We found ourselves surrounded by intelligent people of the country—habitués who gave us all the local information we asked, told us when we came to 'Bryant's Pond,' and that the poor little shrunken stream that still brawled and fretted in its narrowed channel, along which we were gliding, was the Androscoggin. At Gorham, but seven miles from the Glen-House, we found a wagon awaiting passengers, 'the last of the season,' we were told. 'The houses are all closed,' (he spoke technically) added our driver, 'and the cold has already been so tedious that the bubble has burst on Mt. Washington.' 'What! the bubble! What means the man?' exclaimed my father. 'Oh!' said I, 'it is only a poor joke upon some 'nothing venture, nothing have' people who have come here since the company season is past, they have told them the bulb had burst.' 'Oh! the bulb! the bulb!' exclaimed my father; 'oh! that's it, and I don't in the least doubt it' And as we went on slowly making the long ascent, he looked 'sagely sad.' However, Alice was, as she always can be, 'bright without the sun,' and my father kindly protested that the slight sprinkling that, ever and anon, reminded us of our exposure in an open wagon, was no annoyance to him, and he even responded to our exclamations of delight at the wreaths of mist that floated around the mountains, and dropped over their summits, so that our imaginations were not kept in abeyance by definite outlines, and we were at liberty to fancy them just as high as we wished them. The air was as soft as in the early days of September, and our steeds very considerately lingered, thus prolonging our pleasure, so that we came into the Glen-House with keen appetites, a needful blessing, we thought, when Mr. Thompson, its host, said: 'We are not prepared for company in October, and I don't know that we shall find any thing but pork and beans to give you!' My father looked blank, and blanker yet when we were ushered into a parlor where, instead of finding the crackling wood-fire that we had fancied indigenous in these mountains, there was one of those frightful black stoves that have expelled from our life all the poetry of the hearthstone—but, courage, we can open the stove-door, and see a sparkle of light and life.
10 P.M.—Before bidding you good night, dear Sue, I must tell you 'pour encourager les autres' who may come after us that our scrupulous host performed so much better than he promised, that when we were summoned to our dinner it was served in a cosy little room, as neatly as a home dinner, and hot, which a hotel meal, in the season, never is, and that the ghost of the pork and beans which had terrified us, was exorcised by actual tender chickens, fresh eggs, and plentiful accessories of vegetables and pies; and our man, William, the driver, was converted into a waiter, doing his part as if he were 'native to the manner.'
[N.B.—Our old friend's memorandum was scanty, and so we publish but a small extract from it. We smile at his infirmities—more in love than ridicule—and are not fond of proclaiming them, and only do so in this brief extract to justify our assertion that his traveling temper reminded us of English tourists, who would seem to make it a point to turn their plates bottom-side upward. The father's and daughter's records of the same scenes are both true. The one is the right, the other the wrong side of the tapestry. Strange, that any eye should make the fatal mistake of looking at the last rather than the first.]
September 29th, Anno Domini 18—. —— Left my comfortable lowland home for unknown parts, and known mountain regions of snow and ice. The Lord willing, I am sure of one pleasure—coming home!
Monday Evening.—We had three mortal hours on our hands this morning in Boston. I called on my dear old surviving friends of the —— family. Not one of them, they tell me, has yet risked his life in a rail-car. Wisdom is not extinct! Called on dear Widow O——, who gave me a nice lunch of pickled oysters, rolls and butter, and a glass of old Madeira. Meantime the girls were ranging round studios(?) and picture-shops. This rage for art has come in with the foreign tongues, since my time. Picked them up at a restaurateur's. What a misnomer! What refreshment could be found in the little back-parlor of a shop, with herds coming in and herd going out, and a few faint rays of light stealing in between the windows and the walls of back-buildings surrounding them? Came in the cars to Portland. Dust disgusting! Shall never again see the original color of my coat! Dust laid on inches deep, the continual presence of a mob, and peril to life and limb; death staring you in the face, ready to grab you at any moment. This is what we get by the modern improvement of rail-cars over a gentleman's carriage, with select and elect friends, and leisure to look at a beautiful country! Travelers now are prisoners under sentence of probable death—their jailer being called a conductor. Oh! I cry with my old friend Touchstone: 'When I was at home, I was in a better place!'
Rather a nice house, this of the Misses Jones—old-fashioned, neatness, and comfort. But the lady should not favor us with the company of her guest! Bad butter for tea. And my daughters pronounce the house perfect!
Tuesday Morning.—Bad butter again! could eat nothing.
Tuesday Afternoon.—Happy illustration from a smoking old woman, this morning, of the pleasant accessories of railroad traveling. Found only an open wagon at Gorham, and a rain impending. Convenience of travelers much talked of, but in my opinion, the convenience of those who transport them is alone consulted.
The approach to the mountain, dreary. The girls—Lord, help us!—call it beautiful, sublime! Not very cold, but the driver says the bulb has already burst on Mount Washington! What an arrant old fool I was to propose coming up here! The 'Glen-House closed!' But the landlord graciously, as a favor, 'took us in'—a 'take in' to the tune of his summer-prices, no doubt. Fried salt-ham at dinner, and mince-pie for a supplement!
Went with the girls to walk, and plunged into forest-paths, where, instead of our broad, smiling, home meadows, and orchards, and gardenspots, we could see nothing but the ghostly mountains in their fog-shrouds, and precipices, and uprooted trees, and that plague of our Egypt—Paddies—who are making a road to the summit of Mount Washington, that men, women, and much cattle may be dragged up to see a savage view—ninety-nine times out of a hundred befogged!