14000 miles, a carriage and two women

by Frances S. Howe

We understood our course would be level after the ford. The man must have forgotten the tow-path. From the ford we went right up on to the side of a cliff, and for a mile or more we were on the narrowest road we ever drove on, with the cliff fifty to one hundred feet straight up on our left, and a hundred feet down on our right was the river, or Schoharie Creek, with nothing to hinder our being there at short notice, not even a stick for protection. When we got to a rational road we inquired if we had been right, and were told “Yes, if you came by the tow-path; you would have had to ford three times if you had kept the valley.”

We told you at the outset that the Schoharie Valley is very beautiful. It lies now like a picture in our memory, and despite rocks, fords and tow-paths, we were very reluctant to leave it, but we were aiming for Saratoga, and at Schoharie we were advised to go by the way of Albany. It was the week of the bi-centennial celebration, and nothing but Albany was thought of, so we fell in with the multitude, and with a last look at Schoharie, turned east. The country was dull by contrast for a while, but became more interesting as we drew nearer the Hudson. We spent the night at Knowersville, and after everybody else had boarded the crowded excursion train to the Capital we leisurely started off via the plank road. Every grocer’s wagon or coal cart we met had a bit of ribbon, if no more, in honor of the occasion; and miles before we reached the city, strips of bunting adorned the humble dwellings. The city itself was one blaze of beauty. The orange, generously mixed with the red, white and blue, made the general effect extremely brilliant. We drove through all the principal streets and parks, dodging the processions—which were endless—with their bands and gay paraphernalia, to say nothing of the “trade” equipages, which suggested that all the business of Albany was turned into the streets. We went all over the Capitol building and had a fine view of the surrounding country from its upper rooms; then, feeling we had “done” the bi-centennial to our satisfaction, we drove nine miles up the Hudson to Cohoes for the night. When the porter brought our bags in, he said, with evident delight, “He’s given you the best rooms in the house,” and they were very nice; but luxuries are not always comforts, and we have not forgotten sitting bolt upright on the top of a marble table, with our book held high, in order to get near enough to the gaslight to read.

Everybody we saw the next day was dressed up and bound for Albany, for the President was to be there, but we were impatient for our letters at Saratoga and went on. The twenty-five miles was easily accomplished, and we found a large mail. In the evening we strolled about, enjoyed the fireworks in Congress Park, and talked over our plans for the next day. We had seen all the attractions about Saratoga in previous visits, except Mt. McGregor. We had thought to let Charlie rest, and go by rail, but were told we could drive up without the least difficulty, and that it was right on our way to Glen’s Falls. This seemed our best course, and we tried it, only to find, when too late, that the road had been neglected since the railroad was built, and was in a very rough condition. One led Charlie up and down the mountain, and the other walked behind to pick up any bags or wraps which might be jolted out on the way. The view from the hotel and the Grant Cottage is very pretty, and if we had been free from encumbrance, we should have enjoyed the walk up and down very much. As it was, we could only laugh at ourselves and say, “Poor Charlie!” We had been to Mt. McGregor, however, and that is something, and it chanced to be the anniversary of General Grant’s death.

We spent the night at Glen’s Falls, and tried in vain to find some one who could tell us how to go home over the Green Mountains. We knew the way from Lake Champlain, having driven up that way several years ago, and finally concluded the longest way round might be the pleasantest way home. We had been to Lake George, and that was one reason we wanted to go again; so off we skipped over the nine miles’ plank road, and sat for two hours on the shore in front of the Fort William Henry House writing letters, which ought to have been inspired, for we dipped our pens in the waters of the beautiful lake. When we went to the stable for Charlie, we found an old man who knew all about the Green Mountains, and if we had seen him at Glen’s Falls we should have been on our direct way home. Our last plan was too pleasant to repent of now, and we took directions towards Lake Champlain. We had to retrace our way on the plank road several miles, then go across country to Fort Ann, a distance of sixteen miles. It is perplexing when you leave the main roads, there are so many ways of going across, and no two people direct you the same, which makes you sure the road you did not take would have been better.

At Fort Ann we had comforts without luxuries, in the homeliest little old-fashioned hotel, and stayed until the next afternoon to give Charlie a rest, then drove twelve miles to Whitehall, where we had a good-looking hotel and no comforts. There were things enough, but they needed the touch of a woman’s hand. It must have been a man who hung the looking-glass behind the bed. We rearranged, however, and borrowed a table and chair from an open room near by, and got along very well. These were trifles compared with the pouring rain, which was making mud out of the clayey soil which the Catskills could hardly compete with. We almost repented, but would not turn back when only fourteen miles were between us and friends. We think the men who held a consultation as to our best way to Benson must have conspired against us, or they never would have sent us by the Bay road. The rain ceased, but the mud, the slippery hills and the heathenish roads every way! We turned and twisted, stopped at every farmer’s door to ask if we could be right, and more than once got the most discouraging of all answers, “Yes, you _can_ go that way.” The spinning of a top seems as near straight as that drive did. I know we could not do it again, and I am surer yet we shall not try.

When, at last, we struck the stage road, things seemed more rational, and Charlie’s ears became very expressive. As we drove into Benson he tore along and nearly leaped a ditch in his haste to turn into our friend’s stable, where Cousin Charlie fed him so lavishly with oats seven years ago. No one seemed to know exactly how we got there, but our welcome was none the less hearty.

Now we were all right and needed no directions, for from this point our way over the Green Mountains was familiar, and after a short visit we turned towards home, anticipating every bit of the one hundred and fifty miles’ drive. At Fairhaven we lunched with another cousin while Charlie rested, and then had a most charming drive to Rutland. We now follow the line of the Central Vermont and Cheshire Railroad quite closely all the way to Fitchburg; but, fine as the scenery is by rail, one gets hardly a hint of its beauty by the carriage road. We rode seven miles on the steps of a car when returning from Saratoga later in the season, hoping for a glimpse, at least, of the beautiful gap between Ludlow and Chester, which compares favorably with Dixville Notch or Kaaterskill Clove, but a good coating of dust and cinders was the only reward. For more than a mile the carriage road winds through the gorge, the mountains high and very close on either side, and apparently without an opening.

One of the delights of our wanderings is to stop at a strange post office, and have a whole handful of letters respond to our call. Chester responded very generously, for here the truant letters, which were each time a little behind, and had been forwarded and reforwarded, met the ever prompt ones and waited our arrival. A few miles from Chester we found lovely maidenhair ferns by the roadside, and were gathering and pressing them, when an old man, in a long farm wagon, stopped and asked if we were picking raspberries. We told him it was rather late for raspberries, but we had found pretty ferns. To our surprise this interested him, and he talked enthusiastically of ferns and flowers, saying he had one hundred varieties in his garden, and asking if we ever saw a certain agricultural journal which was a treasure-house of knowledge to him. Still he was not a florist, but a vegetable gardener, and we learned ever so much about the business, and for a while could talk glibly of Angel of Midnight corn and Blue-eyed (?) pease and so on. He gave quite a discourse, too, on the advantages of co-operation and exchange of ideas. He told us how much he enjoyed a fair at the New England Institute Building, and was interested to know that we saw it when in flames. Our pleasant chat was brought to a sudden stop, just as he was telling us of his ambitious daughter and other family details, by other travelers, for whom we had to clear the road.

We spent a night pleasantly at Saxton’s River, and received the courtesies of friends, then on through Bellows Falls and Keene towards Monadnock. We wanted to go to the Mountain House for the night, but it was several miles out of our way, and we were tired as well as Charlie, with thirty miles’ driving in the heat, so contented ourselves with recollections of two delightful visits there, and stopped at Marlboro, five miles from Keene.

When we were packing up in the phaeton, the next morning, a lady brought us three little bouquets, the third and largest for Charlie, we fancy. It was a very pleasant attention to receive when among strangers and gave us a good send-off for our last day’s drive. Forty miles is a long drive at the end of a long journey, but Charlie seemed fully equal to it, and all went well as we journeyed along the familiar route through Troy, Fitzwilliam, Winchendon, Ashburnham and Fitchburg. We dined at Winchendon and visited the friends in Fitchburg from whom we have a standing invitation for our last tea out. The five miles from Fitchburg to Leominster Charlie never counts. He knows his own stall awaits him. Our last day, which began so pleasantly with a floral testimony from a stranger, ended with a night-blooming cereus reception in our own home.