There was one place on the coast, that we skipped before, and now we proposed to explore Prouts Neck—nine miles from Portland; but we did not leave the city until we had seen the good friends who entertained us so hospitably when we attended a meeting there. A storm cloud was over us, but we got only the last drops of a shower, that laid the dust all the way to Prouts Neck.
We were glad this lovely spot had been reserved for us until then, for we could not have seen it under a finer sky. We walked to the Rocks, piloted by a young lady, who knew all the paths through the woods, and we were fascinated with the path near the Rocks, over which the wild roses and low evergreens closed as soon as we passed through. We sat on the piazza watching Mt. Washington in the distance until the sunset sky grew gray, and finished up the pleasant evening in the cosy room of friends from Boston.
We saw them off in the morning for a day at Old Orchard, and then went on our way, through Saco and Biddeford to Kennebunkport, which also has its Rocks and many attractions. Spouting Rock was not spouting, but we saw where it would spout sixty feet in the air, when spouting time came.
The next morning we saw once again the friends we never pass by, at Kennebunk, and visited the old elm under which Lafayette is said to have taken lunch, when on a visit here after the Revolution. Night found us at another favorite resort, York Harbor, and the charms and comforts of the Albracca made us forget the heat and dust which a land breeze had made very oppressive during the day.
While we were at dinner at the Rockingham, Portsmouth, the next day, a black cloud spent its wild fury in a few terrific gusts of wind. All was over when we started on our afternoon drive, but when half way to Hampton, the clouds grew black again, and we had barely time to drop the back curtain, put on the sides and unfasten the boot, before a tempest was upon us; a tempest of wind and rain—not a common rain, but pelting drops with thunder and lightning. We read afterwards that a buggy was blown over not many miles from us, but ours withstood the gale, and Jerry did well, although it seemed almost impossible at times for him to go on against the storm. We drove away from the shower and all was calm when we got to the Whittier House, Hampton, one of our homelike stopping places.
We followed along the coast to Newburyport, and then the Merrimac River enticed us inland. The experience of the afternoon previous was repeated on our way from Haverhill to Andover. We were scarcely prepared, before another tempest burst upon us, the rain this time driving straight in our faces. It was soon over, however, and we reached Andover unharmed.
We were now only a day’s drive from home, but Boston is only twenty miles from Andover and as our mail reported all well, we could not resist going the longest way round to do another errand or two in Boston, and call on our friends in Reading and Maplewood on the way.
The drive from Malden to Boston is distracting, with little that is pleasant to offset the turmoil of the streets. We thought we could leave Jerry at the old stable in Mason street, while we went shopping, but like everything else in these days, the stable had “moved on.” When we found a place for him it was late. We did not idle this time, for it was so near five o’clock that gates were half closed, and a man stood at every door as if to say, “You can come out, but you cannot go in.”
The drive next morning was very fine. We went out on Beacon street to Chestnut Hill Reservoir, then drove on the new Commonwealth avenue as far as we could on our way to Allston. Whatever Scripture may say about the “broad way,” we shall surely risk our lives on that one as often as we have opportunity.
From Allston we retraced our first two days’ driving, making our journey like a circle with a handle. We called on the same friends along the way, spent the night at Wayland Inn, dined with the same friends at the Lancaster House, and called on the campers at Spectacle Pond. There was a slight variation in the return trip, however, in the form of a tornado, which passed over South Lancaster. We might have been “in it” if we had not stopped twenty minutes or more to sketch a very peculiar tree trunk, between Sudbury and Stow. There were nine huge oaks in a row, and every one showed signs of having been strangely perverted in its early growth, as if bent down to make a fence, perhaps; but later in life showed its innate goodness by growing an upright and shapely tree out of its horizontal trunk.