Most of our journeys have covered more than four hundred miles, and we are frequently asked if we have done all this with one horse. No, there was handsome black Charlie, Old Nick, who liked to lie down in harness now and then, bay Charlie, who had the longest record—ten years—and was best loved and least trusted, faithful, serious Jerry, whose long strides took us so easily through the country, saucy and exasperatingly lazy Bess, who could do so well, and altogether worthy Nan, whose two journeys have not revealed a fault.
“Do you plan your journeys?” is another question often asked. Never, except the Cape Cod trip, and we observed the innovation by having a letter party. Imagine the pleasure of receiving thirty or more letters at the tip end of Cape Cod, and of mailing an answer to the last one at Plymouth on the way home! We have many times driven from home to the post office packed for a three or four weeks’ journey, without the faintest idea where we should go, and even sat there in the buggy fifteen or twenty minutes trying to decide which way we would leave town.
Our journeys make themselves and we thought this summer’s journey was not going to be worthy of mention, but would simply preserve the record unbroken. We could spare but two weeks, and we were never more at a loss what to do with it. Maine came to mind most frequently, and we finally faced in that direction, spending the first night at the Groton Inn. Of course, facing Maineward the Isles of Shoals lay in our way as a side attraction, and as it was many years since we had been there, we left our horse at Portsmouth, and took the boat to Appledore, where we found the friends we hoped to meet. After dinner and a walk to Celia Thaxter’s resting place, we returned on the afternoon boat to Portsmouth. Our horse was waiting for us at the wharf, and we drove on to Eliot, Me., where Green-Acre attracted us.
A visit to Green-Acre alone would be enough for a summer’s outing, even if one were limited to the exoteric interests of life—this beautiful acre of green on the banks of the Piscataqua River, the finely located Inn, with its hospitality, and the glorious sunsets—what more could one desire? But if you have chanced to be, or wish to be, initiated into the esoteric mysteries, what a feast!
Unfortunately Miss Farmer, the organizer and secretary of Green-Acre, was away for a few days, but we had a brief sunset meeting sitting on the river bank, a very fine reading in the parlor in the evening, from Longfellow and Lowell, an early morning gathering on the piazza of the Eirenion—House of Peace—when Browning and Emerson were beautifully read and interpreted, and a later session under Lysekloster Pines, a half mile away through the fields, where the meetings of the Monsalvat School are held. This was a novel experience, sitting on the dry brown needles, under the low, broad-spreading branches of a mammoth pine, listening to the wisdom of an Indian teacher.
We were loth to leave the tempting program, “The Oneness of Mankind,” by Mirza Abul Fazl, and Mirza Ali Kuli Khan, next morning in the Pines, and later “Man, the Master of His Own Destiny,” by Swami Rami; in truth a whole summer’s feast of reason and music, but our journey was waiting.
We had scarcely left the Inn after dinner, before muttering thunder gave us warning, and a shower came up so quickly we barely had time to drive under a shed back of the village church before the floods came down. The shower was violent, but did not last very long, and when the rain was over, we drove on. We were utterly in doubt where we were being led until at the first glimpse of a distant mountain peak our entire journey was revealed to us—a trip through Sebago Lake, then on to Jefferson Highlands, and home through Crawford Notch and Lake Winnipiseogee! We had not a doubt or misgiving after the revelation. We had at last struck our trail!
According to the revelation, Sebago Lake was the first point of note, but the incidents along the way, the pretty woodsy roads, the ponds and brooks, the camping near a farmhouse at noon, and the small country hotels, with their hospitable hosts, make up by far the larger part of a carriage journey. When we answered our host, who asked where we had driven from that day, he said, “Green-Acre? That’s the place where Buddhists confirm people in their error,” adding “there’s only one kind of good people—good Christian men and women.”
We were packing up wraps and waterproofs after a shower, when a white-haired farmer came from the field and asked if we were in trouble. We told him we were “clearing up” so as to look better. “Oh, pride, is it?” he said, and asked where we came from. He seemed so much interested that we also told him where we were going—it was just after the “revelation.” He was very appreciative and wished us a hearty Godspeed. The incident was suggestive of the universal brotherhood to be, in the millennium. At a point on the Saco we saw logs leaping a dam like a lot of jubilant divers—singly, and by twos and threes.
We had an early drive of eight miles to meet the boat at Sebago Lake, and on the way there was a slight break in the harness. We drove back a short distance, hoping to find the rosette lost from the head band, and finally tied it up with a string. This delayed us more than we realized and when we drove to a hotel near the wharf and were waiting for the proprietor, we asked a guest of the house what time the boat was to leave. He answered quickly, “Now! run! I will take care of your horse!” We ran, and not until we were fairly on board did it occur to us that we had not told him who we were, where we came from, or when we should return. It did not matter, however, as the names on whip and writing tablet would give all that was needful in case of necessity or curiosity.