COASTING ON PONKAPOAG 311 



long steep slopes of Ponkapoag Hill and the au- 

 tomobiles honk in endless procession both ways. 

 The old houses stand, but a new generation oc- 

 cupies them and the cosey, self-centered life of 

 the old village has completely passed. Even the 

 people who knew its traditions of a half-century 

 ago are gone, too, and though the Christmas 

 snow brought good coasting I doubt if it brought 

 many coasters to the old hill. Yet Ponkapoag 

 Hill was once famous in the region all about for 

 its coasting and the enthusiasm and ingenuity 

 of the Ponkapoag coasters. On days and nights 

 in the oldfashioned winters, when the sledding of 

 big logs to the sawmill on Ponkapoag brook had 

 made the course down the hill one glare of ad- 

 amantine snow between deep rifts, the population 

 of the village used to turn out; not the big and 

 little boys and girls only, but the grown-ups even 

 to the venerable gaffers of those days who could 

 remember how they used to coast there before 

 the Civil War was thought of, when the Cherry 

 Tavern still fed scores of pleasure-seeking Bos- 

 tonians on big, luscious black-heart cherries each 

 June, and in winter the Ponkapoag Inn had its 

 patrons from the big city not only for coasting 

 but for pickerel fishing on the pond. 



