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 



