FORGOTTEN ROADS 



TO find and follow an abandoned road is to 

 read a half -obliterated record of the past, full 

 of gaps inviting speculation, and alluring, if 

 wistful, revelations of a vanished day, it may be 

 even a vanished society and manner of life. Our 

 Berkshire Hills are pathetically rich in such aban- 

 doned roads, and they make to-day by far the 

 pleasantest trails for the tramper — that semi-ex- 

 tinct species of biped who still exists in isolated 

 specimens and spends his vacations slyly avoiding 

 the traveled ways and the eyes of motorists. Oc- 

 casionally he is even found in small groups, or herds 

 of as many as three or four, most commonly, per- 

 haps, in the White Mountains, but even at times in 

 our part of the world. Even when in a herd, how- 

 ever, he is a shy animal, consulting his contour maps 

 frequently to discover the worst and consequently 

 least frequented roads, and rejoicing more over the 

 one village that is lost and never found again by 

 summer residents than over the ninety and nine 

 which boast palatial inns. For him these scattered 

 records of our forgotten roads. His feet, and his 

 alone, are worthy to brush their grasses and his 

 hands alone to part their meeting alder screens. 



My first acquaintance with a forgotten road in 

 western Massachusetts was made twenty years ago, 

 when, in my college days, I was on a tramping trip 



