CHAPTER XXIII
Coasting Down Mt. Washington
In spite of all our anxiety, we enjoyed this search for work. The farmers were all so comically inquisitive. A few of them took us for what we were, students out on a vacation. Others though kind enough, seemed lacking in hospitality, from the western point of view, and some were openly suspicious—but the roads, the roads! In the west thoroughfares ran on section lines and were defined by wire fences. Here they curved like Indian trails following bright streams, and the stone walls which bordered them were festooned with vines as in a garden.
That night we lodged in the home of an old farmer, an octogenarian who had never in all his life been twenty miles from his farm. He had never seen Boston, or Portland, but he had been twice to Nashua, returning, however, in time for supper. He, as well as his wife (dear simple soul), looked upon us as next door to educated Indians and entertained us in a flutter of excited hospitality.
We told them of Dakota, of the prairies, describing the wonderful farm machinery, and boasting of the marvellous crops our father had raised in Iowa, and the old people listened in delighted amaze.
They put us to bed at last in a queer high-posted, corded bedstead and I had a feeling that we were taking part in a Colonial play. It was like living a story book. We stared at each other in a stupor of satisfaction. We had never hoped for such luck. To be thrust back abruptly into the very life of our forebears was magical, and the excitement and delight of it kept us whispering together long after we should have been asleep.
This was thirty years ago, and those kindly old souls have long since returned to dust, but their big four-posted bed is doing service, no doubt, in the home of some rich collector. I have forgotten their names but they shall live here in my book as long as its print shall endure.
They seemed sorry to have us go next morning, but as they had nothing for us to do, they could only say, "Good-bye, give our love to Jane, if you see her, she lives in Illinois." Illinois and Dakota were all the same to them!