14000 miles, a carriage and two women

by Frances S. Howe

The narrow and comparatively level stretch, sloping on either side, and the sudden ascent to the highest point on the mountain, suggest a ride upon the ridgepole of a house and final leap to the top of the chimney; once there, we went into the cosy house, something like the old one on Mt. Washington, and tied everything a little tighter before we dared face the gale. We then started out, and, actually in danger of being blown away, we united our forces by taking hold of hands, and ran along the daisy-carpeted plateau to what looked like the jumping-off place to the north. There is a similarity in mountain views, but each has at least one feature peculiar to itself. Mt. Washington has not even a suggestion of the beautiful meadows seen from Mt. Holyoke; and from one point on Moosilauke there is a view of mountain tops unlike any we have seen; just billows of mountains, nothing else, and the hazy, bluish tint was only varied by the recent land slides on Mt. Liberty and Flume Mountain, which looked like silver cascades. Charming pictures meet the eye in every direction, but none more lovely than that along the Connecticut River near the Ox Bow.

We took mental possession of the whole scene in a very few minutes, and, with a last look at the “billows,” sought shelter under some rocks long enough to recover our breath and gather our pockets full of daisies; then returned to the house. A very frail-looking elderly lady was sitting by the fire, and we wondered how she ever lived through the jolting ride up the mountain, and how she could ever get down again. But our own transportation was the next thing for us, and we found some impatient parties had started off with our driver and left us to the mercy of another. We were disappointed at first, but when we found the new driver was just as good and wise as the other, and that his was “the best team on the mountain,” we were reconciled.

As we drove along the Ridge, he said he did not often trot his horses there, but when the wind blew so hard he wanted to get over it as soon as possible. We held on to each other and the buckboard, and believed him when he told us that, a few days before, he took a young man up in a single team, and the horse and buckboard were blown off the road, and the breath of the young man nearly forsook him forever. We enjoyed even that part of the ride, and when we got down a little way the frightful wind subsided into gentle zephyrs, so warm and soft that not a wrap was needed. Our driver was in no haste, and we stopped to gather ferns and flowers by the way. The knotted spruce sticks he cut and peeled for us now have bright ribbon bows, and adorn our parlor. We lost all fear as we watched the horses step down the very steep pitches with as much ease as Charlie takes a level road, and wished the ride was longer.

After a half-hour at the Breezy Point House, we packed our unused wraps into the phaeton and prepared for our return drive to Warren, where we spent the night. Practical people again advised us to return to Plymouth if we wished to visit the Flume; but, remembering what happened to Lot’s wife for turning back, we proposed to keep straight on. The first time we stopped to make an inquiry, an old lady looked sorrowfully at us and said, “There are gypsies ahead of you;” but we borrowed no trouble that time, and wisely, for we did not see them. We drove thirty-one miles that day, and for some distance followed the Connecticut River and looked across into Vermont, where we could follow the road we drove along on our way to Canada two years ago. After leaving the river, we followed the railroad very closely. We were once asked if our horse is afraid of the “track.” He is not, even when there is an express train on it, under ordinary circumstances; but a wooden horse might be expected to twinge, when one minute you are over the railroad, and the next the railroad is over you, and again you are alongside, almost within arm’s reach. In one of the very worst places we heard the rumbling of a train, and as there was no escape from our close proximity, we considered a moment, and decided we would rather be out of the carriage; “just like women,” I can hear many a man say. But never mind; our good Charlie had expelled us unceremoniously from the carriage once since our last journey, and we did not care to risk a repetition nearly two hundred miles from home. He rested while we jolted up and down Moosilauke the day before, and all the morning his ears had been active. A broken-down carriage with an umbrella awning by the side of the road was an object of so great interest to him that we had to close the umbrella, before he was even willing to be led by. A boy said it belonged to a man who had met with an accident, and we thought how much he might have escaped if he had “got out” as we did.

As the heavy train came thundering along almost over our heads, so close is the road to the high embankment, controlling our horse seemed uncertain; but to moral suasion and a strong hold on the curb he peacefully submitted, and in a few minutes we were on our way again, the carriage road, railroad and river intertwining like a three-strand braid. Night found us at Lisbon, and a small boy admitted us to a very new-looking hotel, and told us we could stay, before the proprietor appeared, with a surprised look at us and our baggage, and said the house was not yet open. That was of little consequence to us, as he allowed us to remain; and, after being in so many old hotels, the newness of everything, from bedding to teaspoons, was very refreshing.

We took the next day very leisurely, read awhile in the morning, then drove Charlie to the blacksmith’s to have his shoes reset before starting for Franconia via Sugar Hill, which commands as fine a view of the Franconia Mountains as Jefferson affords of the Presidential range. We remembered very pleasantly the house in Franconia where we were cared for two years ago, when night overtook us on our way from Littleton, and by two o’clock we were quite at home there again. It is away from the village, and directly opposite the house is an old wooden bridge. Sheltered by the high wooden side of the bridge is an old bench, where one can sit hours, rocked by the jar of the bridge to the music of horses’ feet, reveling in day dreams, inspired by the lovely view of the mountains, peaceful rather than grand, and the pretty winding stream in the foreground. We did not leave the charmed spot until the last sunset-cloud had faded, and darkness had veiled the mountain tops. We retired early, full of anticipation for the morning drive from Franconia to Campton, which has such a rare combination of grandeur and beauty, and is ever new. We drove up through the “Notch” several years ago, but the drive down would be new to us, for when we drove down two years ago, we might have fancied ourselves on a prairie, were it not for the ups and downs in the road. Not even an outline of the mountains was visible; everything was lost in the hazy atmosphere which preceded the “yellow day.”

We took an early start, and passing the cheery hotels and boarding-houses of Franconia, were soon in the Notch, of which Harriet Martineau says, “I certainly think the Franconia Notch the noblest mountain pass I saw in the United States.” However familiar it may be, one cannot pass Echo Lake without stopping. We did not hear the cannon which is said to be echoed by a “whole park of artillery,” but a whole orchestra seemed to respond to a few bugle notes. At Profile Lake we left the carriage again, to see how the “Old Man” looked when joined to earth. He hung in mid-air when we saw him last—enveloped in mist. We were too impatient to explore the new Flume to spare half an hour for the Pool, which was still fresh in our minds; and leaving Charlie to rest we started at once, with eyes opened wide to catch the first change in the famed spot. For some distance all was as we remembered it; but the scene of devastation was not far off, and we were soon in the midst of it. We had heard it said, “The Flume is spoiled,” and again, “It is more wonderful than ever.” Both are true in a measure; before it suggested a miracle, and now it looked as if there had been a “big freshet.” Huge, prostrate trees were lodged along the side of the gorge high above our heads, and the mighty torrent had forced its way, first one side, then the other, sweeping everything in its course, and leaving marks of its power. Nothing looked natural until we got to the narrow gorge where the boulder once hung, as Starr King said, “Held by a grasp out of which it will not slip for centuries,” and now it has rolled far down stream like a pebble, and is lost in a crowd of companion boulders. The place where it hung is marked by the driftwood which caught around it and still clings to the ledges. A long way below we saw a board marked “Boulder” placed against an innocent-looking rock, which everybody was gazing at with wonder and admiration, but we also noticed a mischievous “A” above the inscription, which gave it its probable rank. A workman told us he thought he had identified the real boulder farther down amidst the debris; but it matters little, for it was not the boulder which was so wonderful, but how it came to be suspended so mysteriously. After seeing the Flume in its present condition, the charm which always clings to mystery is lost, but one is almost overpowered with the thought of the resistless force of Nature’s elements.

After climbing over the rocks till tired, we found a cosy place away from the many parties who were there, and in our little nook discovered a new boulder more mysteriously hung than the old one. It was a little larger than a man’s head, and firmly held between two larger rocks by two small pebbles which corresponded to ears. A flat rock had lodged like a shelf across the larger rocks, half concealing the miniature boulder. The old boulder was no longer a mystery to us, for we could easily imagine how, no one knows whether years or ages ago, a mountain slide like the one in June rolled the old rock along until it lodged in the gap simply because it was too large to go through. But for a time this little one baffled us. When the mighty torrent was rushing along, how could Nature stop to select two little pebbles just the right size and put them in just the right place to hold the little boulder firmly? We puzzled over it, however, until to our minds it was scientifically, therefore satisfactorily solved; but we are not going to tell Nature’s secret to the public. We call it “our boulder,” for we doubt if any one else saw it, or if we could find it again among the millions of rocks all looking alike. We longed to follow the rocky bed to the mountain where the slide started, a distance of two miles, we were told, but prudence protested, and we left that till next time. We stopped to take breath many times on our way back to the Flume House, and after a good look at the slides from the upper piazza, we sought rest in our phaeton once more.

We forgot all about Lot’s wife this time, and looked back until it seemed as if our necks would refuse to twist. The ever-changing views as you approach Campton exhaust all the expressions of enthusiastic admiration, but the old stage road through the Pemigewasset Valley has lost much of its charm by the railroad, which in several places has taken possession of the pretty old road along the valley, and sent the stage road up on to a sand bank, and at the time we were there the roads were in a shocking condition. The many washouts on the stage and rail roads had been made barely passable, and there was a look of devastation at every turn. We spent the night at Sanborn’s, always alive with young people, and were off in the morning with a pleasant word from some who remembered our staying there over night two years ago.

From Campton to Plymouth is an interesting drive. We had a nice luncheon by the wayside, as we often do, but, instead of washing our dishes in a brook or at a spring as usual, we thought we would make further acquaintance with the woman who supplied us with milk. We went again to the house and asked her to fill our pail with water that we might wash our dishes; she invited us into the kitchen, and insisted on washing them for us—it was dish-washing time—which was just what we hoped she would do to give us a chance to talk with her. She told us about the freshets as she leisurely washed the tin pail, cups and spoons, and laid them on the stove to dry. Our mothers had not taught us to dry silver in that way, and we were a little anxious for the fate of our only two spoons, and hastened our departure, with many thanks for her kindness.