At this house we purchased flour, at another potatoes, at another coffee, no two articles being had at the same place, while chickens at twenty-five cents each were sold “on the run,” the Colonel and Hiram securing them after an energetic race.
BIRD TRAPPING MADE EASY.
An old lady of seventy summers, who sold me a box of honey and was very communicative, said during a short but delightful conversation—“I suppose you have heaps more people down in Connecticut than we have in this town; but I don’t believe they are half so happy as our townsfolks. Oh, no! they can’t be near so happy—except, well—except on election days;” and a sad expression came over her wrinkled countenance, for the smaller the town, the greater is the feeling on politics in Maine.
“SEVENTY SUMMERS.”
The river now widens to a distance of over one hundred and fifty feet, and day after day shows a gradual increase in its depth and power.
The current sweeps us swiftly onward through rapids innumerable in the full excitement of canoe life, but occasionally we are forced to disembark and drag our canoes over a rocky beach, which obliges us to retain the “shoes.”
At our various camps we are visited by the inhabitants along the route, who in return for the history of our tour entertain us with news of the outside world, from which we have been separated for so many weeks. Then we begin to realize that we are homeward bound.
An invitation to one of these callers, requesting the honor of his company at breakfast was accepted (with avidity), although, as he remarked, “the old woman was waiting to serve that meal for him on yonder hill.”