NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
Apple Blossom Time 
By SALLY STORROW 
OW is the time for all motoring people, really loving 
nature, to see her in the freshest glory of spring 
bloom. Many say they “just adore Nature,’ who have 
not even a bowing acquaintance with her. ‘Their idea of 
nature-worship usually consists, if they are middle-aged, 
in joining the Rocking Chair Brigade, on a hotel piazza, 
or if they are young, of short ‘walks through nearby 
gardens or woods to escape for the period, perhaps, too 
irksome chaperonage. 
Still others reluctantly leave town, its opera, gayety 
and shops, for the necessary summer vacation. These 
stay with crowds, and travel dusty roads in hordes, in 
swarming motors. 
A drive that takes one away into inland solitudes 
where unspoiled New England smiles with all her coun- 
try witchery would not appeal to them. 
The Boston-Portsmouth road, from Hamilton to 
Newburyport offers a pleasing journey to artist or poet, 
or to layman with appreciation of either spirit. At this 
season when apple trees are in their best bloom it should 
not be missed. Hamilton’s wide smooth roads, and trim 
fields, its careful orchards, its elms drooping here and 
there, the roadway set about at intervals with natural 
hedge reminds one of the fair English April land. 
Through Ipswich’s ancient streets, and comely Meet- 
ing house green, down the long hill where tiny Egypt 
river runs free at its base over stones and shallows, to 
merge itself in the wide salt marsh waters, one comes up 
a slope again to meet the charming vista of a tiny hamlet 
strung along the road, to the foot of high Jewett Hill. 
This is Ipswich Village, and here we always leave our 
car at ‘Y® Ancient Rose Tree,” to climb on foot the ris- 
ing slope of the hill pasture for the wonderful view at 
the top. If the sky is blue, and “‘clear as a bell,’ one sees 
the misty Isles of Shoals phantom-like in refraction, and 
dim Monadnock far over distant reaches to the north. 
The eye travels over Rowley, Newbury Old Town, Broad 
Water and Plum Island. Ox Pasture hill, where Mrs. 
L. Carteret Fenno’s stately brick dwelling crowns the 
summit, is opposite. On the southern side lies the fair 
panorama of distant Cape Ann, with its suggestions of 
towns and shipping,—and between is Ipswich with 
marshes, meadows, tree tops and town-roofs and a glint 
of the “Blue Dragon,” or Ipswich river, shining at in- 
tervals. 
The hill itself offers so many charming bits for 
sketching one longs to remain, to explore its many de- 
lights. : ‘ 
At the bottom of a little ravine that the ancient 
glacier thrust sculptured cunningly to make an effect as 
if planned by skilful landscape gardener, long sprays 
of tamarack and wild rose bend over the water. Laven- 
der colored stems of blackberry make tracery over a 
gray stone wall. Erect alder stems and bright orange 
buds of blueberry bushes rise from amidst delicate grasses 
like a Japanese print. Lovely tints of rose and lavender 
and gray show against dark pines and savins on the upper 
hill, and at the end of the ravine is a flashing glimpse of 
palest orange-yellow against a deep turquoise blue band. 
This is the sand-dunes against the Broad Water. 
But if we are to see the apple trees we must hasten 
on, so down the hill and back to the car—We stop to ad- 
mire the “Rose Tree” doorway with Colonial settles at 
each side, and vines on lattices over the house front. A 
tablet at the doorway tells us that ‘‘y® ancient house was 
built by Capt. Aaron Jewett, commanding the Ipswich 
men who started for Lexington from near this spot.” 
Cameras are always produced for the doorway, and it has 
been most charmingly photographed by Mary Northend 
especially, for use in magazine illustration. Also the 
memory of scones, jam and clotted cream causes us to 
make mental note to visit ‘““Y® Rose Tree” often. We 
skim over smooth roads, through Rowley by shining 
marsh vistas and the spring green of wood and meadow, 
and into that blessed abode of bloom-topped gnarly apple- 
trees of Old Town. Drive slowly here, and when you 
have seen the crowning charm of May in pinky bloom 
of apple and peach and plum, with misty fragrant white 
of pear and cherry thickly set through all the little farm- 
holds and dotting the fertile meadows, return the same 
way, for of beauty like this one can never tire. 
May 14, 1915 — 
2 
