CHAPTER XXIV 



COASTING ON PONKAPOAG 



Looking backward from these days of sloth- 

 ful ease in getting about it seems as if the golden 

 days of Ponkapoag were those of a generation 

 and more ago. Then it was an isolated hamlet. 

 To be sure, there was a railroad a mile and a half 

 away and the venturous traveller might go north 

 or south on it twice a day, though few Ponka- 

 poag people were that sort of venturesome trav- 

 ellers. The days of the stage coaches had passed 

 and the place was more thrown upon its own re- 

 sources, especially for excitement, than it had 

 been since they had made it a stopping point on 

 a main thoroughfare. The railroad brought 

 bustle to many hamlets, but it took it away from 

 Ponkapoag and left it a sleepy hollow. Even 

 the days of the Cherry Tavern and the Ponka- 

 poag Inn were past and the poet Aldrich and 

 other people of latter-day renown had not ap- 

 peared to make it famous. 



Now the trolley car buzzes up and down the 



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