"And blue of the far dappled sky,
That shows at warm, still noon,
Shines in her softly smiling eye—
Oh who's so sweet as June?"
Father was not a very successful tin-peddler. The thrifty New England housewives were not pleased because he was unwilling to exchange his wares for rags, after the manner of other itinerant venders. He was uncertain as to the prices which he ought to charge; asking so little for his brooms that one patron purchased all his stock, at a decided loss to himself, as he afterwards learned, and demanding so much for nutmeg graters that a sagacious purchaser showed him the door with scorn. The soldering outfit, too, caused him much woe. It seemed that the original peddler was a clever tinker; and all sorts of broken articles, from clocks to umbrellas, were brought out for father to mend. At first father good humoredly tried his best, but having burned holes in his clothing, as well as blistered his hands, and succeeding in no instance in satisfying his patrons, he was tempted to throw the little furnace away, but his sense of economy would not allow him to do this, and he stowed it away vindictively in the depths of his cart.
Shortly after this we spent two very interesting days in visiting Mt. Holyoke and Smith colleges. They gave both to Winnie and me a desire for a higher education than that which we were receiving at Madame's. Miss Sartoris wandered slowly through the Art Building of Smith, looking longingly at its superb equipment. The college is charmingly situated in the old town of Northampton. We were told that the students had just acted a Greek play, the "Electra" of Sophocles, very successfully, and we looked at one another in envy as we thought how impossible it would have been to present such a drama at Madame's.
We passed the Holyoke range on July 1. This barrier marks as distinct a climatic change as Cape Cod in the Atlantic currents, for, just as, south of the Cape, and apparently threatened by her bent arm, the Gulf Stream sweeps to the north the tropic sea-weeds, and north of it, and gathered close in its embrace, the Arctic mosses cling to the cold heart of New England; so, south of the Holyoke range the air may be tepid and lifeless, while beyond it invigorating breezes from the Northland are dancing cheerily.
We had eaten the last native Connecticut strawberries, but they were just in their glory north of the barrier, and though the almanac said July, it was June weather still.
Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke stand as sentinels at the entrance of a lovely region, through whose elm-covered villages we drove at leisurely pace, resting over a Sabbath at old Hadley, one of the most charming places, with its principal street a double cloister of elms and maples, and where a Sabbath peace and stillness brooded even on week-days. Mr. Stillman found, for the next few days, a ready sale for his fireworks, exhausting his stock and adding twenty-five dollars to the treasury. About twelve miles north of Mount Holyoke rises Mount Toby, a noble mountain, which assumes, from certain directions, the shape of a crouching camel. The resemblance is even more marked than that of the Rock of Gibraltar to a lion. It dominates the country round about, and from its summit nearly a score of nestling towns and villages are visible. Among these Mr. Stillman sold his rockets, and proposed that we should spend Fourth of July night on its summit, and there watch the little fire-fountains on the plain below. It was an attractive plan, but Mr. Stillman had not counted the weather into his reckoning. It had been a sultry day. As we stopped at a farm-house on our way from Sunderland to Mount Toby, the good woman told us to look out for rain. "The grass has been waiting two days to be cut," she said, "but it looks kinder lowry, and the men-folks daresn't begin haying."
There were two superb cumulus clouds in the west, shaped like elm-trees, or wine-glasses touching rims, and there was a blue rain-cloud in the southeast, with fringes trailing the landscape, and blurring it from our view.
"The rain may not reach Mount Toby at all," father said; "showers travel about among those hills in a curious fashion. I have seen it raining hard on one side of Sugar-Loaf, while the other was dry and dusty. There is a deserted railway station at the foot of Toby, where we can spend the night. There were picnic grounds laid out on the mountain at one time, but the enterprise failed, and trains no longer stop there."
A view of the station, which we reached early in the afternoon, confirmed father's recommendation of it. The roof was weather tight, and it was a roomy, comfortable building, a good refuge should a shower overtake us. We picnicked beside a beautiful cascade, and leaving the horses picketed beside the carts, proceeded to climb the mountain on foot. It was glorious with masses of white and pink laurel, which I had never before seen in its perfection, and Miss Prillwitz introduced me to many other plants and flowers new to me. The Amherst basket-fern, shaped like a Corinthian capital, grew in perfection, the Columbine blew her flame-colored trumpets, and the harebell rang her inaudible chimes from mossy clefts in the gray rocks. Miss Prillwitz said she had last picked harebells in Austria.
"You know," said Miss Sartoris, "that Mary Howitt calls the harebell