FORGOTTEN ROADS 165 



hills leading to a high, broken plateau which ex- 

 tends eastward for many miles, till it begins to 

 break down into the valley of the Connecticut 

 River. Through this region, not through the city 

 of Pittsfield, the stage-coach line from Boston to 

 Albany used to pass, via Hartford and the Farm- 

 ington River gorge. It is a pathetic region of high 

 pastures going back to scrub wilderness, of once 

 prosperous villages with beautiful Colonial houses, 

 some of them belonging to the riper third period, 

 slowly being abandoned to decay (or Polish Jews), 

 of eloquent cellar holes, gray, ruined barns, the 

 "No trespassing" signs of game preserves owned by 

 non-residents, of course, and of forgotten roads that 

 once led past prosperous farms, from town to town, 

 and now lead past nothing but encroaching forest 

 and are only to be discovered by the initiated. 



I well remember one such road, if only for the 

 human associations it disclosed, though the day was 

 crisp and fair when we tramped it, the woods were 

 putting on their autumn glory, and two does, with 

 a fawn behind them, looked at us over a tumbled- 

 down wall. This road, we learned, was young in 

 forgetfulness, having been abandoned but fifteen 

 years, though for a generation before that it could 

 have seen but -little travel. The rows of sugar- 

 maples, planted a century ago, the open fields, the 

 still visible stone walls, proclaimed the proximity of 

 a farm, and over a rocky crest, which commanded 

 a wide prospect, we came to the dwelling. It still 

 stood four square to the winds, with both main 

 chimneys intact and telling us it belonged to a later 

 period than the type of house built around a central 



