6 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



like that, one that by some chance the axe of the 

 woodman has spared as one generation of wood 

 cutters followed another, that still stands where 

 the seed fell, no man knows how many centuries 

 ago. We have trees in eastern Massachusetts to 

 whom a thousand years is but as yesterday when 

 it is passed, many on which the centuries have 

 rested lightly. I think this Onset cedar one of 

 these. 



The road that leads from Plymouth to it is 

 vexed daily by innumerable wheels ; of a summer 

 holiday the wayside watcher may count the mo- 

 tors by the thousand; yet you have but to step 

 a rod or two off its tarred, tire-beaten surface 

 to find wild woodland as primitive as it was three 

 hundred years ago. The spring seeking motor- 

 ist finds his first mayflowers there as the grade 

 leads up Manomet heights and may expect them 

 by the roadside anywhere, after that. The old 

 trail to Sandwich saunters along here, but those 

 who built for modern traffic took little heed of 

 old-time footpath ways. They gouged the hills, 

 they filled the hollows and drew their long black 

 scar behind for mile after mile. 



Like the deer and the wild fowl the old trails 

 care little for this. They wander on their own 



