Every farm glittered with golden sunflowers. I saw one misguided blossom obstinately turning its face away from the great source of light and heat. Every petal was drooping, and I wondered if the dwellers in the neighboring cot heeded the lesson. The buckwheat fields were snowy with blossoms and fragrant as the new honey the bees were industriously gathering.

Lexington is a lovely village, with pretty dwellings, soft meadows, and an infinite entanglement of mountains, great and small, green and blue, for background in every direction. I had already been warned that the stage went no farther; and, as my destination that evening was Prattsville, some means of conveyance was of course necessary. The driver feared the horses would all be engaged haying, and asked what I would do in case no wagon could be found. I replied that, as the distance from Lexington to Prattsville was only seven miles, and I had no luggage, it might readily be accomplished on foot. He opened his eyes, and, perhaps, finding the Lexington hotel not likely to be benefited by my delay, cast about for some way of obliging me. As we drove up to the post office, the door was found locked, and Uncle Samuel's agent absent, which circumstance, taken in connection with the fact that the mail comes to Lexington only twice per week, struck me as decidedly 'cool.'

By six o'clock I found myself seated in a comfortable buggy, behind a sleek, fleet pony, and beside an old gentleman, whose upright mien and pleasant talk added no little to the enjoyment of the hour. The evening lights were charming, the hills wound in and out, the Schoharie rippled merrily over the cobble stones or slate rocks forming its bed, and the clematis and elder bushes gently waved their treasures of white blossoms, silky seeds, or deepening berries, in the soft summer air. By and by the slate cliffs rose precipitously from the river shore, leaving only room sufficient for the road, which, is in fact, sometimes impassable, when the rains or melting snows have swollen the singing river to an angry, foaming, roaring flood. My companion told me of the agriculture of the district, of the wild Bushnell Clove, of bees and honey making, and of the Prattsville tanneries, which he stigmatized as a curse to the country, cutting down all the trees, and leaving only briers and brambles in their stead. He also told me of two brave sons in the Union army, and of a married daughter far away. The oldest boy had been wounded at Gettysburg, and all three children had recently been home on a short visit. 'Children,' said the old man, 'are a heap more trouble when they are grown than when they are little; for then they all go away, and keep one anxious the whole time.'

We drove under the steep ledges, the hills of Beulah were passed, and Prattsville reached.

The following morning was bright and clear, but warm. I rose early, and went up on the high bluffs overlooking the town. Below was a pretty pastoral view of stream, meadow, hop fields, pasture lands with cattle, sundry churches, and neat white houses, shut in by great hills, many bare, and a few still wooded. Passing beneath the highest ledge, I came upon an old man, a second Old Mortality, chipping away at the background for a medallion of the eldest son of Colonel Zadoc Pratt, a gallant soldier, who fell, I believe, at the second battle of Manassas. On a dark slab, about five hundred and fifty feet above the river, is a profile in white stone of the great tanner himself. An honest countryman had previously pointed it out to me, saying: 'A good man, Colonel Pratt—but that looks sort of foolish; people will have their failings, and vanity is not one of the worst!' On the above-mentioned ledges are many curious carvings, a record of 'one million sides of leather tanned with hemlock bark at the Pratt tanneries in twenty years,' and other devices, such as niches to sit in, a great sofa wrought from the solid rock, and a pretty spring.

At ten o'clock the stage came from Delhi, which place it had left at two in the morning. Seventy miles from Delhi to Catskill—a good day's journey! It was full, and our landlord put on an extra, giving me a seat beside the driver, and filling the inside with men. Said driver was a carpenter, and an excellent specimen of an American mechanic—intelligent and self-respecting. This is a great cattle and dairy region, and we passed several hundred lambs on their way to the New York market. The driver pitied the poor creatures; and, when passing through a drove, endeavored to frighten them as little as possible. 'Innocent things!' said he, 'they have just been taken from their mothers, and know not which way to turn. I hate to think of their being slaughtered, for what is so meek and so joyous as a young lamb!'

I thought:

'Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis!
Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis!
Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem!'

—the 'nobis' to include the poor lambs.

At the first turn in the road we passed a great bowlder, known throughout the country as 'the big rock.' Beside the highway flows the Red Kill, a tributary of the Schoharie. There are some trout in it, but a couple of cotton factories have frightened them nearly all away. A hot political discussion soon arose among the inside passengers. Our driver seemed to think loud and angry words quite out of place, and said: 'I am a Democrat myself, but the other day I had a talk with the Republican tax collector of our place, and I concluded we both wanted about one thing—the good of our country. Honest Republicans and honest Democrats are not so far asunder as people usually think.'