At Locks Mills, we met his old playmates, Dennis and Abner Herrick, men bent of form and dim of eye, gnarled and knotted by their battle with the rocks and barren hillsides, and to them we, confident lads, with our tales of smooth and level plow-lands, must have seemed like denizens from some farmers' paradise,—or perhaps they thought us fictionists. I certainly put a powerful emphasis on the pleasant side of western life at that time.
Dennis especially looked upon us with amazement, almost with awe. To think that we, unaided and alone, had wandered so far and dared so much, while he, in all his life, had not been able to visit Boston, was bewildering. This static condition of the population was a constant source of wonder to us. How could people stay all their lives in one place? Must be something the matter with them.—Their ox-teams and tipcarts amused us, their stony fields appalled us, their restricted, parsimonious lives saddened us, and so, not wishing to be a burden, we decided to cut our stay short.
On the afternoon of our last day, Abner took us on a tramp over the country, pointing out the paths "where Dick and I played," tracing the lines of the old farm, which had long since been given over to pasture, and so to the trout brook and home. In return for our "keep" we sang that night, and told stories of the west, and our hosts seemed pleased with the exchange. Shouldering our faithful "grips" next morning, we started for the railway and took the train for Gorham.
Each mile brought us nearer the climax of our trip. We of the plains had longed and dreamed of the peaks. To us the White Mountains were at once the crowning wonder and chief peril of our expedition. They were to be in a very real sense the test of our courage. The iron crest of Mount Washington allured us as a light-house lures sea-birds.
Leaving Gorham on foot, and carrying our inseparable valises, we started westward along the road leading to the peaks, expecting to get lodging at some farm-house, but as we stood aside to let gay coaches pass laden with glittering women and haughty men, we began to feel abused.
We were indeed, quaint objects. Each of us wore a long yellow linen "duster" and each bore a valise on a stick, as an Irishman carries a bundle. We feared neither wind nor rain, but wealth and coaches oppressed us.
Nevertheless we trudged cheerily along, drinking at the beautiful springs beside the road, plucking blackberries for refreshment, lifting our eyes often to the snow-flecked peaks to the west. At noon we stopped at a small cottage to get some milk, and there again met a pathetic lonely old couple. The woman was at least eighty, and very crusty with her visitors, till I began to pet the enormous maltese cat which came purring to our feet. "What a magnificent animal!" I said to Frank.
This softened the old woman's heart. She not only gave us bread and milk but sat down to gossip with us while we ate. She, too, had relatives "out there, somewhere in Iowa" and would hardly let us go, so eager was she to know all about her people. "Surely you must have met them."
As we neared the foot of the great peak we came upon hotels of all sizes but I had not the slightest notion of staying even at the smallest. Having walked twelve miles to the foot of the mountain we now decided to set out for the top, still carrying those precious bags upon our shoulders.
What we expected to do after we got to the summit, I cannot say, for we knew nothing of conditions there and were too tired to imagine—we just kept climbing, sturdily, doggedly, breathing heavily, more with excitement than with labor, for it seemed that we were approaching the moon,—so bleak and high the roadway ran. I had miscalculated sadly. It had looked only a couple of hours' brisk walk from the hotel, but the way lengthened out toward the last in a most disheartening fashion.