14000 miles, a carriage and two women

by Frances S. Howe

One might spend a whole summer amid the charming surroundings of North Conway, but we had only a night to spare. There were many transient people about, as is usual in the autumn. The summer guests had departed, and now some of the stayers-at-home were having a respite. We wished all the tired people could try the experience of an old lady there, who said she “could not make it seem right to be just going to her meals and doing nothing about it.”

Oh, how lovely that morning at North Conway! This was the day we were to drive up Crawford Notch; and what about all the prophecies of our seashore friends? Where were the snowdrifts we dreamed of? The air was so soft we put aside all wraps, and, as we leisurely drove along the bright, woodsy road, I wonder how many times we exclaimed, “This is heavenly!” We fairly drank in the sunshine, and fortunately, for it was the last we had for a full week.

We dined at the hotel in Bartlett, and strolled about the railway station near by, so tempting to travelers, having a pretty waiting-room like a summer parlor, with its straw matting and wicker furniture. We took our time so leisurely that we found we could not get to the Crawford House in season to walk up Mt. Willard, as we had planned, so stopped at the old Willey House, this side. It was quite too lovely to stay indoors, and, after we had taken possession of the house, being the only guests, we took the horn our landlady used to call the man to take care of Jerry, and went down the road to try the echo, as she directed us. It was very distinct, and after we got used to making such a big noise in the presence of those majestic mountains, we rather liked it. We gathered a few tiny ferns for our diaries, and took quite a walk towards the Notch, then came “home,” for so it seemed. We had chosen a corner room in full view of Mt. Webster, Willey Mountain, and the road over which we had driven, and where the moon would shine in at night, and the sun ought to look in upon us in the morning. The moon was faithful, but the sun forgot us and the mountains were veiled in mists.

Will there ever be another Sunday so long, and that we could wish many times longer? We had the warm parlor to ourselves and just reveled in a feast of reading, watching the fluffy bits of mist playing about Mt. Webster, between the lines. Just fancy reading “Robert Elsmere” four hours on a stretch, without fatigue, so peaceful was it away from the world among the mountains. After dinner we drove to the Crawford to mail a letter and back to the Willey, having enjoyed once more in the short one hour and a half one of the grandest points of the whole mountain region, the White Mountain Notch. We were now fresh for another long session with Robert and Catherine. It was raining again, and steadily increased through the night until it seemed as if there would not be a bridge left of the many we had crossed the day before.

We were interested in the fate of the little bridges, for we were to retrace our steps, seventeen or eighteen miles, to Glen station. We had driven up through the Notch because—we wanted to; and we were going back all this distance because we wanted to go on the Glen side of the mountains; for with all our driving, we had never been there. What a change from the drive up on Saturday! How lively the streams; and the little cascades were almost endless in number.

The foliage looked brighter, too. The roads were washed, but the bridges all stood. We dined once more at Bartlett, then on to Jackson via Glen Station. We had not thought of Jackson as so cosily tucked in among the mountains.

Again we were the only guests at the hotel, and the stillness here was so overpowering, that it required more courage to speak above a whisper in the great empty dining-room than it did to “toot” the horn in Willey Notch.

We usually order our horse at nine, but when it pours, as it did at Jackson, we frequently dine early and take the whole drive in the afternoon. These rainy stop-overs are among the pleasant features of our journeys. Who cannot appreciate a long morning to read or write, with conscience clear, however busy people may be about you, having literally “nothing else to do”? It does not seem to trouble us as it did the old lady at North Conway. It was cool in our room, and we took our books down stairs, casually remarking to the clerk, who apparently had nothing to do but wait upon us, that we had been looking for the cheery open fire we saw in the reception room the evening before. He took our modest hint, and very soon came to the parlor, saying we would find it more comfortable in the other room, where there was a fire.

Early in the afternoon we were off, full of anticipation of a new drive, and by many the drive from Jackson to Gorham through Pinkham Notch and by the Glen House is considered the finest of all. The foliage was certainly the brightest and the mud the deepest of the whole trip, and we enjoyed every inch of the twenty miles. We fully absorbed all the beauty of the misty phases of the mountains, and did not reject anything, thinking instead how we would some time reverse things and drive from Gorham to Jackson on a pleasant day.

Another famed drive is the one from Gorham to Jefferson. Part of this was new to us, too, and we must confess that the “misty phases” were too much for our pleasure that time. Not a glimpse of the peaks of the Presidential range was to be had all that morning. Even the Randolph Hills were partly shrouded in mists. We dined at Crawford’s at Jefferson Highlands, and one of the guests said Mr. Crawford had promised a clear sunset, but what his promise was based on we could not imagine.