We left home on the afternoon of June 22, Friday being a day of good omen to us, surprised friends in Chapinville with a carriage call, spent the night at Westboro, telephoned our coming from Woonsocket, and were with our friends in Pawtucket before six o’clock Saturday night. Our horse rested Sunday, but our cousins gave us a long and very enjoyable drive, showing the places of interest about the city suburbs, giving us a glimpse of Narragansett Bay, a fine view of Providence, and a general idea of their drives, so different from our home drives with the many hills.
We were advised to go to Providence, four miles south of Pawtucket, to get the best roads westward, for our turn in Connecticut. Had we been really wise we would have followed this advice, but being wise in our own conceit only, we followed our map, and took a course directly west, aiming for the Connecticut River. We started early Monday morning. As we drove on, we were directed one way and another to strike better roads, until after a day’s drive we brought up at a hotel in North Scituate, just ten miles from Providence! Then we realized our folly in not going to Providence in the morning, wondered why we were so opposed to going there, and after discussing the problem as we sat in the buggy in the stable yard, for it was too late to go to the next hotel, we concluded our journey would not be complete unless it included Providence. A happy thought then struck us. We recalled the landlord, who had left us when we seemed so undecided, secured rooms for the night, deposited our baggage, and took the next car, which passed the hotel, and in an hour left us at Shepherd’s rear door in Providence. We went about the wonderful store, got the glass we wanted so much, and took the return car, being extremely fortunate in standing all the way in the vestibule with only twelve, the inside being much more crowded, owing to a circus. We faced the open window, and thoroughly enjoyed the ride in the bracing breeze, which restored our much disturbed mental equilibrium and made us declare that things come out right, if you let them alone.
We fully appreciated the late supper served by our obliging hostess, passed a very comfortable night, and again with the same dogged persistency faced westward. We crossed the state line, which was as definitely marked by the instant change in the general character of the roads, as by the pink line which divides Rhode Island from Connecticut on our map. We were thinking of going straight west until we reached the Connecticut River, then driving northwest to Norfolk, the second Lenox we discovered three years ago, and from there to Great Barrington and up through Stockbridge, Lenox, and all those lovely Berkshire towns.
After several miles of cross-roads we began to consider and wondered if we were not foolish to go so far west just to go through the Berkshires, which we knew by heart already. We decided to compromise, and turn north earlier, going to Springfield and up the Westfield River to the northern Berkshire region. A few miles more of criss-cross roads and we experienced full conversion, and said, “Why go further westward, when by turning north now we will see some towns we do not know?”
We were delighted with this new plan, especially when we came to Pomfret street, which seemed to us a second Norfolk, and when after being sent from one place to another for the night, we found ourselves at Mrs. Mathewson’s “Lakeside” in South Woodstock, with Mrs. Mott as present hostess. We now fully believed what we have often suspected, that we do not always do our own planning. You will not find this place on the advertised lists, but those who have been there for twenty summers, and those who are drawn there as we were, keep the house more than full.
For the first time we had the pleasure of meeting with one who had passed the century mark. He said he should like to apply as our driver! They were interested in our wanderings, and Mrs. Mathewson exclaimed, “Why don’t you make a book?” How could we help confessing that was just what we were going to do on our return? “Oh, I want to subscribe,” she said. We were much gratified, and told her she would be number three, and represent Connecticut. Before we left home a Michigan cousin, who was east for the Christian Science church dedication in Boston, had begged to head the list, and a mutual cousin in Pawtucket asked to represent Rhode Island.
We sat on the piazza with the other Lakeside guests until a late hour, and all the ophies and isms, sciences, Christian and otherwise, were touched upon.
The turn in Connecticut ended most satisfactorily, and the next morning’s drive took us over another State line, but just when we entered our native state we do not know, for we missed the boundary stone. We were aiming for Keene, New Hampshire, eager for our first mail, and as we passed within a half day’s drive of our starting point, in crossing Massachusetts, we felt as if the loop of one hundred and sixty miles was a sort of prologue to our journey. We had a wayside camp with a stone wall for a table, and we washed our spoons at the farm house where we got milk.
At the hotel where we spent our first night last year, we were remembered and most cordially received. After breakfast the next morning our hostess showed us their rare collection of antiques. Showers threatened and we took dinner and wrote letters at the Monadnock House, in Troy, New Hampshire, having crossed another State line, then hurried on to Keene, where we found a large mail, full of good news.
Among the letters was one from a nephew, adding four subscriptions to our book for the privilege of being number four, and so you see our list was started and growing as our plans are made, not altogether by ourselves.