No. The young people appeared in great strength, all at the same moment, and notified him that he was to put on his hat and his light overcoat, and go with them on what they called the first "Alp" of the season. For there is a pretence in the little company that they are an Alpine Club, and that for eight months of the year it is their duty to climb the highest mountains near Boston.
Now, the very highest of these peaks is the summit hill of the Blue Hills, to which indeed Massachusetts owes its name. For "Matta" in the Algonquin tongue meant "great," and "Chuset" meant "a hill." And a woman who was living on a little hummock near Squantum, just before Winthrop and the rest landed, was the sacred Sachem of the Massachusetts Indians. Hence the name of Mattachusetts Bay; and then, by euphony or bad spelling, or both, Massachusetts.
Uncle Fritz obeyed the rabble rout, as he is apt to do. He retired for a minute to put on heavier shoes, and, when he reappeared, he took the seat of honor in the leading omnibus. And a very merry expedition they had to the summit, where, as the accurate Fergus told them, they were six hundred feet above the level of the sea. There was but little wood, and they were able to lie and sit in a large group on the ground just on the lee side of the hill, where they could look off on the endless sea.
"Whom should you have told us about, had it rained?" said Mabel Fordyce.
"Oh! you were to have had your choice. There are still left many inventors. I had looked at Mr. Parton's Life of Goodyear, and the very curious brief prepared for the court about his patents. Half of you would not be here to-day but for that ingenious and long-suffering man."
"Should not I have come?" said Gertrude, incredulously.
"Surely not," said Uncle Fritz, laughing. "I saw your water-proof in your shawl-strap. I know your mamma well enough to know that you would never have been permitted to come so far from home without that ægis, or without those trig, pretty overshoes. You owe waterproof and overshoes both to the steady perseverance of Goodyear and to the loyal help of his wife and daughters. Some day you must read Mr. Webster's eulogy on him and them. Indeed, he is the American Palissy. You hear a good deal of woman's rights; but, really, modern women had no rights worth speaking of till Mr. Goodyear enabled them to go out-doors in all weathers.
"I meant we should have an afternoon with the Goodyears. Then I meant that you should know, Gertrude, where that slice of bread came from."
"Well," said she, "I do not know much, but I do know that. It came out of the bread-box."
"Very good," said the Colonel, laughing. "But somebody put it into the bread-box. And it is quite as well that you should know who put it in. American girls and American boys ought to know that men's prayer for 'Daily Bread' is answered more and more largely every year. They ought to know why. Well, the great reason is that reaping and binding after the reapers, nay, that sowing the corn, and every process between sowing and harvest, has been wellnigh perfected by the American inventors. So I had wanted to give a day or two to reapers and binders, and the other machinery of harvesting. Indeed, if our winter had been as long as poor Captain Greely's was, and if you had met me every week, we should have had a new invention for each one. Here are the telephone and the telegraph. Here is the use of the electric light. Here is the sewing-machine, with all its nice details, like the button-hole maker. Nay, every button is made by its own machinery. Here are carpets one quarter cheaper than they were only four years ago; cotton cloths made more by machinery and less by hand labor; nay, they tell us that the cotton is to be picked by a machine before long.