"All these distinguished personages were familiar to us, and to see them here for the first time in living colors made silence and eating impossible. We dashed around the room, calling to each other: 'O, Kate, look here!' 'O, Madge, look there!' 'See little Moses!' 'See the angels on Jacob's ladder!'
"Our exclamations could not be kept within bounds. The guests were amused beyond description, while my mother and elder sisters were equally mortified; but Mr. Bayard, who appreciated our childish surprise and delight, smiled and said: 'I'll take them around and show them the pictures, and then they will be able to dine,' which we finally did."
Inns often indulge in striking papers. A famous series of hunting scenes, called "The Eldorado," is now seen in several large hotels; it has recently been put on in the Parker House, Boston. It was the joint work of two Alsatian artists, Ehrmann and Zipelius, and was printed from about two thousand blocks. The Zuber family in Alsace has manufactured this spirited panel paper for over fifty years; it has proved as profitable as a gold mine and is constantly called for; I was shown a photograph of the descendants of the owner and a large crowd of workmen gathered to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the firm, which was established in 1797.
An old inn at Groton, Massachusetts, was mentioned as having curious papers, but they proved to be modern. The walls, I hear, were originally painted with landscapes. This was an earlier style than scenic papers—akin to frescoing. A friend writes me:
"The odd papers now on the walls of Groton Inn have the appearance of being ancient, although the oldest is but thirty years old. Two of them are not even reproductions, as the one in the hall depicts the Paris Exposition of 1876, and that in the office gives scenes from the life of Buffalo Bill.
"The Exposition has the principal buildings in the background, with a fountain, and a long flight of steps in front leading to a street that curves round until it meets the same scene again. Persons of many nations, in characteristic dress, promenade the street. Pagodas and other unique buildings are dotted here and there. The entire scene is surrounded with a kind of frame of grasses and leaves, in somewhat of a Louis Quinze shape. Each one of these scenes has 'Paris Exposition, 1876,' printed on it, like a quack advertisement on a rock.
"The Wild West scenes include the log cabin, the stage coach held up, the wild riding, and the throwing of the lasso.
"The paper on the dining-room may be a reproduction. It looks like Holland, although there are no windmills. But the canal is there with boats and horses, other horses drinking, and men fishing; also a Dutchy house with a bench outside the door. This paper looks as if it had been put on the walls a hundred years ago, but in reality it is the most recent of the three. The date of the beginning of the Inn itself is lost in the dim past, but we know it is more than two hundred years old. Tradition has it that there were originally but two rooms which were occupied by the minister."
When some one writes on our early inns, as has been done so charmingly for those of England, I prophecy that the queer papers of the long ago will receive enthusiastic attention.
Towns near a port, or an island like Nantucket, are sure to have fine old papers to show. A Nantucket woman, visiting the Art Museum in Boston some dozen years since, noticed an old paper there which was highly valued. Remembering that she had a roll of the very same style in her attic, she went home delighted, and proudly exhibited her specimen, which was, I believe, the motive power which started the Nantucket Historical Society. I was presented with a piece of the paper—a hand-painted design with two alternating pictures; an imposing castle embowered in greenery, its towers and spires stretching far into the sky, and below, an ornate bridge, with a score of steps at the left, and below that the pale blue water. Engrossed lovers and flirtatious couples are not absent.