A NOOK IN THE ALLEGHANIES 



I LEFT Boston at nine o'clock on the 

 morning of April 23, and reached Pulaski, 

 in southwestern Virginia, at ten o'clock the 

 next forenoon, exactly on schedule time, 

 or within five minutes of it, to give the rail- 

 road no more than its due. It was a journey 

 to meet the spring, which for a Massa- 

 chusetts man is always a month tardy, 

 and as such it was speedily rewarded. Even 

 in Connecticut there were vernal signs, a 

 dash of greenness here and there in the 

 meadows, and generous sproutings of skunk 

 cabbage about the edges of the swamps ; and 

 once out of Jersey City we were almost in a 

 green world. At Bound Brook, I think it 

 was, the train stopped where a Norway 

 maple opposite my window stood all in a 

 yellow mist of blossoms, and chimney swifts 

 were shooting hither and thither athwart the 



