INTRODUCTION


There is a beginning with everything. So far as this book is
concerned, annual driving trips through Central Vermont are
responsible. They were great events, planned months in advance. With a
three-seated carriage and a stocky span good for thirty miles a day
and only spirited if they met one of those new contraptions aglitter
with polished brass gadgets, that fed on gasoline instead of honest
cracked corn and oats, we took to the road. A newspaper man,
vacation-free from Broadway first nights and operas sung by Melba,
Sembrich, and the Brothers de Reszke, was showing his city-bred
children his native hills and introducing them to the beauties of a
world alien to asphalt pavements and brownstone fronts.

It was leisurely travel. When the road was unusually steep, to spare
the horses, we walked. If Mother's eagle eye spotted a four-leaf
clover, we stopped and picked it. If a bend in the road brought a
pleasing prospect into view, the horses could be certain of ten
minutes for cropping roadside grass. Most of all, no farmhouse
nestling beneath wide-spread maples or elms went without careful
consideration of Father's constant daydream, a home in the country.

These driving trips often included overnight stops with relatives
living in villages undisturbed by the screech and thunder of freight
and way trains, or with others living on picturesque old farms.
Afterward there was always lively conversation concerning the
possibilities of Cousin This or That's home as a country place. This
reached fever heat after visits to Great Aunt Laura who lived in a