160 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



feet to the river on one side, and your mother's express 

 command never to walk across spurring you on, not to 

 mention the admiring gaze of your small companion. 

 The Red Bridge, too (which must have been painted 

 about once every generation), was a superb place for 

 bill-posting. It fairly blazed with spavin cures, lini- 

 ments for man and beast, bargains in farm machinery, 

 announcements of county fairs, and circus posters. 

 How well I remember one fair trapeze performer who 

 was depicted in the act of flying through the air, hands 

 gracefully outstretched toward a far-distant, swinging 

 perch, and whose pink legs defied the winter storms and 

 summer suns long after the rest of her anatomy had 

 faded quite from view which was not without its 

 ironic touch in our Puritan community ! 



A quaint feature of country bridges that is now dis- 

 appearing was the turnout on the roadway beside them, 

 when the stream was a small one, permitting you to 

 drive your horse through the ford and up the opposite 

 bank to the road again, thus watering him without get- 

 ting out of the carriage. It was bad, undoubtedly, for 

 the carriage wheels, but the horses certainly enjoyed it, 

 and many a time have I left my fishpole propped against 

 the rail, with the float bobbing far downstream, to cross 

 the bridge and watch some thirsty horse suck up the 

 water noisily, while the foam drifted away from his 

 nostrils and his driver let the reins dangle and inquired 

 of me (usually with annoying derisiveness): "Heow air 



