IN THE HEART OF THE BERKSHIRES
A crimson automobile was climbing the steep inclines of the Berkshire Hills. Now it rose to the crest of a road. Again it dipped into a valley. It looked like a scarlet autumn leaf blown down from one of the giant forest trees that guarded the slopes of the mountains.
Mollie Thurston stood up in the back of the motor car, waving a long green veil.
“Isn’t the scenery just too perfect for words?” she called to Ruth.
The day was wonderful; the September sun shone warm and golden through the shadows of dancing, many-colored leaves. “The Automobile Girls” had left summer behind them in Kingsbridge. Three days of traveling found them in the early autumn glory of the Berkshire woods.
Ruth did not answer Mollie’s question.
“My dear child, wake up!” commanded Miss Sallie, leaning over to give her niece a gentle poke with her violet parasol. “Have you grown suddenly deaf? Can you not hear when you are spoken to?”
Ruth glanced up from her steering wheel. “Did some one speak to me?” she queried. “I am so sorry I did not hear. I am afraid I am both deaf and dumb to-day. But we simply must get to our mountain by noon. Driving a car over these mountain roads isn’t the easiest task in the world.”
Barbara laughed back over her shoulder at the occupants of the end seat in the car. “Miss Sallie Stuart,” she said in solemn tones, “please, let our chauffeur alone! Suppose the dark descends upon us in the woods and you have ‘nary’ a place to lay your head!”
“Then I should immediately find a hotel and ask for a room and a bath,” protested Miss Stuart, who did not favor the idea of the log cabin in the woods. “Remember, children, you may pretend as hard as you like that we are a thousand miles from civilization; but, unless we are perfectly comfortable in the woods, I shall take you to the best hotel in Lenox. From there you may do your mountaineering in a respectable way.”
“All the more need for you to hurry, Ruth,” whispered Bab in her friend’s ear. “I feel sure we shall find the guides and wagons waiting for us at the foot of the hill. If we get an early enough start up the mountain we can get fairly settled by night time.”
Ruth nodded with her eyes straight in front of her. She kept her car moving swiftly ahead.
“Barbara, it is quite idle to talk to Ruth,” broke in Miss Sallie, who had not heard just what Bab had said. “She is her father’s daughter. Once her mind is made up to accomplish a thing, she will do it or die! So we might as well resign ourselves to our fate. She will reach ‘her mountain,’ as she calls it, by noon, even if we have to jump a few of these embankments to succeed.”
Miss Sallie was growing tired.
“Why did I ever allow myself to be brought on such a wild expedition after the experiences you girls led me into in Newport!” she said.
“Now, Miss Sallie!” said Grace Carter gently—Grace was always the peacemaker—“you know you love these glorious woods as much as we do. Think how jolly things will be when we go down into Lenox after it grows too cold to stay in camp. Who knows but you will turn out the best sportsman in the lot? And we shall probably have our guide teach you to shoot before we are through this trip.”
Miss Stuart sniffed indignantly. Then she laughed at the thought of her plump fingers pulling the trigger of a gun. “What is our guide’s outlandish name?” she inquired in milder tones.
“Naki, and his wife is called Ceally,” Grace answered. “You remember Mr. Stuart explained they were originally French Canadians, but they have been living in these mountains for a number of years. Because they used to be guides up in the Canadian forests they don’t know any other trade to follow in these peaceful woods.”
“These woods were by no means always peaceful, my lady Grace!” asserted Bab. “You can’t even be perfectly sure they are peaceful now. Why,” she went on in thrilling tones, “these hillsides once ran red with the blood of our ancestors and of the friendly Indian tribes who fought with them against the French.”
“Oh, come! come! No more American history!” remarked Mollie. “Beg pardon, but I do object to Bab’s school-teacher manner. Did you ever see anything so lovely as these hills are now? The scenery around here is like the enchanted forests of Arcady.”
“Oh, Miss Sallie, girls, look!” called Grace. From the high crest of a hill “The Automobile Girls” gazed down upon one of the loveliest valleys in the Berkshires. Afar off they could see the narrow Housatonic River winding its way past villages and fields, from the hillsides, which gave it the Indian name; for Housatonic means “a stream over the mountains.” Nestling in the valleys lay a chain of silver lakes.
Ruth paused an instant. “Over there ahead of us is ‘our mountain.’ I think we can reach it in an hour or so.”
While they were pursuing their journey, another small party was gathering on the slope of the hill opposite. A long, lean man burned to the color and texture of leather sat on the front seat of a wagon drawn by two strong mountain horses. By his side was his wife, almost as thin and brown; behind them, piled up in the wagon, were trunks, rolls of steamer rugs, kitchen utensils, making altogether as odd an assortment of goods as if the couple were peddlers.
Strolling around near them was a younger man, evidently the driver of a well filled grocery wagon. His horse stood patiently cropping the fine, hillside grass. Farther up the roadside a chauffeur nibbled a spear of mint. He had no car near him, but his costume was unmistakable. Evidently something was in the air. Somebody or something was being waited for.
Soon after twelve o’clock, there was a whirr along the road. The cart horses raised their ears, and without a motion from their drivers, moved farther to the right side of the path. Berkshire Hills horses, in whatever station of life, needed no further notice. An automobile was approaching!
“Here they come!” cried the grocer’s boy, jumping back into his wagon. The chauffeur dropped his piece of mint and gazed down the road. Now at least there was something worth seeing!
“Hip! hip! hurrah!” “The Automobile Girls” landed with a flourish beside the wagons. Their laughter woke the sleeping echoes in the hills.
“Are you Naki and Ceally?” cried Ruth, jumping out of the car and running forward with her hand extended. “And are these our things you have in the wagon? I am so sorry we are a few minutes late; but these mountain roads take longer to drive over than I had expected. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting very long.”
“No’m,” said the guide, sliding slowly down from his perch on the camping outfit. He emptied the pipe he had been comfortably smoking. “Time enough,” he answered. Naki was a man of few words.
The chauffeur had walked over to Ruth’s car and was assisting Miss Sallie to descend. “You are to take this car into Lenox, I believe,” Miss Stuart began. “My niece will explain matters to you more fully. I am told we cannot take the car any further up this side of the hill. Where is the carriage in which we are to drive?”
“Oh, Aunt Sallie!” cried Ruth in consternation. “What are we to do? When Naki wrote there would be seats in his wagon for those of us who wished to drive up the hill, I am afraid he meant those seats in front by him and his wife.”
The guide looked perfectly solemn, even when he beheld Miss Sallie’s face. Imagine, if you can, Miss Sallie Stuart, nervous, as she was, perched on top of a rickety wagon! Add the fact that she was to be driven up an unexplored hillside by the side of the two queer, brown people to whom they were confiding their fates!
“We don’t ride ’longside of you, Miss,” explained Naki to Ruth. “I leads the horses up and my wife walks by their side. There’s room for three of you up there on the front seat. It’s more comfortable than it looks. The other two of you had better walk or you can ride in the grocery wagon. The man’s coming along behind us with the provisions.”
Miss Sallie had not spoken again. Her expression was that of a martyr.
“Do you think you can manage, Miss Sallie?” Bab pleaded.
Ruth was explaining matters to the chauffeur. He was to take the car to Lenox. Every afternoon at one o’clock he was to return with it to this fork in the road and wait for half an hour. If “The Automobile Girls” decided on a trip to one of the nearby towns, they would join him at this place; for here the good road ended and the trail up the hillside began. The camp was a long way from any town, but an automobile defies distance.
Miss Stuart looked truly miserable when she saw their car disappear down the foot of the hill. Then she looked around her carefully. The place was entirely deserted.
“Very well,” she declared, resignedly. “I suppose there is nothing for me to do but to climb up into that wretched wagon.”
Ruth, Barbara, Grace, Mollie, Naki and his wife all assisted her to mount over the wheel to the seat of honor. Violet cushions were piled back of her, Grace sat on one side of her, Mollie on the other. Ruth and Barbara were determined to walk.
“We are dreadfully tired sitting still, Aunt Sallie,” Ruth begged. “Please let us follow the wagon!”
“Certainly, you can walk if you are able. In fact, you have no way to ride except in the grocery wagon, where you would probably get mixed up with the pickles and preserves,” responded Miss Stuart. “Walk by all means!”
The cavalcade started.
“Let’s pretend,” proposed Bab to Ruth, “that we are starting out on what the Indians called ‘the long walk.’”
“Surely, Bab, it’s a long walk, all right. But why introduce the Indians?”
The girls were climbing up the steep path ahead of the wagon. Bab laughed. “Oh, I read somewhere,” she explained, “that the Indians used to sell their land that way. Suppose you and I were early settlers, who were trying to purchase this hillside from the Indians. They would tell us we could have, for a fixed sum, as much land as we could cover in the ‘long walk.’ That would mean that we were to walk along quietly from sunrise to sunset, sitting down occasionally to smoke a pipe of peace, to break bread, and to drink water. That reminds me, are we ever going to break bread again? I am starving!”
But Ruth was not sympathetic at the moment. “It is curious,” she replied. “These mountains are so full of Indian legends, we shall think, hear and dream of nothing but Indians in the next few weeks. The names of all the places around were once Indian. I suppose we shall do almost everything except see an Indian. The last of them has vanished from here. Oh, Bab, do look at Aunt Sallie!”
Miss Stuart had forgotten her fright. Fortunately, she did not realize how absurd she appeared.
“Ruth!” she called from her throne on the wagon seat. “Here is a perfectly good place for our lunch. There is water near and view enough, I am sure. I must be given food before I am taken another step up these hills. I am famished!”
The party found a clear space in the woods. In a short time Naki had built a fire of pine twigs, and Ceally had a giant pot of coffee boiling over it. Its delicious perfume mingled with the fresh mountain air.
“I declare I haven’t been so hungry since I was a girl,” Miss Sallie avowed. She was seated on a log, with a sandwich in one hand and a cup of coffee on the ground by her. Her hat was on one side of her head, and her pompadour drooped dejectedly, but Miss Sallie was blissfully unconscious. The color in her cheeks shone as fresh and rosy as the tints in the cheeks of any other of “The Automobile Girls.”
Mollie flitted around like the spirit of the woods. Nothing could induce her to keep still. “Do let me get the water,” she coaxed the guide. Like a flash she was off and back bearing a heavy bucket. “Here, Ruth,” she volunteered, pouring a stream of water into the tiny silver cup that Ruth always carried. Ruth was just in time. With a jump to one side, she escaped, but the splash descended on unsuspecting Bab, who Was nibbling a doughnut.
In her ardor at playing waitress in the woods Mollie had turned her bucket upside down. Instead of dispensing nectar, this little cup-bearer to “The Automobile Girls” had nearly drowned one of them.
“It’s a blessed thing you are my sister,” cried Bab.
Mollie apologized, dabbing at Bab with her small pocket handkerchief. “You can tell me exactly what you think of me. Ruth and Grace might be too polite. I am so sorry; I was trying to be useful.”
“Go over to the fire, Barbara, and dry your dress,” advised Miss Sallie. “It is just as well you have on a thick suit. We must learn to expect occasional mishaps.”
Barbara winked solemnly at Ruth as she arose from the table. Miss Sallie was sure to be in a good humor when she talked in this philosophical fashion.
For an hour after luncheon the camping party continued their climb. Finally Ruth and Bab, who were in front, came to a sudden stop. “Hurrah!” they shouted, turning to wave their handkerchiefs to the occupants of the wagon.
Mollie nearly pitched out of the wagon in her excitement, but Grace and Miss Sallie clutched at her skirts in time.
“Have we arrived?” Mollie cried. “Oh, do stop the wagon!” The little log cabin in the woods was now plainly in view.
“It’s the gingerbread house, I know it is,” exclaimed Grace, making a flying leap over the wheel of the cart. “The logs are the soft, brown color of good gingerbread, and the little windows must be made of sugar frosting.”
In a clearing on top of a hillside stood the “hut,” as the girls christened it in an instant. A circle of pine and cedar trees hid it from sight. All around it were thick woods. Higher hills rose at the back of it. A roaring brook tumbled down the hillside fifty feet from their cabin door.
By nightfall the little house in the woods was made thoroughly livable. The girls hammered and worked, assisted by Naki and his wife. Miss Sallie sat by the big fire in the living room and gave directions. Adjoining this big room, which ran across one side of the cabin, were two bedrooms. Farther back Naki and Ceally shared a small chamber that connected with the kitchen.
Just before supper time Ruth took Miss Sallie by the arm; Grace, Barbara and Mollie followed them; around and around their new home “The Automobile Girls” marched.
“See your elegance!” said Ruth to her aunt, pointing to a mirror, which hung by a nail over Miss Sallie’s rough pine wood dressing table. Her favorite toilet articles were already laid out upon it, her wrapper hung over the back of a chair.
“Most noble lady,” continued Ruth, “behold what miracles your willing slaves have performed for your comfort! Everything is here for your convenience except your perfumed bath.”
“Don’t speak of a bath, child!” cried Miss Sallie, with a real shudder of horror. “It is the lack of a proper bathtub that makes this camping business truly awful!”
“Come, Miss Sallie,” called Barbara, quick to change the subject. “I want you to see the wonderful sunset.” Overhead Miss Sallie beheld a golden radiance that bathed the hilltop in a wonderful light. In the west the sun was sinking behind a line of blue mountains.
That evening the girls sat around an open campfire piled high with pine logs. It was a cool night, and although they were tired, no one would suggest going in to bed. Every now and then Mollie would tumble forward and awake with a start. She was half listening, half dreaming as Grace’s lovely voice floated out through the still night air, singing, while she strummed idly her guitar:
| “Lovely moon that softly glides, Through the realms where God abides.” |
“I wonder,” said Mollie to Grace, as she finally followed her into bed, “what wonderful adventures we shall have in this forest? Perhaps we shall awaken a wood nymph and teach her to become a mortal maid. Do you suppose she would like the change?”