When we alighted from the train, a large factory greeted our vision, across the road from the railway station. We walked up a faintly familiar street to the village square. There we paused, with wry faces. Six trolley lines converged in its centre, and out of the surrounding country were rolling in great cars, as big almost as Pullmans. All the magnificent horse-chestnut trees that once lined the walks were down, to expose more brazenly to view the rows of tawdry little shops. These trees had once furnished shade and ammunition. I had to smile at the sign above the new fish-market—
IF IT SWIMS—WE HAVE IT.
But there was no smile on Old Hundred's face. Here and there, rising behind the little stores and lunch rooms, we could detect the tops of the old houses, pushed back by commerce. But most of the houses had disappeared altogether. Only the old white meeting-house at the head of the common looked down benignly, unchanged.
“The trail of the trolley is over it all!” Old Hundred murmured, as we hastened northward, out of the village.
After we had walked some distance, Old Hundred said, “It ought to be around here somewhere, to the right of the road. I can't make anything out, for these new houses.”
“There was a lane down to it,” said I, “and woods beyond.”
“Sure,” he cried, “Kingman's woods; and it was called Kingman's field.”
I sighted the ruins of a lane, between two houses. “Come on down to Kingman's, fellers,” I shouted, “an' choose up sides!”
Old Hundred followed my lead. We were in the middle of a potato patch, in somebody's back yard. It was very small.
“This ain't Kingman's,” wailed Old Hundred, lapsing into bad grammar in his grief. “Why, it took an awful paste to land a home run over right field into the woods! And there ain't no woods!”