36 



TARRYTOWN LETTERS. 



bridge with mud-sills of round timber. These bridges 

 enable loads of hay, manure and carriages to cross, as 

 well as the foot path in question, and, except some low 

 shrubs planted, and a tree or two which stood there be- 

 fore, present an entire top surface of smooth, green 

 grass. A view of the lower side of one of them and one 

 of the foot path entrance gates to the meadow might look 

 somewhat as in Fig. 3. 



We got our notions about having a plenty of conven- 



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FiG. 3. An Adorned Meadow Brook. 



ient stiles and gates from the Master of Edgewood. The 

 three estates had to cooperate in road making, for though 

 Lady Schnipticket has the money, the Camperdowns 

 had the stone quarry and the Tarryers the sand. The 

 latter is better than stone in the bottom of a road where 

 the loam turns to molasses during the freezing and thaw- 

 ing of winter, as much of the soil or subsoil about Tar- 

 rytown does. 



The grand road that is being constructed across the es- 

 tates — something over three miles — is built in this way. 

 Where there is a clay bottom there can be no solid road 

 unless the substance of it prevents the clay from rising 

 among the stone. 



This road when completed will be thrown open to the 

 public, if it behaves itself. The travelled path is appar- 

 ently narrow, but the turf borders, built on stone, will 

 sustain any amount of turning out that may come upon 

 them. There is no dust or mud on such a road as this. 

 Every rain washes it as clean as a bone. All settlement 

 being prevented by broad tires on which the material is 

 hauled, it wears only from the top, and that impercep- 

 tibly, because the stone, bedded perfectly solid in their 

 own clean masonic substance, subject to capillary mois- 

 ture, are never quite dry, and so grow harder year by 

 year. Sidewalks of the same construction accompany 

 this road, on one or both sides, or branch off in roads to 

 different parts of the estates. 



Road-stone quarries in our region are better than sil- 

 ver mines, because the people have been taught to sink 

 broken stone all of one size in the clay without a thought 

 as to where they go to. And still the roads are rough 

 with holes, mud, dust or recent repairs — which make 

 them worse — and are nothing but a punishment to ride 

 over. 



We made a point on our county supervisors this fall. 

 M'Tavish, who hates them for laming so many of his 

 horses, ordered the affair at Mrs. Tarryer's instigation 



with a perfect relish. Several miles of "resurfacing" 

 had been contracted, and the horrid work was begun 

 just as our fall colors were in their brightest, and people 

 wanted to be driving to see them. M'Tavish went to 

 the supervisors and offered to repair a certain section of 

 the old pike better than it ever was for nothing, and they 

 let him go ahead. He immediately put a force of trained 

 men at the job, closed that loop in the road to travel, 

 threw the old mass of stones and mud out on either side, 

 washed them clean with cotton hose from 

 our own water supply, broke them small, 

 and in five days time had the finest bit of 

 - road in the county, with village children 



playing hop-scotch and spinning tops on it. 

 It was Lady Schnipticket's broad tires that 

 " did the business. M'Tavish kept two pairs 



of them, half-loaded with select metal fin- 

 ^,_-r". " "~ ish, constantly turning upon the new work 

 in its progress. 



The humbug of ordinary stone-road mak- 

 ing is so potent that it is a wonder our bicy- 

 clists don't see why the foolish surfaces on 

 a porous substructure are always crumb- 

 ling. When Mrs. Tarryer meets one of those poor fel- 

 lows with a good face, his hat shaking and his jaws rat- 

 tled like the ague by the infamous and needless joggle of 

 his wheel upon our stony ways, she is sure to find him 

 out and send him a card for dinner, when some of our 

 young people will take charge of him, and explain to his 

 benighted comprehension the true inwardness of road- 

 making. Can't the editor of The Garden's puzzle col- 

 umns contrive some arrangement of ' ' even sized stone, " 

 half air, water or mud, that will set the children to think- 

 ing straight about roads ? At present the blind lead the 

 blind, and the average civil engineer will sell us to the 

 road barnacles or the sewer rats for the price of making 

 the levels. 



Close by that gate, in the picture, is one of Lady 

 Schnipticket's coolest springs, that M'Tavish took a world 

 of pains with. He managed to make it spirt out of a 

 rock under the roots of an enormous beech tree, and 

 had dry ottomans of greenest moss made so naturally 

 all about it that no one would guess they didn't grow 

 there. You are not required to drink out of a rusty tin- 

 dipper, either, because some careless people will smash 

 things, for if one of the crystal glasses is broken, or let 



"latut .U'T^ i>Lra^jf^^£^^-^^^^ — • 



Fig. 4. The Road and Walk. 



us say stolen, nothing is said about it, but its place is 

 filled, if possible, with something still more convenient 

 and nice to drink from. 



Overhead in the rooflet of that gate I have seen four 

 or five umbrellas at a time, good enough to lend to any 

 one crossing the meadow in a sudden shower, and as 

 many pairs of over-shoes also. And these are scrupu- 

 lously returned by whoever borrows them, till, when 



