14000 MILES 



and no comforts. There were things enough, but they 

 needed the touch of a woman's hand. It must have been 

 a man who hung the looking-glass behind the bed. We 

 rearranged, however, and borrowed a table and chair 

 from an open room near by, and got along very well. 

 These were trifles compared with the pouring rain, which 

 was making mud out of the clayey soil which the 

 Catskills could hardly compete with. We almost 

 repented, but would not turn back when only fourteen 

 miles were between us and friends. We think the men 

 who held a consultation as to our best way to Benson 

 must have conspired against us, or they never would have 

 sent us by the Bay road. The rain ceased, but the mud, 

 the slippery hills and the heathenish roads every way! 

 We turned and twisted, stopped at every farmer's door to 

 ask if we could be right, and more than once got the most 

 discouraging of all answers, "Yes, you can go that way." 

 The spinning of a top seems as near straight as that drive 

 did. I know we could not do it again, and I am surer 

 yet we shall not try. 



When, at last, we struck the stage road, things 

 seemed more rational, and Charlie's ears became very 

 expressive. As we drove into Benson he tore along and 

 nearly leaped a ditch in his haste to turn into our friend's 

 stable, where Cousin Charlie fed him so lavishly with 

 oats seven years ago. No one seemed to know exactly 

 how we got there, but our welcome was none the less 

 hearty. 



Now we were all right and needed no directions, for 

 from this point our way over the Green Mountains was 

 familiar, and after a short visit we turned towards home, 



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