Wayfaring in New England

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. BENIGHTED IN THE WOODS BENIGHTED IN THE WOODS I had always relied on my road-map and it had never played me false. It was the fourteenth of July (1898). I had been journeying for a week or so through varied and interesting country?from Bethel, Maine, on the Androscoggin up the Bear River and through...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. BENIGHTED IN THE WOODS BENIGHTED IN THE WOODS I had always relied on my road-map and it had never played me false. It was the fourteenth of July (1898). I had been journeying for a week or so through varied and interesting country?from Bethel, Maine, on the Androscoggin up the Bear River and through the splendid Grafton Notch, across Umbagog Lake by steamboat, into New Hampshire to see the remarkable features of Dixville, to Colebrook on the Connecticut, down the valley to Guildhall, Vermont, and thence by way of Granby and Victory to St. Johnsbury. On the morning of this day I left that fine little city, expecting to make Plainfield at night or possibly Barre. It was a day of intense sunshine with puffs of hot wind that lifted clouds of choking dust from the glaring roads. The White Mountains across the Connecticut quivered in the haze. Even the corn felt the long continued drought and the brown of the recently mowed fields was the prevailing color in the shifting landscape. I passed through Danville, birth-place of the redoubtable Thaddeus Stevens, and came to Peacham at noon. Dinner was welcome and I did it ample justice, but if I had known what was in store I might have made even greater havoc with the offerings of the attractive hotel. Four miles below Peacham I caught up with a heavy wagon in which were two young men. They invitedme to ride and I was glad to be seated above the waves of white dust as we jolted down into the valley of Wells River. The farmers commented freely on every place we passed, commending or condemning, as the case might be, their neighbors' equipment and methods. I asked how far it would be from Groton, which we were approaching, to Barre. Twenty-eight mile, I think they call it, said the driver, have to go through Orange to get th...