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 THE CASE, LOCK WOOD & BRAINARD Co. 
 
 HARTFORD 
 
 1910
 
 TO JOHN WHEELER HARDING 
 
 MY COMPANION IN CAMP AND ON THE TRAIL 
 
 THIS LITTLE BTORY IB DEDICATED
 
 " By St. Nicholas, 
 
 I have a sudden passion for the wild wood 
 We should be free as air in the wild wood 
 What say you? Shall we go? Your hands, your hands! " 
 
 Robin Hood. 
 
 " And they shall dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in 
 the woods." Ezekiel.
 
 THE CAMP ON POCONNUCK. 
 
 (Founded on Fact.) 
 
 " Harry, your cap is running off. See! 
 it is going into the woods," said George 
 Everett as the two boys lay stretched out 
 on a bed of boughs before their campfire 
 on Indian Mountain. Sure enough the cap 
 was in motion. It would stop a few sec- 
 onds, then start and move rapidly forward 
 as though some bogie of the night was in 
 it. The boys were frightened at this phe- 
 nomenon they could not explain. They were 
 brothel's, Harry was seventeen and George 
 twenty. It was their vacation, they had 
 just finished their terms at the high 
 school and in the university and had been 
 invited out into the country by their uncle 
 who lived at " Troutbeck," a break in that 
 wall of the Taconic Highlands which sep- 
 arates New York and Connecticut. 
 
 After broiling some fresh meat for sup- 
 per on sharp sticks before the fire they
 
 had lain down to rest. It was their first 
 night in the woods and their first experience in 
 camping out. They had been listening to 
 the whippoorwills and were just about to 
 fall asleep when, taking one last look 
 around the camp, George saw his brother's 
 cap making off. " Get it quick, Harry, or 
 you will lose it. I don't believe you dare 
 to touch it." A boy does not like to be 
 thought a coward, and though he was un- 
 nerved by the strange spectacle Harry ran 
 rapidly after his cap, pounced upon it and 
 held it down just as it was disappearing 
 under a huge log. There was something 
 warm and bristly under the cap. It was 
 no spirit or bogie of the night but a little 
 dark animal covered on the back and tail 
 with mottled quills, sharp as needles, which 
 he now shot forth in rage and alarm. A 
 young porcupine had crawled under the 
 cap and when he tried to get out the cap 
 stuck on his quills. The boys examined 
 the little rodent carefully. He was not 
 large enough to do much harm though he 
 slapped at them angrily with his tail. The 
 quills were partly hidden in the long thick hair 
 and each one had a sharp barb at the end. 
 " It's too bad to kill the little fellow,
 
 Harry, he was camping out under your 
 cap. What is that line in your last decla- 
 mation? O, I remember it now. It is the 
 ghost in Hamlet who says, 
 
 ' I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word 
 Would harrow up thy soul; 
 Make each particular hair to stand on end, 
 Lik- (pulls upon the fretful porcupine.' 
 
 He's fretful enough anyway." 
 
 The boys released the porcupine, which 
 quickly ran off into the forest. Then they 
 lay down again. Beyond the circle of the 
 fire the forest was darker than ever and 
 save for the hoot-owls across the lake the 
 night was still. It was a strange expe- 
 rience for them, this loneliness and mys- 
 tery of the woods. The night wind on the 
 brow was like a mother's hand caressing 
 fever. The fire was almost out, gleaming 
 only in a few last embers. It was nearly mid- 
 night; they had fallen asleep at last, the 
 long deep sleep of the woods. Suddenly 
 a blood-curdling screech rang through 
 the forest and a heavy animal leaped from 
 a tree, landing with a thump that almost 
 shook the ground, only a few feet from 
 Harry's head. The boys sprang to their 
 feet; they could not see anything but again 
 
 9
 
 and again they heard that screech, a wail- 
 ing, prolonged, agonized scream, as though 
 a little child was being mangled. For a 
 moment it would cease, then, in the dim 
 dark forest, the silence of the night would 
 be torn. The boys trembled and shook, 
 there was no further sleep for them. Harry 
 slipped a cartridge into his rifle and both 
 waited and longed for the dawn. They 
 rekindled the fire but did not venture 
 into the black circle beyond it, though, as 
 they looked around they noticed a piece 
 of raw meat had disappeared which they 
 had carelessly left. 
 
 In the morning the boys went down to 
 see old John Gilder who lived in a shanty 
 at the foot of the mountain. They told 
 him their story, said the screech sounded 
 like a panther's. " 'Taint no panther but a 
 wildcat, ' ' said John. ' l Them varmints comes 
 over from Pine Gobble. The ledges around 
 Baldwin's Mill is full on 'em." John 
 Gilder was a character. A farmer let him 
 live in his shanty on condition that he 
 looked after the fences and salted his 
 sheep. John had a peculiar creed that if 
 you took tobacco and whisky enough a 
 rattlesnake wouldn't " tech ye." In cold
 
 weather he went into winter quarters like 
 the woodchucks. Save for the smoke curl- 
 ing from his chimney you would never sus- 
 pect that anyone lived in the shanty. He 
 whittled out ax helves and made a few 
 baskets for a living but was essentially an 
 Esau, a man of the wild. The old hunter 
 agreed to come up after breakfast with his 
 dog and hunt the mountain over for " the 
 varmint." The boys were in high spirits 
 notwithstanding their loss of sleep. They 
 felt safe with John. Old Whizzer, his fox- 
 hound, was one of the best dogs on the 
 border of Litchfield and Dutchess counties. 
 So they set out together. They had not 
 hunted long, in fact, had hardly begun to 
 climb the steep sides of Poconnuck, when 
 old Whizzer broke out into a furious bay- 
 ing. A long-legged animal clearing ten feet 
 at a jump went whacking down the pas- 
 ture, over the bushes and through the stub- 
 ble. " 'Tis a jack-rabbit/' said Harry. 
 " No, 'taint," said John. " They hunt them 
 fellers on Maount Rigy. * Taint no jack- 
 rabbit but a Belgian hare. See him leg it. 
 Putter, old feller. You're obliged ter have 
 ter. Whizzer is arter ye." Just then the 
 boys saw a cunning piece of strategy. The
 
 hare ran through an opening in a wall and 
 instantly reversed his course before the 
 yelping hound saw him. Old Whizzer tore 
 into the hayfield, going so fast he couldn't 
 stop, and when he looked around Mr. Hare 
 was not to be seen. It was curious to 
 behold the dog's crestfallen look as out in 
 the middle of the field he vainly sniffed 
 the air. " Find him, Whizzer! " yelled 
 John. Old Whizzer was no shepherd dog 
 to follow only with his eyes. He came back to 
 the opening and with his nose to the 
 ground soon had the trail again. He now 
 gained so rapidly that the hare ran to 
 cover. " 'Bliged ter have ter," said John. 
 " Whizzer 's holed him." 
 
 Although the boys hunted the entire 
 mountain over that morning they could find 
 no trace of the animal which had fright- 
 ened them in the night. After dinner 
 Uncle Dick came to camp. The boys were 
 glad to see him, especially George. It was 
 agreed that Harry and John Gilder should 
 continue the hunt that day while George 
 and Uncle Dick kept together. Of the two 
 brothers George had the deeper nature. 
 He was very fond of history and German. 
 On the contrary outdoor life appealed to
 
 Harry, who had read Paul du Chaillu and 
 the hunting adventures of President Roose- 
 velt with the greatest avidity. Their uncle 
 was very glad to have the boys visit him 
 at this time, for his wife had recently died. 
 " Why is this mountain called Poconnuck? " 
 said George, after they had walked awhile 
 together. " Some call it Poconnuck and 
 some Indian Mountain," said his uncle. 
 " There were two Indian villages at its 
 foot. The larger, on the western side, was 
 Wequadnach, which means " extending to 
 the mountain." Poconnuck 'is a word 
 which has different spellings and is the 
 name of six places in Connecticut. It 
 means " cleared land," land from which the 
 trees and bushes have been removed so as 
 to fit it for cultivation. " Poconnuck was 
 the corn land of the Indians." " What 
 Indians lived here? " " Mohicans, the same 
 tribe as those at Stockbridge to whom Jon- 
 athan Edwards preached." " What is that 
 monument out in the field by the lake? " 
 " That is the Moravian Monument," said 
 his uncle. " It has a more thrilling story 
 than the Haystack at Williamstown. The 
 heart of Bruce is buried under it, David Bruce, 
 one of the Moravian Brethren who died here 
 13
 
 among his Indian converts. The Indians 
 loved him so that they wrapped his body 
 in white and rowed it on two canoes across 
 the lake to their place of burial under the 
 sighing pines. Bruce was the first Mora- 
 vian to be buried among the hills and val- 
 leys of New England. The mission station 
 was on the other side. The Brethren called 
 the lake, Gnadensee, the Lake of Grace. 
 There is no other name like it in our 
 country. I know of none in the world. It 
 is the speech of the Fatherland in the blue 
 Saxon mountains beyond the sea." " What 
 others came here? " " Baron John deWat- 
 teville, Bishop Cammerhof an alumnus of 
 the University of Jena, and some of hum- 
 bler birth. They were princely souls, all of 
 them. Arthur and the Round Table had no 
 such knights as these." " Was there no 
 woman saint among them? " " Yes, the 
 Countess Benigna." " What! a real live 
 countess? " " Yes, The Lady of the Lake. 
 She is no fictitious character but has been 
 here upon its ' silver strand.' That was 
 in 1748. She was the oldest daughter of 
 Count Zinzendorf and heiress of the manor. 
 The Count's family was very old, running 
 back in Austria for twenty generations.
 
 The Zinzendorfs stood close to the Emperor, 
 but the Countess gave up every worldly 
 honor that she might come to America with 
 her father. She accompanied him on horse- 
 back on his second visit to the Indian 
 country. I can see them now making their 
 way through the wilderness and tangled 
 swamps of the New World. They crossed 
 the Hudson at Esopus and Rhinebeck. 
 When I go there in the spring to see the 
 fisherman seine the shad I always think of 
 the Countess." " Uncle Dick, I have read 
 that Zinzendorf only came as far as Sheko- 
 meko, so the Countess didn't come to Gnad- 
 ensee after all." "Yes, she did, but that 
 was later, six years later. You see she 
 had married John deWatteville in the mean- 
 time, her father's private secretary." " I 
 thought the Moravians got their wives by 
 lot," said George. " So they did, my boy, 
 but John deWatteville got his by love. He 
 loved Benigna from the first and had every 
 opportunity to know her. They married 
 for love, but they married in the Lord. 
 When they came to the Lake of Grace it 
 was their wedding journey prolonged; they 
 wanted to cheer and strengthen the dis- 
 couraged Indian mission. Benigna 's hus- 
 15
 
 band was a bishop of the Moravian Church 
 and his wife was a Countess." " Uncle 
 Dick, I saw a countess at Newport last 
 summer. She had a long German name; 
 there were diamonds in her hair, but she 
 didn't care much about camping out or 
 visiting Indian missions. By the way, 
 hadn't the Countess Benigna some younger 
 sisters? " " Yes, Agnes and Elizabeth, too 
 old for you, George. Splendid girls they 
 were. Why, Count Zinzendorf's daughters 
 sacrificed their possessions to pay their 
 father's debts, let the old manor go to raise 
 money for the church. They weren't for- 
 tune hunters like their modern relatives, 
 whose trunks you see in the hotels at Palm 
 Beach and Narragansett Pier and who have 
 added this command to the decalogue, 
 Thou shalt not be poor." 
 
 The afternoon wore pleasantly away. 
 George and his uncle had come out on 
 the ledges where there was a fine view of 
 the lake. His uncle told him a long story 
 of how the Moravians finding some drunken 
 Indians in Manhattan had followed them to 
 their forest villages in these parts and then 
 how saintly souls like Bruce and Benigna 
 with the authorities at Bethlehem had 
 
 16
 
 established mission stations at Shekomeko, 
 Wequadnach, and at Pachgatgoch on the 
 Housatonic. 
 
 It was now the hour of sunset, a time for 
 reverie and dreams. The golden glory of 
 the dying day burnished the still surface of 
 the water; rapidly the warm rich hues were 
 fading from the sky. The campers looked 
 down in silence upon the monument and 
 the shining levels of the lake. It was the 
 Abenddunkel of the Moravians. Over the 
 dewy meadows sounded afar the village bells 
 calling the faithful to prayer. The deep 
 tones of the clock-tower on Sharon Street 
 were like a monk's compline hymn. " Uncle 
 Dick, is there any way of preserving this 
 beautiful name, Gnadenseef You say there 
 is no other like it in all the world." 
 
 " The name is not very familiar, George. 
 The boundary line of Connecticut and New 
 York runs through the center of the lake, 
 but so far the people in both these states have 
 been ignorant or indifferent about the 
 name. It was in Moravian archives and 
 writings that I found it. I think fel- 
 lows like you and Harry who study 
 German ought to hand on the name. 
 Poconnuck and Ghiadensee must not be 
 
 2 17
 
 lost." " Tell me some more about the 
 Moravians, Uncle. What were their habits 
 and customs'? " 
 
 " Well, George, that is a long story. 
 They were a simple-hearted Christian 
 people who in their life imitated the Apos- 
 tles, having all things in common. They 
 were very industrious and sang at their 
 work. One of their bishops wrote hymns 
 for the spinning sisters. In their settle- 
 ments, scattered up and down the world, 
 they observe the German custom of salut- 
 ing at meals. " Erne gesegnete Mdhlzeit! " 
 and <f Ich wunsche wohl gespeist zu ha- 
 ben! " say the host and hostess as they 
 give you a cordial right hand. Their 
 Gemuthlichkeit, or friendly good time is 
 not sitting down in a beer-garden before 
 schooners of lager to listen to strains from 
 Beethoven and Wagner but a simple warm- 
 hearted joy in the Lord over buns and 
 coffee." " How do they court and marry? " 
 asked George. " Formerly they used the 
 sacred lot in deciding all important matters 
 and even chose their wives in that way, 
 though now they use more worldly methods." 
 
 " Not a bad idea for theologs," said 
 Uncle Dick, with a sly wink at his nephew. 
 it
 
 " A minister of the gospel should not marry 
 a butterfly or wed a fashion plate but let 
 the Lord decide it." 
 
 " But the Moravians won't fight/' said 
 George. " Theodore Roosevelt says every 
 patriot ought to have a fighting edge." 
 
 " No, George, the Moravians were con- 
 scientiously opposed to warfare. They have 
 been blamed for not fighting in our Revo- 
 lution, but in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 
 within * Colonial Hall,' now used by them 
 as a girls' seminary, five hundred Revolu- 
 tionary soldiers died. Moravian sisters 
 have always been a kind of Red Cross 
 annex to the army." " Did not the Nuns 
 of Bethlehem consecrate Pulaski's Banner, 
 as Longfellow sings? " " No George, that 
 is entirely legendary and opposed to their 
 tenets." " Have the Moravians no love 
 for the Fatherland? " " Yes, but it is not 
 a furious fighting passion. I once spent a 
 night at Bingen on the Rhine. Across the 
 river was the colossal bronze statue of Ger- 
 mania designed to keep alive the fires of 
 patriotism by commemorating the German 
 victories in the Franco-Prussian war. Stroll- 
 ing out on the promenade that evening 
 I heard some German students singing 
 
 9
 
 1 The Watch on the Rhine.' It was thrill- 
 ing and stirred the blood. Across the his- 
 toric stream, sung by deep, strong voices, 
 were borne the words, 
 
 "Best, Fatherland, for sons of thine 
 
 Shall steadfast keep the " W adit am Rhine" 
 
 but George, I like Zinzendorf's hymn bet- 
 ter." "What is it, Uncle?" 
 ' Jesu, geh voran.' 
 
 ' Jesus, still lead on, 
 Till our rest be won; 
 
 And although the way be cheerless, 
 
 We will follow, calm and fearless; 
 Guide us by thy hand 
 To our Fatherland/ 
 
 That sentiment is better than any martial 
 song that was ever written. I prefer it to 
 the Marseillaise or the Star Spangled Ban- 
 ner. Patriotism is a selfish thing until it 
 receives a Christian baptism. The highest, 
 finest patriotism is the Moravian's." Here 
 a sudden crashing through the brush inter- 
 rupted their conversation. 
 
 " Uncle Dick! Uncle Dick!" shouted Harry, 
 " what are you and George doing out there, 
 killing mosquitos? John Gilder and I got 
 back to camp an hour ago. Come back
 
 and have some supper. The fire is blazing, 
 the coffee is boiling and I have made a 
 great discovery. Get a move on you and 
 come along." When they reached camp, 
 George found that Harry had much to tell 
 about his afternoon with John Gilder. 
 They had hunted all over the mountain 
 and even gone over on Mount Riga. The 
 old hunter had there found a rare shrub. 
 It was the rhododendron, very abundant 
 in the southern Appalachians but extremely 
 rare so far north as this. It was the same 
 as that sought after by the English gentry 
 for their country estates. " I once saw an 
 acre of them growing around Lord Ban- 
 try's shooting-lodge," said Uncle Dick. 
 " That was in the mountains of Ireland, 
 near Glengariff. I had walked up with my 
 friend one Sunday afternoon. Boys, don't 
 tell any one that you found this rhododendron, 
 or the city people will come and get it for 
 their lawns." Here Harry could contain 
 himself no longer but brought out an arm- 
 ful of treasures he had found in a cave 
 on Poconnuck. There was the frontal bone 
 of a stag, the jaw and teeth of some large 
 animal, pieces of tortoise shell and speci- 
 mens of broken pottery, very fragile but
 
 showing considerable skill and a genuine love 
 of beauty. His uncle, who had the finest 
 collection of Indian relics in the county, 
 with a banner-stone from the Mound Builders, 
 said, after a careful examination, that 
 Harry's treasures were real Indian relics and 
 very valuable, left by the Indians who lived 
 here at the foot of the mountain. Harry 
 had other stories to tell. They had located 
 a bee-tree and found a fox-burrow. John 
 Gilder had showed him how to make barrel 
 hoops out of hickory saplings and prepare 
 a bean-hole for the camp. 
 
 The next morning broke bright and clear. 
 From the top of Poconnuck, which they 
 had climbed for the sunrise, the boys 
 counted six lakes. Three states met up 
 there, New York, Connecticut and Massa- 
 chusetts, and looming on the sky-line was 
 the long ragged range of the Catskills. 
 
 After breakfast Uncle Dick proposed 
 that they should row across the lake, tak- 
 ing the very course, though in an opposite 
 direction, which the Indian canoes had 
 taken when they bore the body of Bruce 
 across for burial. Landing in a cove of 
 lilies, where the wild deer were feeding but 
 which the law forbade them to shoot, they
 
 moored their boat while Uncle Dick led the 
 boys through the fields to a cemetery in 
 an apple orchard. " Here," said he, " was 
 the site of the old Moravian mission. 
 Here James Powell, another of the Breth- 
 ren, was buried. He wanted to find the 
 ' Bruce-places - 'tis ' Bruce-platten ' in 
 the German and so came here later. On 
 opposite sides of the Lake of Grace the 
 missionaries rest, but their names are 
 carved on the same monument, the only 
 Moravian monument in New England. 
 They had gone as you sing in the Chris- 
 tian Endeavor hymnal, ' over mountain or 
 plain or sea.' You know the Moravian 
 was the minute-man of the Lord's army. 
 He was a free knight of the Lord, ' Ein 
 freier Knecht des Herrn.' ' 
 
 " Uncle Dick, tell me more about the 
 Countess. I prefer her to those Brethren who 
 wouldn't fight." " Well, George, she was a 
 great traveler. In addition to these visits into 
 the Indian country first with her father 
 and later with her husband, she crossed 
 and recrossed the Atlantic many times. I 
 will read you what I copied out of a Mo- 
 ravian diary; you will find it in the 
 archives of the Brethren's Church at Beth-
 
 lehem, Pennsylvania. It is from the orig- 
 inal German." Here Uncle Dick produced 
 a crumpled bit of paper and read, " They 
 took ship at Amsterdam. A series of 
 storms set in they steered for the West 
 Indies. Watte ville and his wife lived for 
 weeks on hard biscuit and beer. They at 
 last reached the West Indies, but the vessel 
 struck a reef off the island of Barbuda and 
 was lost. The passengers and crew took to 
 the boats. In descending Bishop de Watte- 
 ville missed his hold and fell into the sea. 
 He was rescued by two sailors with great 
 difficulty. After many escapes the entire 
 ship's company reached the land. The 
 Governor of Barbuda took Bishop de 
 Watteville and the Countess into his own 
 house and showed them great kindness. 
 They had been on ship-board one hundred 
 and forty-four days and suffered intensely." 
 " That voyage of the Countess makes me 
 think of our last Sunday-school lesson 
 when St. Paul was wrecked at Malta," 
 George said. " Yes, her husband's official 
 position in the Moravian Church required 
 a continual supervision of the missions. 
 The bishop and the Countess went together. 
 They had all sorts of adventures, were
 
 in perils in the wilderness and perils in 
 the sea." 
 
 As the boat rounded a point of land 
 Harry's quick eye detected a camp in the 
 pines with this sign over the door, " Home 
 for Aged Women." " There's where the 
 Countess boarded and slept, I suppose." 
 There was also a fac-simile in birch bark of a 
 large bass which had been taken from the 
 lake. Later the boys caught several more. 
 After a swim in the lake the three re- 
 crossed to the monument on the Sharon 
 shore. As the campers sat around the fire 
 that evening Harry said, " it seemed a pity 
 that the Moravians, only, should have a 
 monument." He proposed that one should 
 be erected on Poconnuck also, for the 
 Indians, a bronze statue of Nequitimaug, 
 that chief who ruled over the tribe whose 
 relics he had found in the cave. Why 
 shouldn't an Indian mountain like Pocon- 
 nuck have a statue just as well as a 
 tobacco store? A bronze Indian silhouetted 
 against the sky and looking off on the land 
 his fathers owned before the white man 
 came, would be so fitting and proper that 
 it was strange no one had ever thought of 
 it.
 
 The next day Uncle Dick proposed that 
 they should all climb Poconnuck and eat 
 their lunch up there. They did so. From 
 the ledges and splintered crags he showed 
 the boys the striking points in the land- 
 scape. To the north was Mount Riga, 
 named by some charcoal burners from 
 France and the Swiss Cantons. They had 
 transferred the name of their own Rigi, 
 looking off on the Bernese Overland, to 
 this American mountain. Here at the foot 
 of the mountain in one of the old iron 
 furnaces was forged a chain which had 
 been stretched across the Hudson in the 
 Revolution to impede the progress of the 
 British ships. " On Mount Riga," Uncle 
 Dick said, " was also the only piece of vir- 
 gin forest yet left in Connecticut." To the 
 south of Poconnuck lay the green Web- 
 utuck valley, the granary of the Revolu- 
 tion, while to the west stretched the long 
 billowing ranges which stopped only at the 
 Hudson. 
 
 Uncle Dick was especially eloquent in 
 praise of Sharon Street, whose line of ver- 
 dure, enfolding the churches and clock- 
 tower, they could plainly make out. 
 
 Here a discussion arose as to the com- 
 
 36
 
 parative beauty of some far-famed New 
 England streets. The boys had come from 
 Longmeadow and naturally gave that the 
 preeminence. Uncle Dick was too courte- 
 ous to openly dispute their claim. Several 
 streets he admitted had strong points in 
 their favor. Old Hadley was the cord of 
 a silver bow, that bow being the winding 
 and willow-fringed Connecticut. Old Say- 
 brook was at the mouth of the river with 
 lighthouse and breakwater, had murmurs 
 and scents of the infinite sea as it guarded 
 Lady Fenwick's tomb. Longmeadow had 
 glimpses of Mount Tom and the Holyoke 
 Range, a great width of common with 
 the river below whose spring freshets drove 
 out the early settlers from the alluvial to 
 the bluffs above, but Sharon was of loftier 
 altitude than all the others. There was a 
 rim of distant mountains. No pent-up 
 town contracted your powers or limited 
 the vision. You looked off through airy 
 spaces, miles and leagues of air, like an 
 aviator were tempted to fly and soar. 
 Dawn and sunset in Sharon had their 
 Ruskin colors, the rose-purples of the Swit- 
 zer's mountains. The village was not set 
 in a plain and had not been commercialized
 
 by the trolley. Clinging to the shoulder of 
 the long Taconic ridges it hung suspended 
 midway between crest and stream. In sum- 
 mer it had the verdure of Ireland and in 
 winter the air and sports of Canada. You 
 should see it in the spring when the lilac 
 hedges are in bloom. " Harry, it would 
 transform you from a sportsman into a 
 poet." "Yes," replied Harry, "that's 
 what the Irishman said about his mother 
 tongue: if you could only speak Irish you 
 would be a poet and sing of Tipperary in 
 the spring." 
 
 George doubted, however, if Sharon had 
 the historical importance of these other vil- 
 lages. Hadle) r had sheltered the regicides, 
 and Saybrook possessed the site of the Old 
 Fort, and the original location of Yale 
 University. Longmeadow was coeval with 
 Springfield and had its thrilling chapter of 
 Indian wars when King Philip was the 
 settler's terror. Here Uncle Dick bravely 
 came to the defense of his favorite village. 
 In a stone chateau was a painting by Ben- 
 jamin West of " Christ Healing the Sick " 
 he said; an eighteenth century house con- 
 tained an appeal to Congress by a general 
 of the Revolution for the pay his services 
 28
 
 had merited but never received. Some of 
 the older people could locate the very spot 
 on the village green where Whitefield once 
 preached. A modest woman who would not 
 reveal the fact, left among her papers a 
 genealogy of Huguenot ancestors which any 
 peer might envy. The type of the street 
 was that tract of land which, in the mid- 
 dle ages, belonged to a community of free- 
 men, and was known as the mark, or 
 common. Uncle Dick was very fond of re- 
 calling what Tacitus had found among our 
 ancestors in the forests of Germany. He 
 said the old New England custom of turn- 
 ing the pigs, geese and cattle loose upon 
 the street was a survival of that ancient, 
 communal ownership. George and Harry 
 became greatly interested in his narrative. 
 Here on Sharon Street was the " Old 
 Stone House " where British officers had 
 been lodged as prisoners of war after Bur- 
 goyne's surrender. Down this road Hes- 
 sian troops had marched singing Luther's 
 hymn, ' Em' feste Burg ist unser Gott ', as 
 Governor Smith remembered when a boy. 
 This border country was the meeting place 
 of different races. Here came the Dutch, 
 the French Huguenots, the Palatines, the
 
 Puritans and the Moravians. The Indians 
 were here. They had vanished but left 
 -their language. So long as the streams are 
 musical and the breezes whisper, so long 
 will the American love the tongue of his 
 Fatherland. Down the mountain side to 
 the north of Poconnuck there tumbled a 
 stream which Harry and John Gilder had 
 seen on their long hunt together. Wacho- 
 castinook was its Indian name, which 
 means, falling water. Like the Jordan it 
 is the descender, and rushes down to 
 Salisbury in a succession of waterfalls. 
 At this point an eagle was seen sail- 
 ing over Poconnuck. Harry, who had his 
 Winchester with him, now slipped away, 
 hurrying through the scrub and over the 
 ledges for the best possible shot. 
 
 George improved this half hour of his 
 brother's absence to get some further infor- 
 mation from his uncle which their recent 
 conversation had called forth. " Uncle 
 Dick, I wish you would tell me more about 
 these Indian names like Poconnuck and 
 Wachocastinook. They are strangely fas- 
 cinating." 
 
 Indian names, yes. 
 
 There are some of them left and very 
 30
 
 precious they are. They are " The Last 
 of the Mohicans," literally so, but a sym- 
 phony of poetry and music. 
 
 These Indians of Litchfield County were 
 a branch of the great Algonquin family 
 which occupied all of New England when 
 it was discovered and whose area on the 
 North American continent was more exten- 
 sive than that of any other ethnic stock. 
 The language was Mohican or Mohegan. 
 
 If we desire to know just what dialect 
 was spoken by the Indians of the Housa- 
 tonic valley we have the " Observations on 
 the Language of the Muhhekaneew Indians " 
 by the younger Edwards. He grew up 
 with them as a boy, loved the language, 
 thought in it, until, as he says, it became 
 more familiar to him than his mother 
 tongue. The language spoken in the Indian 
 villages at Stockb ridge, Kent and New 
 Milford was the same as that at Pocon- 
 nuck, and though it is lost now and must 
 forever be a dead language it was the true 
 American accent. It was a language that 
 made men saints or sinners. John Eliot 
 and the two Edwards became saints with 
 it, but Cotton Mather, the pages of whose 
 Magnolia are studded with pompous ver- 
 31
 
 bosity and pedantic Latin, lost his temper 
 when he came to Mohegan. He says, " But 
 if their language be short I am sure the 
 words composed of it are long enough to 
 tire the patience of any scholar in the 
 world; one would think they had been 
 growing ever since Babel." He cites the 
 case of a young woman possessed by de- 
 mons, who understood his Latin, Greek and 
 Hebrew, but when the learned divine tried Mo- 
 hegan on them even the devils couldn't under- 
 stand him. Wachocastinook is a very 
 pretty name as you see but the Naromi- 
 yocknowhusunkatankshunk brook which en- 
 ters the Housatonic near Gaylordsville is 
 not so conducive to poetry and requires a 
 course in lingual athletics before you can 
 master it. 
 
 One thing is true of all Indian words, 
 however, they describe the locality with 
 great vividness. They are the Thoreaus of 
 human speech. 
 
 " Uncle Dick, I also noticed that in 
 speaking of Sharon, a little while ago, you 
 called it the border country. I've heard 
 you say that Poconnuck is a mountain on 
 the border." " Yes," said his uncle, "we 
 are in Litchfield County, Connecticut, up 
 32
 
 here on the summit of Poconnuck. If 
 you care to hear about it I have an article 
 prepared for a local paper which I will 
 read. It is on The Litchfield Border. " 
 George signified at once his willingness and 
 stretched himself out on a mat of mountain 
 cranberry while his uncle read, in the 
 pauses of the wind, from his manuscript. 
 
 THE LITCHFIELD BORDER. 
 
 By the Litchfield Border we mean the 
 western boundary of the country and the 
 state. The borders of Connecticut have 
 always been difficult to locate. By the con- 
 quest of the Pequots, Connecticut claimed 
 all the land up to Narragansett Bay, so 
 that Rhode Island became a non-entity. 
 Rufus Choate, referring to the difficulties 
 of the commissioners in fixing the eastern 
 boundary, once said, " the line between the 
 states was bounded on the north by a 
 bramble bush, on the south by a blue jay, 
 on the west by a hive of bees in swarming 
 time and on the east by five hundred foxes 
 with firebrands tied to their tails." So 
 much for Connecticut's eastern border, but 
 the western, or Litchfield one, was even 
 more indefinite. The charter of Charles 
 
 3 33
 
 II., under which the people lived up to 
 1818, gave to Connecticut all the land 
 " from Narragansett Bay on the east to 
 the South Sea on the west part with 
 the islands thereunto adjoining." Charles, 
 though a mean king, was not mean with 
 his charter, since it gave Connecticut a 
 strip of land seventy miles wide and 
 extending one-eighth of the distance 
 round the globe. This charter of Charles 
 II., dated in 1662, gave us a claim 
 to lands in Ohio, known as the Connecticut 
 Western Reserve, from the sale of which 
 has come a part of our present school 
 fund. The western or Litchfield border 
 has always been different from the eastern 
 in speech, customs, diet, money, religion 
 and race. The influence and nearness of 
 New York State accounts largely for it. 
 Some familiar examples may be noted: the 
 minister is called The Dominie; you are 
 out of the zone of pies, baked beans and 
 clambakes; your landlady will ask you at 
 breakfast if you will have some supawn, 
 a Dutch word never heard in transcen- 
 dental and classic Boston. 
 
 A shilling in New York has less units of 
 value than one in Connecticut, while our 
 
 34
 
 town government and little local democra- 
 cies all stop at the state line. In Litchfield 
 County we call the official who tests and 
 validates a will a Judge of Probate, but 
 over the border he is a Surrogate. David 
 Harum could trade horses or surrogate an 
 enemy with equal ease, you will remember. 
 
 The Litchfield Border is marked by a 
 peculiar geological formation, being under- 
 bedded with limestone. You have left the 
 granite areas with their stone walls and 
 boulders brought down by the ice-cap to 
 come into a region covered with the green- 
 est turf, a dairy country which the mea- 
 dows of Holland and the pastures of Swit- 
 zerland cannot surpass. The wind-swept 
 hilltops have been softened, there is an 
 amiability and lovability in the landscape; 
 the early settlers named one border town, 
 Amenia, the friendly. 
 
 The general absence of water power has 
 made this region to be much frequented 
 by those who drive for pleasure. You are 
 quite reconciled to that loss of industrial- 
 ism and severe commercial stamp which 
 gives such importance to the valley of the 
 Naugatuck. Here on the border you are 
 isolated from the many-windowed factories 
 
 35
 
 and smoking chimneys. The roads, firm 
 and hard, go under the shaggy shoulders 
 of the mountain; along foaming brooks 
 bordered with dark hemlock and pink 
 laurel, past farms of intervale, fair as the 
 pastorals of Virgil. The " hollow," a char- 
 acteristic word in the border country, brings 
 you out to villages perfectly finished, 
 dropped down with their lawns and ter- 
 races into a pocket of the everlasting hills. 
 Anon you climb up to the granite zone 
 above the limestone to see the ragged line 
 of the Catskills burnished by the sunset 
 and the flash of the evening lamps in the 
 hotels. This is all to the west; the eastern 
 passes let you down to the Housatonic with 
 its loops and reaches, the river road follow- 
 ing the course of the stream, its feet liter- 
 ally in the rapid water. North through 
 the gates of Berkshire, east to Litchfield, 
 the county seat, west over the line into 
 Dutchess or south to Dover there is as fine 
 a driving country as can be asked for and 
 you will rarely cross a railroad track. It is 
 the border, the borderland of Connecticut, 
 these Taconic highlands being the rampart 
 where three great states come together and 
 set up their banners. 
 36
 
 This border country is haunted by mem- 
 ories of the Revolution. During that strug- 
 gle one of the great military lines of the 
 patriot army stretched across it. After the 
 battle of Monmouth, in 1778, the east wing 
 of Washington's army was distributed in 
 winter cantonments from West Point to 
 Danbury. Washington and Lafayette were 
 both at Quaker Hill and the old Friends' 
 Meeting House was a hospital for sick and 
 wounded soldiers. In the journal of the 
 Marquis De Chastellux, that rare book 
 entitled, " Travels in North America in 
 the years 1780, 1781 and 1782," the Mar- 
 quis says he crossed the Housatonic at 
 " Bull's Iron Works " (now Bull's Bridge), 
 and adds, " We soon met with another, 
 called Ten Mile River, which falls into this, 
 and which we followed for two or three 
 miles, and then came in sight of several 
 handsome houses forming a part of the 
 district called "The Oblong." He was 
 going to " Morehouse Tavern," that famous 
 hostelry of the Revolutionary period. It 
 was difficult to get lodgings, as rooms and 
 beds had all been taken by some New 
 Hampshire farmers who were driving oxen 
 through to the patriot army at Fishkill, 
 
 37
 
 but when they knew that a French general 
 with his aides-de-camp had arrived, the 
 gallant Marquis had the pick of the rooms. 
 Two years later De Chastellux passed 
 through here again on his way from New- 
 port to the headquarters of Washington at 
 Newburgh. Rochambeau, under whom De 
 Chastellux had served, was about to sail 
 for France wth his French allies, for the 
 war was over. The Marquis took the usual 
 route from Hartford by way of Litchfield, 
 down the Housatonic to Bull's Bridge and 
 then along the Ten Mile River out to the 
 tavern. 
 
 There are yet a few links to bind the 
 present generation to that remote and stir- 
 ing past. On the Sharon road to Cornwall 
 Bridge is the site of an old mill where 
 grain was ground to feed Washington's 
 army; the writer has talked with living 
 men who have the most vivid recollection 
 of Adoniram Maxim, a Revolutionary sol- 
 dier who, with Ethan Allen, tried to cap- 
 ture Montreal, but was taken captive, sent 
 across the Atlantic and exhibited in Eng- 
 land in an iron cage. The old man suf- 
 fered much in a prison ship and being 
 exhibited as a specimen of the American 
 38
 
 rebels (he was very homely) could never 
 hear an Englishman preach, although he 
 was a devout Methodist. It is a long story 
 to tell how the Hessian troopers from Bur- 
 Coyne's surrendered army, about 1,500 of 
 tin -in. inarched through these border towns 
 on their way to Virginia. The trunk and 
 stump of an old elm against which they 
 piled their saddles yet remains on Sharon 
 Street. 
 
 This borderland was the meeting place 
 for different racial and ethnic stocks. We 
 New Englanders have been so accustomed 
 to hearing the praises of the Puritans sung 
 that we forget those other worthy colonists 
 who settled in The Oblong, the Dutch, the 
 French Huguenots and the Palatines. Re- 
 cently, in driving through Amenia Union, 
 a little hamlet situated so exactly on the 
 border that both Connecticut and New 
 York claim it, the writer noticed a house 
 so distinctly foreign in its architecture that 
 it might have been transported from some 
 dorp around old Heidelberg and set down 
 here in the valley of the Webutuck. 
 
 The Litchfield Border gives one a very 
 interesting study in land grants and feudal- 
 ism. Over the line were those extensive 
 
 39
 
 manors stretching back 35 miles from the 
 Hudson. A great manor with seignorial 
 rights and privileges like that of the Liv- 
 ingstons at Clermont was the very antip- 
 odes of New England ideals, yet here on 
 the border the town and the manor met. 
 The Puritan had a system of government 
 made to order. He surveyed a township 
 and then set up in it his civic theocracy, 
 a little narrow, to be sure, but perfect and 
 complete. Over the border things grew in 
 a looser way. Life had a freer swing and 
 copied aristocratic models. 
 
 Ever since Walter Scott sang of border 
 chivalry there has been a touch of the 
 romantic in border lands. Cooper puts 
 some of it into old Fishkill in his story 
 of " The Spy, a Tale of the Neutral 
 Ground." We find it here on the Litchfield 
 Border. One step and you are in Dutchess 
 county a little limestone prism by the 
 roadside separates untitled New England 
 from the estates of royalty. We are glad 
 the Revolution didn't sweep away every 
 vestige of the royal names. When the 
 principal street in the average American 
 town is Main, Washington or Franklin, we 
 are glad that Williamsburgh, in Virginia, 
 40
 
 keeps yet its Duke of Gloster street and 
 for the endless Jefferson counties in the 
 United States, named after the great apos- 
 tle of democracy, we are glad that one was 
 named after the Duchess of York. We 
 are not so rich in historic names or senti- 
 ments of the olden time that we can afford 
 to lose any of them. It was such a delight 
 to find that Count Zinzendorf's daughter 
 came to a little lake on the Connecticut 
 border that we have called her the Countess 
 of Gnadensee. 
 
 By this time Harry had returned. His 
 shot at the eagle was unsuccessful, but he 
 had obtained an excellent view of The 
 Dome and Greylock up in Massachusetts. 
 The mountain air was exhilarating now. 
 Throwing up his cap, the one rescued from 
 the porcupine, he shouted, " Hurrah for old 
 New England and her cloud-capped granite 
 hills." 
 
 From the summit of Poconnuck the boys 
 observed that the mountain had two eyes, 
 a lake on either side. There are so many 
 lakes in this borderland that it has been 
 called the Lake Country of Connecticut. 
 Uncle Dick told the boys that English
 
 coachmen often said these lakes reminded 
 them of their own Westmoreland. One 
 thing Uncle Dick's glowing descriptions made 
 the boys decide to do, that was to visit 
 Sharon Street. 
 
 On their way down Poconnuck to the 
 camp, Harry noticed a large animal on the 
 dead limb of an old chestnut, asleep. It 
 was of a tawny color with a face like a 
 tiger's. The boy's nerves tingled with ex- 
 citement as he crept up and almost under 
 its body fired. With a wild prolonged 
 screech, like what they had heard that first 
 night in camp, the animal tumbled to the 
 ground, rolled over and over, clawing up a 
 cloud of dust. The boy rushed in and then 
 fired another bullet into the brute. After 
 some fierce snarls and convulsive struggles 
 the animal lay dead. " Harry, it was lucky 
 you didn't corner that fellow in the cave," 
 said George. " Look at his teeth and 
 claws. That's the fellow who was after our 
 meat that first night in the woods." It 
 was the proudest moment in Harry's life 
 when Uncle Dick, to whom he showed his 
 quarry, came up. "I'll take him to a tax- 
 idermist. He's as big as a Canada lynx," 
 said his uncle. The animal looked lean and 
 42
 
 hungry. He had evidently traveled a long 
 way and was tired out when discovered 
 asleep on the tree. That night around the 
 campfire the talk was all about wild 
 animals, from the savage brute the boys 
 had shot and slung upon a pole, to lions, 
 larger cats, an ex-President was shooting in 
 the jungles of Africa. 
 
 John Gilder, having heard the reports of 
 Harry's rifle, came over in the evening. 
 One thing he did not approve of, the big 
 cracking fire the boys had built. " A bon- 
 fire Tiaint no campfire, never. They burn 
 the mountain over and is pesky danger- 
 ous." Here John quoted what one of the 
 old Indians around Poconnuck once told 
 him. 
 
 " White man heap fool; make um big 
 fire can't git near; Injun make um little 
 fire git clo.se. Uh, good!" 
 
 If the fire did not please John the wild- 
 cat excited him. The old hunter had many 
 stories to tell as he saw that tawny brute 
 Harry 's rifle had brought down from the 
 old chestnut. One was how, Putnam like, 
 he had shot one in a cave and dragged him 
 out wounded and snarling. 
 
 The hunter had also brought over some 
 
 43
 
 wild honey from a bee-tree he had felled. 
 He showed how with a box of comb 
 on a swaying tripod of a sapling you 
 could attract the bees and then line them 
 home. 
 
 It was now late into the night. Even 
 John Gilder's stories and the fascination of 
 his uncouth dialect began to fail on the 
 weary campers. The campfire was burning 
 low save where some pine knots flashed and 
 sputtered. "Tis hard to trace all the corre- 
 lations and connections of our thought at 
 such a time. Uncle Dick's mind wandered 
 away from the honey of Poconnuck to the 
 honey of Hymettus, from a campfire on 
 an Indian mountain in Connecticut, to 
 those classic ones, lighting up old legends 
 and traditions. Poconnuck and Pine Cob- 
 ble touched Pelion and Ossa. In those 
 flashes, piercing the gloom of the dim old 
 forest, stood revealed the camps and hoary 
 landscapes of the past; the bivouacs of 
 Napoleon, English yeomen and French 
 knights at Cressy, William's conquering and 
 victorious Normans, the camps of Crusad- 
 ers and Saracens, Roman legions stationed 
 at the boundaries of the empire, the pha- 
 lanx of Alexander marching to a world's 
 
 44
 
 conquest, back, back into the past until 
 history shades into legend and you stand 
 upon the plains of Troy. 
 
 " George," he said, " what Greek did you 
 read last year in the university curricu- 
 lum? " "The eighth book of the Iliad," re- 
 plied his nephew. Here Uncle Dick pitched 
 a last log into the blaze and then quoted 
 the Homeric hexameters : 
 
 " So many a fire between the ships and stream 
 
 Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, 
 A thousand on the plain; and close by each 
 Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire; 
 And champing golden grain, the horses stood 
 Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn." 
 
 " Boys, the camp of Achilles and the 
 camp of Poconnuck must now get some 
 sleep." 
 
 The next day the boys broke camp and 
 said good-by to Poconnuck, though not until 
 they had exacted a promise that their uncle 
 would come to Poconnuck the follow- 
 ing year bringing bacon and blankets. 
 After a few days at Troutbeck, they started 
 for home on their bicycles. Pedaling 
 through Sharon Street, they halted at the 
 clock-tower to get the Washington time and 
 also to read the verses graven upon its 
 
 45
 
 back. There were some other verses Uncle 
 Dick had given as a souvenir of their visit, 
 which George read aloud: 
 
 Lone tower upon the border, 
 
 Thou art the utmost bound 
 
 To mark New England's ancient strength 
 
 And send her challenge down; 
 
 Thou standest where Taconic hills 
 
 Melt in a dreamy haze. 
 
 Southward the perfect valley runs, 
 
 The valley of our praise. 
 
 The fisher in his little boat 
 
 Out on the Lake of Grace 
 
 Doth listen when thy mellow tones 
 
 Steal round PoconnucJc's base; 
 
 And teamsters with their heavy load 
 
 Pause in the dust and heat, 
 
 The rumbling wheels are stilled to hear 
 
 The Angelus of the Street. 
 
 A second halt was made at Salisbury to 
 hear the chimes in the Norman tower and 
 to see a piece of Salisbury Cathedral 
 which had been donated to the new library. 
 Here Wachocastinook came rushing down 
 from his mountain lakes. Every year in 
 laurel time Uncle Dick went up there for 
 the view. No town in Connecticut, he said, 
 had such a wealth of natural scenery as 
 Salisbury. No wrinkled sea crawled be-
 
 neath you but around was a wilderness of 
 lakes and mountains. He had given George 
 some verses originally left in a copper 
 cylinder in a cairn of stones up on Bald 
 Peak. 
 
 My stops Jed down a mountain brook, 
 
 I listened to its roar at times, 
 
 The falling stream, Wachoca&tinook ; 
 
 Another voice, the Salisbury chimes 
 
 Canx- up tin- road. 
 
 ' Twaa England spake unto me then, 
 
 Old Sarum lent her minster choir 
 
 And through the laurel bordered glen 
 
 The stream's full voice was praise and prayer. 
 
 The falling stream went singing on, 
 
 It wound below St. Austin's height; 
 
 I caught it - music in a psalm 
 
 Sung to an old Gregorian chant, 
 
 And then it changed to sing again 
 
 That earlier freedom which it knew 
 
 The beauty of the Riga tarns, 
 
 Those lonely heights where eagles mew. 
 
 Stream of the mountain and the sky 
 
 Thou hast two moods for which I faint 
 
 An Indian freedom of the wild, 
 
 The chaste obedience of the saint. 
 
 Taking the under-mountain road up into 
 Berkshire, the boys pedaled to Stockbridge, 
 where they dined at the Red Lion. A 
 stone monument on the street there, called 
 attention to some early labors to Christian- 
 ize the Indians. These were the same tribe 
 the boys had found traces of at Poconnuck, 
 
 47
 
 but in one case saintly Moravians, and in 
 the other Jonathan Edwards, had been the 
 preacher. 
 
 " Harry," said his brother, as they 
 sipped their after-dinner coffee at the Red 
 Lion, " what do you think was the best 
 thing at our camp on Poconnuck?" " Find- 
 ing those relics and shooting that wildcat," 
 Harry replied instantly. " Don't you agree 
 with me? " A far away, dreamy look 
 came into George's eyes as he slowly 
 answered, " No, not at all, the best thing 
 wasn't the mountain, but the lake. Its 
 name haunts me continually. Harry, I 
 have fallen in love." "You have! who is 
 the lady, pray tell? " " Zinzendorf 's daugh- 
 ter, Benigna, the Countess of Gnadensee. 
 She is the Lady of the Lake."
 
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