Maine was a wonderful place! The leaves on the trees were red and yellow, brown and purple, instead of green, and when the wind blew they fell off. It left the trees very queer, but the dry leaves on the ground made a fine swishing noise when one scuffed in them, and when a little breeze picked them up and sent them scurrying after one they looked like the rats following the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Mamma gathered some of the prettiest, pressed them and waxed them with a hot iron and a paraffine candle. We took them back to San Justo with us and pinned them on the lace curtains, to remind us of Skowhegan.
Whenever we went to town on an errand or to church, we crossed the bridge, under which the great river rushed to pour over the falls below, a never failing wonder. On the far side of the island the water turned the wheels for cousin Levi Weston’s sawmill, an interesting, if dangerous, place to visit.
We had not been long in Maine before the air filled with goose feathers, only it wasn’t feathers, but wet snow. Then came sleds and sleighs, a snow man and Christmas, with a piggy-back ride on grandfather to see the tree at the church.
The snow was so deep on the ground and it was so cold, the chickens had to stay in the barn all the time; every morning grandmother and I took my little red bucket and went to feed them, out through the summer kitchen, the wood-shed, past the horse’s stall to their house.
While I was in Maine I learned odors as well as sights. I know the smell of snow in the air, of pine trees in winter, of a woodshed and barn, of an old house that has been lived in for long, long years. I came to know the fragrance of a cellar, apples and butter, vegetables and preserves, and can recall its clammy coolness.
To have a bath in a wash-tub by the kitchen stove was a lark for a little wild-westerner who had known only a modern bathroom. The second time we were at grandfather’s there was a curious soft-rubber pouch for a tub, which was set up when wanted before the fire in the north bedroom. The bottom rested on the floor, while the sides were held up by poles, resting on chairs. After a week-end tubbing, mamma and I would say together,
“How pleasant is Saturday night
When all the week I’ve been good,
Said never a word that was cross
And done all the good that I could.”