Coasting Down Mt. Washington
In spite of all our anxiety, we enjoyed this search for work. The
farmers were all so comically inquisitive. A few of them took us for
what we were, students out on a vacation. Others though kind enough,
seemed lacking in hospitality, from the western point of view, and some
were openly suspicious--but the roads, the roads! In the west
thoroughfares ran on section lines and were defined by wire fences. Here
they curved like Indian trails following bright streams, and the stone
walls which bordered them were festooned with vines as in a garden.
That night we lodged in the home of an old farmer, an octogenarian who
had never in all his life been twenty miles from his farm. He had never
seen Boston, or Portland, but he had been twice to Nashua, returning,
however, in time for supper. He, as well as his wife (dear simple soul),
looked upon us as next door to educated Indians and entertained us in a
flutter of excited hospitality.
We told them of Dakota, of the prairies, describing the wonderful farm
machinery, and boasting of the marvellous crops our father had raised in
Iowa, and the old people listened in delighted amaze.
They put us to bed at last in a queer high-posted, corded bedstead and I
had a feeling that we were taking part in a Colonial play. It was like
living a story book. We stared at each other in a stupor of
satisfaction. We had never hoped for such luck. To be thrust back
abruptly into the very life of our forebears was magical, and the
excitement and delight of it kept us whispering together long after we
should have been asleep.
This was thirty years ago, and those kindly old souls have long since
returned to dust, but their big four-posted bed is doing service, no
doubt, in the home of some rich collector. I have forgotten their names
but they shall live here in my book as long as its print shall endure.
They seemed sorry to have us go next morning, but as they had nothing
for us to do, they could only say, "Good-bye, give our love to Jane, if
you see her, she lives in Illinois." Illinois and Dakota were all the
same to them!
Again we started forth along the graceful, irregular, elm-shaded roads,
which intersected the land in every direction, perfectly happy except
when we remembered our empty pockets. We could not get accustomed to the
trees and the beauty of the vineclad stone walls. The lanes made
_pictures_ all the time. So did the apple trees and the elms and the
bending streams.
About noon of this day we came to a farm of very considerable size and
fairly level, on which the hay remained uncut. "Here's our chance," I
said to my brother, and going in, boldly accosted the farmer, a youngish
man with a bright and pleasant face. "Do you want some skilled help?" I
called out.
The farmer admitted that he did, but eyed us as if jokers. Evidently we
did not look precisely like workmen to him, but I jolted him by saying,
"We are Iowa schoolboys out for a vacation. We were raised on a farm,
and know all about haying. If you'll give us a chance we'll make you
think you don't know much about harvesting hay."
This amused him. "Come in," he said, "and after dinner we'll see about
it."
At dinner we laid ourselves out to impress our host. We told him of the
mile-wide fields of the west, and enlarged upon the stoneless prairies
of Dakota. We described the broadcast seeders they used in Minnesota and
bragged of the amount of hay we could put up, and both of us professed a
contempt for two-wheeled carts. In the end we reduced our prospective
employer to humbleness. He consulted his wife a moment and then said,
"All right, boys, you may take hold."
We stayed with him two weeks and enjoyed every moment of our stay.
"Our expedition is successful," I wrote to my parents.
On Sundays we picked berries or went fishing or tumbled about the lawn.
It was all very beautiful and delightfully secure, so that when the time
came to part with our pleasant young boss and his bright and cheery
wife, we were as sorry as they.
"We must move on," I insisted. "There are other things to see."
After a short stay in Portland we took the train for Bethel, eager to
visit the town which our father had described so many times. We had
resolved to climb the hills on which he had gathered berries and sit on
the "Overset" from which he had gazed upon the landscape. We felt
indeed, a certain keen regret that he could not be with us.
At Locks Mills, we met his old playmates, Dennis and Abner Herrick, men
bent of form and dim of eye, gnarled and knotted by their battle with
the rocks and barren hillsides, and to them we, confident lads, with our
tales of smooth and level plow-lands, must have seemed like denizens
from some farmers' paradise,--or perhaps they thought us fictionists. I
certainly put a powerful emphasis on the pleasant side of western life
at that time.
Dennis especially looked upon us with amazement, almost with awe. To
think that we, unaided and alone, had wandered so far and dared so much,
while he, in all his life, had not been able to visit Boston, was
bewildering. This static condition of the population was a constant
source of wonder to us. How could people stay all their lives in one
place? Must be something the matter with them.--Their ox-teams and
tipcarts amused us, their stony fields appalled us, their restricted,
parsimonious lives saddened us, and so, not wishing to be a burden, we
decided to cut our stay short.
On the afternoon of our last day, Abner took us on a tramp over the
country, pointing out the paths "where Dick and I played," tracing the
lines of the old farm, which had long since been given over to pasture,
and so to the trout brook and home. In return for our "keep" we sang
that night, and told stories of the west, and our hosts seemed pleased
with the exchange. Shouldering our faithful "grips" next morning, we
started for the railway and took the train for Gorham.
Each mile brought us nearer the climax of our trip. We of the plains had
longed and dreamed of the peaks. To us the White Mountains were at once
the crowning wonder and chief peril of our expedition. They were to be
in a very real sense the test of our courage. The iron crest of Mount
Washington allured us as a light-house lures sea-birds.
Leaving Gorham on foot, and carrying our inseparable valises, we started
westward along the road leading to the peaks, expecting to get lodging
at some farm-house, but as we stood aside to let gay coaches pass laden
with glittering women and haughty men, we began to feel abused.
We were indeed, quaint objects. Each of us wore a long yellow linen
"duster" and each bore a valise on a stick, as an Irishman carries a
bundle. We feared neither wind nor rain, but wealth and coaches
oppressed us.
Nevertheless we trudged cheerily along, drinking at the beautiful
springs beside the road, plucking blackberries for refreshment, lifting
our eyes often to the snow-flecked peaks to the west. At noon we stopped
at a small cottage to get some milk, and there again met a pathetic
lonely old couple. The woman was at least eighty, and very crusty with
her visitors, till I began to pet the enormous maltese cat which came
purring to our feet. "What a magnificent animal!" I said to Frank.
This softened the old woman's heart. She not only gave us bread and milk
but sat down to gossip with us while we ate. She, too, had relatives
"out there, somewhere in Iowa" and would hardly let us go, so eager was
she to know all about her people. "Surely you must have met them."
As we neared the foot of the great peak we came upon hotels of all sizes
but I had not the slightest notion of staying even at the smallest.
Having walked twelve miles to the foot of the mountain we now decided to
set out for the top, still carrying those precious bags upon our
shoulders.
What we expected to do after we got to the summit, I cannot say, for we
knew nothing of conditions there and were too tired to imagine--we just
kept climbing, sturdily, doggedly, breathing heavily, more with
excitement than with labor, for it seemed that we were approaching the
moon,--so bleak and high the roadway ran. I had miscalculated sadly. It
had looked only a couple of hours' brisk walk from the hotel, but the
way lengthened out toward the last in a most disheartening fashion.
"Where will we stay?" queried Frank.
"Oh, we'll find a place somewhere," I answered, but I was far from being
as confident as I sounded.
We had been told that it cost five dollars for a night's lodging at the
hotel, but I entertained some vague notion that other and cheaper places
offered. Perhaps I thought that a little village on the summit presented
boarding houses.
"No matter, we're in for it now," I stoutly said. "We'll find a
place--we've got to find a place."
It grew cold as we rose, surprisingly, dishearteningly cold and we both
realized that to sleep in the open would be to freeze. As the night
fell, our clothing, wet with perspiration, became almost as clammy as
sheet iron, and we shivered with weakness as well as with frost. The
world became each moment more barren, more wind-swept and Frank was
almost at his last gasp.
It was long after dark, and we were both trembling with fatigue and
hollow with hunger as we came opposite a big barn just at the top of the
trail. The door of this shelter stood invitingly open, and creeping into
an empty stall we went to sleep on the straw like a couple of homeless
dogs. We did not for a moment think of going to the hotel which loomed
like a palace a few rods further on.
A couple of hours later I was awakened by the crunch of a boot upon my
ankle, followed by an oath of surprise. The stage-driver, coming in from
his last trip, was looking down upon me. I could not see his face, but I
did note the bright eyes and pricking ears of a noble gray horse
standing just behind his master and champing his bit with impatience.
Sleepy, scared and bewildered, I presented my plea with such eloquence
that the man put his team in another stall and left us to our straw.
"But you get out o' here before the boss sees you," said he, "or
there'll be trouble."
"We'll get out before daybreak," I replied heartily.
When I next awoke it was dawn, and my body was so stiff I could hardly
move. We had slept cold and our muscles resented it. However, we hurried
from the barn. Once safely out of reach of the "boss" we began to leap
and dance and shout to the sun as it rose out of the mist, for this was
precisely what we had come two thousand miles to see--sunrise on Mount
Washington! It chanced, gloriously, that the valleys were filled with a
misty sea, breaking soundlessly at our feet and we forgot cold, hunger,
poverty, in the wonder of being "above the clouds!"
In course of time our stomachs moderated our transports over the view
and I persuaded my brother (who was younger and more delicate in
appearance) to approach the kitchen and purchase a handout. Frank being
harshly persuaded by his own need, ventured forth and soon came back
with several slices of bread and butter and part of a cold chicken,
which made the day perfectly satisfactory, and in high spirits we
started to descend the western slope of the mountain.
Here we performed the incredible. Our muscles were so sore and weak that
as we attempted to walk down the railway track, our knees refused to
bear our weight, and while creeping over the ties, groaning and sighing
with pain, a bright idea suddenly irradiated my mind. As I studied the
iron groove which contained the cogs in the middle of the track, I
perceived that its edges were raised a little above the level of the
rails and covered with oil. It occurred to me that it might be possible
to slide down this track on a plank--if only I had a plank!
I looked to the right. A miracle! There in the ditch lay a plank of
exactly the right dimensions. I seized it, I placed it cross-wise of the
rails. "All aboard," I called. Frank obeyed. I took my place at the
other end, and so with our valises between us, we began to slip slowly,
smoothly, and with joyous ease down the shining track! Hoopla! We had
taken wing!
We had solved our problem. The experiment was successful. Laughing and
shouting with exultation, we swept on. We had but to touch every other
tie with our heels in order to control our speed, so we coasted,
smoothly, genially.
On we went, mile after mile, slipping down the valley into the vivid
sunlight, our eyes on the glorious scenery about us, down, down like a
swooping bird. Once we passed above some workmen, who looked up in
open-mouthed amazement, and cursed us in voices which seemed far and
faint and futile. A little later the superintendent of the water tank
warningly shouted, "_Stop that! Get Off!_" but we only laughed at him
and swept on, out over a high trestle, where none could follow.
At times our heads grew dizzy with the flicker and glitter of the rocks
beneath us and as we rounded dangerous curves of the track, or descended
swift slides with almost uncontrollable rapidity, I had some doubts, but
we kept our wits, remained upon the rails, and at last spun round the
final bend and came to a halt upon a level stretch of track, just above
the little station.
There, kicking aside our faithful plank, we took up our valises and with
trembling knees and a sense of triumph set off down the valley of the
wild Amonoosuc.