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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 A partir de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 i • •ti*. -ffKf IE. A' ,,,, :•' ■% n^.^ COACHING JUNE, 4883. r N :> i J, I i i i i .\1 NOTE S OF A (I H THROUGH THE COACHING TRIP / 'V CONNECTICUT VALLE'/ AND AMONG THE GREEN MOUNTAINS, BY THE i DWIGHT-VVIMAN CLUB, JUNE, 1883. "iiifry^^ — ( £^/ (PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.) . 1 \ Trout & Todd, Printebs, ^^ ^ Monetary Times Book and Job Printing Establishment, 61 & 66 Church Street, Toronto, Ont. i v/ f 1 11 f \: M i I NOTES OF A JUNE COACHING TRIP IN NEW ENGLAND. " Who, in this age when all things go by steam, Recalls the stage-coach, with its four-horse team ? Its sturdy driver — who remembers him ? Or the old landlord, saturnine and grim." TT 70ULD anybody like to know how we came to ^ ^ take this coaching trip ? It was not upon the inspiration of William Black, or after the example of Andrew Carnegie that it was done, though the experi- ence of both these was in our mouths many a time and oft before we fairly started. The idea originated, prob- ably, with the President, who had become impressed with the beauty of the Connecticut Valley, and had dwelt, while in the Muskoka woods with the other members of the Club in October last, upon the probable attractions of that region in leafy June. Robert was rejoiced at the notion, for his earlier years had been , spent thereabout ; Wiman took fire at the proposal of of a Green Mountain ramble ; Theo. thought well of it ; Willie warbled over it ; Wilbur welcomed it, and Tom said "try it." As for the historian, when the NOTES OF A proposal was made to him to join the party as a guest, his response was that of the delightful young woman of the American Four-in-hand in Britain : *' Will I go to Paradise for a fortnight on top of a coach ? Agents of providence, I will." The President explains the origin of this coaching trip, and throws light upon the rise and progress of the Club in a memorandum which is too interesting not to append. It is as follows: " On Tuesday morning, the fifth of June, 1883, four friends from Toronto met, by appointment, four other friends at a point in Massachusetts, for the purpose of starting from that place on a coaching trip up the Valley of the Connecticut River and through a portion of the Green Mountain region, of Vermont. The trip had been projected in October last, when this group of eight were sitting round tiieir camp fire, near a Muskoka lake. For many years these New York friends had been in the habit of meeting their Canadian comrades in campmg expeditions to the northern woods of Canada and to the innumerable lakes and streams with which that region abounds. Sometimes in early June, the season for trout-fishing, but more generally in October, when the deer-hunting begins, and the Canadian woods, in their autumn foliage, present such a scene of beauty as can hardly be described either by brush or pen. A few words will describe the formation of the Dwight-Wiman Club, as it has come to be called, and these few words may be of interest to those who know something of fishing and hunting and camp life. Between twenty and twenty-five years ago, two or three of the members of the present party, D wight, Wiman and Townsend, were wont to start from Toronto in the summer, each with a fishing rod and box of worms for bait, and visit such small streams as could be reached in a day, partly by rail and partly by waggon, spend the next day in following the stream as ^ JUNE COACHING TRIP. een in da ich the er, ds, ity the [nd or |ht, ito of lid >y las ^ far as they were able, and return home the third day with our baskets generally pretty well filled with trout, averaging in weight but a few ounces and rarely weighing over half a pound. Reports reached us, however, of grander sport than we had ever yet seen, to be found far away in the Muskoka wilds. Lakes of wonderful beauty, the scenery of which no lumberman or settler had ever disfigured ; streams with waterfalls and rapids, where trout w^eighing pounds instead of ounces might be seen leaping on any June evening. And we began to talk of a camping outfit and a trip to those far-away lakes and streams. Our ideas went beyond fish poles cut in the woods for the occasion ; strong hooks and linen or cotton lines and earth-worm bait ; and jerking the little trout out of the water over our heads, to find them, if we found them at all, some- where up on the stream's bank or out in the meadow or in the alder bushes. Our ambition presently swelled far beyond this primitive st^de of fishing, and we began to discuss nicely jointed rods, weighing only a few ounces, landing nets, reels, lines of a finer material, and, more than all, oi flies instead of worms. - All these dreams and discussions, carried on through the winter, bore fruit one spring, and some i8 or 20 years ago, a party of four, we set out on our first camp- ing expedition with guides and canoes, reaching the shores of Trading Lake, 130 miles north of Toronto. Since then, the party has augmented, and consisting now of eight has paid annual visits to our northern lakes and streams, each year pushing further into more remote regions, and being generally rewarded by find- ing such sport in fishing and hunting as can only be found by penetrating the forest beyond the settler's and lumberman's reach. And besides our pleasing experience of capturing trout of two or three pounds in weight, we found out the charm of camp life in the lovely v/oods, the love for which grows stronger upon us year by year." The coaching trip being resolved upon, then ensued discussions at Delmonico's and at the National i I 6 • ' NOTES OF A Club, conferences by letter and by wire, as to the when and the how of our getting away together. Willie could not go in early June. '* Then we shan't go at all," said Robert. " What ? Go without Willie ! Hamlet played without the Prince ? Not if we know it." Wiman, bound not to be baulked of the presence of all the party, urged ihe loth of May ; but this was, happily, over-ruled, for, as we know by this time, " May is a pious fraud of the almanac," while "June is full of invitations sweet," and as a re- result of earnest representation and kindly concession it was fixed that all hands should rendezvous at Green- field, Mass., on the 4th June. It had usually happened, when the Club went to the woods, hunting or fishing, that the burden of providing guides, tents, provisions, or what not, fell upon the President and Tom. But in the present case the fitness of things seemed to indicate Robert for the post of General Manager. And he proved himself to be the exact admixture of angel, statesman and uncommercial traveller to fill the position. How well he planned, and how resolutely he managed, to have a party, numbering at various times from eight to thirteen, con- veyed over some two hundred and twenty miles of hill and vale ; fed the moment they were reasonably hungry, refreshed when they were properly thirsty, regaled with the most charming of guests, domiciled at the best of hostelries, and " put through" all along on schedule time, was nothing short of a marvel. No wonder that the enthusiasm of the Vice-president flashed out, now and again, with a pcean in his praise d la Yale: "R-o-b-e-r-t," which the rest of us chorrissed. ending with a " Tiger-r-r !" JUNE COACHING TRIP. on No ent lise us Having left that city on Monday evening, June 4th, the New York members of the Club reached Greenfield late that night. The Canadian quartette left Toronto at 10 a.m. on the same day and awoke at daylight next morning, after passing through the Hoosac Tunnel, to enjoy the varied beauties of the Deerfield River, " rock, stream, and scaur." Here a brakesman of mature years and unusually thoughtful aspect moved about the car with the air of a man ill-used by fortune. Clustered as we were at the front windows, with eager eyes devouring the landscape one of our party put some question to him which had reference to the locality, to which came the measured answer : '* I cannot exactly say; my connection with the road dates back only eighteen months, I am sorry to be unable to inform you.'* On asking the conductor what sort of a philosopher he had got hold of for brakesman, he replied : " Oh, he's just too stylish for anything ; he used to carry around a chair with him, to sit in, and I had to speak to him about it. He ought to be a professor, I judge." In the country, writes Sir Charles Dilke of this peaceful neighborhood, " districts that nestle in the dells seem to have been there for ten centuries at least ; and it gives one a shock to light upon such a place as Bloody Brook, and to be told that only 200 years ago, Captain Lathrop was slain here by red Indians, with 80 youth, 'the flower of Essex County,' as the old Puritan histories say." 8 NOTES OF A ! I Greenfield, Mass., 5.15 A.M., June 5TH. TT ERE we are at the Mansion House, a roomy, cosy -*" •*• hotel, and on its register the names of the four fellows whom we most desire to see. Wilbur's first impulse was to go and pull Willie out of bed, but the landlord was equal to the occasion. " You can't find any of these folks," said he. And sure enough the 'cute fellows had had their rooms numbered wrongly on purpose to mislead us. Their boots in the passages betrayed them, how^ever, and it was not long before we were embracing one another. The coach was the next object of interest, and there was no bath and no break- fast for us Canucks until we had seen and clambered all over it. We wished, in the spirit of terrestrial navi- gators, to "survey our empire and behold our home." A roomy, inviting, yielding structure it was, of the old Concord kind, which was to be our home for the next fortnight. Very much such a one in appearance as the the last cartoon of Puck represents the Republican Harmony Coach to be. There were the horses, six in number : the leaders lively blacks, the wheelers steady grays, the others bay. And Bert Faunce, the driver, w^ho was to be our pilot, engineer. Dens ex machina in fact ; it did not take long to demonstrate that he was the right man for his place. Faunce had a habit, born of his stage-driving ex- perience no doubt, of looking us over every morning, or after every stop, counting noses, as it were. Thus far we had only eight noses to count, but farther on they had become a dozen. These were the eight : From New York, Erastus Wiman, vice-prest., Robert 'I JUNE COACHING TRIP. t J. Kimball, Wm. P. Raynor, Theodore Leeds. From Toronto, H. P. Dwight, president, J. T. Townsend, W. C. Matthews, James Hedley. Breakfast, which is always of importance as afford- ing a good foundation for the business of the day, was on this Tuesday memorable apart from its component viands. This is how it came about : Theodore had gone to call upon his ward, a pupil at the Prospect Hill Seminary, close by, and had taken Willie with him. They had not returned when the remaining half dozen of us, full of hope but full of hunger, sat down to . ' break our fast. Mid-way of the meal arrived Theo. breathless but radiant, to say that his neice and four of her fellow pupils were coming to breakfast with us. Places were at once made and enter, escorted by Willie, five school-girls, bright with the freshness of youth and freedom, winning in their simplicity of dress and manner. Will any of the boys explain liow it was that our masculine appetites deserted us from that moment ? It was in vain that the girls declared they had breakfc'Sted already; Wilbur tempted them with pickles, W^iman pressed them with strawberries. Robert ordered for their use all and every sort of fruit the house afforded, and then Willie put a hot blanket on all the poetry of the occasion by insisting on griddle- cakes ; "shocking. Monsieur Raynor, shocking." Leaving the breakfast room with a decorous reluc- tance, we found our coach ready at the front portico, and a goodly group of villagers to witness the unac- customed spectacle. The ladies must of course be seated outside, and as all the men could not sit with them, four of us were detailed for inside duty to give steadiness — shall we add sedateness ? — to the coach. "^^V v I ' i I 1 10 NOTES OF A '* Partenza " from Robert, a crack of the whip and we are off. A delicious morning, for ' " What is so rare as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days." Surely the residents of such beautiful villages as Green- field may well furnish a gladsome answer to the ques- tion of that modern pessimist who dolefully asks, " Is life worth living ?" To breathe such air as that which now blew its perfume about us, to look around upon the vernal greenery and the smiling dwellings — old and new ; to see the venerable elm trees that bring to travellers in this New England memories of the Old, and over all " The blue dome's measureless content," was happiness enough for us. That was an adroit suggestion which led our caval- cade up the slope to the Seminary gate, and gave the pursuers of knowledge within a chance to see the triumph of their class-mates without. A signal from our lady passengers, which resembled an Alpine yodel- call, was responded to from the windows where pupils clustered with longing eyes, and presently Mrs. Parsons herself came out, class-book in hand, to wish us a kind good-speed. Then our driver gave the first of many demonstrations of his skill by turning our forty odd feet caravan in a roadway not twelve feet wide, without crushing a sod or displacing a shrub, and away we bowled for Brattleboro. ' It was not long before our "outsides" gave proof of their abounding spirits ; Wiman could not rest con- tent without some music, and this our guests were willing to furnish. The literal songstresses began with ** Gentle Spring," a*; was apposite, while the imagina- ■*/ JUNE COACHING TRIP. II tive ones supplemented that with '* Juanita " and its dreamy suggestion of moon-Ht scenes. Presently the listeners below stairs were ordered aloft to exchange with such of the male dwellers upon the roof as could tear themselves away, and the chorusses appeared to be strengthened by the exchange. Noon came when we had reached what seemed an idyllic spot for luncheon. All alighted upon a rustic bridge, with a clump of trees just beyond, snug shelter for the horses, and made our way over the fence, whose bars willingly unlaced to admit the light footsteps of the joyous trespassers, to a shady nook beside a gently running brook. Down bundled the hamper, and out of it came such an ample cloth, such dainty little napkins, such tiny, thin-lipped glasses, as proved what angel of the household had helped Robert to select them. " Nothing allowed here that does not bear the Club monogram," said the General Manager, and it ap- peared to be even so. Were we hungry ? Well, may be not ; but like the Englishman who was asked that question, we "mighty soon could be" when so tooth- some a display was made before us as presently came from out that enchanted basket. There were lemons, too, in plenty, and something of a rich claret color in bottles, which may or may not have been raspberry vinegar. But why linger ? We strolled and sang and watched the rippling water with its tiny minnows^ until Wiman, as if to drive away the dejection which began to appear when it was learned that here we must part, called for a dance. And dance we did : " No sun upon an Easter day was half so fine a sight," to the sound of Allouette, chantez^ allouette^ and to that other most delightful of French Canadian chansons : iT 12 NOTES OF A i! ! A la claire funtainc ■.■.:":'''':■.■-■*•''''■■'' M' allant promcner, ;• v. y ai tvouve V can si belle Quefy mc siiis baivne. Which some too precise translator has stiffly rendered " As by the crystal fount I strayed." Willie related his " ghastly grin " story, by request, and afterwards performed, with great gravity, the basilicon-thaumatur- gical feat of swallowing bits of cracker and then find- ing them under a hat. But one of the girls was too sharp for him and detected his trick ; she forbore, however, to reveal it until he had finished his incanta- tion. Then, at last, Roberts' lips formed the " Partenza" that he would not speak, and the girls mounted the waggon which our host at the hotel had himself oblig- ingly driven after us, and returned to Prospect Hill, singing us a parting song in response to the cheer we gave them. ' : *. The incident of thus entertaining these young ladies was a delightful one to all the Club, but made Theodore — for it was his proposal — " very happy." Unlooked-for by us, and a surprise to them, it made a most propitious start for our trip. Two days afterward the mail made it clear to us that they had enjoyed it too, for there reached the President at W^indsor a graceful little note, of which hereafter. , The party was a i'*ifle less chatty when we re- mounted, and the fust memo, in the historian's note- book just here happens, not inaptly, to concern a cemetery, in which the female names upon " the stones which named the under-lying dead " were the Puritan ones of Susanna, Ruth, Abigail, Eunice and the like. It must not be understood that there was any King JUNE COACHING TRIP. 15 Richard among us, to say, " Of comfort no man speak;, let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs," because our cheery lassies were gone. No, no, perish the thought, in this bright sun-shine. Only, as has been said, we were just a little distrait, until some one ful- minated a conundrum as to the relative importance of chambermaid, bell-boy, &c., at the hotel we had just left. Everybody "gave it up," and then it was recalled by one of the end-men of the troupe that the printed notices in the bedrooms of the Mansion House contained the following instructions for the use of the electric bells by guests : ;, ■^/:.^-\^^:--\ *' Touch once for bell-boy. . -\ .^ , . , t ;; Twice for ige-water. Three times for towels. Four times for chambermaid." Showing, amongst other things, that travellers there- about made greater demand for ice-water than tliey did for towels. We had now crossed the line which separated Guilford township from that of Brattleboro — the municipal divisions which in Canada are called townships are here known as towns— and by half-past two we reached tidy, busy, Brattleboro, named after Col. Brattle, a distinguished Bostonian, in by-gone years one of the original proprietors of the village. At the Brooks House, "the best in Vermont," say the guide-books, and we did not doubt it, we found Kimball's friends. Senator Thatcher of the Benning- ton Bank, Col. Estey, Col. Fuller, and Col. Hooker, no relative of "Fighting Joe" Hooker of Monte- rey and Antietam, (born at • Old Hadley, across the river) but who looked as if, should occasion require, he could show himself no mere paper knight. H NOTES OF A The Phoenix newspaper said, this week, that " Col. " Hooker unblushingly claims to have had a greater " proportion of ladies in his Memorial Day audience at " Arlington than any other orator in the State ;" on which the Argus and Patriot declares, that "blushing " never was the special forte of the genial and wide- " awake Colonel." The Argus must have closed some Oi its many eyes to the Colonel's merits, for the historian has seen his bronzed cheek flush very prettily. Col. Estey and his friends, with welcome attention, brought carriages and took the Club for a most enjoy- able drive along the Whetstone Brook which affords good water-power, in the park upon the heights which surround the village, and what a lovely view it was that met our eyes as we looked down. We were also taken to the Estey Organ Works, said to be the largest in the world, and to the cemetery. Con- spicuous here was the monument to James Fisk, jr., who made himself a name by his career in New York that seemed poorly to warrant the grief sought to be expressed by the marble figures of Navigation, Com- merce and the like, which surround his tomb. There is, to all appearance, no poverty in Brattle- boro ; " and no whiskey," added our informant, not unwisely connecting the two evils in a New England epigram. Contentment and neatness, born of industry and taste, showed in the trim cottage, flower-sur- rounded, as well as in the lordly mansion. Fort Dummer, built by the Legislature of Massachusetts about 1724, stood near the present village ; and it is related with pride that tho' often attacked by hostile Indians it was never lost. It had been arranged that Col. Hooker should here become one of our party for A' ! I JUNE COACHING TRIP. ^5 t "Col. greater tence at te;" on )lushing d wide- id some istorian tention, t enjoy- aflfords s which it was e were i to be '. Con- isk, jr., w York tit to be 1, Com- Brattle- nt, not England ndustry v^er-sur- Fort ihusetts id it is hostile ed that arty for the drive to Bellows Falls or Windsor, but a sad be- reavement deprived us of his company, a circumstance that all who met him sincerely regretted. Col. Estey, too, set out that night to catch the steamer to cross the the Atlantic. We walked to, but did not enter, the Vermont Asylum for Insane, an institution carried on by private enterprise but under State supervision. Its grounds are handsome ; the hedges were in places five feet high and nearly six feet across. Brattleboro, Vt., June 6th. , AT I o a.m. on Wednesday the 6th, we parted from '^^ Boniface Goodhill and left Brattleboro, having Senator Thatcher on top of the coach. Along the river which separates the two States we bowled on smooth roads, the trees upon the green hills of New Hampshire nodding welcomes to us as we rode. The view upon this stretch of country, of the Connecticut River, the slopes of the Verds Monts, and the more dis- tant New Hampshire hills, was delightsome. Some seven miles from Brattleboro the valley widens and the picture has a broader scope. " But on and up, where nature's heart beats strong amid the hills," is the breezy invitation of a modern writer — the response to it was written three hundred years before by Kit Marlowe : *' And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dales and fields, Woods or steepy mountains yields." That this is no settlement of yesterday is proved by the moss-grown and venerable stone walls which mark i6 NOTES OF A ililt I 1 the roads and bound the fields. That it is aiso, mainly, a settlement of old people, people whose sons have left their hill-side farms and gone to make their way in cities further south or to work the prairie lands of the Great West, is only too apparent from the relative scarcity of young men. Statistics show, that New England, certainly Vermont, is not increasing in popu- lation, or very slightly if at all. The working popula- tion of the manufacturing towns and villages is swelled by an influx of French Canadians from the near-by Province of Quebec, or of Blue-noses from the Pjovinces across the Bay of Fundy. Agriculture, pur- sued here, though it is with a diligence and a "faculty" for which the Down -Easter is proverbial, has no such prizes for the farmer as are yielded by the rich prairie lands of the West where, speaking figuratively " you have only to tickle the earth with a hoe to see it blossom with a harvest." . ^ , . Resting a while at Putney, eii route, long enough to refresh the horses and ourselves, we found, lounging upon the broad verandah of the inn or leaning out of the windows of what, in a non-teetotal State, would be the bar-room, some specimens of the bar-room loafer of a temperance kind ; one, also, who gave strong symp- toms, in eyes and breath, of potations stronger than iced tea, wherever he got them. On bandying words with these sun-dried drones, we found them quaint in attempts at the sort of wit abounding in Sam Slick. " Rude poets of the tavern hearth, Squandering your unquoted mirth Which keeps the ground and never soars While Jake retorts and Reuben roars." ^ We discovered, too, when we had grown a little more i ' ■^-. JUNE COACHING TRIP. 17 familiar with the shirt-sleeved landlord, that ** we du sometimes keep medicated leme.xiade here for travellers lik' yeou." Here was the secret of the lounger's thick tongue. Some miles further on we halted for luncheon be- side a large, white farm house with green blinds, — the farm houses hereabout are almost all large, and white, and clean but the outbuildings are, from an insurer's point of view, alarmingly close to the dwellings ; the driving shed, barn and stables being often, indeed, a continuous range of buildings or else connected en echelon. Elms fifty feet high made perfect shade for us upon the soft lawn which sloped away from the flower- plots under the windows, and with the eyes of hungry men one half of the party watched the other half spread our canned chicken and prawns, our Roquefort and Stilton cheese upon the cloth. Although there were no women kind in sight — rather odd, we thought, consider- ing that in New England the women are said to pre- ponderate — we were served with delicious milk and butter, made the more attractive by the ice we had brought from Putney. The grave but civil householder also helped Faunce to look after the horses, with a soli- citude which proved that he must have possessed the phrenological bump which Fowler and Wells call ** love of animals," strongly developed. A slight rain fell while we lay stretched under the dense maple trees, but no one seemed to heed it, except perhaps Theo., whose silk hat had been tossed, by ruthless hands, on top of the coach, and our kind Senator, who warned the boys against taking their siesta upon damp grass. Up and on into Westminster town, and we were presently aware of an old lady, springing from her i8 NOTES OF A ! I I chair on the piazza, amidst a group of younger folk, and waving her knitting with an impulsive delight on see- ing our vehicle, as if reminded of '* old coaching days." Getting into Westminster village in the afternoon, a straggling dreamy-looking place, the General Manager, with his usual thoughtfulness, while the horses were being watered ran into a shop to get some lemons, and emerged presently carrying a huge jug of lemonade. The unusual and scarcely aesthetic shape of the jug elicited from the boys varied comments, corresponding to their estimates of art and of delicacy. Wiman de- clared that such a jug was frightful, and so it must have been, for a young lady, " sole heiress of the house and heart," possibly, of a mansion under whose trees we lounged, ran when she saw it. But our good friend the Senator, who would not be affrighted from his serenity by a trifle, declared it calmly to be " all right," although he afterwards laughed as heartily as the rest of the party at Robert's gravity amid the confusion of the rest. The householder — whose face was round and rosy enough to be a laughing one, though this it was not — when he announced that he had a Jersey calf in his stable, led Robert captive at his will, and, presently, behold the General Manager, all his responsibilities foigot, expounding pedigrees to the listening group and twisting the tail of the little animal to be assured that the escutcheon was comme ilfaut. During one of our stops to rest on the long climb to this point, the driver told us of the frightful murder of a girl lodger, committed near Stowe, a year ago, by a Mrs. Meeker and her weak-minded son. We saw that son, next day, in the prison at Windsor, where he was serving his term, his mother having been hung, JUNE COACHING TRIP. 19 and there was nothing in his weak but not bad face to indicate a murderous nature. About five in the afternoon we reached Bellows Falls and found letters and telegrams awaiting us at Towns' Hotel. Those of the party who had no busi- ness letters to write strolled down to the falls, whose sound could be heard from our windows. When we saw the chasm and the huge rocks which formed the uneasy bed of the river or distorted its angry waters, (the river falls 40 feet in half a mile) forming dark pools here and there, we could believe that, long ago, this was a favorite Indian resort because of the numbers of salmon and shad found near the foaming rapids. Now there is a fringe of factories along the bank below the bridge, and a gang of men were blasting the rock to admit a spur of the Cheshire Railway for the conveni- ence of loading and discharging freight at the mills. Returning to the village we heard, as we passed their boarding houses, the familiar patois of the French Canadians who form a good portion of its artisan popu- lation. Charlestown, N. H., June 7th. 'TEARING coach at ten in the morning, we crossed the -*■ riverinto New Hampshire. The day was bright and warm and the dust thick enough to make the linen dusters we had bought at the Falls very comforting. From here to Windsor we had Vermont and the Connecticut on our left, and got some lovely glimpses of landscape, with the sloping valleys of the Granite State to the eastward, the river and the Vermont hills to the west. At our first halting place, a substantial stone horse-trough, fed from a spring, bore an inscription, ao NOTES OF A 1 1 ! I ** Presented to Old No. 4," by one of her grateful sons. The meaning of the inscription is plain when we learn that the town of Charlestown, N. H., was settled under the authority and by the people of Massachusetts in 1740, and was named " Number Four," being re-named, some years afterward to do honor to Commodore Sir Charles Knowles. Observing the green meadows and the comfortable old homes under grand elms, we fell to speculating upon the character of their occupants, and Theo., an authority on New England, from persistently dwelling on the attractions offered by this section of country to a tour- ist on horseback, began to be suspected of having done some sparking hereabout at some previous time. This, however, he proposed as a wager, viz : that throughout this day's drive, beans might be depended on as a staple dish at any of the farm houses, and that fish- balls would certainly be found upon the Sunday break- fast table at any house we passed. There are three pleasant villages and three inns in the long river-town of Charlestown, says the guide book. At which of the three villages we stopped, the historian does not know, but it must have been the prettiest ; and we found one attractive inn, kept by Mr. White. But no four walls could contain us, with such an out-door scene as here met the eye : a long, wide, elm-shaded street, whose every tree seemed to wave us, from the past, a stately welcome ; quaint houses, of last century style, of wood or rubble masonry, whose color was softened by age or by the moss which here and there covered its surface ; newer houses, of the prim and plain order, which had the " pizen-clean *' look which Mrs. Stowe or some late writer alleges to JUNE COACHING TRIP. 21 r grateful ilain when ^, H., was people of " Number ard to do Observing old homes upon the n authority ing on the y to a tour- laving done ime. This, throughout sd on as a d that fish- nday break- iree inns in i the guide stopped, the '^e been the in, kept by ain us, with jye : a long, i seemed to me ; quaint ble masonry, moss which ir houses, of 3izen-clean ** 2r alleges to be characteristic of New England houses. Then, the dwellings according to the modern architect, of odd, not to say affected shape, a revolt against the severity of a former generation, and pointed in all imaginable colors, from warm gray, or shrimp pink, or sage green, to the very latest craze — a " pumpkin yellow " with brown or claret *' trimmings," with flame-colored chairs on the verandahs. Dwight and Hedley set out to see all they could of the place ; peeped into the school house — all girl pupils, eating their lunch or conning their lessons, for it was recess ; passed house after house on a side street where there was not a creature in sight to break the solitude and scarcely a sound to break the stillness. Espying a hedge which enclosed grounds of more than usual extent and pretension, they entered the iron gate and found greenhouses, fish-ponds, stables and a mansion, all indicative of weclth and comfort. Seeking an exit, they found, when the front of the dwelling was reached, two elderly gentlemeii seated on the verandah. One of these courteously approached, and proved to be the owner of the property, Mr. Sherman Paris, a re- tired New York merchant, who had come up to his country house in advance of his family. He insisted that the two trespassers should come in and that the remainder of the party should be brought in, retaining, vi et armis, the President of the Club as a hostage for the rest. While Hedley went in search of the party, Dwight was seated by the other occupant of the verandah, whose only name, so far as we were informed was '* Peter, a New Hampshire farmer, seventy years of age." A stalwart, silent, bronzed son of the soil he I T^ 22 NOTES OF A was, with a Daniel Webster face and a voice as deep as the neighboring Black River. Soon, the coachers gathered in answer to the hospitable call, and as we were one by one introduced the host, though manifestly taken with Wiman's cheerful readiness of speech and Townsend's Old Country calm, and selecting Theodore, with his canary-colored duster and tall hat for " the parson," placed his hand on Willie's shoulder the moment he appeared, and said " Well, now, you're the man I want ; come right along and I guess we'll have a good time." The ripple of amusement that glanced along the group at this, told how truly the shrewd old gentleman had hit upon the life of the party. With a heartiness and lack of ceremony that betokened a gen- tleman of the old school, with a touch of the South- ern planter, Mr. Paris placed the best in his house at our disposal, and entertained us royally for an hour. Indeed, he would scarcely let us away, and we hardly wanted to go away. But discipline had to be maintained and so we resumed our drive. It was long past two when the coach stopped for luncheon, and after remounting we almost welcomed the slight shower that came to cool the air and lay the dust. Our rest had been close by a little brook. " A gravelly bai.k, a sudden flash of green, A tangled wocd, a glittering stream that flows." Passing West Claremont at about 3.30, we were in full view of Mount Ascutney, which, since noon, had " heaved high his forehead " and at 5.30 came in sight of Windsor, nestling prettily among the hills and beside the river. ■41^ JUNE COACHING TRIP. 23 e as deep J coachers and as we manifestly 3eech and Theodore, t for "the >ulder the you're the we'll have it glanced hrewd old . With a led a gen- the South- 5 house at an hour, we hardly laintained opped for welcomed id lay the ok. sre in full oon, had in sight hills and Windsor, Vt., Thursday, June 7TH. T T was of interest to learn that this was the point at -*• which the deputies of the Vermont towns adopted the constitution of the State in July, 1777, alter the battle of Ticondero^^a ; but one may be pardoned for saying that it was of more moment to us in June, 1883, as being the spot where Robert used, as a boy, to paddle his boat or swim in the Connecticut thirty years before, and as being the seat of our guest the Senator's duties on the morrow. We were driven at once to the State Prison, which is situated here. It should be said, perhaps, in explan ation of the last sentence, lest this history should fall into the hands of any person with an ill-balanced or suspicious mind, that we were not forcibly detained, but that our companion, Senator Thatcher, is Chair- man of the Board of State Commissioners, and makes his head quarters at the cosy office of the Windsor prison when on his official visits. The party was shown through the building which had 75 or 80 in- mates, all or nearly all engaged in making shoes. B}?- division of labor and the use of modern machin- ery, the making of shoes is greatly changed from the cramped and sedentary employment of a former day. When the upper leather and findings have been cut to pattern, then stitched and eye-letted by machines, the laster gets hold of them and with some assistance from a thing like a vise gets them into a half-human shape, and another fitter " tacks " the sole to its proper place on the last. Then they are tossed, lasts and all, into a huge box, which, when full, is wheeled up to a terrific machine which whirrs and groans like a dyspeptic H NOTES OF A : I demon and seems to shake the solid earth. This is the '• pegger." Once here, the boots are seized, one at a time, by a brawny worker, (who gives brief and moody looks at us, as if he would like to put each visitor through the machine) and "Tr-r-r-r-r-ip-thump !" 12 seconds and the sole is on. There was a screw- wire machine and a Mackay sewer, and — but here the gaoler called us to go below stairs. While we were still in the court-yard the men passed, in single file, to their cells ; the face of one, a bank robber, haunted Wiman all the night, it was the face of one of whom, as the Country Parson says, more might have been made. Then we went to the hotel, the Windsor Hotel, kept by a warm hearted and able bodied Burlington man, and were instantly at home. A peck measure of letters and telegrams was awaiting us here, none of them disquieting, many of them welcome and amusing. Mr. Gooderham and other Toronto friends had, we found, remembered us ; and at the New York end, too, of the invisible line with which our heart strings were interlaced, there were those who greeted us lovingly. It was here that the letter of the Prospect Hill girls reached the party, and hungry as they were, not a man of them stirred a step towards the dining room till the dainty little note was read : "From P. H. S., To THE D. W. C— " We all send our heartfelt thanks for our de- lightful entertainment of Tuesday, and truly hope that this excursion will prove as successful as your ' last trip to Europe.' " The last four words proved the young ladies not unob- Sl JUNE COACHING TRIP. 25 1. This is zed, one at brief and put each p-thump !" 3 a screw- it here the B we were gle file, to r, haunted of whom, have been sor Hotel, Burlington neasure of e, none of i amusing, had, we end, too, rmgs were lovingly. Hill girls lot a man m till the de- )pe as lot unob- servant of Club chaff and by no means deficient in humor. It has already been said that one of them had detected Willie in his legerdemain. This was Miss Richmond, who was, however, considerate of the con- juror's feelings. Miss Berge made a very prudent custodian of the packing-case of confectionery Theo had brought along. We guessed that Miss Lilly and Miss Curtis were the contralti of the party; but we felt certain, even on so short acquaintance, that Miss Hartwell was a soprano in more than voice ; and the old boy to whom she confided her dawning interest (as a student) in Wordsworth's poetry, predicts that that interest will deepen. It is not becoming, it is true, to dwell much on the pleasures of the table ; it is indeed scarcely fair to the other good hostelries we found, before and after, to particularize the viands here, but the historian will risk — and Willie or Wilbur will back him — the state- ment thai the strawberry pie we had on Thursday night was ambrosia itself. And then, to have Jersey cream on the table in jugs, not liqueur mugs, and the unusual pleasure of a beaming landlord standing near by coaxing us to "tuck in," and sending the waiters out for more cream ! It was something like what the fellow in the play calls a delirious joy. D wight would have served for a statue (seated) of Tantalus, as after a meal fit for any of the gods, he tasted a morsel of the pie, and then turned cO Matthews with suppressed yearning to ask, mournfully, why he had not told about this pie earlier in the course of the meal. Windsor has a remarkably good building for her Post Office and Court House, and for it she is possibly indebted to Hon. W. M. Evarts, the distinguished 26 NOTES OF A : ! \y^ statesman and orator whose country seat is close by. We were taken to see a portion of his estate — he possesses some 800 acres here — and the three dweUings^ of somewhat ancient date, two of them occupied by his relatives. Across the village street stood a majestic elm, the largest in the country. There are handsome horses hereabout ; we saw some specimens of them,^ and Wilbur and Dwight went, late in the evening, by request and a light buggy, some miles into the country ' to see a span which had been mentioned to Wiman, and the price of which seemed a little " steep " — $1400, Here we were glad to encounter, for a too brief time, Col. John B. Mead, of Randolph, Kimball's brother-in-law, on his way to take the steamer City of Rome for England, bent on the purchase of an addition to the herds of red-polled cattle jointly kept by them at the Randolph farm. It was annoying to learn, as we afterwards did by telegraph, that his steamer had been detained a whole day by getting aground in New York Harbor, when we might have had just so much more of his welcome com- pany. Here, too, we met the facile representative of the Boston jfonrnal, Mr. Forbes, who was to have accompanied us for a day or two but was called away to attend some Commencement exercises or town meet- ings, or female seminar}^ openings — more agreeable, this last, than either of the others, we ventured to guess. However, in a comrade's spirit he gave us a light-hearted send-off in the columns of the good old journal. The clang of a steam printing press, turning out the Vermont Journal, across lots from the hotel was not conducive to sleep, so four of us sat down in JUNE COACHING TRIP. 27 is close by, estate — he ;e dwellings^ occupied by i a majestic 2 handsome ns of them^ evening, by the country to Wiman, p"— $1400. a too brief , Kimball's mer City of an addition iy kept by noying to , that his by getting we might ;ome com- >resentative as to have :ailed away town meet- agreeable, entured to gave us a e good old Lirning out hotel was : down in Wiman's room to play euchre. We were turned out of that — not by Wiman ; no, not likely, Chassie dear — but by his Mentor, and assembled in Matthews'. Out of this in turn, we were chased, by the ever vigilant Robert, who talked unwelcome platitudes about early rising, late hours, disturbing the house, &c., and even cavilled at our harmless, necessary lager beer which some considerate gentleman had sent over to us for a " blow out." This was felt to be a shame, inasmuch as we had never objected to his drinking as much of his favorite beverage, hot water, as he liked. But Willie, who at the time held a strong hand and had a firm grip of his pipe, was able to retort upon him : " * * * Blast the man, with curses loud and deep Who first invented and went round advising That artificial cut-off, early rising." * , ■,-"•,■'■ '''■: * Friday, June 8th. Albert B. Chandler and Horace J. Morse joined us at breakfast, to the general delight, having arrived during the night from New York. Senator Thatcher left the party here, and we parted from him with real regret, for his sociable, cordial temper and his know- ledge of places as well as events in old Vermont, had made him a most welcome and agreeable companion. It was a glorious morning when we bade good-bye to the friendly people of Windsor and mounted our coach at seven for the forty mile drive to West Randolph, to be made in time for supper. " Four miles from Windsor we bought the horns." So stands the entry in the official note book of the 28 NOTES OF A Ml I trip ; and trifling though it seems, there is probably no other that brings to mind more odd scenes, for no in- vestment, surely, of thirty cents, ever brought so much amusement, as did these little tin dinner-horns : "Toot-toot, too-e-wee," would go Robert's note as we passed some shirt-sleeved figure leisurely hoeing corn in the field some rods away. Then the figure would turn, never hurriedly, shade its eyes with its hand and gaze long enough to take stock of the six horses and dozen men filling the air with dust and devilment and waving handkerchiefs, and would — coolly go on hoeing ! Further on, " Taran-ta-ra-a," from the stentorian lungs of Matthews, would wake the echoes, and the workers in the fields would respond with a halloo or a wave of the hand. One old boy, a regular yosh Whitcomb, by the road side, attracted by Morse's " Blaa-blaa-toot-toot," in imitation of a Penn- sylvania railway whistle, put his thumbs in his sus- pender fronts and called to us, with a centennial smile, "Whoy ! y' aint hevin' no fun nor nothin', be ye ! So-long, boys, so-long." Stone walls, stump fences, occasionally a wire railing, rarely a rail fence separated the road from the fields or these from each other, and it was in- dicative of the plentifulness of slate stone that the fence posts were often of that material, undressed, with holes drilled for the wire stringers. Slate roofs were put upon even barns and sheds. We passed slate quarries here and there, some of them abandoned, others in full swing with the roughest of wooden shanties as quarters for the laborers. VerL )nt is noted for its quarries of stone and slate and marble, and the great length of stones used as foundation for the JUNE COACHING TRIP. 29 wooden houses was frequently remarked. New Hamp- shire granite was seen in the grave-yard monuments", but the white marble of this State was mostly used for head stones. Rows of these, parallel to the road, could sometimes be discerned from the coach, apper- taining to families whose plots were side by side ; as many as six or eight of one name were thus placed in a row in one cemetery. Putnam, Eaton, Hubbard, Holden, Sturtevant, Brockway, w^ere names which told of New Englanders of a former generation. The rain of the previous day had laid the dust and fre jhened the abundant verdure, so that the drive was perfect. The trees were odorous, and the scent of the lilacs or honeysuckles, and " the sweet door-way greet- ing of the rose," hard by the dwellings, came to us on the light air that stirred the leaves. It seemed to our delighted eyes that nothing was wanting to complete the view of wood and field, sky, and stream, and to make this day's excursion " Altogether lovely." We had not bound ourselves by any vow, as Andrew Carnegie's party did, that everything which happened should be hailed as deserving this sweeping phrase. But this morning we found everything to justify it. We w^ere too late to loiter " in sugar camps, when south and warm the winds of March are blowing, and sweetly from its thawing veins the maple's blood is flowing," and our party missed the apple-blossoms here, which were to be seen, however, when we had got three de- grees farther north. But there could be nothing else, could there ? which we had not in this daily panorama. ** You 're in the Harper and Scribner country now, Jimmy, keep your pastoral eye open," was Willie's warning. Yes, Willie love, this is also the Hawthorne ! I 30 NOTES OF A and Bryant country, the Hiram Powers and the Ethan Allen country, the Mormon Joe Smith and the " Pusley " Warner country, if the delightful author of " My Summer in a Garden," will forgive the mention of him along with Joe. And the scribe might further reply that it was no wonder the admirable magazines named were widely read, when they had such scenes and incidents to describe as this country afforded. But what was that, like an animated stump, up-end- ing itself in the field yonder? Hedley's woodcraft was at fault, but some of the others, notably Tom, smiled superior and explained that "the wood-chuck like a hermit gray " which " peeped from the door-way of his cell" was the moving thing so nearly the color of the earth. " Did you ever see a bobolink?" asked Chandler, and at least one subdued Canuck had to answer " no," but excused himself by telling what he had read of the habits of that lacrosse-player of the sparrow kind. ^ ' - ; " 'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, Gladness on wings, the bob-o-link is here." And sure enough there is one, flitting over our heads and justifying Hosea Biglow's description. The note is charming and recalls the lark that at Heaven's gate sings. But O, will a bird's note ever again cause such a thrill as that felt when standing one summer. day amid the daisies on the very Banks o' Ayr, we heard from out the azure, the " Neibor sweet, The bonny lark, companion meet. Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, Wi' speckled breast When upward springing, blithe, to greet The purpling east." ""■'"'■"I" »■""• -'j-iiiaa JUNE COACHING TRIP. 31 Bowling along at a good rate, in view of our long drive and in high anticipation of what was at the end of it, we came, at 11. 15 to Woodstock, in the Valley of the Otta-Queechee, or White River. The shire-town of Windsor County, with Mount Tom for a back ground, is famed among other things as being the birth place of Hiram Powers the sculptor. In the centre of the long street stood a grove of maples, having the Eagle Hotel on one side of the oval enclosure dignified with the name of park. The hotel-keeper's description in- duced Dwight and Robert to drive out to the handsome place of Mr. Frederick Billings, of Northern Pacific Railway celebrity, which was well worth the visit. While they were gone, up drove Mr. Billings himself, to chat cheerily with Wiman and others of the party and to express his regret that our stay was too brief to admit of his entertaining us as he would like to do. Leaving Woodstock at 12.45 fortified by some sand- wiches and lemonade, we had covered the half of our day's journey when a halt was made in Pomfret Town, four miles out, in front of the cosy, old-fashioned home of Samuel Reynolds Gilbert, a farmer of whom more anon. ** Lost Dw. and Theo. along here," says the record, and truly we thought they were lost. These two Alpine and Laurentian pedestrians started in advance of the coach, somewhat proud of their walking powers, per- haps, and anxious, as Dwight modestly expressed it, to find a good place for lunch. Engrossed in reminis- cences of the Club's last trip to Europe and confident in their skill as pioneers, they took a wrong road when they came to a " fork." In the bliss of ignorance and the perspiring glow of mens conscia recti, the twain ! < 32 NOTES OF A I' sat down when,- after having covered several miles they found a suitable pic-nic ground, and waited patiently for the coach. Meanwhile the wheels of said coach, like Artemas Ward's world, were " re- solvin' around on their own axletrees, subject to the cons'tution of the United States," on a road which led away from them at an angle of some twenty-five de- grees. Here was a rum go ! as Mr. Toby Veller might have said. ■ . ' • - But Robert was equal to the occasion : Mr. Gilbert had a horse and buggy, likewise a son who had some "faculty" about him. The young man was despatched at the horse's "best licks" back to the fork of the road, and thence to the halting place of the pedestrians, who by this time were growing uneasy as well as hungry. The lad advised them, shrewdly enough, to cut across country and rejoin us, instead of following the road, to do which last meant too much, in lime and space. They obeyed, and climbed the hill toward us. In the mean time lunch had been spread on Mr. Gilbert's convenient piles of planks, under trees by the stream, and that veteran brought us milk and butter with an unsparing hand. Morse played gargon for the rest, and seemed especially pleased to see Chandler "tuck in " as if the Green Mountain air did him good. " Voulez vous du pate de shrimp ?" the gargon would say in his choicest Wall Street patois. " Vous just bettez your life," would come from Willie, with his eyes full of laughter and his mouth of chicken. "Passez moi a fresh bouteille du vin de claret," might be heard from Matthews, adding, " and if Hedley has g( screw.' At dorff knife amuse] ToJ attend] sound Wil hke a He str agreea ever, t Willie as the^ belief i Mr. G centur his fat with r some streng crowd ful ey rolled of dii recog at on H the said the 1 wm JUNE COACHING TRIP. 33 has got his business clothes on, get me his cork- screw." At this Robert would chime in, in approved Ollen- dorff French, demanding "the loan of the iron pocket- knife of the German carpenter," and creating great amusement thereby. Tom refused, in spite of his continental experience, to attend to any request that was not conveyed in good sound English. Wiman had finished first, and was wandering about^ like a latter-day Athenian, seeking some new thing. He strode to the open door of the house and did the agreeable to the two daughters within, who were, how- ever, too busy with household affairs to flirt, as in fact Willie and his friends found ; and who listened demurely as they sewed, with an air which indicated only a partial belief in the yarns we told of the trip and of one another. Mr. Gilbert told us that the house was as old as the century, that he had lived in it all his life, and so had his father before him. The old man grew garrulous with recollections of his young days and indulged in some gymnastic feats to pass the time and show his strength, ending by offering to run any man in the crowd a race backwards. Just then, Kimball's watch-^ ful eye espied two figures, with coats off and trowsers rolled up, toiling along in the hot sun towards the goal of dinner. A shout went up from all hands as we recognized Leeds and D wight, and the word was at at once given, (at 3.15 p.m.) " All aboard." Having parried, as best they might, the chaff which the others launched at their escapade, either of them said but little till he had despatched, inside the coach, the toothsome lunch which the forgiving Robert had IF " 34 NOTES OF A II ' iiiiir lii 111 i III IHi II ' 'ijl i::ll!illi! ' k^ ^..'tSSSBBBBHBI caused to be made ready for their waiting appetites. Then, being fortified, and fighting as it were on a full stomach, Dwight delivered an admirably logical dis- course, which showed him a firm believer in the doctrine of compensations. '• I tell you, boys," said he, after looking at his watch and stretching his tired legs upon the opposite seat, *' this delay will be compensated for by making our drive during the latter part of the day even more pleasant than it would otherwise have been. Don't you see," he continued in his earnest way, •' how delightful it is going to be to conclude our day's journey in the cool of the evening with the sunset around us, and drive into Randolph as the dew falls ?" *' Yes," retorted Robert, " and my mother's dinner spoiled by being kept waiting ! You forget our time-table." Theodore's face wore a peaceful smile but he was discreetly silent. The pedestrians had something to tell us, though. This it was : " In the dwelling-house near by where we had selected our lunching spot to-day, lives a farmer of about fifty years of age, named Winslow. While waiting we grew acquainted with him and found that his father and grandfather had lived on the same place. Among his heir-looms was an old-fashioned chair with which his grandmother had begun house- keeping ; an old powder-horn given in 1770 by a British soldier to W's grandfather, who was an American soldier of the Revolution. On this horn was a rude in- scription, scratched by the soldier of King George, Success to British arms. With name and date. A grandfather's clock, of brass, which had literally stood about * ninety years on the floor,' but had not yet, as the song has it, * stopped short.' other s enterta chat w Thi son to the cer genera score y male ii female! son in Sor down about folk-loi *'Ha'n noticec Fauno Just w be sai Faunc anythi then. Nc traver refresl their walkii JUNE COACHING TRIF. 35 ppetites. )n a full ical dis- doctrine he, after gs upon ated for the day ve been. ^ '• how journey )und us, •' Yes," )iled by 5-table." he was hing to we had rmer of While nd that B same ihioned house - > by a lerican ude in- ge» brass, on the opped short.' These relics, with old coins, old receipts and other stained documents of a former century, and the entertaining narration of this child of the soil made our chat with him extremely interesting." This neighborhood is assuredly the place for a per- son to come to if he desire to live long in the land, for the census of 1881 shows that while in New England generally the proportion of persons who reach four score years is i in 134, there is in New Hampshire i male in 80 who reaches that age and i in 58 of the females. In New York State, however, only i per- son in 160 lives to reach 80. Somewhere in Queechee Valley, we passed a tumble- down though not ancient house, with no sign of life about it. Faunce, who was *' up" in local gossip and folk-lore, jerked his thumb towards it and said *' Ha'nted." Perhaps the place would not have been noticed, except for its dilapidation, but the moment Faunce declared it haunted : •' Over all there hung a cloud of fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted And said as plain as whisper in the ear : The place is " Just what Tom Hood pronounced it. More could not be said at that time, for Robert would have thrown Faunce and Hedley (and Tom Hood too,) overboard if anything more had been said on ghostly subjects just then. Now we had only Barnard and Bethel towns to traverse, and we should be in Randolph ! The horses, refreshed by the stoppage, tramped briskly along with their load, which we lightened by getting down and walking some miles. The road, overhung with trees, 36 NOTES OF A 1! ill' sometimes dipping into a quiet hollow would emerge^ higher up : " By homesteads old, with wide-flung baras Swept through and through by swallows. — By maple orchards, belts of pine And larches climbing darkly The mountain slopes, and over all, The great peaks rising starkly." Reaching the crest of a slight hill, one of the horses — it was neither a leader nor a wheeler — fell over in a fit of " blind staggers," and Faunce was off his perch in a moment to bleed him. The poor creature recovered for the time, but was so manifestly unfit to complete the journey that when we reached Barnard village at five, having fifteen miles yet to go, a consultation was held as to whether we should go on with five or four horses, or whether a fresh beast should be procured.. Pending the decision, Dwight and Hedley took a walk about the village and presently spied an old, fresh- faced man walking behind a wall, near a house. Asking him some questions, in our character of strangers seeking information, "interviewing" him, as the wretched phrase and still more wretched practice is, his tongue struck Hedley as that of a Scot, which indeed, on en- quiry he confessed himself to be : Mr. Caldwell, a re- tired Congregational minister, educated at Glasgow University, but resident in this country 47 years. The old gentleman was plainly surprised at being " spotted " for a Scotchman from his tongue, and did not fail to *' speer at" his questioner who he was that recognized him for " a brither Scot." But to find him there was only another proof that no corner of the earth is free from the beneficent influence of Scotchmen. " Ah I iiftt!;,! JUNE COACHING TRIP. 37 you do well to say * influence,' for I have known some Scotchmen of the Nemo me impune lacesset sort, whose presence was by no means genial," said a good American. With a nice courtesy, some young ladies of the village, seeing our party seated around the piazza and looking, for the first time, be it understood, just a little •disconsolate, came across the street, seated themselves at the piano in the hotel parlor and gave us some music, evidently to beguile the journey and mak us feel the unfortunate detention less. They were warmly thanked, by a deputation. Robert went moodily towards the stables, but presently carne back, erect and triumphant, having, after much parley, secured a fresh horse. His speech •on the occasion was an emphatic and memorable one : ^* Boys, we are going into Randolph with six horses if we have to buy 'em." Great applause. Good boy, Robert. *' Hurrah ! hurrah for the heather hills," Some one burst out as we sped away from Barnard, the team refreshed and its human load reassured, the outline of Randolph hills in the distance. Our new horse proved " a daisy," as the note book says, and on the same page, '* the driver a brick, indeed ;" bits of slang which it is hoped will be pardoned for the sake of their expressiveness. Bethel we passed at tea time — we knew this because the telegraph operator was at tea, and Robert would not let anybody know what in the mischief he wanted to telegraph for, anyway. The little place nestled in an amphitheatre of hills. 38 NOTES OF A ■''.II At eight o'clock we came in sight, over the crest of a hill, of the pretty plateau on which West Randolph is placed. A bicyclist was stationed where he could see our approach, and when we appeared he dashed off as if to announce our coming. Mr. Wm. H. Du Bois, director of the Vermont Central Railway, met us here ;. Horace alighted to drive his horse in, while we made room on the coach for him and his little son. We ap- proached the village from the south, along a ridge which seemed an embankment made by nature on pur- pose for a drive. The landscape was of the loveliest, for the clouds had not lost their sunset dyes, while objects in the valley were just beginning to be softened by the dusk. It was very evident by the smiles and waving ker- chiefs from door-step groups which greeted us as we drove into the village, that we were expected and were welcome. There was no one but seemed to know Kimball, and no one, certainly, had other than smiles or kind words for him or his friends- Along the main street and past the public square we drove, and pulled up at the home of Robert's mother^ The dear old lady was awaiting us with a welcome there was no mistaking. It was a true Home-coming, for she did us the honor to term us " her boys," and right well pleased had we occasion to be with her motherly kind- ness and solicitude. Standing about her in the little porch of the cottage, we gave three cheers for Mrs. Kimball and three more for Robert, with a Dwight-Wiman " tiger" which must have convinced the sedate neighbors, if it did not Mrs. Kimball, that she had got hold of a pretty noisy crowd. It had been .matter of wondering speculation among JUNE COACHING TRIP. 39 the group where, (in that neat Httle building,) he could possibly put us all, when Robert insisted, in a tone which we could not gainsay, that every one of the Club should go to his mother's house. The puzzle was solved when the parlor-door was opened and Leeds, Raynor, Matthews and Hedley were told Parlor " K" was for us four. Presto ! what a transformation ; and what a bold idea ! The centre tables and sofas were taken out of the parlor and behold, instead, four pretty bedsteads in a row ; washstands, coat hooks, every appurtenance convenient, and views of the Grand Canal parade of the Club at Venice, on the walls to delight us. It was, as Wiman said, the most elastic house one could imagine ; for no one was crowded even when more visitors appeared than were expected. The other fellows had rooms up stairs, but the " big four," as those named were disposed to christen themselves, wanted no odds of any man as to sleeping accommoda- tion or ability to sleep. If one of us could only have *' traded " sleeping appetites with Wiman, what a bless- ing it might have been to the Vice-President. Chandler went to his brother's house and Morse to that of Dubois. We dined at eight, and it was a most enjoyable dinner. Then for a starlight smoke and chat on the verandah in the cool air, and to bed at ten, less fatigued with the* long drive of forty miles than we had been with the shorter ones of previous days. This was, very possibly, because we had varied the scene by walking, and the exercise had revived us. It was as well, per- haps, for the peace of the neighbors and the more sedate coachers who lodged in separate rooms overhead, that the '* big four " were in a private house, with a lady for hostess. Nothing else would have kept these 40 NOTES OF A ** children of a larger growth " from making night hideous with pillow-fights, songs and loud laughter. Theodore discreetly chose a bed near a window, so that he could escape if jokes became too practical. Hedley was placed in the bed between Willie's and Wilbur's, in order that these two should not molest one another in the night. But even if their hands were figuratively tied their tongues were not, and Harrigan <& Hart were rivalled for a time with " Swamp " stories and *' Island " puns. The historian does not doubt that we even laughed m our sleep that night ; and whether or not we were therefore talking to the angels, as runs the beautiful Irish legend of the sleeping child which smiles, it is as true as the stars that there were angels near us. West Randolph, Vt., Saturday, June 9TH. OOBERT, first of the household awake, roused all '*'^ hands at seven to be ready for one of the most appetizing of breakfasts at eight. We had brook trout, which Mr. Gay and Mr. Vial, two of our village friends — think of it — drove nine miles that morning to catch, for our enjoyment, starting at three. Then, cfter prayers, those who had letters to write secluded them- selves for the purpose. A visit was made to the tele- graph and post offices and to the Randolph National Bank, of which Mr. Dubois is president. The weather was most inviting, and about ten o'clock carriages came to the door to take the party for a drive to Col. Mead's farm. The spanking team which took the lead belonged to Dubois. " You can drive 'em anywhere 91 JUNE COACHING TRIP. 41 you can drive a yoke of steers, they are so clever," said he, with admiration which we very soon shared. Those who noticed it were struck with the invitation 5 worthy of Thoreau or John Burroughs, lettered upon a little bird house, erected in front of a dwelling as we drove out of town : " Come, birdies, come." From Randolph Hill, where we stopped to drink at a roadside spring, we saw, among the hills that swelled all around us, Killington, a tall peak back of Rutland, thirty miles away. This spring had memories for the Randolph boys amongst us : close by it stood the house where Robert was born, a plain wooden building, older than it looked and almost hidden from view by barns, as one approached it driving up the hill. Our route lay along a breezy hill-top, or ridge of successive hills, with more of them beyond, and Randolph lying, a break in the expanse of rolling greenery, in the valley between. Arrived at Col. Mead's farm, where we had been promised some bread and butter, we found that Mrs. Mead had provided that and something more, for such a repast as we sat down to was delicious enough for an eighteenth century gourmand. It sufficed to con- firm the party in the belief which had been instilled into us all along, that there is something quite too utterly utter about Jersey milk and butter. Walking over the large and evidently well conducted farm, we reached the field which contained Kimball's Polled cattle, imported, and whi^h he prizes highly. There were nine cows, and the bull, Romeo, of the Norfolk and Suffolk red-polled breed, which Robert had brought 43 NOTES OF A out from England in October, 1882, at which time Romeo was not a year old. On the previous day, Mr. Wiman had wired Mr. A. M. Kidder, head of the banking firm of A. M. Kidder & Co., New York, and Morse's partner, at his summer quarters, Plymouth, N. H., to join us. This he did on Saturday, looking, thanks to country air and fare, but little like the invalid we expected to find him. At two we started to complete the circuit of twelve or fifteen miles, which was to bring us back to Randolph Village. On the way it was in order to visit the Moulton Stock Farm, where we had the good fortune to find all three brothers, Messrs. Oilman, Justin and Clarence Moulton, at home. All of us had heard of Mr. G. S. Moulton, in con- nection with the improvement of Coney Island — of which scheme, now so successful and famous, his firm, Messrs. Austin Corbin <^ Co., were the authors. Here we saw a herd of fully a hundred Jersey cows, all registered, and probably the best herd of that breed in the United States. They were of a variety of colors : solid gray fawn, silver gray, red fawn, light brown with white chest and brisket, and all of them, doubtless, with escutcheons to which even Robert could take no exception. While upon the subject of Jersey cattle, it may be well to note here that, in a seven days test made this month, of the Jersey cow. Value 2nd, 6,844, bred in New Jersey, owned in Baltimore, the coW was milked at intervals of eight hours, yielding 327 pounds of milk, from which was produced 25 pounds 2 ounces of butter. We were here shown two out of their three valuable bulls : Albert Rex, Pearl Rex, and Ben Rex, kept in quarters sumptuous enough to correspond JUNE COACHING TRIP. 43 with their names. The Messrs. Moulton have in their stables and paddocks some very handsome horse flesh, principally of the Hambletonian strain, and obligingly took us to see as many of them as our limited stay would permit. Vermont Chief, a son of old Hamble- tonian, was a fine animal, and there were other sleek and symmetrical horses there which we fairly had to drag Wilbur away from. Here, too, we found the most admirably appointed creamery which any of the strang- ers had seen. Its construction, ventilation and fitting were to our eyes faultless ; and the minute care ob- served to keep its every corner and utensil clean and sweet, free from contact with injurious substance or even odor, would be a revelation to many a farmer. Those who, in Canada, are struggling to further her important dairy interests by reforming the butter in- dustry, so that the butter made in the Dominion shall equal her cheese in quality, could scarcely impress laissez-faire dairymen more strongly than by taking them to an establishment such as this and showing^ them what stress is laid upon cleanliness and methods The result, measured in dollars and cents, will prove to the farmer's pocket if it does not to his palate the worth of special care and technical knowledge : for the price obtained for butter from this dairy ranges from 65 cents per pound this week to one dollar per pound in the winter season. The ensilage system, too, had a good illustration in the complete arrangements at this farm. A succession of lovely views rewarded our eager eyes on this drive. Cloud shadows chased each other along the slopes of near and distant hills ; peaks forty miles away melted into the evening sky and gorgeous i 44 NOTES OF A clouds prolonged the panorama of Nature. Graceful elms along the road tossed their branches in the breeze and sugar orchards near by encouraged us to believe thai, as Scott declares, " Ne'er was poison mixed in maple bowl." One does not wonder that interest is taken in sugar maples here, as well as in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, when he learns that the maple sugar * crop ' of Vermont amounts in value to from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 a year. Near Col. Mead's we passed a red house, whose eave-troughs bore the date 1790; it had four rows of lights, *iome of them dormer windows in the roof, patterned after the French Canadian style of dwelling, reminders of the days of the Intendants and Governors of the regime of old France in the New World, which Parkman so well describes. The crown- ing view of all was obtained when we reached Fish Hill. Out-spread below us lay the valley in which Randolph nestles ; its spires distinct in the declining sunlight, a glint of water here and there, a railway train with its puff of smoke, the vivid green and dark green foliage alternating with brown fields and brighter meadows. The landscape was, assuredly, one key to the charm which this township possessed for our friends who were to the manor born. We reached Mrs. Kimball's a little late for tea, but were not scolded. Indeed the Keeper of the Records does not know of any instance in which we did get a scolding there. As we sat in the porch enjoying our evening smoke, there came marching down the street the village band, in full uniform, with waving plumes and accompanied by delighted link-boys who bore their JUNE COACHING TRIP. 45 kerosene torches as proudly as if they were banners at a Sunday school parade. Halting opposite the house the band proceeded to serenade Robert and his friends^ with a number of airs well-chosen and well per- formed. They were invited into the grounds, where Robert thanked them for thus welcoming his friends and himself and called on Wiman to respond for the Club, which he did with even more than his usual happy facility, for his heart was full. Morse made a brief address and even Dwight was induced to ' break a cus- tom ' and make a neat little speech. Chandler spoke, with unaffected emotion, of the pleasure of this reunion with old friends, playmates, companions, some of them in uniform before us; and although many were missed, yet " all were not gone, the old familiar faces." After the band had left, we lingered on the porch and sang song after song, plaintive or gay. A constant favorite was " Title Clear," which lived in the recollec- tion of the Club because they heard it sung by the guides and Indians in Muskoka long ago under circum- stances which made it memorable. " Auld Lang Syne " elicited an unlooked-for encore from a crowd of villagers gathered on pathway or fence across the street, whose presence, in the darkness, we had not suspected. Sunday, June ioth. OHOWERS had fallen during the night, bat the ^ Sabbath morning dawned bright and clear. We went, together, to the Baptist Church, and* heard a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Pierce. The allusion of the preacher to the hill view as being superior to that from m 46 NOTES OF A the valley, in things spiritual as well as physical, seem- ed to us to have an especial appositeness. Mrs. Mead and her baby arrived from the farm for dinner, as also did Miss Mead and her brother. Heavy showers after dinner, which kept everyone in- doors; but presently a start was made for the house of Mr. Dubois, who with his good lady entertained us de- lightfully for some hours. Having Mrs. Dubois* effective assistance we were able to give some hymns in chorus. Albert was at the piano, and when, a great rarity, he sang a sacred solo, it was a treat to be remembered and worth travelling a whole night to hear. On the way returning, we stopped at Mr. Willard Gay's cosy home, whose daughter won our hearts by citing the poem from which the Club motto is taken, viz., Lowell's Sir Launfal : " What is so rare as a day in June, Then, if ever, come perfect days. Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays. Whether we look or whether we listen We hear life murmur or see it glisten." And many a time did we see the " glisten " as the sur- face of field and meadow was swept by the wind and the bent blades shone in the sun. We had some more sint^ing when we came home to Mrs. Kimball. " How delightful, if Robert's wife and children were here now," and our hearts went out to where other dear ones were gathered, in distant cities, thinking of us, doubtless, and the thought was ** like the benediction that follows after prayer." What days these two have been, we said to ourselves ; shall we ever have just such another, restful, happy scene ?, As at Trading Lake, years ago : JUNE COACHING TRIP. 47 . *' Brief seemed the day and all too brief the night Of this red-letter Sunday in the woods. The hours, the restless hours that would not wait, Now bring the time the visitor? depart : ' Another song," — ' one more ' — and yet again The eager hunters beg ' one little hymn.' —► I ■4' o*r=@=**t Monday, June iith. n^ 0-DAY we were to drive to Montpelier, the capital ■'• of the State, and were up in good season to look after packing and other preparations for a start. It had rained heavily in the night and looked still unsettled when Faunce appeared, promptly at eight, with the coach and six. As we were mounting, behold ! a photographer, making demonstrations towards us with his shot-gun-like apparatus. A sort of New Eng- land Italian he seemed, full of 'a wild civility' as Herrick says, and with a * sweet disorder ' about him. Whether he got satisfactory views or not we could not tell, lor he vanished with ' divvle a word barrin' a nod, yer Honour,' when he had done. But the frontis- piece to this little book bears testimony to his skill. The good-byes said, three cheers for Mrs. Kimball and three more for Mrs. Mead, and we were off, due north. Our route lay through the townships of Wil- liamstown, Brookfield and Barre. As we emerged from the valley, the cloud scape was nearly as fine as the land view. Mists clung to some of the distant peaks, but in front and on either hand of us there soon shone the bluest of skies, folding masses of clouds of vivid and luminous whiteness shading into a deep and som- bre gray, and above them the nimble cirri, sending 48 NOTES OF A their shadows flying across the slopes. Passing along a ridge. road we found some striking scenes, and as we crossed the Brookfield boundary one, especially lovely> confronted us. The earth took shapes, along here, so- bold and grand that in our eagerness to see t* c n, all hands got on top of the coach, leaving only the valises, inside and the hamper at the back for ballast. It was scarcely comfortable driving, in places, for going down slopes, and rounding craggy corners our craft had a top-heavy feel. There were ticklish spots on the route, where the wheel was not a foot from the edge of a descent of hundreds of feet. We were on the down grade, too, just there. Reminiscences began to be heard of frightful chasms on the ascent of the Simplon to the Hospice on its top, or that dizzy drive down to Brigue, ******** 'which some of the timid ones among us, who had not been upon the Club's last trip to Europe, thought were in very poor taste •♦ at such a time as this." Still, while we held on the more timorously with our hands, and got our legs ready to jump, just in case of accident, you know, we were mentally holding on to Faunce who, with foot on brake and every joint in every finger oiled for delicate steering, handled his 4,000 lb. load, and his six h.p. engine in a way that might well reassure : '* I wudn't hev a dump fur all the cump'ny thet wuz," he confided to the Historian who was sitting reverently at his feet, " not fur t' kem deown here from hum" — alluding to the injury it would cause to his prestige if he, a driver for fouiteen years between Stowe and Montpelier, should come down this far, from his home at Stowe, to * spill ' his passengers. We marvelled often at his mianagement JUNE COACHING TRIP. 49 of the animals by touch of rein or word of mouth, at the alertness of the leaders, the calmer sagacity of the wheelers. Asking Faunce what the secret of his suc- cess was — he never went over a precipice but once, when the pole strap broke and the coach could not be turned away from the chasm — his reply would be : *' Ef ye dun't keep yer eyes whar they belong ye can't come eout right. Y' want to know whar yer bosses feet air and whar yer wheels is. — Gut to keep feelin' uv yer critters tu ; I cal'clate to feel the mouths of every one on 'em, settin right here." Going up a hill out of Randolph on the Monday, we met a ruddy-cheeked, elderly man behind a glossy nag, who looked us over as he passed us by and then turned lazily on his seat to say " Forty years ago, I'd think the Legislatur' had riz." In the tortuous and exciting drive of the last hour, zig- zagging and doubling in the most be*vildering way, we were pursued by a brook which took so many shapes and chased or dodged us so waywardly that it might have been enchanted. What a delicious dash and rush it had as it followed and then crossed the road, how sub- dued into silence as it fell into a pond in a little, land- locked basin. " Trout in there, boys, I'll bet you what you like," said Tom. Then, grown bolder and larger, it passed a mill, whose wheel it drove, farther down on its crooked course another mill, and another, and then, having attained the dimensions of an old country river, fell gradually into a narrow cut, rushing and foaming more and more till out of sight. No wonder this town was named Brook-field, if it had many feuch elvish streams. Sometimes these mountain brooks would run shyly past us at a little distance with leisurely pace, and 4 so NOTES OF A " • • Chatter over stony ways In little sharps and trebles." At other times they would leap joyously down t je slopes as if to keep us company, when " Owre a linn the bumie plays Wi' bickerin' dancin* dazzle." Presently we emerged from this rather difficult country into a valley, which narrowed until it became a deep and wedge-like ravine, known as Williamstown Gulch. Here the cleft is just wide enough to hold a house and a road, and the steep sides are loio feet high. The house is Lang's Hotel, and we stayed thereat two hours, getting an excellent dinner, during which rain came on and lamps had to be lighted. Wiman earned a scolding from the general manager for too pronounced attentions to a little lady who was also stopping at the hotel. But her husband did not seem to resent them, for he cordially offered his flask — it was a large one — to everybody in the party. Robert, Wilbur, Hedley and Dwight beat Kidder, Chandler, Tom and Willie at a match-game of ten-pins ; then we had a drink at the medicinal spring near by, and started at 2.40. Passing through Williamstown into faarre, we stopped at an octagon-shaped hotel to escape a rain- storm, and saw a new-fangled, noiseless lawn-mower, which bids fair to supersede the Philadelphia ones. Here is situated a large school, which has enjoyed celebrity in the Eastern States for a quarter of a cen- tury or more. Dubois met people, here as elsewhere, whom he knew, and we guessed that he had to do more private explaining than he cared to admit, as to who his unruly comrades were. Robert sometimes JUNE COACHING TRIP. 5t forgot his cares as general manager and broke away from the gravity which befits the office — witness the Westminster episode — but we rather welcomed that, even Jove must sometimes nod. Kidder and Albert pass, when at home, we are told, for quiet men, and while it would be a libel to say that they were ever indecorous, it is at least true that, like the fat Knight Falstaff, they were the frequent cause of wit in others. The rain which we had dodged at Barre caught us further on, when we had much fun in the unaccustomed circumstances. Having plenty of rubber-coats or sheets and several umbrellas no one got wet, but the sedate iiisides had rather the best of it. As we skirted and afterwards crossed the Winooski River, a rainbow appeared, to add to the beauty of the scene. Tom was our authority on trees, and shrubs and flowers : he could tell a beech from a chestnut a mile off and could name about every green leaved thing we saw, but one, and that he could neither divine nor find anyone to explain. He seemed to have read Evelyn's Sylva as well as the Arboriculture Manual of the Pro- vince of Quebec. And it was an improving sort of knowledge, too, for as somebody says, " There's nothing that keeps its youth, so far as I know, like a tree and truth." We saw these all, officeis, subalterns and privates in the army of the forest : " The lofty woods in summer sheen arrayed, The trembling poplar with its silver leaf, The stately walnut rising o'er the glade, The willow, bending with its load of grief. The graceful elm, the energetic oak, The red-leaved maple, and the slender pine, The grove of ^rs, half hidden by the smoke From the white cottage clothed with jessamine." 52 NOTES OF A And the historian would here observe, without stopping the coach, that no better descriptive epithets have been found for these trees than are here appUed to them by a Canadian poet — who was also fdnd of fishing. " Well, we have only your word for that," said the saucy Matthews ; how do you know he was a fisher- man ? there's nothing about fish in the piece you spouted !" "Say 'recited,' Wilbur, it sounds tonier," interjected Kidder. The spouter, abashed, could only refer to further stanzas of Sa.iigster\ ^Evening Scene on Detroit River ^ where he says : " the fisher ceased his song, leaned on his oar." '* Yes, but that was only a kingfisher, Jimmie," said the senior ornithologist. ** Do kingfishers have 'oars' as well as 'songs,' Willie, you sardine ?'• " Yes, and (r)udder too," chimed in Robert, to keep up the fun. A year or more ago, it was enacted that every Vermonter should swear to the return of property he made to the assessors. The result was that in 63 towns the total of personalty rose from $37,000,000 in 1881 to $76,000,000 in 1882. This may or may not prove them a God-fearing population, but it reminds one of an Arkansas story : " What's the value of your personal property, old man ?" asked a tax assessor of a negro in that State. " What yej wanter know dat fur ?" " So we'll know how much to make you pay." " My stuff's dun paid fur, Sah !" " Yes, but you'll have to pay taxes on your household goods." " Dey taxed me enough in de fust place, Sah. Ain't agwine ter pay no mo' !" " If you don't you can't vote at the next election !" " All right. Dey don't count my vote nohow. Go off some whar and tax a man fur havin de rheumatiz." JUNE COACHING TRIP. 53 Arrived at Montpelier, with the right kind of wel- come from the proprietor of the roomy-looking Pavilion Hotel, the first enquiry was for letters, and the next, from Willie, that walking cyclopedia of Wall Street information, for quotations. Some other staid and modest members of the group devel6ped a sudden curi- osity about prices, and presently we heard : " Saint Paul preferred is all right, anyway ; Delaware & Lack- awana i28f. " — "How's Denver?" asked one eager voice, and the reader replied " Why the market is oflf, it seems to me." " Nonsense," called out old steady- goer, " Erie common is 37f , and when we left New York it was 35^, so how's that for ' off' ? " " Why, here! shove this along to Wiman, he's a director and maybe he'd like to know that Western Union is up four points." " No ! " " Yes it is too, this is the latest, the very latest ; she sold on the 5th at 83 and is now 87, three from seven leaves four, or used to, when I went to school." Having ' shoved it along ' to Wiman, who was waist deep in letters and telegrams, we were making some movement towards our rooms, when *' What about Canada Pacific ? " came unexpectedly from a quiet New Yorker, and the Canadian contingent indulged a little patriotic pride in hearing the name of their national work quoted on the New York market along with the other prominent stocks of the day. In a little while we were gazing l the handsome granite State House, near by, with its colossal statue of Ceres surmounting the dome, when DuBois, enjoy- ing our admiration remarked ; " Nice little state, ours " — he is County Treasurer — " no jobs, no debt, 275 representatives, mostly good men." The " good men" we were not disposed to question, but we did question 54 NOTES OF A him, some of us, as to why it took 275 of them and a Senate besides, to " run " a state with a population of 335»ooo when Ontario, with 2,000,000 people was *' run " with only 86. It seemed too much machinery for the hull of the boat, as one of our Maritime Province mem- bers might say. The slight collation tiiat we had here before sallying out to see the capital, some might call a' square meal, but we did not " let ourselves out " at table, as Wilbur puts it, out of consideration for the civil but solemn girls with large eyes — Jersey eyes, some one called them — who waited on us. On the piazza of the hotel we were introduced to Mr. Bingham, uniyersally known as " Governor " Bingham, from his having been for twenty years Democratic can- didate for the governorship of a pronouncedly Repub- lican State, and who seems destined to die candidating, " facing fearful odds," like a New England Horatius of the hustings. A portly, hearty, unmistakably jolly gentleman he was ; we almost wished, pace the claims of some good folks who shall be nameless, that he might get converted and have a chance to ** fill our Guberna- tor's chair;" but he seemed the sort of stuff which nothing, short of a hot-blast converter, would convert. At last we found ourselves in the grounds of the State House, whose terraced granite steps lead up to the really imposing building, with its massive Doric portico. Mead's statue of Ethan Allen, near the entrance, reminded us of days when in Morse's geogra- phy we used to read of the battle of Bennington and the bold Ethan's exploits as marking the early history of Vermont. The attitude of the statue would seem to illustrate the moment when, in 1775, the fearless Green Mountain boy demanded of Captain De la Place the JUNE COACHING TRIP. 55 surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, ** in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." It is a neat, clean, charming town, this Montpelier with its French name ; neat residences, with lawns unfenced ; a handsome railway station, a lovely cemetery, and doubtless other pretty sights had we had time to see them. But here we were to lose Wiman, Morse and Chand- ler, and we could not think of anything else that night. In vain Wiman, loath to go, and needing rest, but driven by necessities of his own eager, restless making, bade us go to bed, and he would sit up for the midnight train ; in vain did Morse assume a gayety he did not feel; in vain Chandler chivalrously urged, for our sakes, that it was now "the dusky hour, friendliest to sleep and silence," — Dear, candid Chandler : " Better lo'ed ye canna be ; Will ye no come back again ?" We stayed and saw them off at the train, and then to bed in half a gale of wind. Heigh ho ! the wind and the rain ; how they did beat and bang our window shutters, making Tom think he was out in his son's boat, close reefed, and pitying, as old Dibdin's song did, " those unhappy folks on shore now." Montpelier, Vt., Tuesday, June i2Th. 'T^HE morning was all the brighter and cooler for the **• gusty night, and we loaded up the [coach at nine a.m. the usual good-natured crowd assembled to see us off, and with three cheers for Montpelier we got under weigh. The sky was clear blue and white on starting but when we reached Waterbury, 1 2 miles, at half-past 56 NOTES OF A eleven o'cloct it had clouded all over with gray. A fresh, damp breeze was, however, a bracing tonic. The field daisies on the hill sides we passed, and the butter cups along the road, seemed not to have been too hardly used hy the rain and the breezes in the night, for they smiled and waved to us ; but we were mostly too late for the dandelion, " dear common flower that grow'st beside the way," as Lowell hails it, " fringing the dusty road with harmless gold." Trundling through Middlesex village we observed a sign reading West India Goods and Groceries, As several others did along the route — an old-fashioned announcement which may be often seen in Halifax and other ancient Maritime Province towns. Arrived at Waterbury, all embosomed in hills, we found a nice hotel and an accommodating landlord ; there were some girls on the piazza, whom, as students of nature in all her forms, we eyed rather more closely perhaps than was becoming. But our forwardness was " not a patch on " that of Faunce, who, when his horses were made comfortable, pushed into the departments of the Water- bury Hotel supposed to be sacred to females, and with his chair tilted back and his legs crossed, had no end of a good chat with the " help," as we could see. At noon to-day, Tuesday, Kidder and Dubois left the party, reducing its number to seven. They had been very welcome guests, and we were pleased to hear them say that they had got even more than they expected in the way of interest and recreation, out of the trip. " This drive's worth a farm," called out Dubois, in his quick way. "Yes, with a hen on it." responded Kidder, wearing his holiday face. We only . JUNE COACHING TRIP. 57 hope that Mr. Kidder gained in weight and strength as some of the rest did, whom we wot of. The sub- scriber knows a man in the party who gained nine pounds in twelve days, and who was heard on his return to ask for a button-hook to fasten the waist buttons of his trousers. From Waterbury Centre we looked back upon Camel's Hump, a mountain which arched its back 4000 feet high some ten miles away, and looked forward to Mount Mansfield, nearly 5000 feet in height, the high- est peaks in the circle of heights. A memorandum occurs in the historian's note book : " Telephone wire all along here," which is a reminder that we did wonder, some of us, how there came to be such a pro- fusion of telephone and such a scarcity of telegraph through this quiet district. Was it that the telephone people were making efforts to penetrate the territory which the Western Union scorned to make ? There were some parts in which the telegraph lines were rather primitive, side blocks on the poles, and the old boot-hook style of insulator. Some of the travelled members of the Club who had "been to Yurrup " told of the use of marble for telegraph posts in parts of Italy, and ventured to think that Vermont had as much right as Italy to that sort of extravagance — if extrava- gance it were. But Tom could smile superior on that score ; he had forgotten more than some of them knew about wires and posts, however much they might excel him in picturesque lies (this is Mark Twain's phrase) about the Grindenwald and the Corniche Road. There were six telegraph men in the party, from first to last, and it is not surprising — since shop-talk will creep into the best regulated excursions — that we 58 NOTES OF A sometimes did talk telegraph. One thing had struck more than the two who first spoke of it, viz : the un- expected number of persons in the world who at one time or other of their lives have tried to learn the art of telegraphy. Maybe it is a complaint to which youth of a certain age are liable, like the tendency to rhyme. ' Stow is a large township, and we had ten miles to go before reaching, at 2 p.m., the village at which E» C. Bailey, owner of " Our Coach " and proprietor of the Mount Mansfield House, received us with a smile broad enough and a welcome large enough to take in the 400 guests, which is stated to be the capacity of his summer hotel. Bailey the son was there, too, and he was an unmistakable New Englander, in style and frame. But the ** old man " might have been a British Boniface, he was so jolly and burly. Bert Faunce was down off his perch in a twinkling, and had the arms of a little boy, his son, round his neck even before making his report to his employer. Here we were to part with our comfortable coach and our six trusty horses. " Well, well, old Bay ! Ha, ha, old Gray!" As Farmer John says, we must lose you here but we will not forget you. After a substantial dinner the route was taken at 3.20 for Mt. Mansfield, in a three-seated spring waggon with four fresh horses, still having Faunce as driver. The hand-bags and some Kosh-a-wosh were put under the seats. A steady climb for five or six miles ; fine weather when we started, but when up beyond cloud line the mist and the rain combined to soak whatever JUNE COACHING TRIP. 59 parts of us they could get at ; the air grew dark and chill and the spirits of the boys were tried. Dw. was a fit subject for a crayon sketch, with a summer overcoat which failed to cover his knees, and a broken umbrella ; to keep up the ribs of this one hand was needed, while the slant of the ribs guided the trickling streams of rain water down the neck of his next neigh- bor. Theodore was rather chirpy, while Willie spoke not a word unless to respond to chaff. Tom had his pipe to comfort him. Robert pre- served the spirit and the attitude of Excelsior^ for the shades of night were falling fast and he felt the weight of government heavy upon him, probably, for here was a novel experience for us : a steady soaking. Wilbur was not overcome badly ; he had seen rain before, somewhere in Switzerland, but somehow thought this American rain could wet a man through quicker than any that dropped from old-world skies — save and except, always, those of Greenock and Glasgow. When half way up the rain abated, and a halt was made to rest the horses. It proves what an abstemious group we were that not a person looked for the Kosh-a- wosh until we stopped ; but when we did, we found both it and the hand-bags gone ! Great Glenlivat ! what a thirst we now discovered. One fellow started back to search the road for the missing valuables, but in vain ; so there was nothing for it but to remount and push on. At six the Summit House was reached in the midst of blast and downpour ; but in the large rooms of the hotel, warmed by wood -fires, the party stripped off their wet things and made ready for the generous supper provided by the keeper and his wife, who were their own cooks and housemaids and boots. 6o NOTES OF A Luckily, tobacco was not scarce, and Hedley, notwith- standing that his cigar case was gone down the moun- tain side, never to return, had some Montpeher Capa- duios in an inner pocket, which a fastidious officer of the Club was pleased to approve. Some mutterings of thunder by-and-bye assisted the eerie blasts to shake the house, and this set the landlord off upon reminiscences of storms in a twenty-seven year's residence in this mountain country. •* It doos thunder and lighten some, hereaways," he began, " one time I was a stan'in here by the door an' the lightnin' struck near by — seemed lik' a fleece o' wool come right up aroun' me to my knees. My soul an' body ! how it stunded me ; I cudn't stir, no more cud my wife. Think, sez I, I'm sent fur neow. It run back an' furth acrosst the stov^e, an' we seemed to kin' o' feel lik' our hair was singein." "Lets' see your hair," said the incredulous Willie, amid a chorus of laughter. The host was as good-natured as he was nimble ; a French Canadian, Louis de Mois by name, he had been a trades- man elsewhere, but developed a taste for cookery, of his skill in which, indeed, he gave us proof, and while he cooked steaks, biscuits, pancakes, his active wife played waitress on us all with marked dexteritv. Top of Mansfield Mountain, Wednesday, June 13TH. T T owl as the elements might without, we slept soundly ■■•-*' within, and in the morning were early astir to get the view which the dun clouds had prevented the day before. The panorama was superb : a sea of mountains ; the plateau off towards Stow ; the chasm JUNE COACHING TRIP. 6l of Smuggler's Notch ; Champlain Lake and the Valley with its villages ; beyond the lake the blue Adiron- dacks ; but the distant White Mountains we could not see, for it was not very clear. Some of us climbed the 200 or 300 feet of bare and roughly laminated rock which forms the " chin " of the profile of a human being which this mountain top resembles. We had been awakened, by Dumois calling out in the corridors, " here's your bags," ami sure enough here was the obliging Faunce, who had driven his empty waggon down the mountain in the rain at night and walked up in the dawn of the morning to bring our bags and the precious Kosh-a-wosh. We had a tip-top breakfast, as the note-book records, and left the hotel at 8.30 to walk down the west side of Mount Mansfield. Our path proved to be a water-course, which the rains through the night had swelled to more than ankle deep, and what with perspiration and soft water, slips in the mud and tumbles on the boulders, we were more dilapidated in appearance than '.'good torm " would have permitted when we had covered the two miles — " two miles !" said some one indignantly, *' it was more like four" — to where waggons were wait- ing to convey us to Underbill. A little rain fell, on the way, but we were beyond caring for that, and eleven o'clock found us at the Dixon House, Underbill, where two friends of Robert's from Burlington, Mr. K. B. Walker and Dr. Vincent, had arrived to meet us. Getting an early dinner, we bestowed ourselves in and upon the Tantivy Coach of W^ H. Lane & Son, Mr. Rogers, driver, bound for Burlington, 16 miles. There was lots of fun and innumerable cigars concealed about Walker, we soon found, and the more sedate 62 NOTES OF A doctor was presently guilty of some very good stories, which were racy of the soil. '• Hotter 'n mustard, ain't it ?" said Walker, as we slowed-up about noon, in the sandy road of Jericho Centre on the Lamoille River, on the Burlington & Lamoille Railroad, a remark which reminded the driver, in turn, of ** a little story." It was while crossing Lamoille River bridge, that Matthews got a fright which will henceforth increase his sympathy with brakesmen on freight -trains. The bridge was a covered one, as most of them are in this district, and its designers had not had Tally-Ho outsides in view in their measurements. '* Low Bridge !" had been duly called out by the pilots on the front seat, and every one ducked his head. But the three on the last and highest seat had to bend backs as well as heads ; the two thin ones had room to pass under the beams, but Matthews, bend his Atlas-like shoulders as he might, could not escape contact, and the nut of a projecting bolt on the under side of the cross-beam caught his chocolate velvet coat and ripped it from shoulder to waist, before the coach could be stopped. It was a mercy his back, or at any rate his ribs, had not been broken. He did not rt sh allusions to Sartor Resartus, and could not be got to adopt Herr Teufelsdrceckh's " Philosophy of Clothes," seeing that, for once, he was out of harmony with his environ- ment. Hedley even bethought him of a translation of Beranger's most famous songs, A mon habit : " Poor though we be, my good old friend, No gold shall bribe our backs to bend, , Poor coat." But Wilbur's back did bend, and that rather spoiled the application. JUNE COACHING TRIP. 63 The drive from Underbill to Burlington was most enjoyable, and we reached Burlington in high spirits about two, where the party was quartered at the Van Ness House, whose landlord is a nineteenth century brick. After dinner, three carriages were brought by our hospitable friends, and we were taken for a memorable drive about one of the loveliest towns in all New Eng- land, Mr. Derby, an agreeable addition to the party, having joined us at Mr. Walker's request. For four hours we drove about, in and out of the town, so enter- tained with cur companions and the various charming views and objects that it did not seem two. The Bishop Hopkins Institute, and curiou.i monument to the bishop's memory; Legrand Connon's mansion and park ; the Agricultural grounds and race-track ; the beautiful cemetery and neat chapel ; the new buildings of Burlington University where the statue of Lafayette was to be placed, and many handsome residences in commanding sites. Good roads and p>er- fect weather added, made the long and varied drive absolutely delightful. We were interested in what Mr. Walker told us of the benefactions done to the community by Mr. John P. Howard. This gentleman, a bachelor, has bestowed much of his great wealth in benefitting the citizens of Burlington. For example, he has built three fountains in the city, built the entrance to the fair grounds, the pretty chapel in the cemetery. Ther. he expends $54,000 in modernizing Vermont University buildings ; gives $25,000 to place in front of it a statue of Lafay- ette, (who laid the corner-stone of the old building, by the way,) and having erected an opera house block at ».- 64 ' NOTES OF A a cost of $100,000 he hands it over to be managed for the behoof of the Orphans' Home. What a lesson to men of wealth to be their own executors ; to see the fruit of their donations ; to partake, while they yet live, of that purest of pleasures, the pleasure of making others comfortable and happy. Strange, that the appe- tite for amassing money should so often grow by what it feeds on, and that impulses to generosity so commonly lead no further in rich men's life-time, than to bequests in wills, to be squabbled over at law when the makers are dead and gone. After tea at the VanNess House, which was crowded with members of the Masonic brotherhood, met on some ff. Jtival occasion, the President and the Historian were seated, in fancied seclusion, in a corner of the verandah when a young man approached and asked " Is this a reunion of the Grand Army of the Poto- mac ? " pointing to our brown velvet coats. It was well for that young man that Robert's wrath or Willie's scorn did not fall upon him. \ BURLTNGTON, THURSDAY, I4TH JUNE. T^HE unseemly noises of some convivial Freemasons ■*• overhead kept some of us awake for hours that night, but we were in good trim when roused by Robert at 6.30. A good breakfast put us in tune with the weather, bright, breezy and cool. The baggage checked, and a final division made of the varied contents of the big coach trunk, we were off to the steamer Vermont^ which left at 8.50 for the journey down Lake Cham- plain. JUNE COACHING TRIP. 65 This was the end of our coaching trip, tlie more the pity. Does it need any summing up ? Verily it was of itself a poem, and needs no commemoration in a ''pome" such as some Ochtwan salamander put, by anticipation, into the mouth of " Old Head" when we left Toronto. We had had wonderful weather, much kindness shown us on our way, much of Providential care to be thankful for ; and we had reason to recall, in our inter- course with one another, the dialogue of Joseph and Father Zebedee in the Story of Waterloo : " Everything changes, good sense and a good heart are the only things that remain unchanged." And the lesson of the Old Burying Ground was not lost upon us as we passed the " God's Acre," here and there, that " Yet still the wilding flowers would blow, The golden leaves would fall, The seasons come, the seasons go, And God be good to all." Upon Burlington wharf we chanced to meet Mr. Brad. Smalley, another of Kimball's friends, who was to have ridden in with us from Underbill, but was pre- vented. With much reluctance we bade good-bye to our handsome Walker, who , " Stood six foot, A I, Clear grit an' human nater," , And steamed away on the bosom of the beautiful lake which has gained probably a greater celebrity, on this continent at least, than has the memory of the. great Frenchman after whom it was named. The scenery, so charming and described so often, needs no descrip- tion here, it was seen to perfection in the bright \\ v m t \ r'-"'V-^ "" ■i-'-'fc" 66 NOTES OF A sunlight of to-day. As we passed Crown Point, which has a history of nearly 300 years (1609), and were speculating on the derivation of its name, the captain of the steamer, himself part French Canadian, Rochleau by name, informed us that it was Pointe a la Chevelure^ or Scalp Point, the reference being to the uncomfortable Indian habit of peeling their captives' skulls. Ticonderoga was reached at 11.30, and here we had to part with Kimball, who started by railway for New York. The rail took us hence to Baldwin, Lake George, 4 miles, and we got the steamer Horicon down that lovely sheet, which Willie said looked like Como, barring the vineyards and the bold hills. Could anything surpass the luminous oL :e green tint of the water at Rogers' Rock ? What a pity Wiman was not with us, to be rested and soothed by the placid beauty of the scene. Townsend detected an English party on board, (two ladies with their knitting and a gentleman with a California frog in a box) which Howells or Henry James might have made something of from an American " Point of View." Tom chatted with them about old England for a full hour. Caldwell fulfilled all expectations for picturesqueness, and the Fort William Henry hotel for size. Leeds and Raynor had come with us, intending to take boat from Albany to-night, and when we parted from them we had seen the last, for this summer, of the New York section of the party. The Canadians stopped at Saratoga, 6.30 p.m., and put up at the Clarendon. JUNE COACHING TRIP. 67 Saratoga, N.Y., June 15TH. A NOTHER perfect June morning. Had we had any '^^ other kind, save and except the **drooking" at Mount Mansfield ? If so we did not recall it. After breakfast Slorah's Tally- Ho coach was mounted for a drive to Hilton Park, a visit no sojourner at Saratoga should omit to pay. Then per similar conveyance to Moon's and Frank Leslie's former residence, InterlakeUy on Saratoga Lake, almost equally enjoyable. These coaches boasted performers on the attenuated horn which could put to shame the efforts of our party on their simpler instruments, but they could never get so much fun out of their perfunctory horn-blowing as we did out of our amateur tooting. Back to dinner to find the dining room half filled by undertakers, who were present from all parts, holding a "convention." Mr. Harris, one of the proprietors of the Clarendon (who also keep the new Genesee at Buffalo) was a very cordial Englishman, who seemingly '* knew the ropes " at Washington in addition to his other knowledge. It was not yet •* the season " at Saratoga and we were made very comfortable. Here Dwight heard by cable lelegran. , as he had done at other points during our drive, from his son Lyman, who is one of the Canadian Team which is giving ex- hibition gameg of lacrosse throughout Great Britain. Every one was glad to hear of ** Imey's " welfare, and of the marked success of the team, many of whom we knew. At three we left for Albany by train, arriving at 4.30. Visited the granite and marble Capitol and saw through several of its magnificent apartments, thanks to the address of Dwight and the 3delding civility of an 68 NOTES OF A official who knew when to " break a custom." After tea, Tom and the President drove through the Park, while Wilbur and Hedley were seeing the North River boats and interviewing an enthusiastic Adirondack sportsman down town. Twenty-five cent drinks and fifty cent games of billiards will astonish any fellow who permits himself to forget that he is in the Capital of the Empire State, where the magnificoes " cut it rich." The train which left at 10.30 took us into Buffalo station at half-past seven, where a stately George-Frederick- Washington-Douglas style of waiter got us an admirable breakfast. Then on to Lewiston and per Chicora across Lake Ontario, home. TT may have been noticed that we were greatly favored in respect of weather ; the days were almost uninterrupted sunshine, the nights cool and clear: "Queen's weather," we Canadians would call it, for it has become a proverb that whenever the good Victoria has a pageant, or whenever, on the 24th May,, her birth-day is to be celebrated, it is sure to be fine weather ; " Club weather," the Dwight-Wimans termed it, for their outings have been nearly uniformly blessed with fine days. And the scenery !-— Charming, charm- ing day by day. Were there no mishaps ? None worthy the name. One curious auditor of our adventures wondered how we got on in a tee-total state such as Vermont, seeing that we were not all cold- watermen. " Didn't you miss your beer at dinner ?" Hardly ever. The question recalled, however, a certain entertainment by the late WiUiam E. Dodge of the delegates to the Evan- gelical Alliance in his mansion, when, it is related : JUNE COACHING TRIP. 69 '• certain famous German theologians wandered over the house, as through a dry and thirsty land, in vain quest for a glass of beer." If any one had craved for a stronger beverage than. water, it was not impossible to procure it. But with such stimulants as ozone and hearty laughter what need had we of John Barleycorn ? In the woods in October, or on the Swiss or Scotch Highlands, where the Club have wandered, it might have been requisite and palatable, but here it seemed out of place. Query, was it some feeling of this sort that moved the Vermont people to. forbid it ? '' But on top of Mount Mansfield," Tom thought, " yoii would have been mighty glad of some, drenched as we were." Right you are Tom ; for, as Mrs. Carlyle says, " things affect one so differently at different times," — she is writing from Chelsea to her friend Mrs. Russell — " whiskey seemed to fever me at Holm Hill, at the coast it calmed me, and here it puts me to sleep." It goes without saying, that during the course of the drive many an incident of former Club trips was narrated : Fish stories were told that would have de- lighted that Prince of fishermen and modern philoso- phers, the late George Dawson, whom one of the party had met in such excellent company as that of Col. (now President) Arthur and Mr. R. G. Dun, albeit they related to trout, and not to the lordly salmon of the Nipisiguit — Tom's upset in the rapids at Ox-Tongue and his capture of the baby bear under the cliff— Wiman's slaughter of wolves at Lake of Bays, for which he claimed and got the- reward of the Ontario Government — The enchanted doe of Camp Hedley in October, 1882, and the legends our guides told of that uncanny little 70 NOTES OF A creature — The "Lady of the Lake" episode of 1879, worthy of the pen of the Great Magician himself — Dwight's appearance in puris naturalibusj in the atti- tude of Ajax defying the Hghtning, his towel for a shield, until, turning his head like a btartled fawn, he beheld the shallop of the Dawson family approach, and ran to cover in the bushes — The entertainment of Olivia-and-DoUy-Varden-in-the-pink-shawl on Captain Huckins' steamer at Baysville — The so sadly misunder- stood hospitality of Wilbur and Willie on the Corniche road on the first trip to Europe, when Morse and Robert, Tom and Theodore missed their wine for want of a timely knowledge of Italian at Refuge No. 1881 — The little keg of Kosh-a-wosh that appeared when " we were the first that ever burst into that silent sea " of Keh-we-am-be-ge-wog-a-mog, and Lyman and K ^nry fell asleep and lost the dog. How W^iman laughed and Chandler stared when Willie Raynor, that born story-teller, rehearsed these and a hundred other tales, ranging from Muskoka to the Pyrenees, from the Georgian Bay to the Bay of Naples. ** Oh ! Boys, oh Boys," as Chris. Sawyer, the guide, used to ejaculate — a harmless expletive which Alfred McDougall is fond of quoting. The Canadian members of the Club, returned to *• the daily round, th^ common task," were saying to one another, in prose, something like this : *' The year has but one June, dear friend, The year has but one June ; And when that perfect month doth end, The robin's song, though loud, though long. Seems never quite in tune," When the correspondence which follows came to them. The big-hearted President had, as we knew he would, JUNE COACHING TRIP. 71 put our sentiments well, and Robert's reply was •' Robert all over." The letters may fitly serve to con- clude this sketch of the trip : — From Greenfield, Mass., to Burlington, Vt. •' What is so rare as a day in June.'''' DWIGHT WIMAN CLUB. g e O New York, June 19th. 1883. R. J. Kimball, Esq., Care Fuller Electrical Co., City. My dear Robert, — It remains for me, on behalf of the Dwight Wiman Club and its guests on the late delightful trip, to make some permanent recog- nition of the appreciation we all entertain of the admirable arrange- ments you made on our behalf. Words would fail me to express to you all we feel about how much you have contributed to the per- petuation of the pleasant relation which exists between us all ; how perfectly and completely you fulfilled, not only our high expecta- tions, but far surpassed them. Nothing seemed wanting throughout. As for your own hospitality at your dear mother's house, it was a thing never to be forgotten ; and I only hope I may have the oppor- tunity some day to do as much for the Club as you did for it in those rare days in June. As some slight token of our sentiments, we beg your acceptance of the accompanying ring, which we trust you will wear in memory of the bright days of June, 1883, rendered all the more delightful by your conception of the trip, your forethought in providing for it, and your happy and ge'— '-^l companionship and guidance through it all. am, ever truly yours, Erastus Wiman, Vice-President, ^^p 72 NOTES. 3 s] b ri C I s n ^ of 1 U " What is so rare as a day in JuneJ"- 141 Montague Street, Brooklyn, N.Y., June 20, 1883. My dearest Friends, — Your delightful not« of the 19th inst. is received, accompanied by a most elegant present : a ring, with a stone which I am sure must be as rare in comparison with the greater number one can find, even at " Tiffany's," as were our " glistening days in June " in com- parison with the other days of the year. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the kindness that prompted the gift, and the token itself. I thank you all. As " Sir Joseph Porter, K. C. B." would say, "it is one of the peculiar characteristics of oilr Club, to be well pleased with whatever we do and have," and therefore I did not expect anything less on our " Coaching Trip," through my dear old State of Vermont; but I was hardly prepared to be '* out- Vermonted ' ' by your appreciation of what we saw and did in the home of my boyhood. This, of itself, more than repays me and my friends for anything we may have done to make your visit a pleasure to you, as it certainly was (extremely so) to us. We all remember the visit "in the rare days of June, 1883," as among the most delightful of our lives, and we look forward to the time when it may be repeated. Ever sincerely yours, Robert J. Kimball. To Erastus Wiman, Esq., Vice-President D. W. Club. Albert B. Chandler. H. J. Morse, AND OTHER GUESTS OF THE ClUB. 1 »"Tfr'r,*'"'T-n''« -r ne 20, 1883. .ccompanied I am sure me can find, ne " in com- indness that ' would say, b, to be well re I did not igh my dear to be " out- d did in the i me and my sit a pleasure le, 1883," as arward to the Kimball.