
muster we used to have every fall on the common. It
was an all-day celebration for trainin' and exercisin'
the militia; but the musters was gin up while I was a
little boy. Where the band-stand now is there was a
liberty pole, and we'd h'ist a flag on it muster days and
Fourth of July. The flag was all white except for a
gray eagle and several stars.
"The common then didn't have all these ellums on
it, but just a few large buttonwoods, and along the
street walks we had cherry trees. We didn't grow much
fruit on our own land, for we wanted to raise the useful
and substantial things. Fruit ain't nawthin' — it tastes
kind o' nice, but 'taint like a good hill of potatoes. If
a man wanted to set out a fruit tree he'd start an apple
tree. You get a barrel of apples in your cellar and you
can make apple pies and apple slump (apples cooked
in a deep dish with a thick crust on top). But what's
the good of these 'ere pears and such fruits ? Very few

234 Highways and Byways of New England
of 'em was raised, and very few grapes. If we wanted
grapes we'd go off in the swamps to the east'ard and
pick 'em where they grew wild, and we'd get wild pears
on the hills."
"We might just as well depend on the hills and
pastures now for our fruit," the old lady said, looking
out of the window toward the garden. "The torment
ing young ones around here come right onto our prem
ises and pick the fruit before it is ripe and tear every
thing all to pieces."
"They wa'n't like that when I was young," the old
man declared. "They was brought up to behave
themselves." "They ain't brought up at all now," his wife said.
"They grow up wild. We had almost none of their
advantages, but the more advantages children have
the worse they seem to be. Oh, they act like the old
scratch!" "Yes, things have changed," the man commented.
"Even the weather is different. You know when we
have a ten or twelve inch snowfall people will say,
' Why, that is an old-fashioned storm ! ' Tain't nawthin'
of the sort. We don't get any such big snows as they
used to have. I've seen the snow cover our fences and
stone walls so you could walk right over 'em, and all
on a level, too. Why, gracious sake alive! we had to
shovel out the roads, and we'd make such channels and
have the snow so high on either side that a common-
sized boy couldn't look out over it. Now the snows

Along Shore in Rhode Island 235
are never so deep but that with a little plough hitched
side of a two-horse sled they can break out the roads
and go about their business. Mother, don't you recol
lect how we used to have to shovel out our roads?"
"Yes, every winter," she replied; "and until you'd
finished shoveling, the milkcarts couldn't get to town."
"To show you what our storms was like," the old
man remarked, "I want to tell you about a young
couple that lived on the outskirts of the village. They
woke up one time after havin' what they thought had
been their usual night's rest; but the room was still
dark as a pocket, and so they went to sleep again.
When they woke up the second time there was no more
sign of daylight than before, and the man says, ' 'Pears
to me this is the longest night that ever I see.'
" 'Well, I think so, too,' she says.
" 'I'm goin' to get up,' says he; and they both got
up and went to the kitchen on the other side of the house
and found the sun shining in from the west. It was
way along in the afternoon, and there had been a
snowstorm the previous night that had left a drift
completely covering their bedroom window.
"How would. people now stand those winters? Folks
ain't so well and rugged as they used to be. You take
the women — there ain't half of 'em these days able to
do their own housework. But, Lord-a-mercy ! in old
times they'd do all there was to do indoors, and a lot
besides in the fields. They'd go out and hay it, and
drop corn and husk, and they'd hoe and do other work

236 Highways and Byways of New England
in the onions. We're more helpless in a good many
ways. For instance, it used to be the habit, if you
wanted to trade at a store, to buy what you wanted
and pay for it and carry it home. Now, you most
likely get the things charged and have 'em sent home,
no matter how little you buy; and in one way or an
other you've got to pay for the time of the man that
does the delivering, and for the horse and wagon and
the horse feed and stabling, and for paper bags, boxes,
and all that.
"But there are ways, too, in which we have im
proved. Take the matter of lights — when I was a boy
karosene wa'n't known, and we had whale-oil lamps
that gave about the same light as a candle. They
had two little tubes with wicks in 'em that run down
into the oil, but there was no chimbleys.
"Stoves are another improvement. When I was a
boy we had fireplaces, and, sir! if the thermometer was
ten below zero, and the wind blowin' a gale it was hard
to keep warm. Sometimes we'd hang a bedquilt on
the backs of chairs in front of the fire and set inside of
that. Right around the hearth it would usually be
good and hot, but a little farther back the water in a
pitcher on the table might be freezin'; and mornings
you'd very likely wake up to find a snowbank on your
bed, if you slept upstairs. However, we got along
somehow, and kept middlin' well and hearty, and when
you went outdoors the cold didn't take hold of you as
it does now. Yes, as old Squire Bullock told his son

Along Shore in Rhode Island 237
when they were putting in a stove and doing away with
a fireplace, ' 'Tain't healthy, but it's more comfortable.'
"People don't cook such things as they used to.
Mother would hang the pots on the crane and put in
beef, pork and cabbage and other vegetables, and you'd
have a dinner that would do you some good, and that
would stand by you so you could go out and swing an
ax or a seldge-hammer. But now there are hundreds
of persons who can't eat a piece of pork; or of beef,
either, if it's got any fat on it."
"Father is old-fashioned," his wife said. "If he
wa'n't, mebbe he'd think different."
"Those same folks that can't eat pork will eat any
quantity of sweet things to sweeten 'em up," the old
man continued. "But what's the good of cake and
pie? They ain't nawthin' only windgalls. And this
'ere sugar stuff all colored up, and the chocolate candies
— we didn't have no such stuff when I was a boy. The
candy business is a big thing now. So is the ice cream
business. We never had any ice cream, and people
didn't even store ice for other uses; but now every one
has to have a refrigerator and they'll buy a ten cent
lump of ice to keep a cent's worth of milk on.
"Did you ever notice what a lot of boys smoke
cigarets these days? We didn't have cigarets at all in
my time; but once when I was quite young a whale-
ship come in — it was the ship Bowditch, — and some of us
boys thought we'd go aboard. So we rowed out, and
when we was on deck lookin' around we noticed a barrel

238 Highways and Byways of New England
chuck brimmin' full o' cigars. The sailors had made
'em themselves out of wild tobacco they'd got some
where in their voyage round Cape Horn. They smoked
'em when they wanted to, and they told us to help
ourselves. Well, we took three or four apiece and
smoked 'em, and when I got home I was taken sick,
and didn't I heave up Jonah! Yes, I did heave up
Jonah terribly. I laid right down on the floor and let
fly — By Jerusalem ! Then, when I was all through and
cleaned up, I got the pitapats — my mother give me
them. She took her slipper and says, 'Now, if you've
got over the smokin' you been a-doin', I'll smoke you ! '
And she did, I George, sir!
"Well, in recallin' what times was long ago I. often
think I'd like to go back there for some things; and
whether we're really much better off as a whole I don't
know. We got enough to eat in them days, and we
have enough to eat now. We had to work then, and
we have to work now. Seems as if it amounted to pretty
much the same thing."
Evening was approaching, and the room was getting
dusky when I left the little cottage where I had been
so agreeably entertained. I went out into the town;
but it was not quite the same place it had been before,
for the reminiscences to which I had listened lent it a
new interest, and every scene in the older part called
up visions of the past.
Before taking final leave of the vicinity I made a side
trip to Newport. A little steamer took me part way,

Along Shore in Rhode Island 239
and then I went on by trolley over gently rolling farm
lands. The fields were clean and attractive, the farm
homes looked symbolic of thrift, and here and there
were conical stacks of hay, sometimes occurring singly,
sometimes in groups, and always charming in their
grace of outline, and their suggestion of a goodly store
of winter food for the stock.
The world hears of Newport almost wholly as a
resort of multi-millionaires who have palatial summer
homes there; and one fancies that the town must be
quite impressive in the beauty of its situation and in its
noble thoroughfares and costly architecture. But in
reality it is a rather quiet and ordinary old village with
the narrow streets and quaint crowded wooden build
ings characteristic of so many of the colonial towns
along the New England coast. It looked as if it might
sleep on endlessly in comfortable stagnation; yet in
the minds of some of its residents it has a glorious future
and will in time rival New York as a seaport and com
mercial center.
The Newport of the people of wealth and fashion is
off on the outskirts, a settlement by itself, and appar
ently having no influence on the aspect of the old port
village. Here the "big-bugs," to quote a local designa
tion, have built their mansions on an upland that juts
seaward with a long ragged frontage of cliffs. The
offlook afforded is delightful and the situation conveys
hints of a breezy summer coolness that makes it in its
way quite ideal. Some one has said that the homes of

240 Highways and Byways of New England
this community, while in themselves charming to the
beholder, are like jewels without a setting — that is,
the grounds about are too circumscribed to give the
architecture its full effect. No doubt this is to some
degree the case, yet so far as the buildings fronting on
the sea were concerned, they seemed to me not crowded,
but only socially near each other.
Notes. — The visitor to Rhode Island will naturally wish to see
Providence, the capital of the state. Roger Williams started a settle
ment there in 1636 after fleeing from persecution in Massachusetts,
and named the place out of gratitude for his escape. In the city are
many fine examples of colonial architecture, and the suburbs offer
opportunities for delightful drives.
Newport, called by the Indians Aquidneck — the Isle of Peace —
was commercially more important than New York in 1770. In one
of its parks can be seen that famous historical relic, the old Stone
Mill, claimed to have been built by the Norsemen about the year
1000. A notable attraction of the shore is the Cliff Walk which
for three miles runs along the brow of the bluffs that front the ocean.
To see the magnificent palaces of the wealthy and fashionable
summer colony at all completely requires a drive of ten miles. The
boating, bathing, and fishing, and the motoring trips around the
city are unexcelled. Newport takes especial pride in the remarkable
mildness of its climate, for the summer is comparatively cool, and
the average winter temperature is higher than that of Washington.
The main highways in the state are macadam, and many of the
others are good gravel or dirt.

XIII

OLD PUTS COUNTRY

ONE of the most vigorously original and inter
esting characters of our colonial and Revolu
tionary days was General Israel Putnam. For
the greater part of his life he made his home at Pomfret,
Connecticut; and thither I journeyed drawn by the
lodestone of his fame, which the passing years have
enhanced rather than diminished. I knew nothing of
the place beforehand, except that on the map it looked
quite remote from everywhere, and I hoped to find it a
sleepy and rustic little town with a gentle flavor of the
long ago still lingering in its aspect and manner of life.
I arrived one windy and chilly evening in the month
of May, and climbed the long hill that led to the village.
It has a truly noble site on the hilltop, where it enjoys
the best of air and sweeping views in all directions.
But the old-time hamlet has been inundated with
summer residents from the cities, its former homes have
been either wiped out or rejuvenated beyond recogni
tion, and it was too garish and new and too mani
festly artificial to give unalloyed delight. I could not
find a single structure on Pomfret Hill that carried the
imagination back to the past. Even the ancient wooden
church had lost its robes of white and had been painted

242 Highways and Byways of New England
in modern colors to conform to the wishes of the pro
prietor of an adjacent hotel who wanted its tints to
match those of his hotel. The feature of the village
that I liked best was a big boys' school. The buildings
were pleasing, the situation on that high, tree-em
bowered hill was ideal, and the boy students enlivening
the neighborhood with their coming and going, and with
their sports on the playgrounds, had real charm.
There were two hotels, and I applied at one of them
for lodging. A lady who seemed to be the manager
regarded me suspiciously, made some inquiries about
my business, and politely yet firmly turned me away
with the excuse that they were doing some renovating
that made it inconvenient to receive guests just then.
I trudged off to the other hotel and entered the office.
At a roll-top desk in a corner sat the proprietor — a
stout and florid individual who was an epitome of well-
fed comfort. He was examining a bill very attentively
through a magnifying glass, and I awaited his leisure.
Finally he swung around and brought me into the
range of his vision and I proffered my request for lodg
ing. But he said he did not take transients. I told
him how I had fared at the other hotel and asked him
what I was to do. He did not know, but spoke of a
boarding-house where the barn help lodged, only he
believed that was full, and on the whole was inclined
to recommend that I seek the next town, seven miles
distant. So I left him. I had my doubts about the excuses

Making a rug

Old Put's Country 243
of these hotel people, and could only conclude that the
style in which I travelled was not to them satisfactorily
suggestive of opulence. My chief desire now was to
get off the hill and away from that modern hamlet of
wealth. The sun had set, and the mirk of night was
fast thickening, and I was increasingly anxious to find
shelter. Presently I accosted a man I met and told
him my experience. "I suppose," I said in conclusion,
"that I might go and spend the night in Putnam's
wolf den."
"Yes, you might," he responded; "but it wouldn't
be advisable. Them rocks harbor too many rattle
snakes. So the hotels wouldn't take you in? You'd
got the money to pay for your accommodation, hadn't
you? And no bugs or anything of that sort? Well,
I've known the proprietor of the second place you
applied at ever since he was a boy, and that man wants
the earth with a barbed wire fence round it. But I'll
tell you where you can get kept. You go right on along
this road to the third house and try there. You'll find
quite a family — the man has married a second time and
got some young children — kind of a rowen crop — but
he'll make room for you."
My chance acquaintance was right, and the shelter
for which I asked was granted. The "rowen crop"
had already gone to bed, but I sat and talked for a
while with my host. "Thirty-five or forty years ago,"
he said, "this was strictly a farming town, and up on
the hill was an old-fashioned church and a village of

244 Highways and Byways of New England
white or red farmhouses. Some of those old houses are
there yet; but they're a good deal like the Irishman's
shirt — he patched it till you couldn't see the original
cloth. Yes, the new owners have remodelled 'em, and
built on porte-cochers and the devil knows what so't
now they don't look anything like the houses they used
to be.
"A few of us outside of the village still farm. Our
worst trouble is in finding help. Seems as if everybody
had an idea of getting a living some other way than by
working for it. Wages are going up and the workers
are becoming more independent all the time. I hire
help a good deal, and yet I consider myself a laboring
man; for I work hard all day and nearly every day. I
think I can see both sides, and the feature of the case
to my mind is this — the relative positions of employer
and employed are much the same as that of a man to
his horses and oxen. If our beasts of burden knew
their strength we couldn't control 'em. Well, the
working-people are beginning to find out their power,
and often they ain't wisely led and just smash things.
It's created sort of an unnatural condition."
While we were talking he had a call at the telephone
and in responding to it I noticed that he inquired rather
solicitously after some one's health. When he hung up
the receiver he turned to me, saying, "I was speaking
with a house where there's an old lady nearly ninety.
She's been quite sick, and they thought she would die.
Her two daughters were a good deal flustered getting

Old Put's Country 245
the house ready for the funeral; but the old lady is
better, and she's got up and is bossing the job herself."
The next morning I started off to hunt up Putnam's
wolf den, which was two or three miles distant. The
same chilly, tempestuous wind I had encountered the
day before was blowing; yet the birds sang cheerfully,
and the swallows skimming low over the meadows
seemed not to mind either the gale or the cold. Nor
was I uncomfortable myself. The weather would have
to be very sharp indeed when one could not get warm
walking up hill and down dale among those billowy
uplands. Stone walls were the common fencing of the
region. They hemmed in the roadways and divided
the fields with their gray, lichened bulwarks, and the
ruddy-leaved poison ivy vines crept in and out of their
crevices, and other wild shrubbery throve along their
borders comparatively safe from the attacks of the
thrifty farmers. They were the castles, too, of the
mice and similar little creatures, though you might
scarcely suspect the presence of these inhabitants, they
so seldom showed themselves.
Fully two thousand people visit the den every year
and the route leading from the public way off to the
woodland in which it is located is a well travelled road.
"The visitors are from all over the country," one of the
local dwellers explained to me. "You ain't no idea how
far some of 'em come. In fact, those from a distance are
apt to take more interest than those whose homes are
close by. Now, my grandfather lived eighty-four years

246 Highways and Byways of New England
within a mile of the wolf den, and part of the time he
owned the land it was on; but he didn't care about it
and never went to see it."
The pilgrims to the wolf den usually go in teams, and
they can drive to within a few rods of it, and from the
hitching-place a multitude of feet have made a plainly-
marked trail that took me right to the spot. There I
stood before a black opening that went back into a
shattered ledge, and the great blocks of granite were
cleft so regularly and lay so well-arranged to form the
cavern that you would almost suspect it was the work
of some gigantic aboriginal builder.
The opening was about two feet wide, and high
enough to allow a man to crawl in on his hands and
knees; but the space between roof and floor became
more cramped farther in. The brown last year's leaves
lay strewn about outside, and a strawberry plant was
in bloom and a tuft of grass grew in gentle security at
the very mouth of the savage cavity. It was on a
rough, steep hillside thinly wooded with oaks that
sprang up from the rock-strewn earth. Boughs and
bushes were everywhere feathered with new leafage
which was tremulous with the wind soughing through
the forest. Except for the music of this sylvan harp
there was almost complete silence, though I recall a
woodpecker on one of the tree-trunks making a zigzag
study of the bark and tapping here and there in spots
that seemed promising. No doubt nature was just as
quiet in that far-gone time when the crowd of men and

The wolf den

Old Put's Country 247
boys gathered here to destroy the wolf that had been
driven into its lair.
Putnam had come to Pomfret in 1738 at the age of
twenty-two, shortly after his marriage. He did not
live on Pomfret Hill where I had been the evening
previous, but five miles south in the village of Brook
lyn. "In those days of comparative simplicity," one
of his biographers says, writing in 1846, "few of the
costly luxuries of the present day were known. The
hard and burdensome yoke of European fashion, which
grinds so many of us into the dust was not laid on the
colonies." It is no wonder then that a man of Putnam's in
dustry and energy should in a few years find himself
possessed of a comfortable and substantial home, his
clearings well fenced and cultivated, and his pastures
handsomely stocked. Like many of his neighbors
he had a flock of sheep, and in common with them he
suffered year after year from the ravages of a certain
she-wolf. They recognized their enemy by her foot
prints; for she had at some time been caught in a trap
and escaped by leaving the toes of one foot behind.
When too closely pursued to carry on her depredations
any longer with safety she would abandon the vicinity
altogether for the season. But she invariably returned
the ensuing winter, and at last Putnam entered into
an agreement with five of his neighbors to watch for
and follow the wolf until she was killed.
They began the pursuit immediately after a light fall

248 Highways and Byways of New England
of snow at the opening of the winter. Over the hills,
through forest and swamp they went to the banks of a
stream six miles distant. There the wolf turned and
made back directly to Pomfret and entered the now
famous den in the rocks. Here a guard was set, and a
crowd of men and boys assembled from the region
around with dogs and guns, straw and sulphur. A
fire was made in the mouth of the cave, but neither
smoke nor fumes had any effect — probably because they
escaped in the crevices before they penetrated to the
innermost recess where the wolf was.
The hours passed with various fruitless efforts until
it was nearly midnight, and then Putnam proposed to
take a torch and go into the cavern to investigate.
His neighbors remonstrated in vain. After fastening
a rope to one of his legs and ordering those outside to
pull him forth when he signalled by kicking, he stripped
off his coat and vest and, armed only with a torch,
crawled in at the opening. When he had advanced
about twenty feet he saw the glaring eyeballs of the
wolf at the farther end of the cavity, scarcely three
yards distant. He gave a hearty kick at the rope, and
his friends pulled him out in all haste, much to the
detriment of his clothes and person. But he got him
self into shape, took his gun and a fresh torch and again
entered the cave. As soon as he was near enough to see
the wolf distinctly he took aim and fired. The con
cussion and the smoke almost overpowered him, but
the crowd outside hauled him forth into the open air

Old Put's Country 249
where he quickly revived. Then for a third time he
entered the cave, where he found the wolf dead. So he
seized her by the ears, kicked the rope, and out he was
dragged with the wolf in his wake.
To see Putnam's home village I had to retrace my
steps and take another road — a more travelled way
than the one I had been pursuing, yet closely akin in
its bordering of stone walls and in its manner of going
up and over the big rolling hills. Neither for riding nor
walking was it at its best just then; for the town
scraper was at work on it, scooping out a deep depres
sion on each side and heaving up a steep, arched ridge
in the middle. The scraper left the surface compara
tively soft, and a fortnight's travel would be needed to
harden it. There were occasional farmhouses, but they
were as a rule so far apart that the country had a touch
of loneliness in its aspect. Once I startled a pair of
fat woodchucks in a wayside mowing lot, and they
scuttled off through the grass as fast as they could go.
A little farther on, a chipmunk who was trotting along
his own special highway, the stone wall, caught sight
of me and whisked into a cranny among the stones.
Then he turned about and watched me with alert-eyed
intentness. Brooklyn proved to be a tidy, mild little place on
the undulating lowlands. There were fine trees lining
the streets, and there was a grassy common on which
stood a slender-spired wooden church built considerably
more than a century ago. Putnam lived opposite the

250 Highways and Byways of New England
green, and for a time he kept his house as a tavern.
Some of the elms now growing on the street were
planted by him, and he helped build the church and
was its bell-ringer. His connection with the place
throws over it a certain halo of attraction, and even
without that the impression it makes is decidedly
pleasing. It is, however, suburban rather than rustic, and a
hired man with whom I chatted on the outskirts
explained the situation by saying, "The heft of the
people have got some money. But they didn't make it
themselves. It was all left to them. They mostly
cultivate a little land, though their doing so ain't
necessary, and they don't look to that for any profit.
They wouldn't get very fat if they had to farm. Yes,
they're well fixed, and it doesn't make any difference to
them whether school keeps or not. They sit around,
and eat, and ride out a little and take life easy gen
erally. But if you want to see a village where the people
are all rich go over to Pomfret Hill. That's a summer
resort, and the folks come and go a good deal like wild
geese. Some of 'em only stay a month. It's a stuck-up
place. I worked there one season, and I got enough of
it. They want you to work for small wages and are
just as tight as if they were poor. Our wealthy people
ain't throwing away any money. Some of 'em with a
good big pile never pay a bill if they can help it. I
know one man who's got all his property in his wife's

Schoolboys

Old Put's Country 251
name. Try to collect from him and he ain't worth a
cent, not one."
The field in which Putnam was ploughing when the
news of the battle of Lexington was brought to him
was some of his outlying land two miles from Brooklyn
up a hill toward Pomfret, adjoining the farm of Cap
tain Hubbard. He and the captain were ploughing
within call of each other that April day when the
mounted courier hastening along and beating a drum
at intervals, accosted them. Hubbard went to his home
which was near by, to make ready in an orderly man
ner to start for the scene of action. But Putnam merely
unyoked his oxen from the plough, bade one of his boys
who was with him go home and tell Mrs. Putnam where
he was gone, and then mounted his horse and dashed
away toward Boston.
"We had that plough of Putnam's on exhibition
here once," a Pomfret man told me; "and, by gosh!
when I saw it I didn't blame Putnam for leaving it in
the field. It wa'n't much but a crooked stick shod
with iron, and I'll be darried if I'd put it in the barn if
it was mine. But Putnam was clear grit. He was
always ready to act. You know how he risked his life
saving the burning powder magazine, and how he
galloped down the stone steps to escape the British.
He was just the same at home. There was one time he
owned a very fine bull that was ugly as sin. All the
neighbors were afraid of him; but once when Putnam
was going through the pasture and the bull acted

252 Highways and Byways of New England
threatening, he got mad at the creature. He caught
him by the tail, twisted it around a small tree so he
could hold him fast, and gave the animal a sound
drubbing with an ox goad. The bull bellowed and tore
up the ground, but couldn't get away till Putnam was
through with him, and the experience made him a good
deal more civilized for the future. That's the kind of a
man Putnam was."
The house in which the general spent his last years,
and in which he died, still stands. It is well up on a
lofty hill between Brooklyn and Pomfret, and though
it has been enlarged it continues to be a farmhouse and
preserves much of its original character both inside
and out.
When I was nearly back to my lodging place I stopped
to speak with a man who was lounging in the wayside
grass baiting his cows. Some schoolboys who hap
pened along at about the same time addressed him
familiarly as "Albert." They, however, showed no
intentional rudeness, for they were very nice little
fellows, and it was simply the habit of the region. The
man said he had as large and fine a farm as there was
in town, and he was soon telling me about his stock,
his dog, his garden and all the other things in which he
took pride.
"I suppose," I said presently, changing to another
topic, "that your roads here are too rough and the hills
too steep for automobiles."
"No," he replied, "they travel every road we've

Old Put's Country 253
got, and they're getting to be awful numerous, too.
We country people don't like 'em very much. They've
put too many good horses out of commission. Some
of our horses have got used to 'em, but others has to go
crosslots yet, and are liable to tear you up on top of a
stone wall, if they meet one sudden. The people running
the machines don't use much judgment. You notice
that square corner up the road a piece. I've seen 'em
comin' round there twenty miles an hour, and they
couldn't see ten feet ahead.
"I own one horse that ain't afraid of 'em a particle.
She wouldn't pay any attention if one was to blow up
right in front of her. There never was a gentler crea
ture. One time when I was drivin' her we got tipped
over into a snowbank, and she stopped at once and stood
stock still. One thill was on top of her back, and the
other between her legs. We had to unhitch to get the
sleigh right side up. There's nothing slow about her,
if she is gentle. Once I tried following an automobile,
and for three miles I kept her close behind, right in
that stink, with her nose rubbing on the shoulder of the
man in the automobile. When he looked around I'd
say, 'Get out of the way, or I'll run over your old box!'
"He never spoke till he reached the place he was
goin' to, and then he turned and said, 'You've got the
darndest horse I ever see.' "
It seemed to me that this man in his encounter with
the automobile showed something the same spirit that
Putnam did in taming his savage bull; and if the

254 Highways and Byways of New England
doughty general were alive in his prime now, I wonder
what he would do about these wild modern machines
that career over the Pomfret hills. But probably he
would not stay in the Pomfret environment of today.
His was a pioneer temperament, and he would more
likely be far away on some remote frontier.
Notes. — It is a hilly region on the extreme eastern borders of
the state. A few important roads are macadam. As to the others,
they are good, bad, and indifferent, but amends are made for any
difficulties of travel by the varied charm of the landscape. About
half way to Hartford is Willimantic, the "Thread City" and the
home of Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary hero.

XIV
SHAD TIME ON THE CONNECTICUT
IN colonial days shad were caught in great numbers
for more than one hundred and fifty miles up the
river. Now they scarcely get a third of that dis
tance, and comparatively few of them are taken even
at the best fishing-places. The season includes all of
May and the first ten days of June, a most delightful
portion of the year, and the employment is picturesque
and mildly adventurous. It appeals to the primitive
instincts in man, and though the diminishing financial
returns make the fishermen grumble, the fascination
of the work entices them back each year to the pursuit
of the finny treasures of the stream.
To see the fishing at its best I went one June day to a
village far down toward the mouth of the river. The
latter portion of the journey was made in the evening
on one of the large steamers that ply between Hartford
and New York, and I did not reach my destination
until ten o'clock. When I came forth from the brightly
lighted steamer out on a pier there seemed to be noth
ing in the surrounding space except the unfathomable
blackness of the night. But soon my eyes became
accustomed to the gloom, and I could dimly discern
buildings and trees and a clouded sky.

256 Highways and Byways of New England
I had chatted with one of the officers on the boat
about the region along shore, and he had said: "I'd
be afraid to ask for lodging after dark in most of these
country places. They'd be shootin' me for a chicken
thief." Fortunately this waterside village had a hotel near
at hand up a short, steep hill and it had not yet closed
its doors. There I found refuge.
The next morning I was out early, curious to learn
the character of the place in which I had stopped.
There was a little nucleus of stores and shops near the
wharves, and two or three roads wandered away in
different directions. The houses were tucked into all
sorts of nooks and perched on every convenient slope
and knoll. A short distance back from the river was
an abrupt and rocky hill that was for the most part
covered with woods. Trees abounded, too, in the vil
lage, and nature in general seemed luxuriant and
generous. There were farms on the outskirts, most of which
had fallen into the hands of Italians who labored on
them with an industry and effectiveness that the local
Yankees either had not the ability or ambition to rival.
They terrace the rocky slopes and raise grapes and
peppers. Some of the grapevines were tied to stakes or
trained to grow on wires strung to lines of posts, and
others are on overhead wires and form extensive arbors.
'It's a kind of Eyetalian grapes that they raise," a
village patriarch explained, "and those grapes do well

Shad Time on the Connecticut 257
here. Oh, golly, yes ! I measured one bunch that was
fifteen inches long. But they got a flavor I don't like,
and I let 'em alone though I naturally eat grapes by
the bushel. The Eyetalians press out the juice and
send it to New York to be made into wine. When
these people go off to spend the day working in their
fields they carry along a pitcher of wine, and some stale
bread that is so tough they can hardly bite it, and at
noon that wine and bread and some of their big green
peppers right off the vines are their dinner. There's
always macaroni in everything they cook. I don't care
for that. I never was fond of angleworms. They used
to raise a curious kind of beans that they cooked,
stems, stalks, pods, and all. The beans were so big
that one of 'em would make a mouthful. They grew
good here until the white fly raised the divil with 'em.
Those flies wasn't much more'n an eighth of an inch
long, but there'd be half a million on a single bean vine.
"The Eyetalians do take care of the ground and there
ain't no waste nowhere. Most of the land they culti
vate is rocky, but it's nothing like as bad as you find
on the farms seven or eight miles down the river. The
country there is all ledges and only fit to pasture sheep
on. Even then I guess the people have to steel point
the sheep's noses so they can get the grass."
Automobiles were often passing on the village roads,
and yet ox-teams were also much in evidence. Two
yoke of oxen were apt to draw the loads on the rougher
and steeper highways. If they stopped for any length

258 Highways and Byways of New England
of time in the village while the wagon was being loaded
or unloaded they would lie down and calmly chew their
cuds. I was told that one man who lived a few miles
back in the country was in the habit of hitching seven
or eight yoke of oxen to his wagon when he was bringing
lumber to the village, and it was affirmed that his
motive. power was economical because he drew "infernal
big loads." Another item of interest was that his oxen
were as "poor as Death's crows."
From the hotel piazza I could see a long stretch of
the river southward, placid and slow-flowing, and
bordered in places by marshes or meadows, but more
often by wooded slopes. Now and then a sturdy tug
ploughed its way up or down dragging a tow of coal
barges, sometimes a little sloop with canvas spread
was wafted along the water highway, and numerous
motor boats chug-chugged hither and thither.
From the piazza, too, I had a good view of a little
stream which loitered beneath some graceful, drooping
elms and joined the river just below. Its farther shore
was used by the shad fishermen for a landing place, and
there I visited with a number of them on the first morn
ing of my sojourn while they were taking the wet nets
from the sterns of their boats and spreading them on
poles a little back from the water to dry. It required
two men to a net. One stood on each side, and as they
shook out sticks and rubbish caught in the meshes, and
patiently untangled the snarls their tongues were busy
gossiping and chaffing. An elderly man whom the

Low tide

Shad Time on the Connecticut 259
others called "Harry" was perhaps the most com
municative in response to my questions. He had a full
gray beard and wore spectacles which slipped far down
on his nose. When he walked he limped about with a
cane, and he accounted for his lameness by saying that
the knuckle on his knee was broken.
"I'm seventy-six years old," he informed me, "and
the combined ages of me and my partner are one
hundred and fifty-four. I guess there ain't any shad
crew on the river any older. Two men is the crew for
a rowboat. When they go out to fish they take along a
dragnet that is from sixty to ninety rods long. The
nets cost forty dollars or more apiece and usually only
last one season. We have this job of cleaning and dry
ing 'em every morning. They scrape along on the
bottom, and you'd be surprised to see the stuff we bring
in. There's everything from a toothpick up to a saw
mill log, and there's clam shells and cinders and tin
cans, and one feller got a melodeon, or pieces of it, in
his net. That was after a big rain which washed away
some dams on a stream that flows into the river above
here. It took buildings and everything in its wake as
clean as a whistle.
"We only go out fishing at night. The shad would
see the net in the daytime and go round it like sheep
over a fence. When we slip the net off into the water
we fasten a tub with a lantern in it to the outer end,
and the boat is at the other end. All night we drift
with the tide. If the tide is running up we go down

260 Highways and Byways of New England
below half a mile and drop our nets. If the tide is
running out we start right off the dock, and during the
night the current and tide together carry us nearly two
miles downstream. It's time to go out just as soon as
a shade of darkness strikes the water. We take along
a jug of drinking water, and we carry a lunch that we eat
about midnight. Sometimes the wind blows like the
mischief and makes hard work for us, but on quiet
nights there's not much to do only to set in the boat
and chin with one another and swap lies. We have to
pick up our net if we see a power boat or a steamer
comin' in our direction. They have the right to the
channel, and some cap'ns and pilots will go right
through you, but there's others who will slow down.
A power boat cut our net in two last night. It was
running without lights, and if we can find out who the
feller in that boat was we'll fix him. We'll make a
complaint and his license will be taken away.
"Those power boats are a blame nuisance, and the
fellers who run 'em are the biggest set of ignoramuses
I've ever seen. They're darn fools, to speak politely
without slandering 'em. Here's one of them power
boats now goin' like blazes. It's got a funny-shaped
prow. Ha, ha! see the shovel-nose. He's a noisy one.
"Some fishermen load their boats with rocks, and if
a power boat acts mean they put out their lights and
heave the rocks at it.
"On Saturdays there's as many as three hundred
men goin' down in power boats to Saybrook. They'll

Shad Time on the Connecticut 261
tell you they're goin' to fish and get clams, but really
they're goin' to have a Sunday drunk. There are
clerks and mill-hands and farmers from all along up the
river as far north as Hartford. Others are sporting
men who have big boats and make a great splurge.
Sunday they go back strung along anywhere from
three in the afternoon to eleven at night, and they're
either makin' enough noise to scare the devil to death,
or else they're very quiet. Those that are quiet have
got their hides full.
"We quit fishing about four o'clock in the morning.
We know it's no use after daybreak, and it ain't much
use before. Me'n' my partner only got three shad last
night. When we come in with our boat we go home to
bed. If I git four hours sleep I'm satisfied. I used to
be a sailor, and I got the habit of having a little nap in
the afternoon. With the help of that nap it didn't
bother me any to stay up all night. You'll find that's
the way with all the old fellers who've been to sea."
" I don't feel as if I'd slept any for a week," one of the
younger men observed. He was puffing with sad-eyed
weariness at a cigaret. Several empty beer bottles lay
in the bottom of his boat. He took them out and said :
"Somebody put those in there. Supposing my wife
came here and see them! There'd be trouble right
away, wouldn't there, Grumpy?"
"That's bloody mean, Dan, to put bottles in your
boat," Grumpy commented. "It's as much as to say
you drink."

262 Highways and Byways of New England
"Well," Dan resumed, "a little sloop lay down at
the wharf here last night. It was loaded with clams,
and some of us from the village was in it till one o'clock
eatin' raw clams and drinkin' beer. We was cussed
fools. I started with three bottles of beer in front of
me and one in my hand, and I emptied 'em all. When
I got home I didn't dare go in the house. So I lay down
in the woodshed on some shavings. Early in the morn
ing I slipped away, and I haven't been back yet. I
don't know whether my wife will give me any break
fast or not. If she won't I'll go to the hotel and buy a
sandwich." I asked Grumpy how he got his nickname.
"When I was a kid," he said, "there was an old man
who used to trot me on his knee and give me candy and
sing songs to me. He was always makin' rhymes, and
one of his rhymes that I was very fond of was this :
"Old Grumbo Chaff lived in the wood;
He e't all the boys and girls he could.
Some he greased and swallowed whole,
And he lived so long he swallowed the world.
"That's where I got my nickname. It should be
Grumbo, but people call me Grump or Grumpy."
"Your boat didn't come in when the others did this
morning," Harry remarked.
"No," Grumpy responded, "our net caught on a
thundering big stump. We got hung up and had to

Shad Time on the Connecticut 263
wait till the tide turned. While we were waiting I
went on shore and slept in the mud under the root of
a tree." "Not all of us use drag nets," Harry said to me.
"Some tie bricks on along the bottom of the net so the
tide and current won't carry it along. There's one
man puts in a net that way just across the river, and
he's got a tent on the shore. He sits in the tent at
night and rests a little and peeks out once in a while
so if any steamboat or motor boat is coming he can go
and pick up the net."
" Shad fishing is a hard life any way you're a min' to
fix it," Grumpy declared. "You want to wear your
oldest clothes because it'll spoil 'em, and you want lots
of 'em because the nights are cold. However, there's
money in fishing if you get a good ketch."
Every now and then the men would come across a
snarl in their nets that they called a twizzle, and often
a good deal of time and patience were required to pick
and shake it out. "All sorts of fish make twizzles,"
Dan said. "Sometimes a little alewife will make one
of the meanest sort."
During the morning rowboats were arriving from
points up and down the river bringing shad to a neigh
boring dock, and each new arrival was sure to be greeted
with the query, "How'd they run this time?" None
of the fishermen had caught enough to brag about.
"It's like this," one man explained; "the shad go in
shoals together, and if one boat has a good ketch they

264 Highways and Byways of New England
all do. I call it a poor season. The boats come in with
ten or twelve shad. That's about a third less than last
year. We never do as well in a Democratic adminis
tration. There was a poor run of shad when Cleveland
was president, same as there is now that Wilson is in.
It seems like a put up job."
The men in the boats tossed the shad up into a large
shallow box when they were washed, and afterward
they were packed in ice to send away. While this work
was going forward a villager came and wanted to buy
a "good" shad.
Harry turned to me and remarked: "I ain't seen a
decent shad this morning. Half of 'em have thrown
their spawn, and after that they're as rank as sow pig
meat. But they sell good to the greenhorns in the cities.
When I go past a house where they're cookin' shad I
can tell by the smell whether it's spawned. If they're
cookin' eels I hold my nose till I get by. Yes, eels are
pretty bad to my smeller. People say they are good
eatin', but they ain't good for me. As for shad, you
won't ketch no fisherman to eat even a roe shad, not
unless it's salted. Give me a good buck shad every
time. Say, you may laugh at me, but let me tell you
how to cook a shad right. First split him open. Some
take the backbone out, but that cuts off too many
fine bones. Don't forgit to salt and pepper him. Then
take a frying pan and cover the bottom with pork
sliced thin. Lay your fish onto the pork and put more
pork on top of him. You need a few spoonfuls of water

Shad Time on the Connecticut 265
in the pan so he won't stick on. Cover the pan up and
shove it in the oven. In half an hour pour on a little
cream and leave the pan in the oven with the cover off.
When the fish is nicely browned add more water and
ten minutes later take him out and eat him, and if you
don't say that's the best shad you ever e't tell me I
don't know how to cook. It'll make your mouth
water." In the afternoon I sat on the hotel piazza looking off
over the river. A door at the far end of the piazza gave
entrance to an odorous bar-room where the fishermen
and others did much guzzling and loud talking, and
presently a weazened little old man came forth, stopped
before me, and regarded me quizzically. "Ain't you a
lawyer?" he asked.
When I told him I was not he slapped me on the
shoulder and said: "I'm glad of it. There's too many
of 'em. I never saw you before, and I may never see
you again, but there's worse fellers than you be, I'll
bet. One of our village girls married a Southern man,
and they come here to visit after a year or two. We'd
understood he was a poor man, but they seemed to be
prosperin' and when we asked her about it she said,
'We're livin' on other folks' quarrellin' and gettin'
along very well.' He was a lawyer, don't you see?
There was an Irishwoman here who always used to
speak of him in her brogue as a 'liar;' and she wasn't
so very far wrong either, hey? That's what a lawyer
is, most generally. Well, I've been in there (he pointed

266 Highways and Byways of New England
with his thumb toward the bar-room), and I'm a little
bit exhilarated, but that's straight what I said about
the lawyers. Shake hands. Good-by."
Shortly afterward Harry joined me and sat down to
visit. He was too old to have regular employment,
but he did odd jobs in the village and gravitated around
in the vicinity of the bar-room. While we talked he
chewed, and at regular intervals he got up and hobbled
with his cane to the edge of the piazza to spit.
"I've lived alone ever since my wife died seven years
ago," he said. "My children have been urgin' me to
come and live with them, but I don't see it that way.
For instance, one of 'em lives in New Haven, and I'd
as lief be in Tophet as in the city. There's too much
noise and too much stink. I want to be among the
trees where there's birds. I want to live as I want to
live and cook to suit myself.
"The birds and the other little wild animals git very
tame around my place. The sparrows — good Lord!
they come right into the house. Some robins build in
the grapevine at my back door. If I put my hand in
their nest to feel whether there's eggs or young birds in
it the old robins scold me, but I tell 'em, ' I ain't goin'
to hurt you.'
"Two little birds that sing like katydids comes every
year 'bout the first of July and set on the clothesline
and sing to me. They're kind of a bronze color and
ain't much bigger'n my thumb. I can hold out a plate
with cracker crumbs on it and they'll eat off it.

Comparing fish

Shad Time on the Connecticut 267
"I've got an educated cat that I raised from a kitten.
He is maltese and white. I say, 'Chub, you rascal!
you do so and so;' and he does it. If I tell him to say
his prayers he'll set right up on his stern and drop his
paws and his head down. When he asks for grub he
sets up and makes his paws go. A woman school teacher
was callin' on me one day and tellin' that animals had
got no reason. We had quite an argument. Chub
lay on the grass near by, and after a while I called to
him and said, "Walk up and shake hands with the
lady.' "He came to her and shoved out his paw the first
thing, and she said, 'I give in.'
"Once I showed Chub the hole of a ground mole in
a neighbor's garden and says, 'Now you ketch that
ground mole,' and he stayed there until he caught it.
He didn't eat it. Moles are poison to a cat, and I don't
know of any animal that'll eat 'em.
"Last night, after I got home from fishing, I hadn't
been asleep long when Chub woke me up. He and
another cat were in the yard makin' a great noise. I
went out to see what was the matter, and there was
Chub settin' up cuffin' the other cat's ears. He knocked
him galley west. Then I cuffed Chub's ears and sent
him in the house.
"I c'n remember things when I was a kid only four
years old. It was at that age I had the whooping
cough, and I had it terribly, I tell you! There was a
brook near the house, — a regular trout brook, shallow

268 Highways and Byways of New England
and gravelly. The suckers would foller up it to git to
a still spot to lay their spawn, and I used to wade in
after 'em. That spring when I was coughin' I ketched
a big sucker in the brook — just grabbed him. I got
wet from head to foot, but I was goin' to git that
sucker, whether or no. I hugged him right up in my
arms, and I can see that sucker's face now lookin' up
into mine. He was a big one — oh, golly yes! — must
have weighed two pound.
"But as I was comin' out of the water with him my
sister ketched me, and then I certainly was in a pickle.
She called me a mushrat and give me a slammin'. I
don't know what become of the sucker, but I know I
got the lickin', and in less'n an hour I was in that brook
again. Now they won't let a child with the whooping
cough git his feet wet or anything else. But I guess I
was in that brook every day until finally they tied me
up in the house.
"A few years ago a boy not much older'n I was then
made quite a business ketchin' suckers in that brook.
He'd wade in and throw 'em out. They're a lazy sort
of fish anyway. I've seen him line the bank with 'em.
He sold what he could, and left the rest on the bank to
stink. At last the neighbors stopped him. They had
to. They couldn't stand it.
"My father was what was called a master of the
square and compass. He could do all joiner work, and
I learned his trade. I was quick of eye and quick of
hand, but up to the time I was twenty years old ninety-

Shad Time on the Connecticut 269
six pounds was the most I'd ever weighed in my life.
They used to call me the Runt; and yet later I got to
be the biggest of the family. Yes, there was fourteen
of us children, and I was the largest of the lot. When
I was a young man I wore my hair long — just had a
notion to wear it that way, but one day an older brother
and another feller got me down and tied me and
sheared my hair all off. My godfrey! They didn't
leave it an inch long.
"That made me a little mad, and I swore I wouldn't
have my hair cut again by them nor nobody else for
five years. Then I slid out and went to New London,
and I wasn't there but a few days when I got a chance
to go to sea. I was a sailor from that time on until I
was nearly forty. My longest voyage was up the
Amazon after nuts, rubber, and wild animals. I kept
out of reach of them animals. But I got a little monkey
for myself. They had the smallest monkeys there I
ever see. Mine wa'n't half the size of a cat. I caught
him by boring a hole in a box just big enough for him
to git his hand through and putting a lump of sugar
inside. That's the way to ketch monkeys. They grab
the sugar and then can't draw their hand out, but they
won't never let go of it. I had my monkey with me
for two or three trips. Then I sold him. It got to be
too much of a nuisance waiting on him.
"After I'd been to sea five years I landed in New
York, and I went into a barber shop and got sheared
and shampooed. It was a great fashion then among

270 Highways and Byways of New England
all sailors to wear their hair long and keep it rolled up
under their caps. Mine never bothered me only once
in a while when it got full of water. The barber un
rolled my hair and it hung down to the small of my
back. He was a wigmaker, and he told me he'd give
two dollars for it and throw in a new collar and a
necktie. Says I, 'Git at it, mister;' and I didn't let
it grow long again.
"Twenty years ago we couldn't have set here half
an hour lookin' down on the river without seein' the
sturgeon leap. They'd leap clean out of the water,
gosh, yes! and fall back on it — spat! But they're
'bout gone now. The biggest one I ever see was
ketched right across the river here. My Lord! he
measured sixteen feet long and weighed five hundred
or more. Well, sir, that was close to sixty years ago.
My father bought a chunk of it — paid three cents a
pound. I tasted it, and I know I've never wanted any
sturgeon since. They're too oily for me.
"We used to have salmon in the river, but I ain't
seen any lately. They don't like this water now. It's
too slimy and dirty and foul, but there was a time when
it was as nice, sweet water as you'd want to drink.
Whaleships would come up here to git water to carry
to sea. Now they might fill their oil casks if they dis
tilled it a little. The power boats make filth, and so do
the mills. Some of the best trout streams in the state
have been spoiled by drainage from shops built along side.
Trout don't mind sawmills, but they can't stand oil.

Shad Time on the Connecticut 271
"Along 'bout 1880 the government stocked the river
with salmon and they got to be quite plenty. We'd
ketch 'em every night in our hauling seines, and people
were crazy for 'em. They'd pay dollar and a quarter
a pound for those caught the first of the season, and
the price never went below forty cents. I've had my
dinner, but I could eat a good big hunk of salmon right
now. Shad can't commence the same year with it.
"I love to ketch black bass. Usually we troll for
'em. When you hook one he'll go to the bottom and
then come up and jump out of the water. If he gits
any slack line he'll jerk the hook out. Oh, they're
spunky and fight like a steer. Some fellers caught a
striped bass here in a seine net once that weighed ninety
pounds, and they stuffed pebbles down his throat until
they made him weigh a hundred.
"There used to be three hundred shad-hauling seines
between here and Saybrook Bar. Now I don't know
of one. A seine would reach clear across the river.
The fishermen wouldn't go out without ketchin' one
hundred and fifty or two hundred shad in them days.
Once I see sixteen hundred drawn out. In that haul
there was one shad which weighed nine and a half
pounds. That's 'bout as large as they grow. I've
heard of 'em weighin' twelve pounds, but darned if I
believe it."
About this time Grumpy came loitering to where we
sat on the piazza. "Is it hot this afternoon?" he asked;
and when we replied in the affirmative he said, "That's

272 Highways and Byways of New England
the way I feel, but I didn't know but 'twas the gin
that's in me."
"I can hear a quail callin'," Harry remarked. "We
don't have them very plenty now. Folks tell 'bout
hard winters and foxes, but that's not what has
cleaned 'em out. There's too many good guns and too
many good dogs. I can remember when they'd come
right into our yards and feed with the chickens and
hens." "A little quail is lively and clever just as soon as he's
hatched," Grumpy affirmed. "He'll run off with a
shuck on his tail, and if you undertake to reach for him
he'll hide before you can get him."
"I saw a loon this morning," Harry said. "Every
once in a while we ketch one that has got into our nets
diving." "You know when you get one all right," Grumpy
commented. "He'll tell you all about it. They holler
so you can hear 'em forty miles."
"Oh! they got an awful scream in 'em," Harry
agreed. " I used to could mimic 'em. When we ketch
one we make him fast in the boat and bring him on
shore to have some fun. You have to be careful hand
ling 'em. They got a bill as sharp as a needle. If they
hit you they leave a sore every time. One night an
other feller and me took a loon to the upper landing
where there was a young ladies' seminary. We had a
muffler on him, but when we was on the green right in
front of the school we slipped it off. He fetched 'bout

Shad Time on the Connecticut 273
three yells, and if we didn't see ghosts up at them win
dows don't ask any questions!"
"I put a loon in old Gus Farley's fish box once,"
Grumpy said. "By and by Gus come to put his shad
in the box, and as soon as he lifted the cover the loon
commenced to holler, and Gus run. Gee whiz! you
bet he did. Most any one would to hear that noise
right in their face.
" Snapping turtles are another thing that make some
excitement for us. We caught a big one night before
last. He'd torn two or three holes in the net big enough
to drive a horse and wagon through before we got him
into the boat. His head was as large as my two fists,
and he must have weighed thirty or forty pounds. We
was soon sorry that we had him. He was raisin' the
dickens in the boat, and after a while he got hold of the
toe of my shoe. How that son of a gun did hang! I
couldn't get loose until I run my jackknife into his jaw.
I killed him and threw him overboard."
"You ought to have harnessed him and then he'd
have stayed still," Harry said. "Put a cord through
his mouth and tie it under his tail and you've got him.
You could have sold him for good money. Turtles are
fine eating. They got chicken meat and veal and all
kinds of meat in 'em.
"Most every spring I find some of their eggs. They
dig a hole a few inches deep in dry sand and lay thirty
or forty eggs that they leave for the heat of the sun to
hatch. The skunks dig the eggs out and eat 'em

274 Highways and Byways of New England
quicker'n powder. When the little turtles hatch they're
'bout as big as a silver half dollar and blind as a bat.
Their eyes ain't open more'n a kitten's, but they know
the way to the water and start for it right off. The
turtles crawl into spring holes and spend the winter
'bout a foot down in the mud, and fellers hunt for 'em
and pull 'em out with something like a meathook
fastened to a six foot handle. I caught nine that way
once out of one spring hole, and I guess the smallest
would weigh fifteen pounds."
"I think a carp struck our net last night," Grumpy
observed. "Anyhow it made a thundering splash. I
don't like the rascals."
"There's some terrible big ones in the river here,"
Harry commented. "They're a specie of sucker, and
darn coarse grain and darn coarse tastin'. Oh! they're
miserable eatin', but the Jews and Germans go for 'em
like sin. I just as soon eat a piece of mud. They say
the way to do with a carp is to dress it all up in good
shape and stuff it with shavings and cook it; then
throw away the carp and eat the shavings."
"They're a handsome fish just the same," Grumpy
affirmed, "and they got a back on 'em like an ox. I
saw one near my boat the other day that I should say
weighed twenty-five pounds. He had his nose down
and was rooting right along in the mud like a pig in a
manure pile. The water was shallow and I reached
down to ketch him. But he gave a plunge that very
near upset the boat. You might as well attempt to

Shad time on the Connecticut

Shad Time on the Connecticut 275
hold a horse as to hold a carp when he gets started.
However, if I'd got my two hands under him I'd have
h'isted him out all right. The last one we caught I sold
to a bear of a Jew who lives across the river. He was
bound to have it. 'But I got no money today,' he
said. 'I pay you Saturday.'
" 'If you don't I'll send Bill Russell, the sheriff after
you,' I told him.
"How a carp will thump with his tail after you get
him in your boat! If there's a little water in the bottom
you'll think it's raining for a while. One night me'n'
Hen, my partner, was on the spawning ground where it
was against the law to be, and we caught a carp. He
was a monster, and as soon as his tail got goin' you
could hear him a mile. That wouldn't do, for we can't
never tell when the fish officers will come around. Hen
stepped on the carp to keep him still and almost got
tipped overboard. Then we grabbed him and shoved
him into the cubby at the bow. I thought he'd pound
it to pieces, but he didn't make so much noise. We put
out three ten-rod nets that night and got more than
two hundred shad. They made such a load that the
sides of the boat wasn't two inches out of water. We
use pieces of old last year's net when we go fishin' up
the cove where we're not supposed to go, so even if the
fish warden ketches us and takes 'em away we wouldn't
feel very bad."
"Well," Harry said, "the shad season will soon end,
but I'm goin' to ketch enough afterward to salt down

276 Highways and Byways of New England
half a barrel for my own use. The fishermen here, too,
always make a drift on the third of July to git a shad
to eat on the Fourth. A year ago I told the fish warden
I was goin' to ketch a Fourth of July shad, and he said,
"Well, by ginger! if one was hung on my door there'd
be money comin' for it sometime.'
"He got his shad. I've seen 'em caught as late as
the seventh of September, but they was hard lookin'
subjects. After the shad have spawned they return
to the sea. We ketch 'em on the back side of the net
now. Farther down the river lots of fish are caught
in pounds and fike nets. A law was passed against
such fishing ten years ago, but soon afterward it was
modified to allow the fishermen to wear out their nets,
and those nets ain't worn out yet. They're like the
Irishman's knife — it had had six new blades and two
new handles, but he said it was the same knife his
father used. The mesh of the nets is small, and they
ketch lots of little shad six or eight inches long goin'
down the river in the fall. Those little shad ain't good
for anything but mackerel bait. It's a wonder that any
shad git up here considering all the nets there are in
the river down below, but they're sly and slippery, and
if it wasn't for the pounds and fikes and the fishing on
the spawning grounds there'd be as many as ever.
"The biggest mystery we have is little eels the length
of your finger. For about a week the last of May there's
a strip of 'em four or five feet wide going up the river
near the shore on each side, and you can't turn 'em

Shad Time on the Connecticut 277
down. They go along just as thick as they can swim,
almost, and millions of them little fellers go by in a
day. Every kind of fish swallow 'em. If they all
matured you could walk across the river on eels."
One day I went back inland a few miles through the
woods to the little manufacturing village of Moodus.
It is in a hilly region which furnishes excellent water-
power, and a dozen small factories dotted the irregular
valleys. The mills are always running, and good times
or bad times make no difference. Most of their owners
live in the place, and chief among them is a man of
whom a local resident said: "He wears a straw hat
winter and summer. Sometimes, after a good nice
shower, he'll take off his shoes and stockings and walk
around. Well, I tell you it's healthy to get the feet
aired out. If his help ask for more pay he'll say:
'Look how poor I am. I have to go barefoot same as
you.' But he's worth at least half a million, and he
ain't got chick nor child to spend his money. That
man ain't goin' to the poorhouse very soon."
My visit to Moodus was made largely because of a
peculiar fame it has for noises. Indeed, its original
Indian name was Mackinmoodus, which means, the
place of noises. Strange subterranean sounds commonly
spoken of as "Moodus Noises" have been heard in the
region from time immemorial. The town's first
minister, writing in 1729 says: "As to earthquakes I
have something considerable and awful to tell. Earth
quakes have been here, and nowhere but in this precinct.

278 Highways and Byways of New England
I have been informed that in this place, before the Eng
lish settlements, the Indians drove a prodigious trade
at worshipping the devil. Many years past an old
Indian was asked the reason of the noises. He replied
that the Indian's god was very angry because the Eng
lishman's god was come here.
"There are no eruptions or explosions, but sounds
and tremors which sometimes are very fearful. I have
myself heard eight or ten sounds successively, imitating
small arms, in the space of five minutes. I suppose I
have heard several hundred of these within twenty
years. Sometimes we have heard them almost every
day. Oftentimes I have heard them coming down from
the north imitating slow thunder, until the sound came
near, and then there seemed to be a breaking, like the
noise of a cannon shot, which shakes the houses and all
that is in them."
A citizen of a century later declares that the shock
given to a dwelling "is the same as the falling of logs
on the floor," and that any earthquake felt in Con
necticut was "far more violent here than in any other
place." He says of one which occurred at ten o'clock
in the night of May 18th, 1791 : "Here the concussion
of the earth, and the roaring of the atmosphere were
most tremendous. Consternation and dread filled every
house. Many chimneys were untopped and walls
thrown down. It was a night to be remembered."
I inquired particularly about these noises of two men
who were sitting on the post office piazza. "We still

Shad Time on the Connecticut 279
have one once in a while," the older man said. "The
ground shakes and there's a noise like a cannon going
off or a rumblin' like thunder. It woke me up once in
the night and the dishes were rattling on the buttery
shelves. You remember old Hardy, don't you, Fred?"
"Yes," the younger man replied, "he gave me a
horse-whipping one time when I was a boy."
"Well," the older man resumed, "he tells of being
at work on the medder one day when the ground shook
so strong that it brought the cattle down on their knees.
The noises are made by gas and dead air exploding
underground. They start a mile and a half from here
on Cave Hill. Right in the side of that high hill there's
a cave you can walk into for about forty rods. You
can keep going until the air gets so stagnant that your
light goes out. Then it's time for you to start back."
"We use to have quite a famous drum corps here,"
Fred remarked, "and some one made up a piece of
poetry about that and the Moodus earthquake. The
words were:
'A man from Texas tall and stout
Stuck up his nose and hollered out,
"Oh, what is that infernal noise?"
'Twas nothing but the Drum Corps boys.' "
In the evening when I returned to the riverside village
the fishermen were bestirring themselves in prepara
tion for the night's fishing, but there was much con-

280 Highways and Byways of New England
templation and talking in proportion to action and
accomplishment. The old men were smoking their
pipes and the young men were puffing cigarets, and all
were swearing good-naturedly with every breath. They
piled the nets in the stern of the boats, put in tubs and
lanterns, rubber boots and extra coats, and then rowed
their boats one by one leisurely away down the river.
Harry and his grizzled partner were the last to leave.
As the former stepped into their craft he said: "We'll
go out as soon as the clouds git through showin' red.
The gnats are bad tonight. Confound the little rascals !
They git into your hair and eyes and ears. The mos
quitoes, by gosh! are out too. One is buzzing around
me now. I'll shoot him on the wing if he don't keep
away," and the old man brought his hands together
before his face with a sudden slap. "But there's noth
ing we have here to compare with the Spanish Flies
down on the Amazon. Mosquitoes are nowhere. Bite
— Jerusalem! don't say a word; and if you smash 'em
they raise a blister on you. How plain you c'n hear
them toads and frogs a-squawkin' in the meadow across
the river! The frogs are the males, and the toads are
the females. Well, we'll start now."
The boat slipped away through the dusk, and when
I looked down the river the fishermen's lights dotted
the gloomy water as far as I could see.
Notes. — One can travel on state macadam all the way down the
valley from Hartford to Long Island Sound. Perhaps the most
satisfying way to make the trip is by water in a motor boat. There

Shad Time on the Connecticut 281
is much of interest in all the old towns along shore. Hartford is
especially rich in attractions. The place was settled in 1635, and
four years later the first colonial constitution was written for this
Connecticut colony. A tablet marks the site of the Charter Oak in
the hollow of which the document was hidden in 1687 to save it
from being seized by the English. Nearly a century later it served
as the model for the United States Constitution. The Charter Oak
was thirty-three feet in circumference when it was blown down in
1856. The tombstone of General Putnam can be seen in the capitol,
and there hangs in the senate chamber the celebrated Stuart portrait
of Washington, bought by the state in 1800 for less than eight hun
dred dollars. Hartford was for many years the residence of Harriet
Beecher Stowe and of Mark Twain.

XV

GLIMPSES OF LIFE
IN this chapter I have gathered together certain
fragments that touch on various picturesque, typical,
or humorous phases of New England life. Some of
them are mere anecdotes, and some are comparatively
long narratives of travel experiences, but none of them
fit naturally into the other chapters.
It was midsummer. The day was hot and muggy.
I was walking among the hills. There were workers in
the hayfields. Boys were swimming in the ponds and
in the deep pools of the streams. Most of the wayside
homes were slicked up for summer boarders, and the
boarders themselves in their semi-rural, keep-cool
costumes were lolling about on piazzas and under the
shade trees and loitering along the highways and row
ing on the lakes.
I stopped at a village store and sat down to rest.
Presently a young chap came in and bought from the
clerk fifty cents' worth of sugar, a package of fine-cut
tobacco, and a little candy. He soon left, but shortly
afterward returned accompanied by his father, mother,
and sister. The man spoke angrily to the clerk, saying:
"I sent here for ten pounds of sugar, and the package

After dandelion greens

Glimpse of Life 283
my boy brought back was so small I weighed it. There
was only eight pounds."
"That was fifty cents' worth — just what your son
asked for," the clerk responded.
"But I sent money for ten pounds," the man de
clared, and then turned to the boy and said, "You
paid it to him, didn't you, Charlie?"
"Ye-es," the youngster mumbled with averted eyes.
The father again glared at the clerk and said: "You
got the money. Why didn't you put up the ten pounds
of sugar ? "
"I been workin' in this store three years," was the
clerk's response, "and I know the difference between
ten pounds of sugar and fifty cents' worth as well as
any one, and I tell you I gave your boy just what he
asked for. He said he wanted fifty cents' worth, and
a bag of Little Hatchet Tobacco, and the rest in
chocolates." "That's a likely story!" the man exclaimed.
"Charlie don't use tobacco."
"I don't care anything about that," was the clerk's
comment. "He asked for it, and it aint the first
tobacco he's got here either."
"Now, Charlie, don't you tell no lie," his sister
cautioned. She was red-headed and keen-witted.
"Did you get that tobacco, and are you makin' cigarets
on the sly?"
Charlie's head sank lower, and his hesitating affirma
tive was scarcely audible.

284 Highways and Byways of New England
"Well, well, we'll see about this," the father said.
He blew his nose violently and then shuffled out of the
store with his family following, and I watched them as
they walked dejectedly up the elm-shadowed street
toward their home.
The next day I was in a town which is a favorite
resort of rich city people and there I hired a liveryman
to take me out into the surrounding country that I
might see some of the fine estates of the millionaires
who have dotted the region with their summer palaces.
As we passed one of the mansions my companion said :
"The man who lives there sent a horse to town one day
to be auctioned. He said the horse was all right, and I
bought him, but on the way home it ran away with me.
I drove back to the auction stable and told the auctioneer
what had happened. 'Of course you can return the
horse,' he said. 'I don't know what the man could
mean by guaranteeing an animal like that.'
"The morning afterward the owner met me at the
post office. 'Well, Dowd,' he said, 'you've ruined your
reputation as a horseman, going back on a bargain the
way you did.'
" 'And you've ruined your reputation as an honest
man, if you ever had one,' I told him.
" 'Don't you talk like that to me,' he growled.
"I went out, and he soon followed and overtook me
on the sidewalk. 'You mustn't speak to me again in
a public place the way you did in the post office,' he
said.

Getting in hay

Glimpse of Life 285
" 'Where do you want me to speak to you like that —
in some cellar?' I asked.
" 'You mustn't at all!' he exclaimed.
" 'Very well,' I said, 'then don't have anything to say
to me, you lying rascal!'
" 'What!' he cried, growing red in the face, 'you, a
common stableman, speaking like that to me, a gentle
man! I won't stand it!'
"He made a rush and struck at me with his fist,
but I dodged and then got in a blow myself that carried
him off his feet. However, he was quickly up and
rushed again to the attack. That time he got a black eye.
" 'What sort of a country is this,' he shouted, 'that
allows a stableman to strike a gentleman? Don't you
do so anymore!'
" 'Then keep your hand down,' I told him.
"He saw that he was no match for me, and he turned
away muttering vengeance. But he never did anything.
When we meet I look at him squarely, but he turns
away his face."
The winter had been an unusually snowy one, and
the spring was backward. But at length the snow
melted, the grass thrust up valiant spears of green, the
tree buds put off their armor, the roads dried, and I
started on a buckboard journey to the hill country.
No sooner, however, did I leave the lowlands than I
began to encounter mud, and as I went higher I found
shreds of the winter's snowy garments.

286 Highways and Byways of New England
The sun had set and the gloom of night was deepen
ing when I stopped at a farmhouse to apply for shelter.
I went to the barn where a stable door was open.
Within was pitchy darkness, but I could discern the
sound of milk streaming into a pail and I ventured a
salutation and got a reply. It was soon arranged that
I should stay for the night, and when my horse had
been made comfortable the farmer led the way to the
house. The family sat down to supper, and after the
man had asked a long blessing we fell to eating the fried
ham and potato and hot biscuits with an accompani
ment of delicious maple syrup made on the place.
Finally there was pie. The man polished his plate with
his knife in the time-honored rustic fashion. When
his wife spoke of him to any one else she called him
"he." They both had high-keyed, gentle nasal voices.
After supper I joined the family and two cats and two
dogs around the briskly burning fire in the kitchen stove
and chatted away the evening.
I was awakened the following morning by a lone
bird that was carolling near my window. When I was
again on the road the sun shone clear in the east, but
the air was keen, the ground was frozen stiff, and the
snow was hard enough to walk on. Noon came and I
stopped for dinner at a shabby little home on a moun
tain top. It had broken windows stuffed with rags, the
food that was served was poor, and the milk tasted of
the barnyard.
Presently I resumed my journey. The rough descend-

Glimpse of Life 287
ing way was crossed by many thank-you-ma'ams and
in places was so icy that the horse sat down and slid.
There were drifts too. Some were five or six feet deep
and I should have been shipwrecked in them if a pas
sage had not been opened by shovellers. The natives
calculated that the last of them would not disappear
before June.
In the midst of one of the drifts the road made so
sharp a turn that I stopped to consider the situation,
and the horse took advantage of the opportunity to go
to sleep. Finally I got out, lifted around the back end
of the vehicle, and went on. Soon I found that the
trail led me from the drifted highway into a pasture
waste of soggy moss through which many wheels had
ploughed a wide track of deep, sticky mud. At times
I thought I was going to be engulfed, and then I tried
the mossy borders, but there, though the wheels cut in
less deeply, the vehicle pitched about so over the hillocks
that I was glad to get back into the slough.
Among the places that I passed through on this trip
were Scrabbletown, Fog Hill, Larrywog, and Podunk.
As to the last an Indian named Dunk once fell off a
bridge there in the early days and was drowned. The
whites spoke of him as "Poor Dunk," and the bridge
as "Poor Dunk's Bridge," and so the vicinity in time
came to be called Podunk. Then there was Pilfershire,
so named because a certain set of fellows there was not
above stealing, and it was a common saying that every
body who passed through lost something. Gradually

288 Highways and Byways of New England
the local dwellers reformed, but the name stuck, much
to their sorrow, until, in desperation, they painted a
big rock near the highway red and called the village
Red Rock.
One morning I started to climb what was known as
"the Notch Road" that led far up a mountain, but
rain began to fall, and when I came out on an exposed
hill the wind made my umbrella flap and snap, and the
rain swept past in sheets. I hastened the horse, and
when I arrived at a group of farm buildings I drove
under a shed. Then I went to the house, but before I
could rap at the door a kind old lady opened it and said,
"Come right in out of this dreadful storm."
She made me very comfortable by the kitchen stove
and brought a pan of apples from the cellar with which
to regale me. The room was rather primitive. Its
floor was much worn, and there were wide cracks be
tween the boards. The lower half of the walls was
sheathed, and the upper half was unpapered plaster,
a good deal broken. The ceiling was very grimy.
Hooks along the walls served for hanging up towels, a
variety of clothing, and a mop. My hostess wore a big
hood on her head and a cape over her shoulders. Pres
ently she sat down in a chair by the stove and churned
in a tall earthen jar with an up and down paddle. Every
time the paddle went down bits of cream leaped out
till the floor around was plentifully decorated.
After the butter came she went to a window, wiped
a place on the misted glass, and peered out. "I'm

On the border of the lake

Glimpse of Life 28g
expecting my son," she said. "He's a milkman. He
has to be up at five every morning, and it's a slave's
life. Some people here on the mounting ship their milk
to Bostown. Yas, a good many doos that way, but for
years we've drawed ourn to Millville and peddled it.
You've been to Millville, haven't ye? It's no great of a
place, but we have a stiddy market there for milk and
whatever we raise. Lord ! I didn't think this 'ere rain
would last so long. A branch has blowed off the ellum
tree yender in the yard. We been having very cold sour
weather all the spring, and week afore last we had a
terrible storm of wind and snow. It come on in the night.
I heared the blinds slamming and got up and fastened
'em. I was scairt, and the house rocked so I didn't
care much about goin' to bed ag'in. That there was
the worst storm I ever see. I won't forgit it very soon."
Her son came a little later, and we sat down to eat
dinner. "How'd you make out today?" the old woman
said to the milkman.
"Well," he responded, "I'd just got to the narrer
place in the road in the holler beyond the bridge when
that mare all to once took a notion to cut up a shine.
I swan ! she'll kick the stars right out of the sky. I been
trainin' the critter ever since she was a colt, but she
aint never learnt nothin' yet. I had a good holt of the
lines or she'd have busted up the cart."
"Just think of that now!" the old woman remarked
to me.
"While the mare was rampagin', along come Bill

290 Highways and Byways of New England
Case," the son resumed. He'd been to pastur' with his
cows, and he stopped and said, ' 'Pears to me you'd bet
ter git a new horse.'
" 'That's a good idee,' I told him, 'but supposin' a
feller ain't got the spondulux to pay for't?' Let me
have another of those b'iled potatoes. I'm considera
ble hungry. I bruised my foot some, and I guess I'd
better rub on a little alcohol."
"I've got a bottle of it somewheres," his mother
said, "and I'll fetch it and put some in a sasser for you.
But don't rub on too much or it'll take the hide right
off." After we finished eating, and the bruised foot had
been attended to, the milkman said to me: "Now I'll
rig up and go to the barn. I've got a game rooster out
there I'd like to show you."
His mother turned to me and observed: "It's curi's
how much he thinks of that there rooster of hisn. But
boys all have to have the hen fever just as children all
have to have croup and measles."
"That's what's the matter," her son commented.
"Us young ones are a little bit sp'ilt when it comes to
chickens and game roosters. But I think there's money
into the hen business."
"Before you go out," the old woman said, "I want
you to fix the bedroom door so it will stay shut, and I
wish some time you'd clean out the chimley."
The son got a hammer and gave the door catch a
few bangs, and then we went to the barn where he

One of the old folks at home

Glimpse of Life 291
showed me his hens. "Some on 'em are about as hand
some birds as you could find," he affirmed. "There's
the rooster I was tellin' you about. He was raised on
my sister's place, but her and her husband didn't care
much for so fancy a breed, and they let me have him."
While I was enjoying the attractions of the barn the
weather took a turn for the better and the rain ceased
falling. Yet the valleys continued misty, the mountain
tops were hidden by clouds, and the wind rattled and
surged around unceasingly. It was four o'clock in the
afternoon. I would gladly have lodged with the milk
man that night, but could not because all the extra
bedticks were in the wash. However, he was sure I
could get kept at the second house up the road toward
the notch.
I drove on until I came to the house that had been
recommended. A man was sawing wood by the road
side. He said : " I'd be glad to keep you if I had a place
for your horse. I'm awfully sorry, but I've got the
barn floor torn up. There are three brothers who live
up the road — mighty nice folks too. I know very well
you can get kept there."
I went on. At the home of the three brothers two of
them came out on the piazza in response to my knock.
But their buildings were full of stock, and they had put
four cosset sheep in the woodshed because they had no
other place for them. "There's just one more house
up the road," they said. "You try there and if they
say 'No,' come back here and we'll take care of you

292 Highways and Byways of New England
somehow even if we have to keep your horse in the
parlor." I wended my way upward and two dogs followed me
barking savagely until they heard a hound baying on
the mountain. Then they stopped and gave their
attention to him. The people at the final house up
among the fog-veiled heights gave me the shelter I had
so long sought, and when morning came, breezy and
sunlit, and I looked out and saw how charming the
spot was with its wild mountain environment I felt
sufficiently rewarded for my strenuous experiences of
the previous day.
I once had occasion to spend some time in a good-
sized market-town where I boarded with the Dawsons.
The family consisted of Mr. Dawson, a frank and
capable man of middle age, his wife, fat and, as a rule,
amiable, with a liking for assuming little airs of pro
priety, surprise, sorrow, and other emotions, and a son,
Julian, aged fifteen, who resembled his mother in his
appearance and characteristics except that he had
none of her sentimentality.
Mrs. Dawson was quite religious when she happened
to think of it. In commenting on the use of tobacco
she declared that it was bad for the stomach and added
affectingly, "We are abusing the gift our Heavenly
Father has given us." The gift referred to was the
stomach, not the tobacco.
She taught in the Baptist Sunday-school, and she

Glimpse of Life 293
was cocksure that her particular brand of religion had
all the right and sense there was. As to the Unitarians
she said: "They don't have prayer-meetings. Ah!
they think they can gain heaven without working for
it, but I don't believe in this lolling into heaven on a
hammock, and I don't take any stock in their idea that
we shall all be saved in the end. If that was so what
is the use of trying to be good when it don't make any
difference? People ask me if I could be satisfied in the
next world if my husband shouldn't be saved. 'Per
fectly, perfectly!' I tell 'em. I'd know that whatever
had been done was just. He'd had every opportunity
here to see the light and be a good Christian, and if he
hadn't done well it was his own fault."
One evening we all got ready to go to the church to a
Harvest Festival. Julian was to go early and act as
usher, but he was "sassy" to his mother, and his father
sternly told him he would take that sort of nonsense
out of him, and he might just sit down and wait for the
rest of us. He pouted and swaggered, threw off his
hat, his coat, and his cuffs, flounced into a chair, and
picked up a book which he pretended to read. When we
were ready he announced that he was not going, and a
dispute ensued with his father during which Mrs.
Dawson preserved the air of a long-suffering parent.
Julian finally lagged along behind and was marched
into the family pew.
After the meeting, as I was walking home, Mrs.
Dawson asked me if I wore false teeth. I think she

294 Highways and Byways of New England
was not much interested to know whether I did or not,
but was making an opportunity to tell the story of her
own, which she did at considerable length. Just as
she concluded she observed a shooting star and said:
"When I was a little girl I used to believe that if I saw
a shooting star and made a wish without speaking to
any one of it afterward that wish would come true. I
don't know but it's foolish; and yet I sometimes try
that even now."
On one occasion she overheard Julian remark,
" 'Taint no use."
"How you talk!" she exclaimed, much scandalized.
"There's no such word in the English language as
'taint." Then addressing me she added, "I do wish
I could learn my boy to talk as if he'd been to school."
She turned again to Julian and said, "I want you to go
to the post office, and don't you make no stop for
nobody on the way."
He was often a great trial to her, and so was her
husband. If she and Mr. Dawson both had a hand in
doing a thing that went wrong she promptly packed
all the blame on him, and she often told him that their
affairs would be in a very bad way if it wasn't for her.
It was her firm belief that she had a monopoly of all
the virtues and she could not understand his irritation
at her attitude of saintly patience toward his failings.
Once there was a stair carpet to be put down. Mr.
Dawson spent an hour or two at the job, but when the
carpet was down his wife found he had stretched it a

Glimpse of Life 295
little tighter than before so that on the bottom stair a
crease showed somewhat out of place. She made a
series of unpleasant remarks on his stupidity and lacks
in general, and nothing would do but that carpet must
be put down anew. So Mr. Dawson took it up and
started the task again. But this time he would not
drive a single tack until Mrs. Dawson had indicated
the place for it. At each step he wanted to have her
adjust the carpet to suit herself, and she found the
labor quite wearing. To cap the climax, when they got
to the bottom, the carpet hung three inches short of
the floor. Mr. Dawson wouldn't do the work over
again, and there the carpet hung — a grand object
lesson. A man in a remote country town, attracted by the
celebrity of William Cullen Bryant, came to see him
at his summer home in Cummington, Massachusetts.
After meeting and talking with him his awe gradually
wore off, and he said, "Why, I don't see that you look
any different from other men; and yet I s'pose some
people would give as much to see you as they would
to see a bear."
When old Doctor Hillman called on a patient and
left some medicine he'd say: "If the dose I've pre
scribed doesn't have any effect take a double dose.
Then you'll either be better or worse, or you'll be about
the same."

296 Highways and Byways of New England
"Everybody had a nickname when I went to school.
There was Codfish, and Boots, and Old Grimes, and we
called Dave Kingman, whose father was a deacon,
' Little Deacon.' One of the girls, who afterward became
a famous writer, we called Tabby.
"We had a fireplace in the schoolhouse until about
1 870. If the supply of wood give out the boys would go
into the woodland close by and knock some stumps to
pieces and bring 'em in. There was considerable com
plaint of a poor fire, and one examination day at the
end of the winter term the boys said they would make
it hot enough for once. So they filled up the fireplace
and chimney to the top. A person couldn't stay within
ten feet of that fire, and we had to keep putting on snow
around the chimney to prevent the building from burn
ing down.
"I went to school in the Slab City district. There
was a good-sized brook near the schoolhouse, and we
skated and slid on it in winter and paddled in it and
made rafts to float around on in summer, and we were
always breaking through the ice or tumbling into the
water. The nearest district to ours was one we called
'Babylon.' A lot of overgrown fellers went to the
school there, and they turned out their teacher — picked
him up and set him and all his traps outdoors. After
that they come up and offered to turn ourn out. He
wa'n't good for nothin', but we didn't propose to have
any outsiders interfering. So we pitched in and give
those Babylon fellers the worst drubbing they ever got

Glimpse of Life 297
and drove 'em way down over a ridge that was known
as 'the Backbone.'
"Our teacher was kind of an ugly cud. He had a
curious way of taking the kinks out of the little runts.
He'd grab 'em by the collars and crack their heads
together. How he would yank 'em round !
"One recess I got into trouble with Josh Harris. He
was always forever tryin' to trip up some one, and
he tried it on me. That kind o' raised my Ebenezer a
little. We went at each other, and the teacher come to
the door, and says: 'Stop thar, both of ye! Who
begun this row?'
" 'Josh did,' says I.
"But Josh started makin' complaints of me, and the
teacher says, 'Yew two come into the schoolhouse.'
"We went in, and he gave us each a switch and told
us to lick jackets. Josh blinked at me to have me hit
easy, but I wouldn't. After school I felt the welts on
his legs, and they stood right up just like a wash
board. "I shall never forget one thing I heard at that school.
The teacher asked in the geography lesson, 'What are
the principal fruits of the West Indies ? '
" 'Pie-apples and bandages,' one of the boys says."
"We always used to take Harper's Weekly. A crazy
man lived in our family, and he'd read that Harper's
Weekly and look at the pictures and seem to get a great
deal of comfort out of it. But we stopped it because it

298 Highways and Byways of New England
began to caricature Charles Sumner. The crazy man
didn't live long after that."
"It ain't much trouble for me to take care of my
family," the hired man said. "I git 'em all under cover
every time I put on my hat."
"One day Uncle Quin was going to town and Jerry
Peters asked him to bring back a bottle of rum for him.
Uncle Quin, he got the rum, and when he came home
he set it in his cellar-way right side of a bottle of kero
sene. By and by Jerry come after the rum and Uncle
Quin give him the wrong bottle and Jerry took it home.
Later Uncle Quin discovered his mistake. He was
afraid the kerosene would poison any one who drank it,
and he was scairt most to death. So he hitched up his
horse and put him right through till he got to Jerry's
house. Jerry had taken a good horn of the kerosene,
and he was in bed, but declared he was all right enough.
" 'Wal, I swear to ye!' Uncle Quin says, much
relieved, 'now, if ye'll only swallow a wick ye'U have a
lamp all complete.' "
"Parson Briggs was a little stub of a fellow, but he
had long legs that opened up like a pair of tongs almost
to his brain. He's gone to heaven now. A grandson
of his is in Amherst College. I don't know where he'll
go to."
"Harry Taylor has got to be quite a smoker for a
young fellow. I met him the other evening on the

Glimpse of Life 299
road, and he had a pipe in his mouth with a bowl as big
as a cocoanut. It was so large it hid his face and I
didn't know what was coming at first. A cloud of
smoke poured out and streamed away behind, and he
looked like some sort of steam engine running loose."
"I think a man ought to marry a woman that is
cheerful and can talk easy and joke and say pleasant
things to him. There ain't much fun in coming in after
a hard day outdoors and meeting a woman with a face
like a hoe-handle, who goes about her work as if she'd
lost all her friends."

Printed in the United States of America.

'HE following pages contain advertisements of a
few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE PICTURESQUE RIVER SERIES
Each Decorated Cloth, i2mo, $1.25 Postpaid, $1.34
Illustrated by the Author

THE PICTURESQUE HUDSON
"A guide book de luxe.'' — Boston Globe.
"The volume should prove a pleasant and profitable companion to
anyone contemplating a trip on the Hudson." — Chicago Record-Herald.

THE PICTURESQUE ST. LAWRENCE
"A valuable guide-book for prospective travelers along this beautiful
river." — Philadelphia Public Ledger.
"The book is full of interesting information, besides being so well
written that it will be enjoyed by many who are not contemplating a Cana
dian trip, while those who are will find it invaluable." — New York Herald.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF THE MISSISSIPPI
VALLEY
With Slxty-thres Full-Pags Illustration*
"Mr. Johnson has written no book of more interest to Americans than
this one." — New York Times.
"From cover to cover the book is both entertaining and instructive."
— Brooklyn Eagle.

OTHER VOLUMES IN THE HIGHWAYS
AND BYWAYS SERIES
Decorated Cloth, 8vo, $2.00 postpaid, $2.20
The Touring Edition Preparing
Illustrations by the Author
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST
With Sixty-three Full-Page Illustrations
"For the benefit of persons contemplating pleasure tours through the
region, each chapter is helpful, with suggestions for practical travel."
—Chicago Evening Post.
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF THE SOUTH
With One Hundred and Thirty-two Illustrations
"Mr. Johnson gives more illuminative descriptions of homely details
in life than any other modern writer." — Town and Country.

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The Touring Edition of
CLIFTON JOHNSON'S
BEAUTIFUL BOOKS
From the Highways and Byways Series
Decorated Cloth, i2mo, $1.50 postpaid $1.64
Illustrated with Photographs by the Author
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF THE GREAT LAKES
"Vacation travelers, whose thoughts turn to our inland seas, will find
information and inspiration in this volume." — New York World.
"A real picture of the country covered and its people." — Boston Globe.

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF THE ROCKY
MOUNTAINS
"It is a book that is as interesting as it is valuable, as picturesque as
it is typical and as pleasurable as it is sincere." — Boston Times.
"It is a book for those planning pleasure tours and contains many
valuable suggestions for travelers." — New York Herald.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Publisher* 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

Macmillan's New Travel Series
"The best in the field of illustrated books of travel and description."
Decorated cloth, ismo, boxed, $1.50 postpaid, $1.65
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
By Ella Higginson.
"A great book on a great subject." — Boston Transcript
CUBA: By Irene A. Wright
"One of the most informing of all books on the subject" — Pittsburg Gazette
MEXICO: THE WONDERLAND OF THE SOUTH By W. E. Carson
"The best popular book on Mexico that we have seen" — America.
PANAMA: THE CANAL, THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE
By Albert Edwards
"One of the very best of travel books." — New York Herald
BOSTON: THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE By M. A. De Wolfe Howe
"One of the best all-round books about Boston yet published" — Argonaut
NEW ORLEANS: THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE By Grace King
"A useful and attractive book." — Daily Telegraph.
CHARLESTON: THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE
By Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel
"Every page is pregnant with interesting fact and suggestion"
— Philadelphia Public Ledger
PHILADELPHIA: THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE By Agnes Repplier
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THE BOOK OF THE GREAT NORTH
Labrador: The Country and the People
By WILFRED T. GRENFELL, C.M.G., M.R.C.S., M.D., (Oxon.)
The Celebrated Missionary Doctor of the Artie and others
New and enlarged edition, beautifully and profusely illustrated.
Decorated cloth, Gilt tops, $2.50 postpaid, $2.72
Labrador is, relatively speaking, an unknown land. Its great natural
resources, the wonderful awe-inspiring grandeur of its rugged scenery with
mountains of fantastic architecture and the delicate and fascinating colors
of Arctic auroras playing over all, — these are things of which the vast ma
jority of readers know nothing. Dr. Grenfell, who has lived long in this
region, writes of the natural beauties of the country as well as the future of
Labrador and the relation of its rapid development to the North American
Continent.

The Heart of Gaspe
SKETCHES IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE
By JOHN MASON CLARKE
Illustrated cloth, 8vo, $2.00 postpaid, $2.18
Gaspe, one of the most romantic spots left in America, is the latest
discovery of the tourist in search of the picturesque. This bit of seacoast
in the Peninsula of Eastern Quebec is remarkable for its scenery, its history
and its people. Its story is told and its beauties described in this book by
one who knows Gaspe from years of acquaintance and exploration.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

New Books of Travel, Adventure and Description
My Life with the Eskimos
By VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON
Illustrated with half-tone reproductions of photographs taken by the author
and others. Decorated cloth, 8vo. Preparing.
A fascinating book of description and adventure has been
written by the famous traveler and explorer, who has passed
years of his life within the Artie Circle. Mr. Stefansson
has had a vast amount of material upon which to draw, and
he has made his selection wisely. He has lived with the Es
kimos for long periods; he knows their language; he has
subsisted on their food; he has heard their legends; he has
seen them in their daily lives as have few explorers. Con
sequently his remarks about this primitive and matter-of-
fact people are shrewd, true, and frequently amusing. The
experiences and tales which he recounts, mirroring the hard
ships and the inspirations of life in a fearful but wonderful
country, compose a work quite the most absorbing on it that
has ever been published.
The Barbary Coast
By ALBERT EDWARDS
Author of "Panama," "Comrade Yetta," etc.
With many illustrations. Decorated cloth, l2mo. Preparing.
Albert Edward's " Panama : The Canal, the Country, and
the People" has gone into many editions and received wide
and favorable comment. Much may, therefore, be expected
of this new descriptive volume, in which Mr. Edwards relates
some of his remarkable and always interesting experiences in
the states of northern Africa. Mr. Edwards does not write
with a history or a book at his elbow; what he says does not
come to the reader from a second-hand knowledge. He has
been in Africa himself and he writes out of his own life.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York

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AMERICAN HIGHWAYS & BYWAYS
SERIES