You will surmise we are bound for Boston again, and will not be surprised to find us with friends on the Jerusalem Road, after enjoying the beauties of this road from Cohasset to Hingham, where we went for a handful of letters only equalled by that parcel at Providence.
Oh, how cold it was the next day! The thought of Nantasket Beach made us shiver, and preferring to think of it as in “other days,” we turned our faces inland and drove a pretty back way to South Hingham. Of course we could have driven right into Boston, but it was Saturday, and we thought we would have a quiet Sunday somewhere and go into the city Monday. After protracted consultation we agreed on a place, but when we got there there was no room for us, as a minstrel troupe had taken possession. Hotels four, eight and nine miles distant were suggested. In consideration of Jerry we chose the four miles’ drive. We will not tell you the name of the town, suffice it to say we left immediately after breakfast. It was a beautiful morning—far too lovely to be spoiled by uncongenial surroundings. We intended to drive to the next town, where we had been told there was a hotel. We found none, however, but were assured there was one in the next. So we went on, like one in pursuit of the end of the rainbow, until the last man said he thought there was no hotel nearer than the Norfolk House!
Here we were almost in Boston, Sunday, after all the miles we had driven to avoid it. “All’s well that ends well,” however, and a little visit with the “Shaybacks” at home, not “in camp,” could not have been on Monday, and before we reached the Norfolk House we were taken possession of for the night by a whole household of hospitable friends.
Monday morning we drove into the city proper, and hovered in its vicinity several days, calling on friends we did not see before and driving here and there, among other places to Middlesex Fells, so often spoken of. We ended our journey as we began it, searching for our clerical cousin, but all in vain. We did see so many of our friends of the profession, however, from first to last, that privately we call it our “ministerial” journey.
Everything must have an end, but we did wish we could go right on for another month. The foliage was gorgeous and the yellowish haze only made everything more dreamy and fascinating. We prolonged our pleasure by taking two days to drive home, straying a little from the old turnpike, and driving through Weston, spending the night in Framingham, and then on through Southboro to Northboro, Clinton and Lancaster to Leominster. The country was beautiful in contrast with flat, sandy Rhode Island. We gathered leaves and sumacs until our writing tablet and every available book and newspaper was packed, and then we put a great mass of sumacs in the “boot.” Finally our enthusiasm over the beauties along the way reached such a height that we spread our map and traced out a glorious trip among the New Hampshire hills, and home over the Green Mountains, for next year.
“Summer Gleanings” is now complete, and the last pages are fairly aglow with the autumn souvenirs of our sixteenth annual drive.
CHAPTER IX.
BOSTON, WHITE MOUNTAINS AND VERMONT.—A SIX HUNDRED MILE DRIVE.
In self-defence we must tell you something of our seventeenth annual “drive,” for no one will believe we could have had a good time, “on account of the weather;” and really it was one of our finest trips. We regret the sympathy, and pity even, that was wasted on us, and rejoice that now and then one declared, “Well, I will not worry about them, for somehow they always do have a good time, if it does rain.”
If two friends, with a comfortable phaeton and a good horse, exploring the country at will, gladly welcomed and served at hotels hungry for guests, with not a care beyond writing to one’s friends, and free to read to one’s heart’s content, cannot have a good time, whatever the weather may be, what hope is there for them?