After those attending the meeting had returned to their homes a Mrs. Homer asked her less hospitable half where the minister was stopping, and on being informed that he did not know, she took a lantern and went forth to seek him. Either through thoughtlessness, or because none was quite brave enough to take this expounder of a strange religion to his home, Mrs. Homer found him at the meeting house in the act of spreading his surtout on the floor for a couch. The good lady brought him to her home and later became his first convert.
All this I have from one who evidently takes a great interest in the church, but whose name has fallen out of its proper brain cell and been lost.
Other annals have I none.
At Barrington I made my home at a large square house just east of the livery stable, rather than at the hotel. The place was clean, and the meals were good; the hot muffins were worthy of a poet’s pen. The house was full, chiefly of commercial men, which would seem to indicate what they thought of the situation.
I was given the last vacant room, but there came one after me also seeking lodging, whereupon the landlady turned to me with the remark that I was his only hope, as there were two beds in my room. I did as I would have had him do had the situation been reversed, and found no occasion for regret. He was a very earnest gentleman, and amusing withal, much given to conversation not wholly instructive, though I did learn that silk socks were better for tired feet than is the more plebian cotton article. I was so unfortunate as not to secure my companion’s name, but ascertained that when not devoting his time to greatly increasing the fortunes of the firm for which he traveled he resides on the farm of his mother in Yarmouth.
PORT LATOUR AND BURCHTOWN.
Even this early I clearly saw that to walk all the coast line between Yarmouth and Halifax could not be done at my leisurely three miles or less per hour. It is three miles when no pictures intervene or no friendly Nova Scotian comes along with a ghost story or tale of the seas: Under such circumstances time is not of the essence of the contract.
It was necessary to visit Port Latour, as here were the ruins of an old fort to be photographed, and when I saw “Livery Stable” writ large across a Barrington barn, there came the thought that this was a Heaven sent opportunity to economize time, the twenty miles to Port Latour and back could be more easily accomplished and abundant time remain for the visit. But no one was about the stable. A call on a neighboring house elicited the information that the livery man was driving a commercial individual to some far hamlet, while his chief and only understudy was employed in like manner in another direction. Finally a man was found on the road who thought he could harness the one horse left, but when it came to a conveyance he hesitated. Of the two on hand one was new and undefiled, the other freshly painted, so he suggested that I take his open wagon, as mud could not harm it, and the horse was led to his barn, where the operation of hitching up was completed. No credentials on my part appeared to be necessary, not even my name was asked, nor did I ask the price until evening came, when I learned that the charge was $1.50 for the day.