To see oursels as others see us!”
July 6—Received our first mail at Wells River, Vt., and as all was well at home, we began to plan our journey. For a week we had simply faced north day after day. If we kept right on we would come to Newport and Lake Memphremagog, which to us means the Barrows camp, but we need a month for that trip. A bright idea solved the problem. We drove north until we reached St. Johnsbury, left our horse there and took a morning train for Newport, where we connect with the Lady of the Lake for Georgeville, P. Q.
At the boat landing at Newport we met Mr. and Mrs. Barrows just starting for Europe. They insisted that we must go on to Cedar Lodge for the night, and make a wedding call on their daughter, recently married in camp, and forthwith put us in the charge of camp friends, who were there to see them off. The sail to Georgeville was very delightful. We were then driven two miles to the camp in the forest of cedars, and presented to the hostess, a niece of Mrs. Barrows, who gave us a friendly welcome.
The attractions of Cedar Lodge are bewildering. The one small log cabin we reveled in a few years ago is supplanted by a cabin which must be sixty or seventy feet in length, with a broad piazza still wearing the wedding decorations of cedar. Near the center is a wide entrance to a hallway, with a fireplace, bookcase, and hand loom, the fruits of which are on the floors, tables, couches, and in the doorways. At the right is the camp parlor, called the Flag room, draped with colors of all nations. It is spacious, with a fireplace, center reading table, book shelves, pictures, writing desk, typewriter, comfortable chairs, and a seat with cushions, the entire length of the glass front facing the piazza and lake.
On the left is the Blue China or dining room. Here is a very large round table, the center of which revolves for convenience in serving, a fireplace with cranes and kettles, and a hospitable inscription on a large wooden panel above. The telephone, too, has found its way to camp since we were there.
Not least in interest, by any means, is the culinary department. Instead of a cooking tent, where Mrs. Barrows used to read Greek or Spanish while preparing the cereal for breakfast, and a brook running through the camp for a refrigerator, there is a piazza partially enclosed back of the Blue China room, with tables, shelves, kerosene stoves, and three large tanks filled with cold spring water, continually running, one of which served as refrigerator, tin pails being suspended in it. The waste water is conveyed in a rustic trough some distance from the cabin and drips twenty feet or more into a mossy dell, where forget-me-nots grow in abundance.
Just outside the end door of the Flag room are flights of stairs to the Lookout on the roof. This stairway separates the main cabin from a row of smaller cabins, designated Faith, Hope, and Charity, in rustic letters. (We were assigned to Hope, and hope we can go again some time.)
These cabins are connected by piazzas with several others, one being Mrs. Barrows’ Wee-bit-housie. A winding path through the woods leads to Mr. Barrows’ Hermitage, or study, close by the lake, and another path up the slope back of the cabins leads to a group of tents called The Elfin Circle.
We went to the bath wharf, followed the brook walk through the cedars, strolled to the hill-top cabin to see the friends who escorted us from Newport, and then we all met at supper, on the broad piazza, seventeen of us. The last of the wedding guests had left that morning. After supper we descended the steps to the boat landing, and our hostess and the best man rowed us to Birchbay for the wedding call. Though unexpected we were most cordially received, served with ice cream, and shown the many improvements in the camp we first visited years ago. We walked to the tennis court and garden, where the college professor and manager of Greek plays were working when no response came from the repeated telephone calls to tell them we were coming. We rowed back by moonlight.
We cannot half tell you of the charms of Cedar Lodge, but when we were driven from Georgeville a bundle of papers was tucked under the seat, which proved to be Boston Transcripts, containing an account of the wedding. A copy was given us and it is such an exquisite pen picture we pass it along to you: