Just as we were entering the valley of Lebanon, beyond the village of Brainerd, while going down a slight descent, my Companion exclaimed,—

"The wheel is coming off." I threw out the clutch, applied the brake, looked, and saw the left front wheel roll gracefully and quite deliberately out from under the big metal mud guard; the carriage settled down at that corner, and the end of the axle ploughed a furrow in the road for a few feet, when we came to a stop.

The steering-head had broken short off at the inside of the hub. We were not going very fast at the time, and the heavy metal mud guard which caught the wheel, acting as a huge brake, saved us from a bad smash.

On examination, the shank of the steering-head was found to contain two large flaws, which reduced its strength more than one-half, and the surprising thing was that it had not parted long before, when subjected to much severer strains.

This was a break that no man could repair on the road. Under pressure of circumstances the steering-head could have been taken to the nearest blacksmith shop and a weld made, but that would require time, and the results would be more than doubtful. By far the easier thing to do was to wire the factory for a new head and patiently wait its coming.

Happily, we landed in the hands of a retired farmer, whose generous hospitality embraced our tired selves as well as the machine.

Before supper a telegram was sent from Brainerd to the factory for a new steering-head.

While waiting inside for the operator to finish selling tickets for the one evening train about to arrive, a curious crowd gathered outside about my host, and the questions asked were plainly audible; the names are fictitious.

"What'r ye down t' the stashun fur this hur o' day, Joe?"

"Broke my new aut'mobile," carelessly replied my host, flicking a fly off the nigh side of his horse.

"Shu!"

"What'r given us?"

"Git out—"

"You ain't got no aut'mobile," chorused the crowd.

"Mebbe I haven't; but if you fellows know an aut'mobile from a hay rake, you might take a look in my big barn an' let me know what you see."

"Say, Joe, you're jokin',—hev you really got one?"

"You can look for yourselves."

"I saw one go through here 'bout six o'clock," interrupted a new-comer. "Great Jehosephat, but 't went like a streak of greased lightnin'."

"War that your'n, Joe?"

"Well—"

"Naw," said the new-comer, scornfully. "Joe ain't got no aut'mobile; there's the feller in there now who runs it," and the crowd turned my way with such interest that I turned to the little table and wrote the despatch, quite losing the connection of the subdued murmurs outside; but it was quite evident from the broken exclamations that my host was filling the populace up with information interesting inversely to its accuracy.

"Mile a minute—faster'n a train—Holy Moses! what's that, Joe? broke axle—telegraphed—how many—four more—you don't say so?— what's his name? I'll bet it's Vanderbilt. Don't you believe it— it costs money to run one of those machines. I'll bet he's a dandy from 'way back—stopping at your house—bridal chamber—that's right—you want to kill the fatted calf for them fellers—say—"

But further comments were cut short as I came out, jumped in, and we drove back to a good supper by candle-light.

The stars were shining over head, the air was clear and crisp, down in the valley of Lebanon the mist was falling, and it was cool that night. Lulled by the monotonous song of the tree-toad and the deep bass croaking of frogs by the distant stream, we fell asleep.

There was nothing to do next day. The new steering-head could not possibly arrive until the morning following. As the farm was worked by a tenant, our host had little to do, and proposed that we drive to the Shaker village a few miles beyond.

The visit is well worth making, and we should have missed it entirely if the automobile had not broken down, for the new State road over the mountain does not go through the village, but back of it. From the new road one can look down upon the cluster of large buildings on the side of the mountain, but the old roads are so very steep, with such interesting names as "Devil's Elbow," and the like, that they would not tempt an automobile. Many with horses get out and walk at the worst places.

One wide street leads through the settlement; on each side are the huge community buildings, seven in all, each occupied by a "family," so called, or community, and each quite independent in its management and enterprises from the others; the common ties being the meeting-house near the centre and the school-house a little farther on.

We stopped at the North Family simply because it was the first at hand, and we were hungry. Ushered into a little reception-room in one of the outer buildings, we were obliged to wait for dinner until the party preceding us had finished, for the little dining-room devoted to strangers had only one table, seating but six or eight, and it seemed to be the commendable policy of the institution to serve each party separately.

A printed notice warned us that dinner served after one o'clock cost ten cents per cover extra, making the extravagant charge of sixty cents. We arrived just in time to be entitled to the regular rate, but the dilatory tactics of the party in possession kept us beyond the hour and involved us in the extra expense, with no compensation in the shape of extra dishes. Morally and—having tendered ourselves within the limit—legally we were entitled to dine at the regular rate, or the party ahead should have paid the additional tariff, but the good sister could not see the matter in that light, plead ignorance of law, and relied entirely upon custom.

The man who picks up a Shaker maiden for a fool will let her drop.

Having waited until nearly famished, the sister blandly told us, as if it were a matter of local interest, but otherwise of small consequence, that the North Family were strict vegetarians, serving no meat whatsoever; the only meat family was at the other end of the village.

We were ready for meat, for chickens, ducks, green goose, anything that walked on legs; we were not ready for pumpkin, squash, boiled potatoes, canned peas, and cabbage; but a theory as well as a condition confronted us; it was give in or move on. We gave in, but for fifteen cents more per plate bargained for preserves, maple syrup, and honey,—for something cloying to deceive the outraged palate.

But that dinner was a revelation of what a good cook can do with vegetables in season; it was the quintessence of delicacy, the refinement of finesse, the veritable apotheosis of the kitchen garden; meat would have been brutal, the intrusion of a chop inexcusable, the assertion of a steak barbarous, even a terrapin would have felt quite out of place amidst things so fragrant and impalpable as the marvellous preparations of vegetables from that wonderful Shaker kitchen.

Everything was good, but the various concoctions of sweet corn were better; and such sweet corn! it is still a savory recollection.

Then the variety of preserves, jellies, and syrups; fifteen cents extra were never bestowed to better advantage. We cast our coppers upon the water and they returned Spanish galleons laden with good things to eat.

After dining, we were walked through the various buildings, up stairs and down, through kitchens, pantries, and cellars,—a wise exercise after so bountiful a repast. In the cellar we drank something from a bottle labelled "Pure grape juice," one of those non-alcoholic beverages with which the teetotaler whips the devil around the stump; another glass would have made Shakers of us all, for the juice of the grape in this instance was about twenty-five per cent. proof. If the good sisters supply their worthy brothers in faith with this stimulating cordial, it is not unlikely that life in the village is less monotonous than is commonly supposed. It certainly was calculated to add emphasis to the eccentricities of even a "Shaking Quaker."

Although the oldest and the wealthiest of all the socialistic communities, there are only about six thousand Shakers in the United States, less than one-fourth of what there were in former times.

At Mt. Lebanon, the first founded of the several societies in this country, there are seven families, or separate communities, each with its own home and buildings. The present membership is about one hundred and twenty, nearly all women,—scarcely enough men to provide the requisite deacons for each family.

Large and well-managed schools are provided to attract children from the outside world, and so recruit the diminishing ranks of the faithful; but while many girls remain, the boys steal away to the heathen world, where marriage is an institution.

Celibacy is the cardinal principle and the curse of Shakerism; it is slowly but surely bringing the sect to an end. It takes a lot of fanaticism to remain single, and fanaticism is in the sere and yellow leaf. In Massachusetts, where so many women are compelled to remain single, there ought to be many Shakers; there are a few, and Mt. Lebanon is just over the line.

Celibacy does not appeal strongly to men. A man is quite willing to live alone if it is not compulsory, but celibates cannot stand restraint; the bachelor is bound to have his own way—until he is married. Tell a man he may not marry, and he will; that he must marry, and he won't.

The sect which tries to get along with either too little or too much marriage is bound to peter out. There were John Noyes and Brigham Young. John founded the Oneida Community upon the proposition that everything should be in common, including husbands, wives, and children; from the broadest possible communism his community has regenerated into the closet of stock companies "limited," with a capital stock of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a surplus of one hundred and fifty thousand, and only two hundred and nineteen stockholders.

In the palmy days of Mormonism the men could have as many wives as they could afford,—a scheme not without its practical advantages in the monotonous life of pioneer settlements, since it gave the women something to quarrel about and the men something to think about, thereby keeping both out of mischief,—but with the advent of civilization with its diverse interests, the men of Salt Lake, urged also by the law, are getting tired of more than one wife at a time, and the community will soon be absorbed and lost in the commonplace. The ancient theory of wives in multiples is giving place to the modern practice of wives in series.

The story is told that a dear Shaker brother once fell from grace and disappeared in the maelstrom of the carnal world; in a few years he came back as penitent as he was penniless, with strange accounts of how men had fleeced him of all he possessed save the clothes—none too desirable—on his back. Men were so scarce that the credulous sisters and charitable deacons voted to accept his tales as true and receive him once more into the fold.

It was in 1770, while in prison in England, that Ann Lee claimed to have had a great revelation concerning original sin, wherein it was revealed that a celibate life is a condition precedent to spiritual regeneration. Her revelation may have been biased by the fact that she herself was married, but not comfortably.

In 1773, on her release from prison, another revelation told her to go to America. Her husband did not sympathize with the celibacy proposition, left "Mother Ann," as she was then known, and went off with another woman who was unhampered by revelations. This was the beginning of desertions which have continued ever since, until the men are reduced to a corporal's guard.

The principles of the Shakers, barring celibacy, are sound and practical, and, so far as known, they live up to them quite faithfully. Like the original Oneida community, they believe in free criticism of one another in open meetings. They admit no one to the society unless he or she promises to make a full confession before others of every evil that can be recalled,—women confess to women, men to men; these requirements make it difficult to recruit their ranks. They are opposed to war and violence, do not vote, and do not permit corporal punishment. They pay their full share of public taxes and assessments and give largely in charity. Their buildings are well built and well kept, their farms and lands worked to the best advantage; in short, they are industrious and thrifty.

Communism is one of those dreams that come so often to the best of mankind and, lingering on through the waking hours, influence conduct. The sharp distinctions and inequalities of life seem so harsh and unjust; the wide intervals which separate those who have from those who have not seem so unfair, that in all ages and in all countries men have tried to devise schemes for social equality,—equality of power, opportunity, and achievement. Communism of some sort is one solution urged,—communism in property, communism in effort, communism in results, everything in common.

In 1840 Emerson wrote to Carlyle, "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket. I am gently mad myself, and am resolved to live cleanly. George Ripley is talking up a colony of agriculturists and scholars, with whom he threatens to take the field and book. One man renounces the use of animal food; another of coin; and another of domestic hired service; and another of the State; and on the whole we have a commendable share of reason and of hope."

Ripley did found his Brook Farm, and a lot of good people went and lived there—not Emerson; he was just a trifle too sane to be won over completely, but even he used to go into his own garden and dig in a socialistic way until his little boy warned him not to dig his foot.

That is the trouble with communism, those who dig are apt to dig their feet. It is easier to call a spade a spade than to use one. Men may be born free and equal, but if they are, they do not show it. From his first breath man is oppressed by the conditions of his existence, and life is a struggle with environment. Freedom and liberty are terms of relative not absolute value. The absolutism of the commune is oppression refined, each man must dig even if he digs his own foot. The plea of the anarchist for liberty is more consistent than the plea of the communist,—the one does demand a wild, lawless freedom for individual initiative; the other demands the very refinement of interference with liberty of mind and body.

The evolutionist looks on with philosophic indifference, knowing that what is to be will be, that the stream of tendency is not to be checked or swerved by vaporings, but moves irresistibly onward, though every thought, every utterance, every experiment, however wild, however visionary, has its effect.

We of the practical world sojourning in the Shaker village may commiserate the disciples of theory, but they are happy in their own way,—possibly happier in their seclusion and routine than we are in our hurly-burly and endless strife for social, commercial, and political advantages. Life is as settled and certain for them as it is unsettled and uncertain for us. No problems confront them; the everlasting query, "What shall we do to-morrow?" is never asked; plans for the coming summer do not disturb them; the seashore is far off; Paris and Monte Carlo are but places, vague and indistinct, the fairy tales of travellers; their city is the four walls of their home; their world the one long, silent, street of the village; their end the little graveyard beyond; it is all planned out, foreseen, and arranged.

Such a life is not without its charms, and it is small wonder that in all ages men of intellect have sought in some form of communistic association relief from the pressure of strenuous individualism. We may smile with condescension upon the busy sisters in their caps and gingham gowns, but, who knows, theirs may be the better lot.

Life with us is a good deal of an automobile race,—a lot of dust, dirt, and noise; explosions, accidents, and delays; something wrong most of the time; now a burst of headlong speed, then a jolt and sudden stop; or a creeping pace with disordered mechanism; no time to think of much except the machine; less time to see anything except the road immediately ahead; strife to pass others; reckless indifference to life and limb; one long, mad contest for success and notoriety, ending for the most part in some sort of disaster,—possibly a sea of flame.

If we possessed any sense of grim, sardonic humor, we would appreciate how ridiculous is the life we lead, how utterly absurd is our waste of time, our dissipation of the few days and hours vouchsafed us. We are just so many cicadas drumming out the hours and disappearing. We have abundance of wit, and a good deal of humor of a superficial kind, but the penetrating vision of a Socrates, a Voltaire, a Carlyle is denied the most of us, and we take ourselves and our accustomed pursuits most seriously.

On our way back from the village we stopped at the birthplace of Samuel Tilden,—an old-fashioned white frame house, situated in the very fork of the roads, and surrounded by tall trees. Not far away is the cemetery, where a stone sarcophagus contains the remains of a man who was very able if not very great.

Probably not fifty people in the United States, aside from those living in the neighborhood, know where Tilden was born. We did not until we came abruptly upon the house and were told; probably not a dozen could tell exactly where he is buried. Such is fame. And yet this man, in the belief of most of his countrymen, was chosen president, though never seated; he was governor of New York and a vital force in the politics and public life of his times,—now forgotten.

What a disappointment it must have been to come so near and yet miss the presidency. Before 1880 came around, his own party had so far forgotten him that he was scarcely mentioned for renomination,—though Tilden decrepit was incomparably stronger than Hancock "the superb." It was hard work enthusing over "Hancock and Hooray" after "Tilden and Reform;" the latter cry had substance, the former was just fustian.

The Democratic party is as iconoclastic as the Republican is reverential. The former loves to pick flaws in its idols and dash them to pieces; the latter, with stolid conservatism, clings loyally to its mediocrities. The latter could have elected Bryan, the former could not; the Democratic stomach is freaky and very squeamish; it swallows many things but digests few; the ostrich-like Republican organ has never been known to reject anything.

Republicans swear stanchly** by every president they have ever elected. Democrats abandoned Tilden and spurned Cleveland, the only two men they have come within a thousand miles of electing in ten campaigns. The lesson of well-nigh half a century makes no impression, the blind are leading the blind.

It is a far cry from former leaders such as Tilden, Hewitt, Bayard, and Cleveland to those of to-day; a party which seeks its candidate among the populists of Nebraska courts defeat. The two nominations of Bryan mark low level in the political tide; it is not conceivable that a great political party could sink lower; for less of a statesman and more of a demagogue does not exist. The one great opportunity the little man had to show some ability as a leader was when the treaty of Paris was being fiercely debated at Washington; the sentiment of his party and the best men of the country were against the purchase of the Philippines; but this cross-roads politician, who could not see beyond the tip of his nose, hastened to Washington, played into the hands of the jingoes by persuading the wiser men of his own party—men who should not have listened to him—to withdraw their opposition.

Bryan had two opportunities to exhibit qualities of statesmanship in the beginning of the war with Spain, and in the discussion of the treaty of Paris; he missed both. So far as the war was concerned, he never had an idea beyond a little cheap renown as a paper colonel of volunteers; so far as the treaty was concerned, he made the unpardonable blunder of playing into the hands of his opponents, and leaving the sound and conservative sentiment of the country without adequate leadership in Washington.

While we were curiously looking at the Tilden homestead, an old man came walking slowly down the road, a rake over his shoulder, one leg of his patched trousers stuck in a boot-top, a suspender missing, his old straw hat minus a goodly portion of its crown. He stopped, leaned upon his rake, and looked at us inquisitively, then remarked in drawling tone,—

"I know'd Sam Tilden."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, I know'd him; he was a great man."

"You are a Democrat?"

"I wuz, but ain't now," pensively.

"Why ar'n't you?"

"Well, you see, I wuz allus a rock-ribbed Jacksonian fr'm a boy; seed the ole gen'ral onc't, an' I voted for Douglas an' Seymore. I skipped Greeley, fur he warn't no Dem'crat; an' I voted fur Tilden an' Hancock an' Cleveland; but when it come to votin' fur a cyclone fr'm N'braska,—jest wind an' nothin' more,—I kicked over the traces."

"Then you don't believe in the divine ratio of sixteen to one?"

"Young man, silver an' gold come out'r the ground, jes' lik' corn an' wheat. When you kin make two bush'ls corn wu'th a bush'l wheat by law an' keep 'em there, you can fix the rasho 'twixt silver an' gold, an' not before," and the old man shouldered his rake and wandered on up the road.

Before leaving the birthplace of Tilden, it is worth noting that for forty years every candidate favored by Tammany has been ignominiously defeated; the two candidates bitterly opposed by the New York machine were successful. It is to the credit of the party that no Democrat can be elected president unless he is the avowed and unrelenting foe of corruption within and without the ranks.

The farmer with whom we were staying had earlier in the summer a flock of sixty young and promising turkeys; of the lot but twenty were left, and one of them was moping about as his forty brothers and sisters had moped before, ready to die.

"Ah, he'll go with the others," said the farmer. "Raising turkeys is a ticklish job; to-day they're scratching gravel for all they're worth; to-morrow they mope around an' die; no telling what's the matter."

"Suppose we give that turkey some whiskey and water; it may help him."

"Can't do him any harm, fur he'll die anyway; but it's a waste of good medicine."

Soaking some bread in good, strong Scotch, diluted with very little water, we gave the turkey what was equivalent to a teaspoonful. The bird did not take unkindly to the mixture. It had been standing about all day first on one leg, then on another, with eyes half closed and head turned feebly to one side. In a few moments the effect of the whiskey became apparent; the half-grown bird could no longer stand on one leg, but used both, placing them well apart for support. It began to show signs of animation, peering about with first one eye and then the other; with great gravity and deliberation it made its way to the centre of the road and looked about for gravel; fixing its eye upon an attractive little pebble it aimed for it, missed it by about two inches and rolled in the dust; by this time the other turkeys were staring in amazement; slowly pulling itself together he shook the dust from his feathers, cast a scornful eye upon the crowd about him and looked again for the pebble; there it was within easy shot; taking good aim with one eye closed he made another lunge, ploughed his head into the dust, making a complete somersault. By this time the two old turkeys were attracted by the unusual excitement; making their way through the throng of youngsters, they gazed for a moment upon the downfall of one of their progeny, and then giving vent to their indignation in loud cries pounced upon their tipsy offspring and pecked him until he struggled upright and staggered away. The last we saw of the young scapegrace he was smoothing his ruffled plumage before a shining milk-pail and apparently admonishing his unsteady double. It is worth recording that the turkey was better the next day, and lived, as we were afterwards told, to a ripe old Thanksgiving age.

The new steering-head came early the next morning; in thirty minutes it was in place. Our host and valley hostess were then given their first automobile ride; she, womanlike, took the speed, sudden turns, and strange sensations more coolly than he. As a rule, women and children are more fearless than men in an automobile; this is not because they have more courage, but men realize more vividly the things that might happen, whereas women and children simply feel the exhilaration of the speed without thinking of possible disasters.

We went down the road at a thirty-mile clip, made a quick turn at the four corners, and were back almost before the dust we raised had settled.

"That's something like," said our host; "but the old horse is a good enough automobile for me."

The hold-all was soon strapped in place, and at half-past nine we were off for Pittsfield.

Passing the Tilden homestead, we soon began the ascent of the mountain, following the superb new State road.

The old road was through the Shaker village and contained grades which rendered it impossible for teams to draw any but the lightest loads. It was only when market conditions were very abnormal that the farmers in the valley would draw their hay, grain, and produce to Pittsfield.

The new State road winds around and over the mountain at a grade nowhere exceeding five per cent. and averaging a little over four. It is a broad macadam, perfectly constructed.

In going up this easy and perfectly smooth ascent for some six or seven miles, the disadvantage of having no intermediate-speed gears was forcibly illustrated, for the grade was just too stiff for the high-speed gear, and yet so easy that the engine tended to race on the low, but we had to make the entire ascent on the hill-climbing gear at a rate of about four or five miles an hour; an intermediate-gear would have carried us up at twelve or fifteen miles per hour.



CHAPTER TWELVE AN INCIDENT OF TRAVEL "THE COURT CONSIDERS THE MATTER"

In Pittsfield the machine frightened a lawyer,—not a woman, or a child, or a horse, or a donkey,—but just a lawyer; to be sure, there was nothing to indicate he was a lawyer, and still less that he was unusually timid of his kind, therefore no blame could attach for failing to distinguish him from men less nervous.

That he was frightened, no one who saw him run could deny; that he was needlessly frightened, seemed equally plain; that he was chagrined when bystanders laughed at his exhibition, was highly probable.

Now law is the business of a lawyer; it is his refuge in trouble and at the same time his source of revenue; and it is a poor lawyer who cannot make his refuge pay a little something every time it affords him consolation for real or fancied injury.

In this case the lawyer collected exactly sixty cents' worth of consolation,—two quarters and a dime, the price of two lunches and a cup of coffee, or a dozen "Pittsfield Stogies," if there be so fragrant a brand;—the lay mind cannot grasp the possibilities of two quarters and a ten-cent piece in the strong and resourceful grasp of a Pittsfield lawyer. In these thrifty New England towns one always gets a great many pennies in change; small money is the current coin; great stress is set upon a well-worn quarter, and a dime is precious in the sight of the native.

It so happened that just about the time of our arrival, the machinery of justice in and about Pittsfield was running a little wild anyway.

In an adjoining township, on the same day, ex-President Cleveland, who was whiling away time in the philosophic pursuit of fishing, was charged with catching and retaining longer than the law allowed a bass which was a quarter of an inch under the legal limit of eight inches. Now in the excitement of the moment that bass no doubt felt like a whale to the great man, and as it neared the surface, after the manner of its kind, it of course looked as long as a pickerel; then, too; the measly fish was probably a silver bass, and once in the boat shrunk a quarter of an inch, just to get the eminent gold Democrat in trouble. At all events, the friend who was along gallantly claimed the bass as his, appeared in the Great Barrington district court, and paid a fine of two dollars.

Now these things are characteristic of the place, daubs of local coloring; the summer resident upon whom the provincials thrive is not disturbed; but the stranger who is within the gates, who is just passing through, from whom no money in the way of small purchases and custom is to be expected, he is legitimate plunder, even though he be so distinguished a stranger as an ex-President of the United States.

A local paper related the fishing episode as follows:

"Ex-President Grover Cleveland, who is spending the summer in Tyringham, narrowly escaped being arrested at Lake Garfield, in Monterey, Thursday afternoon. As it was, he received a verbal summons to appear in the Great Barrington district court this morning and answer the charge of illegal fishing. But when the complainants learned who the distinguished person was with whom they were dealing, they let drop the matter of swearing out a warrant, and in Mr. Cleveland's place appeared Cassius C. Scranton, of Monterey.

"He pleaded guilty to catching a bass less than eight inches in length, which is the minimum allowed by law, and was fined two dollars by Judge Sanford, but as Mr. Cleveland said that he caught the fish, there is still a good deal of doubt among the residents of southern Berkshire as to which one was actually guilty. However, if the hero of the Hawaiian enterprise was the unlucky angler who caught the bass, he was relieved of the unpleasant notoriety of being summoned into court on a warrant by the very charitable act of Mr. Scranton, of Monterey, who will forever go down in the history of that town as the stalwart defender of the ex-president."

It is not conceivable that such a ridiculous display of impecunious justice would be made elsewhere in the country. In the South the judge would dismiss the complainant or pay the fine himself; in the West he would be mobbed if he did not. New York would find a tactful and courteous way of avoiding the semblance of an arrest or the imposition of a fine; but in thrifty Massachusetts, and in thrice thrifty Great Barrington, and in twice thrice thrifty Pittsfield, pennies count, are counted, and most conscientiously received and receipted for by those who set the wheels of justice in motion.

North Street is broad and West Street is broad, and there is abundance of room for man and beast.

At the hour in question there were no women, children, or horses in the street; the crossings were clear save for a young man with a straw hat, whose general appearance betrayed no sign of undue timidity. He was on the far crossing, sixty or seventy feet distant. When the horn was sounded for the turn down into West Street, he turned, gave one look at the machine, jumped, and ran. In a few moments the young man with the straw hat came to the place where the machine had stopped. He was followed by a short, stubby little friend with a sandy beard, who, while apparently acting as second, threatened each moment to take the matter into his own hands and usurp the place of principal.

Straw Hat was placable and quite disposed to accept an expression of regret that fright had been occasioned.

Sandy Beard would not have it so, and urged Straw Hat to make a complaint.

Straw Hat spurred on his flagging indignation and asked for a card.

Sandy Beard told Straw Hat not to be deterred by soft words and civility, and promised to stand by him, or rather back of him; whereupon something like the following might have occurred.

Sandy Beard.—Then you know what is to be done?

Straw Hat.—Not I, upon my soul!

Sandy Beard.—We wear no clubs here, but you understand me.

Straw Hat.—What! arrest him.

Sandy Beard.—Why to be sure; what can I mean else?

Straw Hat.—But he has given me no provocation.

Sandy Beard.—Now, I think he has given you the greatest provocation in the world. Can a man commit a more heinous offence against another than to frighten him? Ah! by my soul, it is a most unpardonable breach of something.

Straw Hat.—Breach of something! Ay, ay; but is't a breach of the peace? I have no acquaintance with this man. I never saw him before in my life.

Sandy Beard.—That's no argument at all; he has the less right to take such a liberty.

Straw Hat.—Gad, that's true. I grow full of anger, Sir Sandy! fire ahead! Odds, writs and warrants! I find a man may have a good deal of valor in him, and not know it! But couldn't I contrive to have a little right on my side?

Sandy Beard.—What the devil signifies right when your courage is concerned. Do you think Verges, or my little Dogberry ever inquired where the right lay? No, by my soul; they drew their writs, and left the lazy justice of the peace to settle the right of it.

Straw Hat.—Your words are a grenadier's march to my heart! I believe courage must be catching! I certainly do feel a kind of valor rising as it were,—a kind of courage, as I may say. Odds, writs and warrants! I'll complain directly.

(With apologies to Sheridan.)

And the pair went off to make their complaint.

Suppose each had been given then and there the sixty cents he afterwards received and duly receipted for, would it have saved time and trouble? Who knows? but the diversion of the afternoon would have been lost.

In a few moments an officer quite courteously—refreshing contrast—notified me that complaint was in process of making.

I found the chief of police with a copy of the city ordinance trying to draw some sort of a complaint that would fit the extraordinary case, for the charge was not the usual one, that the machine was going at an unlawful speed, but that a lawyer had been frightened; to find the punishment that would fit that crime was no easy task.

The ordinance is liberal,—ten miles an hour; and the young man and his mentor had not said the speed of the automobile was greater than the law allowed, hence the dilemma of the chief; but we discussed a clause which provided that vehicles should not be driven through the streets in a manner so as to endanger public travel, and he thought the complaint would rest on that provision.

However lacking the bar of Pittsfield may be in the amenities of life, the bench is courtesy itself. There was no court until next day; but calling at the judge's very delightful home, which happens to be on one of the interesting old streets of the town, he said he would come down and hear the matter at two o'clock, so I could get away that afternoon.

The first and wisest impulse of the automobilist is to pay whatever fine is imposed and go on, but frightening a lawyer is not an every-day occurrence. I once frightened a pair of army mules; but a lawyer,—the experience was too novel to let pass lightly. The game promised to be worth the candle.

The scene shifts to a dingy little room in the basement of the court-house; present, Straw Hat and Sandy Beard, with populace.

To corroborate—wise precaution on the part of a lawyer in his own court—their story, they bring along a volunteer witness in over-alls,—the three making a trio hard to beat.

Straw Hat takes the stand and testifies he is an unusually timid man, and was most frightened to death.

Sandy Beard's testimony is both graphic and corroborative.

The witness in over-alls, with some embellishments of his own, supports Sandy Beard.

The row of bricks is complete.

The court removes a prop by remarking that the ordinance speed has not been exceeded.

The bricks totter.

Whereupon, Sandy Beard now takes the matter into his own hands, and, ignoring the professional acquirements of his principal, addresses the court and urges the imposition of a fine,—a fine being the only satisfaction, and source of immediate revenue, conceivable to Sandy Beard.

Meanwhile Straw Hat is silent; the witness in over-alls is perturbed.

The court considers the matter, and says "the embarrassing feature of the case is that it has yet to be shown that the defendant was going at a rate exceeding ten miles an hour, and upon this point the witnesses did not agree. There was evidence tending to prove the machine was going ten miles an hour, but that would not lead to conviction under the first clause of the ordinance; but there is another clause which says that a machine must not be run in such a manner as to endanger or inconvenience public travel. What is detrimental to public travel? Does it mean to run it so as not to frighten a man of nerve like the chief of police, or some timid person? It is urged that not one man in a thousand would have been frightened like Mr.— ; but a man is bound to run his machine in the streets so as to frighten no one, therefore the defendant is fined five dollars and costs."

The fine is duly paid, and Messrs. Straw Hat, Sandy Beard, and Over-alls, come forward, receive and receipt for sixty cents each.

Their wrath was appeased, their wounded feelings soothed, their valor satisfied,—one dollar and eighty cents for the bunch.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN THROUGH MASSACHUSETTS IN LENOX

There are several roads out of Pittsfield to Springfield, and if one asks a half-dozen citizens, who pretend to know, which is the best, a half-dozen violently conflicting opinions will be forthcoming.

The truth seems to be that all the roads are pretty good,—that is, they are all very hilly and rather soft. One expects the hills, and must put up with the sand. It is impossible to get to Springfield, which is far on the other side of the mountains, without making some stiff grades,—few grades so bad as Nelson's Hill out of Peekskill, or worse than Pride's Hill near Fonda; in fact, the grades through the Berkshires are no worse than many short stiff grades that are to be found in any rolling country, but there are more of them, and occasionally the road is rough or soft, making it hard going.

The road commonly recommended as the more direct is by way of Dalton and Hinsdale, following as closely as possible the line of the Boston and Albany; this winds about in the valleys and is said to be very good.

We preferred a more picturesque though less travelled route. We wished to go through Lenox, some six or seven miles to the south, and if anything a little to the west, and therefore out of our direct course.

The road from Pittsfield to Lenox is a famous drive, one of the wonders of that little world. It is not bad, neither is it good. Compared with the superb State road over the mountain, it is a trail over a prairie. As a matter of fact, it is just a broad, graded, and somewhat improved highway, too rough for fast speed and comfort, and on the Saturday morning in question dust was inches deep.

The day was fine, the country beautiful; hills everywhere, hills so high they were almost mountains. The dust of summer was on the foliage, a few late blossoms lingered by the roadside, but for the most part flowers had turned to seeds, and seeds were ready to fall. The fields were in stubble, hay in the mow and straw in the stack. The green of the hills was deeper in hue, the valleys were ripe for autumn.

People were flocking to the Berkshires from seashore and mountains; the "season" was about to begin in earnest; hotels were filled or rapidly filling, and Lenox—dear, peaceful little village in one of nature's fairest hollows—was most enticing as we passed slowly through, stopping once or twice to make sure of our very uncertain way.

The slowest automobile is too fast for so delightful a spot as Lenox. One should amble through on a palfrey, or walk, or, better still, pass not through at all, but tarry and dream the days away until the last leaves are off the trees. But the habit of the automobile is infectious, one goes on and on in spite of all attractions, the appeals of nature, the protests of friends. Ulysses should have whizzed by the Sirens in an auto. The Wandering Jew, if still on his rounds, should buy a machine; it will fit his case to a nicety; his punishment will become a habit; he will join an automobile club, go on an endurance contest, and, in the brief moments allowed him for rest and oiling up, will swap stories with the boys.

With a sigh of relief, one finishes a long day's run, thinking it will suffice for many a day to come; the evening is scarce over before elfin suggestions of possible rides for the morrow are floating about in the air, and when morning comes the automobile is taken out,—very much as the toper who has sworn off the night before takes his morning dram,—it just can't be helped.

Our way lay over October Mountain by a road not much frequented. In the morning's ride we did not meet a trap of any kind or a rider,—something quite unusual in that country of riders and drivers. The road seemed to cling to the highest hills, and we climbed up and up for hours. Only once was the grade so steep that we were obliged to dismount. We passed through no village until we reached the other side, but every now and then we would come to a little clearing with two or three houses, possibly a forlorn store and a silent blacksmith shop; these spots seemed even more lonely and deserted than the woods themselves. Man is so essentially a gregarious animal that to come upon a lone house in a wilderness is more depressing than the forests. Nature is never alone; it knows no solitude; it is a mighty whole, each part of which is in constant communication with every other part. Nature needs no telephone; from time immemorial it has used wireless telegraphy in a condition of perfection unknown to man. Every morning Mount Blanc sends a message to Pike's Peak, and it sends it on over the waters to Fujisan. The bosom of the earth thrills with nervous energy; the air is charged with electric force; the blue ether of the universe throbs with motion. Nature knows no environment; but man is fettered, a spirit in a cage, a mournful soul that seeks companionship in misery. Solitude is a word unknown to nature's vocabulary. The deepest recesses of the forest teem with life and joyousness until man appears, then they are filled with solitude. The wind-swept desert is one of nature's play-grounds until man appears, then it is barren with solitude. The darkest mountain cavern echoes with nature's laughter until man appears, then it is hollow with solitude. The shadow of man is solitude.

Instead of coming out at Becket as we expected, we found ourselves way down near Otis and West Otis, and passed through North Blandford and Blandford to Fairfield, where we struck the main road.

We stopped for dinner at a small village a few miles from Westfield. There was but one store, but it kept a barrel of stove gasoline in an apple orchard. The gasoline was good, but the gallon measure into which it was drawn had been used for oil, varnish, turpentine, and every liquid a country store is supposed to keep—not excepting molasses. It was crusted with sediment and had a most evil smell. Needless to say the measure was rejected; but that availed little, since the young clerk poured the gasoline back into the barrel to draw it out again into a cleaner receptacle.

The gasoline for sale at country stores is usually all right, but it is handled in all sorts of receptacles; the only safe way is to ask for a bright and new dipper and let the store-keeper guess at the measure.

At Westfield the spark began to give trouble; the machine was very slow in starting, as if the batteries were weak; but that could not be, for one set was fresh and the other by no means exhausted. A careful examination of every connection failed to disclose any breaks in the circuit, and yet the spark was of intermittent strength,—now good, now weak.

When there is anything wrong with an automobile, there is but one thing to do, and that is find the source of the trouble and remedy it. The temptation is to go on if the machine starts up unexpectedly. We yielded to the temptation, and went on as soon as the motor started; the day was so fine and we were so anxious to get to Worcester that we started with the motor,—knowing all the time that whatever made the motor slow to start would, in all likelihood, bring us to a stand-still before very long; the evil moment, possibly the evil hour, may be postponed, but seldom the evil day.

At two o'clock we passed through Springfield, stopping only a moment at the hotel to inquire for mail. Leaving Springfield we followed the main road towards Worcester, some fifty miles away. The road is winding and over a rolling country, but for the most part very good. The grades are not steep, there are some sandy spots, but none so soft as to materially interfere with good speed. There are many stretches of good gravel, and here and there a piece—a sample—of State road, perfectly laid macadam, with signs all along requesting persons not to drive in the centre of the highway,—this is to save the road from the hollows and ruts that horses and narrow-tired wagons invariably make, and in which the water stands, ultimately wearing the macadam through. We could not see that the slightest attention was paid to the notices. Everybody kept the middle of the road, such is the improvidence of men; the country people grumble at the great expense of good roads, and then take the surest way to ruin them.

While it is true that the people in the first instance grumble at the prospective cost of these well-made State roads, no sooner are they laid than their very great value is appreciated, and good roads sentiment becomes rampant. The farmer who has worn out horses, harness, wagons, and temper in getting light loads to market over heavy roads is quick to appreciate the very material advantage and economy of having highways over which one horse can pull as much as two under the old sandy, rough, and muddy conditions.

A good road may be the making of a town, and it increases the value of all abutting property. Already the question is commonly asked when a farm is offered for sale or rent, "Is it on a State road?" Lots will not sell in cities unless all improvements are in; soon farmers will not be able to sell unless the highways are improved.

One good thing about the automobile, it does not cut up the surface of a macadam or gravel road as do steel tires and horseshoes.

At the outskirts of the little village of West Brookfield we came to a stand-still; the spark disappeared,—or rather from a large, round, fat spark it dropped to an insignificant little blue sparklet that would not explode a squib.

The way the spark acted with either or both batteries on indicated pretty strongly that the trouble was in the coil; but it is so seldom a coil goes wrong that everything was looked over, but no spark of any size was to be had, therefore there was nothing to do but cast about for a place to spend the night, for it was then dark.

As good luck would have it, we were almost in front of a large, comfortable, old-fashioned house where they took summer boarders; as the season was drawing to a close, there was plenty of room and they were glad to take us in. The machine was pushed into a shed, everybody assisting with the readiness ever characteristic of sympathetic on-lookers.

The big, clean, white rooms were most inviting; the homely New England supper of cold meats and hot rolls seemed under the circumstances a feast for a king, and as we sat in front of the house in the evening, and looked across the highway to a little lake just beyond and heard the croaking of the frogs, the chirping of crickets, and the many indistinguishable sounds of night, we were not sorry the machine had played us false exactly when and where it did.

The automobile plays into the hands of Morpheus, the drowsy god follows in its wake, sure of his victims. No sleep is dreamless. It is pretty difficult to exhaust the three billions of cells of the central nervous system so that all require rest, but ten hours on an automobile in the open air, speeding along like the wind most of the time, will come nearer putting all those cells to sleep than any exercise heretofore discovered. The fatigue is normal, pervasive, and persuasive, and it is pretty hard to recall any dream on waking.

It was Sunday morning, September 1, and raining, a soft, drizzly downpour, that had evidently begun early in the night and kept up —or rather down—steadily. It was a good morning to remain indoors and read; but there was that tantalizing machine challenging combat; then, too, Worcester was but eighteen or twenty miles away, and at Worcester we expected to find letters and telegrams.

A young and clever electrician across the way came over, bringing an electric bell, with which we tested the dry cells, finding them in good condition. We then examined the connections and ran the trouble back to the coil. There was plenty of current and plenty of voltage, but only a little blue spark, which could be obtained equally well with the coil in or out of the circuit, and yet the coil did not show a short circuit, but before we finished our tests the spark suddenly appeared.

Again, it would have been better to remain and find the trouble; but as there was no extra coil to be had in the village, it seemed fairly prudent to start on and get as far as possible. Possibly the coil would hold out to Worcester; anyway, the road is a series of villages, some larger than Brookfield, and a coil might be found at one of them.

When within two miles of Spencer the spark gave out again; this time no amount of coaxing would bring it back, so there was nothing to do but appeal to a farmer for a pair of horses to pull the machine into his yard. The assistance was most kindly given, though the day was Sunday, and for him, his men and his animals, emphatically a day of rest.

Only twice on the entire trip were horses attached to the machine; but a sparking coil is absolutely essential, and when one gives out it is pretty hard to make repairs on the road. In case of necessity a coil may be unwound, the trouble discovered and remedied, but that is a tedious process. It was much easier to leave the machine for the night, run into Worcester on the trolley which passed along the same road, and bring out a new coil in the morning.

Monday happened to be Labor Day, and it was only after much trouble that a place was found open where electrical supplies could be purchased. In addition to a coil, the electrician took out some thoroughly insulated double cable wire; the wiring of the machine had been so carelessly done and with such light, cheap wire that it seemed a good opportunity to rewire throughout.

The electrician—a very competent and quick workman he proved to be—was so sure the trouble could not be in the coil that he did not wish to carry out a new one.

When ready to start, we found the trolley line blocked by a Labor Day parade that was just beginning to move. The procession was unusually long on account of striking trades unionists, who turned out in force. As each section of strikers passed, the electrician explained the cause of their strike, the number of men out, and the length of time they had been out.

It seemed too bad that big, brawny, intelligent men could find no better way of adjusting differences with employers than by striking.

A strike is an expensive luxury. Three parties are losers,—the community in general by being deprived for the time being of productive forces; the employers by loss on capital invested; the employees by loss of wages. The loss to the community, while very real, is little felt. Employers, as a rule, are prepared to stand their losses with equanimity; in fact, when trade is dull, or when an employer desires to make changes in his business, a strike is no inconvenience at all; but the men are the real losers, and especially those with families and with small homes unpaid for; no one can measure their losses, for it may mean the savings of a lifetime. It frequently does mean a change in character from an industrious, frugal, contented workman with everything to live for, to a shiftless and discontented man with nothing to live for but agitation and strife.

It is easy to acquire the strike habit, and impossible to throw it off. A first strike is more dangerous than a first drink; it makes a profound and ineradicable impression. To quit work for the first time at the command of some central organization is an experience so novel that no man can do it without being affected; he will never again be the same steady and indefatigable workman; the spirit of unrest creeps in, the spirit of discontent closely follows; his life is changed; though he never goes through another strike, he can never forget his first.

In the long run it does not matter much which side wins, the effect is very much the same,—strikes are bound to follow strikes. Warfare is so natural to men that it is difficult to declare a lasting peace. But some day the men themselves will see that strikes are far more disastrous to them than to any other class, and they will devise other ways and means; they will use the strength of their organizations to better advantage; above all, they will relegate to impotency the professional organizers and agitators who retain their positions by fomenting strife.

It is singular that workmen do not take a lesson from their shrewder employers, who, if they have organizations of their own, never confer upon any officer or committee of idlers the power to control the trade. An organization of employers is always controlled by those most actively engaged in the business, and not by coteries of paid idlers; no central committee of men, with nothing to do but make trouble, can involve a whole trade in costly controversies. The strength of the employer lies in the fact that each man consults first his own interest, and if the action of the body bids fair to injure his individual interests he not only protests, but threatens to withdraw; the employer cannot be cowed by any association of which he is a member; but the employee is cowed by his union,—that is the essential difference between the two. An association of employers is a union of independent and aggressive units, and the action of the association must meet the approval of each of these units or disruption will follow. Workingmen do not seem to appreciate the value of the unit; they are attracted by masses. They seem to think strength lies only in members; but that is the keynote of militantism, the death-knell of individualism. The real, the only strength of a union lies in the silent, unconsulted units; now and then they rise up and act and the union accomplishes something; for the most part they do not act, but are blindly led, and the union accomplishes nothing.

It was interesting to hear the comments of the intelligent young mechanic as the different trades passed by.

"Those fellows are out on a sympathetic strike; no grievance at all, plenty of work and good wages, but just out because they are told to come out; big fools, I say, to be pulled about by the nose.

"There are the plumbers; their union makes more trouble than any other in the building trades; they are always looking for trouble, and manage to find it when no one else can.

"Unions are all right for bachelors who can afford to loaf, but they are pretty hard on the married man with a family.

"What's gained in a strike is lost in the fight.

"What's the use of staying out three months to get a ten per cent. raise for nine? It doesn't pay.

"Wages have been going up for two hundred years. I can't see that the strike has advanced the rate of increase any.

"These fellows have tried to monopolize Labor Day; they don't want any non-union man in the parade; the people will not stand for that very long; labor is labor whether union or non-union, and the great majority of workingmen in this country are not members of any union."

The parade, like all things good, came to an end, and we took the trolley for the place where the automobile had been left.

On arriving we took out the dry cells, tested each one, and then rewired the carriage complete and in a manner to defy rain, sand, and oil. The difficulty, however, was in the coil. Apparently the motion of the vehicle had worn the insulation through at some point inside. The new coil, a common twelve-inch coil, worked well, giving a good, hot spark.

The farmer who had so kindly pulled the machine in the day before would accept nothing for his trouble, and was, as most farmers are, exceedingly kind. It is embarrassing to call upon strangers for assistance which means work and inconvenience for them, and then have them positively decline all compensation.

The ride into Worcester was a fast one over good gravel and macadam.

Immediately after luncheon we started for Boston. Every foot of the road in from Worcester is good hard gravel and the ride is most delightful. As it was a holiday and the highway was comparatively free of traffic, we travelled along faster than usual.

It was our intention to follow the main road through Shrewsbury, Southborough, Framingham, and Wellesley, but though man proposes, in the suburbs of Boston Providence disposes. About Southborough we lost our road, and were soon angling to the northeast through the Sudburys. So far as the road itself was concerned the change was for the better, for, while there would be stretches which were not gravelled, the country was more interesting than along the main highway.

The old "Worcester Turnpike" is Boyleston Street in Boston and through Brookline to the Newtons, where it becomes plain Worcester Street and bears that name westward through Wellesley and Natick.

The trolley line out of Worcester is through Shrewsbury and Northborough to Marlborough, then a turn almost due south to Southborough, then east to Framingham, southeast to South Framingham, east through Natick to Wellesley, northeast through Wellesley Hills to Newton, then direct through Brookline into Boston.

The road, it will be noted, is far from straight, and it is at the numerous forks and turns one is apt to go astray unless constant inquiries are made.

At Marlborough we kept on to the east towards Waltham instead of turning to the south for Southborough. It is but a few miles out of the way from Marlborough to Concord and into Boston by way of Lexington; or, if the road through Wellesley and Newton is followed, it is worth while to turn from Wellesley Hills to Norembega Park for the sake of stopping a few moments on the spot where Norembega Tower confidently proclaims the discovery of America and the founding of a fortified place by the Norsemen nearly five hundred years before Columbus sailed out of the harbor of Palos.

Having wandered from the old turnpike, we thought we would go by Concord and Lexington, but did not. The truth is the automobile is altogether too fast a conveyance for the suburbs of Boston, which were laid out by cows for the use of pedestrians. There are an infinite number of forks, angles, and turnings, and by a native on foot short cuts can be made to any objective point, but the automobile passes a byway before it is seen. Directions are given but not followed, because turns and obscure cross-roads are passed at high speed and unobserved.

Every one is most obliging in giving directions, but the directions run about like this:

"To Concord?—yes,—let me see;—do you know the Old Sudbury road?—No!—strangers?—ah! that's too bad, for if you don't know the roads it will be hard telling you—but let me see;—if you follow this road about a mile, you will come to a brick store and a watering trough,—take the turn to the left there;—I think that is the best road, or you can take a turn this side, but if I were you I would take the road at the watering trough;—from there it is about eight miles, and I think you make three turns,—but you better inquire, for if you don't know the roads it is pretty hard to direct you."

"We follow this road straight ahead to the brick store and trough, that's easy."

"Well, the road is not exactly straight, but if you bear to the right, then take the second left hand fork, you'll be all right."

All of which things we most faithfully performed, and yet we got no nearer that day than "about eight miles farther to Concord."

In circling about we came quite unexpectedly upon the old "Red Horse" tavern, now the "Wayside Inn." We brought the machine to a stop and gazed long and lovingly at the ancient hostelry which had given shelter to famous men for nearly two hundred years, and where congenial spirits gathered in Longfellow's days and the imaginary "Tales of a Wayside Inn" were exchanged.

The mellow light of the setting sun warmed the time-worn structure with a friendly glow. The sign of the red horse rampant creaked mournfully as it swung slowly to and fro in the gentle breeze; with palsied arms and in cracked tones the old inn seemed to bid us stay and rest beneath its sheltering eaves. Washington and Hamilton and Lafayette, Emerson and Hawthorne and Longfellow had entered that door, eaten and drunk within those humble walls,—the great in war, statecraft, and literature had been its guests; like an old man it lives with its memories, recalls the associations of its youth and prime, but slumbers oblivious to the present.

The old inn was so fascinating that we determined to come back in a few days and spend at least a night beneath its roof. The shadows were so rapidly lengthening that we had to hurry on.

Crossing the Charles River near Auburndale a sight of such bewitching beauty met our astonished gaze that we stopped to make inquiries. Above and below the bridge the river was covered with gayly decorated canoes which were being paddled about by laughing and singing young people. The brilliant colors of the decorations, the pretty costumes, the background of dark water, the shores lined with people and equipages, the bridge so crowded we could hardly get through, made a never-to-be-forgotten picture. It was just a holiday canoe-meet, and hundreds of the small, frail craft were darting about upon the surface of the water like so many pretty dragon-flies. The automobile seemed such an intrusion, a drone of prose in a burst of poetry, the discord of machinery in a sylvan symphony.

We stopped a few moments at Lasell Seminary in Auburndale, where old associations were revived by my Companion over a cup of tea. A girl's school is a mysterious place; there is an atmosphere of suppressed mischief, of things threatened but never quite committed, of latent possibilities, and still more latent impossibilities. In a boy's school mischief is evident and rampant; desks, benches, and walls are whittled and defaced with all the wanton destructiveness of youth; buildings and fences show marks of contact with budding manhood; but boys are so openly and notoriously mischievous that no apprehension is felt, for the worst is ever realized; but those in command of a school of demure and saintly girls must feel like men handling dynamite, uncertain what will happen next; the stolen pie, the hidden sweets, the furtive note are indications of the infinite subtlety of the female mind.

From Auburndale the boulevard leads into Commonwealth Avenue and the run is fine.

It was about seven o'clock when we reached the Hotel Touraine, and a little later when the machine was safely housed in an automobile station,—a part of an old railway depot.

A few days in Boston and on the North Shore afforded a welcome change.

Through Beverly and Manchester the signs "Automobiles not allowed" at private roadways are numerous; they are the rule rather than the exception. One young man had a machine up there, but found himself so ostracized he shipped it away. No machines are allowed on the grounds of the Essex Country Club.

No man with the slightest consideration for the comfort and pleasure of others would care to keep and use a machine in places where so many women and children are riding and driving. The charm of the North Shore and the Berkshires lies largely in the opportunities afforded for children to be out with their ponies, girls with their carts, and women with horses too spirited to stand unusual sights and sounds. One automobile may terrorize the entire little community; in fact, one machine will spread terror where many would not.

It is quite difficult enough to drive a machine carefully through such resorts, without driving about day after day to the discomfort of every resident.

In a year or two all will be changed; the people owning summer homes will themselves own and use automobiles; the horses will see so many that little notice will be taken, but the pioneers of the sport will have an unenviable time.

A good half-day's work was required on the machine before starting again.

The tire that had been plugged with rubber bands weeks before in Indiana was now leaking, the air creeping through the fabric and oozing out at several places. The leak was not bad, just about enough to require pumping every day.

The extra tire that had been following along was taken out of the express office and put on. It was a tire that had been punctured and repaired at the factory. It looked all right, but as it turned out the repair was poorly made, and it would have been better to leave on the old tire, inflating it each day.

A small needle-valve was worn so that it leaked; that was replaced. A stiffer spring was inserted in the intake-valve so it would not open quite so easily. A number of minor things were done, and every nut and bolt tried and tightened.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN LEXINGTON AND CONCORD "THE WAYSIDE INN"

Saturday morning, September 7, at eleven o'clock, we left the Touraine for Auburndale, where we lunched, then to Waltham, and from there due north by what is known as Waltham Street to Lexington, striking Massachusetts Avenue just opposite the town hall.

Along this historic highway rode Paul Revere; at his heels followed the regulars of King George. Tablets, stones, and monuments mark every known point of interest from East Lexington to Concord.

In Boston, at the head of Hull Street, Christ Church, the oldest church in the city, still stands, and bears a tablet claiming for its steeple the credit of the signals for Paul Revere; but the Old North Church in North Square, near which Revere lived and where he attended service, and from the belfry of which the lanterns were really hung, disappeared in the conflict it initiated. In the winter of the siege of Boston the old meeting-house was pulled down by the British soldiers and used for firewood. Fit ending of the ancient edifice which had stood for almost exactly one hundred years, and in which the three Mathers, Increase, Cotton, and Samuel,—father, son, and grandson,—had preached the unctuous doctrine of hell-fire and damnation; teaching so incendiary was bound sooner or later to consume its own habitation.

Revere was not the only messenger of warning. For days the patriots had been anxious concerning the stores of arms and ammunition at Concord, and three days before the night of the 18th Revere himself had warned Hancock and Adams at the Clarke home in Lexington that plans were on foot in the enemies' camp to destroy the stores, whereupon a portion was removed to Sudbury and Groton. Before Revere started on his ride, other messengers had been despatched to alarm the country, but at ten o'clock on the memorable night of the 18th he was sent for and bidden to get ready. He got his riding-boots and surtout from his house in North Square, was ferried across the river, landing on the Charlestown side about eleven o'clock, where he was told the signal-lights had already been displayed in the belfry. The moon was rising as he put spurs to his horse and started for Lexington.

The troops were ahead of him by an hour.

He rode up what is now Main Street as far as the "Neck," then took the old Cambridge road for Somerville.

To escape two British officers who barred his way, he dashed across lots to the main road again and took what is now Broadway. On he went over the hill to Medford, where he aroused the Medford minute-men. Then through West Medford and over the Mystic Bridge to Menotomy,—now Arlington,—where he struck the highway,—now Massachusetts Avenue,—to Lexington. Galloping up to the old Clarke house where Hancock and Adams were sleeping, the patriot on guard cautioned him not to make so much noise.

"Noise! you'll have enough of it here before long. The Regulars are coming."

Awakened by the voice, Hancock put his head out of the window and said,—

"Come in, Revere; we're not afraid of you."

Soon the old house was alight. Revere entered the "living room" by the side door and delivered his message to the startled occupants. Soon they were joined by Dawes, another messenger by another road. After refreshing themselves, Revere and Dawes set off for Concord. On the road Samuel Prescott joined them. When about half-way, four British officers, mounted and fully armed, stopped them. Prescott jumped over the low stone wall, made his escape and alarmed Concord. Dawes was chased by two of the officers until, with rare shrewdness, he dashed up in front of a deserted farm-house and shouted, "Hello, boys! I've got two of them," frightening off his pursuers.

Revere was captured. Without fear or humiliation he told his name and his mission. Frightened by the sound of firing at Lexington, the officers released their prisoner, and he made his way back to Hancock and Adams and accompanied them to what is now the town of Burlington. Hastening back to Lexington for a trunk containing valuable papers, he was present at the battle,—the fulfillment of his warning, the red afterglow of the lights from the belfry of Old North Church.

He lived for forty-odd years to tell the story of his midnight ride, and now he sleeps with Hancock and Adams, the parents of Franklin, Peter Faneuil, and a host of worthy men in the "Granary."

The good people of Massachusetts have done what they could to commemorate the events and obliterate the localities of those great days; they have erected monuments and put up tablets in great numbers; but while marking the spots where events occurred, they have changed the old names of roads and places until contemporary accounts require a glossary for interpretation.

Who would recognize classic Menotomy in the tinsel ring of Arlington? The good old Indian name, the very speaking of which is a pleasure, has given place to the first-class apartments, —steam-heated, electric-lights, hot and cold water, all improvements —in appellations of Arlington and Arlington Heights. A tablet marks the spot where on April 19 "the old men of Menotomy" captured a convoy of British soldiers. Poor old men, once the boast and glory of the place that knew you; but now the passing traveller curiously reads the inscription and wonders "Why were they called the old men 'of Menotomy'?" for there is now no such place.

Massachusetts Avenue—Massachusetts Avenue! there's a name, a great, big, luscious name, a name that savors of brown stone fronts and plush rockers: a name which goes well with the commercial prosperity of Boston. Massachusetts Avenue extends from Dorchester in Boston to Lexington Green; it has absorbed the old Cambridge and the old Lexington roads; the old Long Bridge lives in history, but, rechristened Brighton Bridge, the reader fails to identify it.

Concord remains and Lexington remains, simply because no real estate boom has yet reached them but Bunker Hill, there is a feeling that apartments would rent better if the musty associations of the spot were obliterated by some such name as "Buckingham Heights," or "Commonwealth Crest;" "The Acropolis" has been prayerfully considered by the freemen of the modern Athens;— whatever the decision may be, certain it is the name Bunker Hill is a heavy load for choice corners in the vicinity.

There are a few old names still left in Massachusetts,— Jingleberry Hill and Chillyshally** Brook sound as if they once meant something; Spot Pond, named by Governor Winthrop, has not lost its birthright; Powder-Horn Hill records its purchase from the Indians for a hornful of powder—probably damp; Drinkwater River is a good name,—Strong Water Brook by many is considered better. It is well to record these names before they are effaced by the commercialism rampant in the suburbs of Boston.

At the Town Hall in Lexington we turned to the right for East Lexington, and made straight for Follen Church, and the home of Dr. Follen close by, where Emerson preached in 1836 and 1837.

The church was not built until 1839. In January, 1840, the congregation had assembled in their new edifice for the dedication services. They waited for their pastor, who was expected home from a visit to New York, but the Long Island Sound steamer—Lexington, by strange coincidence it was called—had burned and Dr. Follen was among the lost. His home is now the East Lexington Branch of the Public Library.

We climbed the stairs that led to the small upper room where Emerson filled his last regular charge. Small as was the room, it probably more than sufficed for the few people who were sufficiently advanced for his notions of a preacher's mission. He did not believe in the rites the church clung to as indispensable; he did not believe in the use of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper; he did not believe in prayers from the pulpit unless the preacher felt impelled to pray; he did not believe in ritualism or formalism of any kind,—in short, he did not believe in a church, for a church, however broad and liberal, is, after all, an institution, and no one man, however great, can support an institution. A very great soul—and Emerson was a great soul—may carry a following through life and long after death, but that following is not a church, not an institution, not a living organized body, until forms, conventions, and traditions make it so; its vitalizing element may be the soul of its founder, but the framework of the structure, the skeleton, is made up of the more or less rigid conventions which are the results of natural and logical selection.

The ritual of Rome, the service of England, the dry formalism of Calvinism, the slender structure of Unitarianism were all equally repugnant to Emerson; he could not stretch himself in their fetters; he was not at ease in any priestly garment. Born a prophet, he could not become a priest. By nature a teacher and preacher, he never could submit to those restrictions which go so far to make preaching effective. He taught the lesson of the ages, but he mistook it for his own. He belonged to humanity, but he detached himself. He was a leader, but would acknowledge no discipline. Men cried out to him, but he wandered apart. He was an intellectual anarchist of rare and lovely type; few sweeter souls ever lived, but he defied order.

Not that Emerson would have been any better if he had submitted to the discipline of some church; he did what he felt impelled to do, and left the world a precious legacy of ideas, of brilliant, beautiful thoughts; but thoughts which are brilliant and beautiful as the stars are, scattered jewels against the background of night with no visible connection. Is it not possible that the gracious discipline of an environment more conventional might have reduced these thoughts to some sort of order, brought the stars into constellations, and left suggestions for the ordering of life that would be of greater force and more permanent value?

His wife relates that one day he was reading an old sermon in the little room in the Follen mansion, when he stopped, and said, "The passage which I have just read I do not believe, but it was wrongly placed."

The circumstance illustrates the openness and frankness of his mind, but it is also a commentary on the want of system in his intellectual processes. His habit through life was to jot down thoughts as they came to him; he kept note-books and journals all his life; he dreamed in the pine woods by day and walked beneath the stars by night; he sat by the still waters and wandered in the green fields; and the dreams and the visions and the fancies of the moment he faithfully recorded. These disjointed musings and disconnected thoughts formed the raw material of all he ever said and wrote. From the accumulated stores of years he would draw whatever was necessary to meet the needs of the hour; and it did not matter to him if thought did not dovetail into thought with all the precision of good intellectual carpentry. His edifices were filled with chinks and unfinished apartments.

He saw things in a big way, but did not always see them as through crystal, clearly; nor did he always take his staff in hand and courageously go about to see all sides of things. He never thought to a finish. His philosophy never acquired form and substance. His thoughts are not linked in chain, but are just so many precious pearls lightly strung on a silken thread.

In 1852 he wrote in his journal, "I waked last night and bemoaned myself because I had not thrown myself into this deplorable question of slavery, which seems to want nothing so much as a few assured voices. But then in hours of sanity I recover myself, and say, 'God must govern his own world, and knows his way out of this pit without my desertion of my post, which has none to guard it but me. I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes, to wit, imprisoned spirits, imprisoned thoughts, far back in the brain of man, far retired in the heaven of invention, and which, important to the republic of man, have no watchman or lover or defender but me,'" thereby naively leaving to God the lesser task.

But he wrongs himself in his own journal, for he did bestir himself and he did speak, and he did not leave the black men to God while he looked after the white; he helped God all he could in his own peculiar, irresolute way. At the same time no passage from the journals throws more light on the pure soul of the great dreamer. He was opposed to slavery and he felt for the negroes, but their physical degradation did not appeal to him so much as the intellectual degradation of those about him. To him it was a loftier mission to release the minds of men than free their bodies. With the naive and at the same time superb egoism which is characteristic of great souls, he consoles himself with the thought that God can probably take care of the slavery question without troubling him; he will stick to his post and look after more important matters.

What a treat it must have been to those assembled in the Follen house to hear week after week the very noblest considerations and suggestions concerning life poured forth in tones so musical, so penetrating, that to-day they ring in the ears of those who had the great good fortune to hear. There was probably very little said about death. Emerson never pretended to a vision beyond the grave. In his essay on "Immortality" he says, "Sixty years ago, the books read, the services and prayers heard, the habits of thought of religious persons, were all directed on death. All were under the shadow of Calvinism and of the Roman Catholic purgatory, and death was dreadful. The emphasis of all the good books given to young people was on death. We were all taught that we were born to die; and over that, all the terrors that theology could gather from savage nations were added to increase the gloom, A great change has occurred. Death is seen as a natural event, and is met with firmness. A wise man in our time caused to be written on his tomb, 'Think on Living.' That inscription describes a progress in opinion. Cease from this antedating of your experience. Sufficient to to-day are the duties of to-day. Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of the hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it."

Such was the burden of Emerson's message: make the very best of life; let not the present be palsied by fears for the future. A healthy, sane message, a loud clear voice in the wilderness of doubt and fears, the very loudest and clearest voice in matters spiritual and intellectual which America has yet produced.

It was during the days of his service in East Lexington that he went to Providence to deliver a course of lectures; while there he was invited to conduct the services in the Second (Unitarian) Church. The pastor afterwards said, "He selected from Greenwood's collection hymns of a purely meditative character, without any distinctively Christian expression. For the Scripture lesson he read a fine passage from Ecclesiasticus**, from which he also took his text. The sermon was precisely like one of his lectures in style; the prayers, or what took their place, were wholly without supplication, confession, or praise, but only sweet meditations on nature, beauty, order, goodness, love. After returning home I found Emerson with his head bowed on his hands, which were resting on his knees. He looked up to me and said, 'Now, tell me honestly, plainly, just what you think of that service.' I replied that before he was half through I had made up my mind that it was the last time he should have that pulpit. 'You are right,' he rejoined, 'and I thank you. On my part, before I was half through, I felt out of place. The doubt is solved.'"

He dwelt with time and eternity on a footing of familiar equality. He did not shrink or cringe. His prayers were sweet meditations and his sermon a lecture. He was the apostle of beauty, goodness, and truth.

Lexington Road from East Lexington to the Centre is a succession of historic spots marked by stones and tablets.

The old home of Harrington, the last survivor of the battle of Lexington, still stands close to the roadside, shaded by a row of fine big trees. Harrington died in 1854 at the great age of ninety-eight; he was a fifer-boy in Captain Parker's company. In the early morning on the day of the fight his mother rapped on his bedroom door, calling, "Jonathan, Jonathan, get up; the British are coming, and something must be done." He got up and did his part with the others. Men still living recall the old man; they heard the story of that memorable day from the lips of one who participated therein.

At the corner of Maple Street there is an elm planted in 1740. On a little knoll at the left is the Monroe Tavern. The square, two-storied frame structure which remains is the older portion of the inn as it was in those days. It was the head-quarters of Lord Percy; and it is said that an inoffensive old man who served the soldiers with liquor in the small bar-room was killed when he tried to get away by a rear door. When the soldiers left they sacked the house, piled up the furniture and set fire to it. Washington dined in the dining-room in the second story, November 5, 1789. The house was built in 1695, and is still owned by a direct descendant of the first William Monroe.

Not far from the tavern and on the same side of the street is a house where a wounded soldier was cared for by a Mrs. Sanderson, who lived to be one hundred and four years old.

Near the intersection of Woburn Street is a crude stone cannon which marks the place where Lord Percy planted a field pine pointing in the direction of the Green to check the advancing patriots and cover the retreat of the Regulars.

On the triangular "Common," in the very heart of the village, a flat-faced boulder marks the line where the minute-men under Captain Parker were formed to receive the Regulars. "Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon; but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here" was Parker's command to his men and it was there the war did begin. The small band of patriots were not yet in line when the red-coats appeared at the east end of the meeting-house, coming on the double-quick. Riding ahead, a British officer called out, "Disperse, you rebels! Villains, disperse!" but the little band of rebels stood their ground until a fatal volley killed eight and wounded ten. Only two of the British were wounded.

The victors remained in possession of the Green, fired a volley, and gave three loud cheers to celebrate a victory that in the end was to cost King George his fairest colonies.

The soldiers' monument that stands on the Green was erected in 1799. In 1835, in the presence of Daniel Webster, Joseph Story, Josiah Quincy, and a vast audience, Edward Everett delivered an oration, and the bodies of those who fell in the battle were removed from the old cemetery to a vault in the rear of the shaft, where they now rest. The weather-beaten stone is over-grown with a protecting mantle of ivy, which threatens to drop like a veil over the long inscription. Here, for more than a century, the village has received distinguished visitors,—Lafayette in 1824, Kossuth in 1851, and famous men of later days.

The Buckman Tavern, where the patriots assembled, built in 1690, still stands with its marks of bullets and flood of old associations.

These ancient hostelries—Monroe's, Buckman's, Wright's in Concord, and the Wayside Inn—are by no means the least interesting features of this historic section. An old tavern is as pathetic as an old hat: it is redolent of former owners and guests, each room reeks with confused personalities, every latch is electric from many hands, every wall echoes a thousand voices; at dusk of day the clink of glasses and the resounding toast may still be heard in the deserted banquet-hall; at night a ghostly light illumines the vacant ballroom, and the rustle of silks and satins, the sound of merry laughter, and the faint far-off strains of music fall upon the ear.

We did not visit the Clarke house where Paul Revere roused Adams and Hancock; we saw it from the road. Originally, and until 1896, the house stood on the opposite side of the street; the owner was about to demolish it to subdivide the land, when the Historical Society intervened and purchased it.

Neither did we enter the old burying-ground on Elm Street. The automobile is no respecter of persons or places; it pants with impatience if brought to a stand for so much as a moment before a house or monument of interest, and somehow the throbbing, puffing, impatient machine gets the upper hand of those who are supposed to control it; we are hastened onward in spite of our better inclinations.

The trolley line from Lexington to Concord is by way of Bedford, but the direct road over the hill is the one the British followed. It is nine miles by Bedford and the Old Bedford Road, and but six miles direct.

A short distance out of Lexington a tablet marks an old well; the inscription reads, "At this well, April 19, 1775, James Hayward, of Acton, met a British soldier, who, raising his gun, said, 'You are a dead man.' 'And so are you,' replied Hayward. Both fired. The soldier was instantly killed and Hayward mortally wounded."

Grim meeting of two thirsty souls; they sought water and found blood; they wooed life and won death. War is epitomized in the exclamations, "You are a dead man," "And so are you." Further debate would end the strife; the one query, "Why?" would bring each musket to a rest. Poor unknown Britisher, exiled from home, what did he know about the merits of the controversy? What did he care? It was his business to shoot, and be shot. He fulfilled most completely in the same moment the double mission of the soldier, to kill and be killed. Those who do the fighting never do know very much about what they are fighting for,—if they did, most of them would not fight at all. In these days of common schools and newspapers it becomes ever more and more difficult to recruit armies with men who neither know nor think; the common soldier is beginning to have opinions; by and by he will not fight unless convinced he is right,—then there will be fewer wars.

Over the road we were following the British marched in order and retreated in disorder. The undisciplined minute-men were not very good at standing up in an open square and awaiting the onslaught of a company of regulars,—it takes regulars to meet regulars out in the open; but behind trees and fences, from breast-works and scattered points of advantage, each minute-man was a whole army in himself, and the regulars had a hard time of it on their retreat, —the trees and stones which a few hours before had been just trees and stones, became miniature fortresses.

The old vineyard, where in 1855 Ephraim Bull produced the now well known Concord grape by using the native wild grape in a cross with a cultivated variety, is at the outskirts of Concord.

A little farther on is "The Wayside," so named by Hawthorne, who purchased the place from Alcott in 1852, lived there until his appointment as Consul at Liverpool in 1853, and again on his return from England in 1860, until he died in 1864. But "The Wayside" was not Hawthorne's first Concord home. He came there with his bride in 1842 and lived four years in the Old Manse.

There has never been written but one adequate description of this venerable dwelling, and that by Hawthorne himself in "Mosses from an Old Manse." To most readers the description seems part and parcel of the fanciful tales that follow; no more real than the "House of the Seven Gables." We of the outside world who know our Concord only by hearsay cannot realize that "The Wayside" and the "Old Manse" and "Sleepy Hollow" are verities,—verities which the plodding language of prose tails to compass, unless the pen is wielded by a master hand.

Cut in a window-pane of one of the rooms were left these inscriptions: "Nat'l Hawthorne. This is his study, 1843." "Inscribed by my husband at sunset, April 3d, 1843, in the gold light, S. A. H. Man's accidents are God's purposes. Sophia A. Hawthorne, 1843."

Dear, devoted bride, after more than fifty years your bright, loving letters have come to light, and through your clear vision we catch unobstructed glimpses of men and things of those days. After years of devotion to your husband and his memory it was your lot to die and be buried in a foreign land, while he lies lonely in "Sleepy Hollow."

When the honeymoon was still a silver crescent in the sky she wrote a friend, "I hoped I should see you again before I came home to our paradise. I intended to give you a concise history of my elysian life. Soon after we returned my dear lord began to write in earnest, and then commenced my leisure, because, till we meet at dinner, I do not see him. We were interrupted by no one, except a short call now and then from Elizabeth Hoar, who can hardly be called an earthly inhabitant; and Mr. Emerson, whose face pictured the promised land (which we were then enjoying), and intruded no more than a sunset or a rich warble from a bird.

"One evening, two days after our arrival at the Old Manse, George Hilliard and Henry Cleveland appeared for fifteen minutes on their way to Niagara Falls, and were thrown into raptures by the embowering flowers and the dear old house they adorned, and the pictures of Holy Mothers mild on the walls, and Mr. Hawthorne's study, and the noble avenue. We forgive them for their appearance here, because they were gone as soon as they had come, and we felt very hospitable. We wandered down to our sweet, sleepy river, and it was so silent all around us and so solitary, that we seemed the only persons living. We sat beneath our stately trees, and felt as if we were the rightful inheritors of the old abbey, which had descended to us from a long line. The tree-tops waved a majestic welcome, and rustled their thousand leaves like brooks over our heads. But the bloom and fragrance of nature had become secondary to us, though we were lovers of it. In my husband's face and eyes I saw a fairer world, of which the other was a faint copy."

Nearly two weeks later she continues in the same letter, "Sweet, dear Mary, nearly a fortnight has passed since I wrote the above. I really believe I will finish my letter to-day, though I do not promise. That magician upstairs is very potent! In the afternoon and evening I sit in the study with him. It is the pleasantest niche in our temple. We watch the sun, together, descending in purple and gold, in every variety of magnificence, over the river. Lately, we go on the river, which is now frozen; my lord to skate, and I to run and slide, during the dolphin death of day. I consider my husband a rare sight, gliding over the icy stream. For, wrapped in his cloak, he looks very graceful; impetuously darting from me in long, sweeping curves, and returning again— again to shoot away. Our meadow at the bottom of the orchard is like a small frozen sea now; and that is the present scene of our heroic games. Sometimes, in the splendor of the dying light, we seem sporting upon transparent gold, so prismatic becomes the ice; and the snow takes opaline hues from the gems that float above as clouds. It is eminently the hour to see objects, just after the sun has disappeared. Oh, such oxygen as we inhale! After other skaters appear,—young men and boys,—who principally interest me as foils to my husband, who, in the presence of nature, loses all shyness and moves regally like a king. One afternoon Mr. Emerson and Mr. Thoreau went with him down the river. Henry Thoreau is an experienced skater, and was figuring dithyrambic dances and Bacchic leaps on the ice,—very remarkable, but very ugly methought. Next him followed Mr. Hawthorne, who, wrapped in his cloak, moved like a self-impelled Greek statue, stately and grave. Mr. Emerson closed the line, evidently too weary to hold himself erect, pitching headforemost, half lying on the air. He came in to rest himself, and said to me that Hawthorne was a tiger, a bear, a lion,—in short, a satyr, and there was no tiring him out; and he might be the death of a man like himself. And then, turning upon me that kindling smile for which he is so memorable, he added, 'Mr. Hawthorne is such an Ajax, who can cope with him!'"