“Yes, how far is it?”
“Seven miles.”
“What time is it?”
“Seven o’clock.”
That gave us an hour in which to make Miss H——’s train.
“That’s Pennsylvania over there, isn’t it?”
“Yep, that’s Pennsylvania. There ain’t nothing in New Jersey ’cept cows and mountains.”
He grinned as though he had made a great joke.
Speed, as usual, was examining the engine. Franklin and I were gazing enraptured at the stately hills which sentinel this stream. In the distance was the Water Gap, a great cleft in the hills where in unrecorded days the river is believed to have cut its way through. One could see the vast masonry of some bridge which had been constructed farther up the stream.
We clambered up the bank on the farther side, the car making a great noise. In this sweet twilight with fireflies and spirals of gnats and “pinchin' bugs,” as Speed called them, we tore the remainder of the distance, the eyes of the car glowing like great flames. Along this river road we encountered endless groups of strolling summer boarders—girls with their arms about each other, quiescent women and older maids idling in the evening damp.