IV 



AMONG THE FOOTHILLS 



WE left Boston from the Union 

 Station via the western division 

 of the Boston and Maine Railroad at one 

 on the afternoon of December the twentv- 

 sixth. We were bound northward for 

 Shelburne, New Hampshire, a small town, 

 consisting of some twenty-eight farms, on 

 the Androscoggin River, about two miles 

 from the Maine and sixty from the Cana- 

 dian border. 



The sky was gray, foreboding rain or 

 snow. From the car window the passing 

 country looked bare and monotonous. 

 Second growth white and pitch pine, 

 birch and a few scattered hemlock com- 

 posed the passing woodland panorama. 

 Over the Merrimac a single herring gull 

 was flying and large flocks of crows were 

 feeding in the meadows. After cross- 

 ing the Saco River we began to notice 

 small patches of snow lying in the shaded 



