USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Picturesque Hampden : 1500 illustrations > Part 13
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(lifting johnson
A SUMMER STORM.
but certain it is that this afternoon, my explanations and requests at the farm- houses along the way met only suspicious glances and re- fusals. "I don't think we've got any closet that would do," were the words. After a little, however, I found two fellows sorting potatoes in a cellar, who acknowledged to having a dark closet in the house, though they said the folks were away, and when they thought the matter over seemed to have the feeling that to allow me to use this closet would be an act of doubtful wisdom. But urged matters and one of them came up and watched outside the closet door, and the process of changing plates was safely accom- plished.
I will mention here a bit of experience of the same
BAPTIST CHURCH.
sort I met with in another town. I had stopped to eat my noon lunch at a road- side watering trough. There were high, wooded slopes all about. In a little clear- ing, a short walk above the road, was a small house, and a man presently came down the steep path with a yoke on his shoulders from which was suspended a pail on either side. He said the spring up above had run dry and he had to come down here for all his water. He took pains to find out what I was about, and
THE OLD TANNERY.
HAMPDEN.
are) why, one may hesitate! The stranger might be some desperado, and there's no knowing but that he would walk off with half the contents of the closet stuffed into that square box of his. Then, too, he might have one of those infernal machines we read about in the newspapers, in his box, or dynamite. Horrors! It would be hard to say just what the feeling inspired by the request and the sight of that box was;
SOUTHWICK -CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
96
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
then I asked if he had a suitable closet for me to change my plates in. He said he guesesd so, and when he had filled his pails I accompanied him to the house. As we entered he said, " This man wants to use one of our closets for a few minutes to change his plates in," and he went right on to show me the closet. But he was arrested by a woman's voice from the next
ON SOUTHWICK STREET.
room. "George," she said, "you know the man is a stranger to us. We don't know anything about him."
The tones were dense with suspicion and pre- monitions of evil.
"Oh! I guess that's all right," said George, and he led the way up stairs. But having noted the sort of regard I had inspired down stairs, I was relieved to find the upper story unfinished and that the closets had no tops, which left them so open to the daylight that they were useless for my purposes. When I went away I deter- mined to invest in a larger number of plate- holders, as this sort of thing seemed to create too much disturbance.
From the summit of the high ridge I had been mounting, I looked far over the western hills and valley. Near by a road ran southward-a long way, almost straight, bordered by stone-walled
A PASTURE LANE IN MAY.
pastures. In the far distance, at the horizon, stood a school- house, the only building in sight in that direction, and looking quite lonely, with nought but the skies and the deserted fields for
THE GORGE - MUNN'S BROOK.
company. Westward along the road dipping down the long hill and undulating on beyond, were the scattered houses of West Granville. Close by were two gray, quaintly gabled old houses with great stone chimneys. They seemed so ancient and weather-worn it gave a strange aspect to the wide-spreading landscape about, and made the scene suggestive of some of the old countries across the ocean. On the farthest hill-top 1 could discern a white church, with a little group of houses about it. This was Tolland. Beyond Granville Hill the big trees, which are apt to be characteristic of our New England villages and home surroundings, had largely
GRANVILLE CORNERS -UNIVERSALIST CHURCH.
disappeared. The houses were many of them entirely bare and unshadowed, and a maple or elm of any size was a rarity. The fields, too, gave the same impression of bareness. They were in the main rocky and brushy, with no large trees to relieve this aspect. Tolland village I found a little group of dwellings gathering with the church about a small, open square, where a few young maples had been started. It was so very quiet it seemed almost deserted. But the day itself was very still-just a little wind stirring, the air flooded with warm sunlight and the sky very clear, with a few little clouds sleeping along the horizon. Nature itself seemed to be resting. I turned northward and went over the hills and rough roads to Noye's pond, a beautiful sheet of water lying low in the woods, that this afternoon spread away in mirror- like placidity ruffled by scarce a ripple. At the boulder-strewn shore were moored two boats, which some slight movement of the air now and then swung to this side and that, and yet with- out in the least ruffling the water surface.
THE CHURCH ON GRANVILLE HILL.
AICHAT_IN THE GARDEN.
97
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
"MY GARDEN."
Ah, such a garden gay is mine, with never fence nor hedges, Where brooks go singing all day long, or dance o'er rocky ledges. No prim, quaint paths, but grassy tracks lead into shady places Where hosts of woodland things uplift their radiant, starry faces.
Ere yet the snows of March have ceased their fluttering and sifting, I find o'er all the barren fields a shower of bluets drifting,
And then on hillsides bleak and high, where naked briers trail dusty, The sweet arbutus hides away 'neath last year's leaves so rusty.
Soon every greening bank is starred with windflowers white and saintly. Like flags of truce, in somber woods, the shad-blooms glimmer faintly. By lichened rocks where tufts of fern to every ledge are clinging, The gay, coquettish columbines their dainty heads are swinging.
Pure blood-root and wan trilliums and adder tongues soon follow, And cowslips glint like scattered gold in every marshy hollow. The winsome, bright-eyed violets stray all the roadsides over, And sunny uplands surge and glow with waves of fragrant clover.
In pasture-lands, such blooms from apple trees so hoary ! Such miles on miles of buttercups in all their glistening glory ! The wild azalea flushing faint greets summer's blessed coming, And honeysuckle in the woods hangs sweet where bees are humming.
My daisies, how they bud and blow, pure snowy white and yellow, Coquetting with the bobolink - a saucy laughing fellow. Dog roses nod along the road, and clematis is swaying 'Mid garlands green of wild grapevine o'er all the fences straying.
But there is naught so dear to me in my wide lavish garden As one still pool, where meadow-sweet and rush and sedge stand warden ; Where golden-hearted lilies float in whitely-mirrored splendor,
And through the spicy pine woods waft the perfume rare and tender.
When Indian summer hazy gleams o'er all my hills and valleys, Such vivid tints ! such blazonry ! her magic summons rallies ; Such showers of asters everywhere, 'mid woodbines redly tangled ! Such sunshine rifts in every nook where golden-rod is spangled !
When sumach, birch and maple have put off their autumn tinges, The lonely gentian by the brook unfolds its silken fringes And lingers on till frost is here, till summer birds are singing A faint farewell, while on the way to warmer lands they're winging.
Still is my garden fair to me, through all the wintry weather, When nipping frosts and drifting snows and wild winds come together ; Though lone, deserted woods recall a summer's vanished pleasure, Yet here and there in sheltered nooks 1 find belated treasure.
Blackberry vines which early frost had touched with fiery finger Still gleam beneath the snow and ice, and partridge berries linger Mong tufts of hardy princess' pine, 'mong ferns yet green and fragrant, And lowly clinging mosses which in sunny nooks grow vagrant.
Let poets sing of gardens gay, in language quaint and olden ; Of skies that gleam o'er bright parterres, where flowers bloom red and golden ; But I - I love the wildwood things, by all the roadsides blowing, Sweet friends they seem, so long I've watched their coming and their going.
ISABEL GORDON.
AN UPLAND PASTURE.
AN EARLY NEW ENGLAND SETTLER.
Sometimes the dog, Tige, would find a deer track on the mountain; and, remember- ing the pleasurable excitement of a former chase, his well-known voice would give prompt notice to his master of prospective sport. Venison was a welcome addition to the rather monotonous bill of fare common to the New England farmer living on the outskirts of civilization, not too near a store, and not having much money for the purchase of luxuries, even if they were to be found.
GRANVILLE CORNERS - BAPTIST CHURCH.
No meat was so good as venison for the composition of the tradi- tional mince pie, and cubes of venison suet in the hot corn bread served for breakfast, added a quality that no one failed to appreciate.
There was a pause to listen to the dog. This was early in the fore- noon of a day in winter. It so chanced that little work required at- tention about the farm just then, and other occupations were not press- ing. The men glanced at the sun to note its position ; at the trees to see which way the wind lay, and the probability of fair weather, or snow, or rain was hastily considered. Was the gun in good condition? the
THE LAND OF STONE WALLS.
supply of powder all right? Would it be wise to start off with only three bullets, or would it be best to mould more before starting? And if so, was there lead for the purpose? The sound of the dog's voice indicated the direction taken by the deer, and former experiences told the story. He will encircle the mountain !- or he will make for the great pond ! He may change one plan for another, but is more likely to stick to the one he first adopts.
It is too bad to tear the weekly paper. Aside from the almanac, the Bible,
A GRANVILLE ROAD TO LEARNING.
98
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
Watts' Hymns and Goodrich's Family . Cyclopedia, there is not a book in the house; certainly, no scrap of paper that would be available for gun wads; but he had remembered this, and that great wasp's nest had been brought home for the very purpose.
A luncheon is eaten. A piece of bread and possibly a bit of pork is taken along, for the absence may be for many hours. The snowshoes come down from their place. In his pocket is a sharp and serviceable jack- knife. A card of matches is detached from the bunch, and all is ready. These preparations have occupied some time, but there is no special need of haste.
The barking of the dog on the mountain has been loud, grown faint, and now is louder again. The deer is likely -yes, certain -to follow a well- defined route, and our settler is quite certain that he will secure a shot, should he get himself to a spot he
WEST GRANVILLE - OLD HOUSES.
A TOLLAND ROADWAY.
knows of by a brookside, not much more than a mile away, before deer and dog come around.
The settler's past experience, together with many talks with neighbors and hunters, has photographed on his mind a pretty accurate map of the whole region within a day's journey of his house. He knows the possibilities, and the exceptions to be expected. He knows that in a long chase the bodily fatigue and mental worry to the deer will vastly deteriorate the quality of the venison, so much so that under extremely unfavor- able conditions the hide is about the only part worth bringing home.
TOLLAND CENTER.
His effort is directed toward reaching quickly the well-known runway, where, if he has judged aright, the deer will soon pass, and a lucky shot bring him down and allow a prompt return, not empty handed, to his home. Sometimes, however, the deer will change his tactics and strike out boldly for another mountain miles away. When he
does this he is prone to seek open water, where by swimming or wading he deprives the dog of the scent to which, instead of sight, he is indebted for his power to follow the trail. If hard pressed, the poor hunted thing would sometimes seek death in an open glade on the surface of a frozen lake rather than meet a more painful fate from the fangs of his relentless pursuer.
If the chase was a long one, then the return home was correspondingly delayed. When the deer had been shot, the first act was to cut the throat with the jackknife, without which no white man in his right mind ever went into the woods,-for without the withdrawal of the blood while yet warm, the quality of the venison would be ruined. If far from home, at a point not likely to be conveniently visited for a day or two, the hunter proceeded to remove the skin, and after laying aside a hind quarter to be carried home, the remainder would be wrapped in the
THE APPROACH TO TOLLAND.
hide and suspended in the top of a sapling that could be bent down for the purpose, and afterwards allowed to spring back in its natural position, thus pre- serving the meat from prowling foxes or other wild animals, until it should be convenient to return for it. In winter time there would be no hurry.
Sometimes, when all this had been attended to, in those short winter days, the hour of darkness would be so near and the path home so long, rough and un- certain, that to attempt it would invite peril or even death. The thermometer is at zero, but the hunter is not cold. He takes in the situation and understands it fully. Near by is a decayed tree, from which branches may be broken for a fire. On the other hand is a graceful young hemlock with feathery boughs. The snow is two feet deep. He selects a level spot, and removes his snowshoes. With his feet he marks off a parallelogram about two feet wide by eight feet long. With a snowshoe for a shovel he scoops out the snow, which, after the few inches of partly encrusted surface has been removed, is dry and friable, like sugar ; soon there is something like a snowy grave, carpeted for six feet with a thick mat
AN AUTUMN HILLSIDE.
99
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
of hemlock boughs, and at the lower uncarpeted end, the dry branches or heavier pieces of decayed wood which he is able to gather have made a comfortable fire.
While the little fire burns down, as it will, and leaves a bed of bright red coals, the hunter, taking the coarser and stronger boughs of the hemlock, constructs a covering for what is to be his bed that night; and over these again the excavated snow is, scraped, the useful snowshoe serv- ing as an implement for that purpose. By this time it is fully dark, but by the light of the fire he broils a good- sized piece of the venison, and dines with an appetite, the perfect pleasure of which few men ever know. His dog, his active partner in the day's sport, is his companion at the meal. Finally, after adding some larger and heavier pieces of fuel to his fire, having selected such as will, he hopes, smoulder rather than blaze, he creeps headfore- most into his snowy sylvan retreat. His dog comes, too, and rests his head upon his shoulder perhaps, and there,
EVENING.
each serving to keep the other warm, they sleep without any idea that the experience is a hardship, or any sensations that are other than pleasurable. The settler's mind recurs to his home. He knows that by this time his return to-night will not be looked for. He thinks of the family in the house, the stock in the barn, hopes that all are as well fed and comfortable as he, and - is asleep.
In the first gray of the next morning, he is astir and by sunrise is out of the woods and at the door of his home. The latch responds to his hand upon the string, and the experience that is ended is a pleasant recollection ; one of which he will speak with pleasure, and to a repetition of which he looks forward without a feeling of anything like dread. And the amount of that hind quarter of venison that he consumes for his breakfast that morning makes it seem advisable to seek a neighbor with whom to divide the trophy and the labor, and go for the remainder, left in the tree-top, without much loss of time. GEORGE P. ROWELL.
A WINTER LANDSCAPE.
A SNOW-STORM.
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight ; the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse. -Emerson.
FEEDING THE " CHICKIES."
A PASTURE WATERFALL,
BLANDFORD, CHESTER AND MONTGOMERY.
The night of October first, I spent at a Blandford farm- house. I made the acquaintance of the hired boy at the barn while we were putting out the horse, and that creature was no sooner safely stabled than the boy offered to swap watches with me. He said his was a good watch - first rate, and he pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it some fifteen feet into the air and caught it as it came
NOYES' POND -TOLLAND.
100
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
down. I had supposed that watches were solely for keeping time, except the Waterbury variety, whose perpetual possibilities for winding give it double fascination for the small boys. At any rate, I had my doubts about an article of this sort which could be used as a baseball as well as a time- keeper, and we did not swap.
Here in Blandford stood, until re- cently, one of the oldest Methodist churches in Western Massachusetts, It is described as a rough-finished, barn of a building, and as rude in the interior as without. The seats were nothing more than benches, and over- head, instead of a ceiling, was nought but the rafters and boards of the roof between the audience and the skies.
Blandford Center is well up in the world. It occupies a great rolling hill- top. Prominent among the village houses are the two white churches.
A NEW ENGLAND PASTURE-FROM A PAINTING BY R. G. SHURTLEFF.
and on opening it one finds a narrow, black passage leading straight into the hillside. However hot the weather outside, the air in this gloomy passage is cool and damp. But to one unused to this sort of thing, the idea of the mountain's caving in on him, in spite of the big timbers close set along the walls, and the lonesome, dripping sil- ence of the dark corridor leading away to depths unknown and entirely hidden in pitchy blackness, does not make the position one readily chosen for a loiter- ing place. I did not have to go many yards into the hill to satisty my curi- osity. Then I came out, went down the hill and continued up the valley.
After a mile or more along the level, I crossed the stream and took a road leading up the northern hill. It went up, and up, and up-a twisting, ever- climbing roadway through the woods. At its side was a little stream tinkling
METHODIST CHURCH.
BLANDFORD -CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
The Methodist church is close flanked by the homes of the townspeople, but the Congregational church is somewhat removed from near houses and stands alone on a little eminence, where a thick grove of pines clus- ters at a short remove. The church itself has not the company of man, or habitations, or even shade trees, but like a sentinel on duty stands year in and year out the guardian of the town which it overlooks in its lonely battling with the elements.
From here I went to North Blandford. A few miles over the hills brought me to the little village in its low hollow, where its group of houses, the small church and the white schoolhouse and the stream in the ravine were all half hidden in the thick greens of the summer foliage, which, in this protected valley, had as yet barely a tinge of autumn. The place was
attractively rural and quiet. One or two stray cows were baiting by the roadside; an ox team was trun. dling along the village street ; at the schoolhouse it was recess time and the children were having a game of hide-and-seek.
I went on up and over the big hills and presently took a road that went down a long, twisting valley, with a mountain brook for company, tumbling along through the stony depths of the hollow. This brought me to Chester, a good-sized village of little houses in a broken valley gathering about the two churches and several stores. There are a number of emery mills in the place, and near the depot some granite works. All about are big sweeps of hills, dipping now and then into the narrow, tortuous ravines which wind back among them. The Boston and Albany railroad has its iron
path through the valley, making frequent passages over the Westfield river which wanders through the lowlands. A smaller stream, spanned by a number of shaky little wooden bridges, leaps and foams and slides down from the Blandford hills. In the depot neighborhood there is the sound of the continuous hammering of the stone workers, and as you wander about the place you are usually within hearing of the monotonous grinding and crushing at the emery mills. A short climb up a steep, rough wood-road brings one to the mines. Here stand some rude little sheds, which serve as storage places for tools, and a blacksmith's shop, and beyond is a great dump of broken stone. Into the side of the hill, close by, is built a heavily timbered structure something like a small, unfinished room. In one corner is a door
AN OLD HOUSE ON BLANDFORD HILL.
A WINTER NIGHTFALL.
101
PICTURESQUE HAMPDEN.
through the stony hollow it had for ages been wearing. The end of the year was approaching, and there were flashes of color on the maples, and yellow tones were beginning to appear among the still general greens of the forest. On the ground was a rustling of early fallen leaves. In time I came out of the woods and the steep road was at an end. Here were wide, rolling sweeps of open hill-top, where were many groups of cows, sheep and horses grazing in the fields. Lines of stone fence zigzagged across the brown pastures and shut in the grass-grown highway. It seemed to me that I had seen no piece of real country in all Hampden county that was more delightful. Both east and west the land dipped into the wooded valleys, and beyond, ranges of blue hills towered along the horizon. Nature everywhere here has moulded the landscape on a grand scale. The lines of the near sweeps of pasture land were peculiarly pleasing and the chang- ing views one gets of the purple mountains across the valleys are very charming. In many ways it seemed an ideal place for summer residences. It was a quiet, warm afternoon; a light wind swayed the long grasses and made the leaves on the trees nod sleepily ; a soft hazing of clouds was drifting up into the sky out of the west, and the color effects were quite enchanting.
A NORTH BLANDFORD OX TEAM.
LOOKING DOWN INTO THE NORTH BLANDFORD VALLEY.
A few miles drive over these broadly rolling fields brought me to Chester Center. It is a quiet little hamlet scattered along the roads which converge at the church. The houses are pleasantly shadowed by elms and maples and have many orchards close about. From here 1 went down the hill into the eastern valley. The way is long and hummocky and steep, much of it through the woods, but with frequent breaks that give delightful outlooks deep into the valley and of the great slopes opposite veiled with the blue haze of distance. One of the inhabitants commented on the region in this wise :
" If people saw these same hills in Switzerland, they'd go
into ecstacies over them, but here in New England they're of no account at all. People will travel the world over hunting for sights worth seeing, but 1 think they could find within driving distance of home a good many pieces of nature just as hand- some and of the same sort as those they describe as so won- derful in countries three or four thousand miles away."
I had been told there was an interesting tomb in a pasture close by the road on the way down the hill, and I stopped at a sagging gateway which 1 had been directed to watch for, and, after hitching the horse, made search for this curiosity. I was something of an amateur in the tomb hunting line, never having been on such a quest before, and my success was nothing to boast of. The pasture was hilly and brushy, broken with thickly scat- tered bowlders, and with here and there a boggy hollow. I under- stood that this tomb was a great
CHESTER -HOUSES BY THE STREAM.
rock as large as a house. A certain farmer of the region, Hiram Smith by name, did not take kindly to the idea of being buried in the ground, and ac- cordingly hunted up this great bowlder, had a cavity hewn in it and arranged that he and his sister should there be buried. He left directions that a road should be kept open between the highway and his last resting place, that the public might make pilgrimages thereto. In willing away his property he affixed the condi- tion that this road should always be kept open. I don't know whether it is or not, for it soon merged into the grass and I lost it altogether. I went up hill and down hill, over bogs and through tangles of brush, examined every sizable rock and began to conclude this tomb must be mythical. But I persevered, and just as the sun sent its last faint rays glancing along the close-cropped stubble of the pasture, I entered a little grove of hemlocks and there was the stone. It has a height of about ten feet and a breadth of thirty. Its face has been smoothed on one side and a double aperture cut in it which is now sealed up
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