Lovers of brevity, people who have no time or fondness for details, and those who care more for the remotest point reached than how we got there, will stop here. Those of more leisurely inclination, who would enjoy our zigzagging course, so senseless to the practical mind, and would not object to walking up a hill, fording a stream or camping by the wayside, we cordially invite to go with us through some of the experiences of our fifteenth annual drive.
We were all ready to go on the Fourth of July, but Charlie does not like the customary demonstrations of that day, and for several years he has been permitted to celebrate his Independence in his stall. There were three Fourth of Julys this year, and we waited patiently until Independence was fully declared. All being quiet on Tuesday, the sixth, we made ready, and at a fairly early hour in the morning everything had found its own place in the phaeton and we were off. As usual, we had made no plans, but our thoughts had traveled Maineward, until at the last moment the Catskills were suggested. The heat which often lingers about the Fourth was at its height, and the thought of Princeton’s bracing air was so refreshing we gladly started in that direction. We drove leisurely, taking in the pretty views and gathering flowers, camped by the roadside two hours at noon, and then on through Princeton to Rutland. We visited that pretty town three years ago, when the Mauschopauge House was being built, and we resolved then to spend a night some time under its roof. It is finely located, commanding extensive views, and is in every way a charming place to spend a scorching summer night. The cool breezes blowing through our room, the glorious sunset, and the one lone rocket, the very last of the Fourth, that shot up seemingly from a dense forest, two miles away, and impressed us more than a whole program of Boston pyrotechnics, calling forth the remark, “How much more we enjoy a little than we do a great deal,” to which a lady, kindly entertaining us, replied, “Oh, you are too young to have learned that,” all these are fresh in our memory.
Just as we were leaving in the morning, our kindly lady introduced us to a stately looking Boston lady, and told her of our habit of driving about the country. “Oh,” she says, “that is charming. I do not like woman’s rights, but this is only a bit of Boston independence.”
It was hot after we left breezy Rutland, and we drove the twelve miles to North Brookfield very leisurely, taking our lunch before we visited our friends there, and at once declaring our determination to leave before supper, as it was too hot to be any trouble to anybody. We sat in the house and we sat in the barn, but there was no comfort anywhere. Late in the afternoon we resisted the protests, but not the strawberries, and started off for the eleven miles to Ware. Our dread of the heat was all wasted, for we had a very pleasant drive, but, when we were once in that roasting, scorching hotel, we almost wished we had not been so considerate of our friends.
Twenty-five miles driving the next day, stopping at the comfortable hotel in Belchertown for dinner, brought us to Northampton. We drove about its lovely streets an hour before going to the hotel, and passed the evening with friends, who took us through Smith College grounds by moonlight, on our way back to the hotel. The luxuries of Northampton offset the discomforts of Ware, and we were filled with the atmosphere which pervades the country all about, through Mr. Chadwick’s glowing descriptions, as we followed along the Mill River, marking the traces of the disaster on our way to Williamsburg. Up, up we went, until we found ourselves on the threshold of Mr. Chadwick’s summer home, in Chesterfield. He took us out into the field to show us the fine view, with a glimpse of old Greylock in the distance. We were on the heights here, and went down hill for a while, but it was not long before we were climbing again, and after six miles of down and up we sought refuge for the night in Worthington.
There was rain and a decided change in the weather that night, and a fire was essential to comfort during the cheerless early morning hours. We took the opportunity to rest Charlie and write letters, and the ten miles’ drive to Hinsdale in the afternoon was quite pleasant. It was refreshing for a change to be chilly, rather than hot and dusty. At Peru, six miles from Worthington, we reached the point where the waters divide between the Connecticut and the Housatonic.
The night at Hinsdale was without special interest, but the drive from there to Stockbridge will never be forgotten. Could it be that only two days before we were dissolving with the heat, and now we needed our warmest wraps. The dust was laid, all Nature fresh, Charlie was at his best, and away we sped towards the lovely Berkshire region, with its fine roads, beautiful residences, cultivated estates and the superb views along the valley of the Housatonic, in the grand old towns of Pittsfield, Lenox, Lee and Stockbridge. Mr. Plumb, the well-known proprietor of the quaint old inn in Stockbridge, remembered our visit there eleven years ago, and asked us if we found our way to New York that time. He said he remembered telling us if we had found our way so far, we should find no difficulty in crossing the State line. Somehow, we were afraid of the New York State line then, but we have so far overcome it, that, after we crossed this year, we felt so much at home that the revolver was packed away a whole day, for the first time since we have carried it.
Any Berkshire book will tell you all about Mr. Plumb’s inn, the Sedgwick burial place, Jonathan Edwards and all the rest, and we will go on, leaving enough to talk hours about. We cannot go through Great Barrington without lingering a bit, however, giving a thought to Bryant and the lovely poems he wrote there, before we are diverted by the wonderful doings of Mrs. Mark Hopkins. An imposing structure puzzled us. “What is it?” we asked a man. “It is a mystery,” he said. We afterward were told that it was designed for Mrs. Hopkins’s private residence at present, but would be devoted to art some time in the future. We cannot vouch for the latter statement, but we can for the magnificence of the edifice, as well as for the church with its wonderful Roosevelt organ and royal parsonage, largely due to Mrs. Hopkins’s liberal hand. Many travel by private car, but Mrs. Hopkins has a private railroad, and when she wishes to visit her San Francisco home, her palace on wheels is ordered to her door, as ordinary mortals call a cab.
Sheffield had even more attractions than Great Barrington and Mrs. Hopkins, for there we got home letters. Next comes Salisbury, and now we are in Connecticut. We spent the night at an attractive hotel in Lake Village, and fancied we were at Lake Winnipiseogee, it was so like Hotel Weirs. Perhaps you think we forgot we were going to the Catskills. Oh, no; but we had not been able to decide whether we would go to West Point and drive up the Hudson, or to Albany and drive down, so we concluded to “do” Berkshire until our course was revealed. The turnpike to Poughkeepsie was suggested, and as we had reached the southern limit of the so-called Berkshire region, it met our favor, and we went to Sharon, then crossed the New York State line, which is no more formidable than visible. Still there was a difference. It seemed as if we were among foreigners, but the courteous answers to inquiries and manifest kindly feeling won us at once.
Turnpikes are too public for a wayside camp, and as there was no hotel at hand, and Charlie must have rest, we asked permission of a farmer to drive into a little cosy corner where we could all be very comfortable. He would leave his dinner, although we protested, and helped unharness Charlie, then he brought us milk and luscious cherries, and when dinner was over, his wife came and invited Charlie to eat some of the nice grass in her front yard. We led him to his feast, and had a very pleasant chat with her, while he reveled in New York hospitality. This was in Armenia. From there we drove over the mountain to Washington Hollow, where we had a comfortable night in a spacious, old-fashioned, homelike hotel. The twelve miles to Poughkeepsie were very pleasant, and after we had nearly shaken our lives out over the rough pavement in search of a guidebook of the Catskills, we were ready for dinner and a two-hours’ rest at a hotel. The afternoon drive of seventeen miles to Rhinebeck on the old post road from New York to Albany was fine.