National Republican., 1883-09-12

is paid to the almanac, and the various times
and seasons therein set forth, we have heard
1t stated several times lately that we are in
the dog days" but when tho air is cold and
bracing; when after dark men in their over
coats and girls in gay shawls and clouds
crowd shivering round. the cracking wood
fire; when you hear your hostess romark to
the "help'--none of the assistants here are
scrvants--thatthe blanc mango might freeze
on the back piazza, it seems impossible to
believe that We are really
Meath the baleful star of Sirius,
When the OK becomes delirous
And the muzzle checks the dog.
am we'll aware Of tho subdued hut
plainly perceptible tendency of the summer
correspondent TO crow over the stay-at-
homes. know how provoking he is, per-
petually wearing overconts, and sleeping un-
der blankets, and making sighting illusions
TO "the hot, dusty city," and don't mean to
insnunte for moment that the temperature
in Washington is not rs low as could be de.
sired. but only TO suggest that this October
like weather is particularly favorable to our
mountaineering enterprises, which consist
largely in emulatng the king Of France
with forty thousand men, who, as you all
know, marched up hill and then marched
down again. 1t is, will admit, q little ag-
gravating, after toiling with tremendous
expenditure of wind, up what you consider a
formidable mountain, to hear the natives
speak of 1t lightly as somebodys hill, or worse
still, somebody else's knob, as if it were no
bigger than door-knob, but you get accus-
toned to these huniliations in time, and re-
member that measured by Mount Washing
ton, which is the standard, all things seem
small.
You all remember the boy who was told
that he couldn't go to the circus, but if he
Hynr nn1 1,n nifr1,i tolrA f, h,a
grandmother's grave. So, on tho mornings
here when nothing more attractive presents
itself, we go over to the graveyard. You row
across the river, sparkling and dimpling in
the sun, and scrambling up steep bank and
through the edge of az cornfeld-of course
any wly is preferable to going round by the
road in proper and civilized manner--you
find yourself on peaceful, sunny slope,
where the graves ramble up hill and down
dale, and have every advantage of air and
scenery. The lots are not laid out with any
regard to strict unity of design; many,
in fact most, of the headstones are crooked,
and one thrifty farmer has gone SO far
MS to raise on his ground luxuriant
crop Of oats, which waves gracefully in
tho breeze. The picturesqueness of the
quiet scene was much enhanced by the pres
ence of the hermit. Every we'll organized
mountain resort has its hermit--a tottering
old man, with long gray hair and beard who
looked the image of old Father Time, us he
leaned on his scythe to tell US he had come
down from the mountain TO NOW his lot. 1t
seemed as if one out of five of the graves had
on it little flag, floating gayly in the soft
summon wind, and suggesting the soldier
dying on fur away battle fields, and now
sleeping quietly here. Although you spoiled
my Norfolk epitaph by not making the last
word q line all by itself, as the original had
it. / must send you ono from here; SO terse,
yet so comprehensive, as to be worthy of
preservation. Tho stone is humble one,
and bears these simple lines:
Jonathan Shaw,
Gone before.
Another charming excursion is to spend the
day on Lake Winnepesaukee. 1t is a free
country, and you can spell it any way you
choose. dare say you have heard that it
means the smile of the Great Sprit--at any
rate, up here you hear that statement made
till the romance is worn threadbare and you
are SO tired of IL that you wish tho Great
Spirit never had smiled. OF course the pretty
little steamer which carries you is called the
Lady of the Lake, and equally, of course, they
claim 1865 islands, but anyone like myself, OF
an accurate and statistical turn of mind will
be gratiffed to know that in reality only 274
islets, as the guido book says, gem
It's surface" But with its little waves
plash,ng in liquid silver ON the islands deep
green shores, with the light blue of the sky
melting into the deep blue of the distant
ones which frame this crystal mirror it is in
deed a lovely picture, and you are only con
WINGED that you are not in Italy by the dough-
nuts and pie in the dining saloon The out
lines of shore and islands are all broken and
irregular, and there is not q monotonous mile
in its whole extent, except for the monotony
of beauty.
But the crowning excursion of your series
the one to which you look first forward and
then back during your whole stay in the
mountains, is up Mount Washington, the
king of the hills, who rears his great
bald crest far over the others. One
thing that makes this trip attractive
10 its pleasing uncertainty. OF course you
want to 80 up on u clear day when you
can sec the conventional number of states aud
lakes and other geographical divisions, but
as you come near the mountain, rising clear
and clean cut against the sky on q day when
everything seems like new heaven and q
new earth after the showers of the night be-
fore, you are rather more likely than not
to seebeautiful silver mist floating UP over
the mountain and etfeotually yelling his ven
cradle head. But if you allow yourself to
be discouraged by such triaes you will never
get to the top; SO you push on, hoping the
mist will vanish before you get up there. You
arc apt, II you arc wise, TO dino at L Fabyan's
where you get rather more dinner for rather
less money than mt the Summit house, and
where you usually have the pleasure of Sec
ing the bWolNo tflDeS Oi Israel assembled, DlnH-
ing to a woman with gorgeous diamonds
which quite put us TO the blush, US we hadn't
even Rhine stone among us.
But, when yon get to the foot of the noun
tain, and are actually started in that seem.
ingly suicidal train, all smaller interests are
lost in the absorbing question, 'tFiow will W,
ever get up alive? And IL we do, how will
we ever get down again." They say YOU 90
up six thousand feet but If they had said
sixty thousand, j for Que, would not gainsa,
it, 1T goes against all your prcconceived idea,
of a railroad train to see the engine perchet
high above you, with an apparently unavoid
able tendepcy to fall over backwards, aud I,
hear it grinding slowly along with the loud
raspinR noise caused by komo ahstrusc comb
nation of cogs and wheels which my weak
feminine intoleGt-never mechanically in
clined, and still further enleeblod by my per
ilous environmeut-wa not nnle to grasp
OF courae the women all feel tha
there is but wheel between then
and death, though it is elaboratelS
explained to you by ali the men that thu
mountain itself 10 considerably less suhstan
tial thau the train. But in spite of all th'
reasoning the women persist IN being terri
fed, and firmly grasp The back OF the seat il
front Of them, rs they feel themselves slip
ping further and further back. A few bolt
spirits stand undauntod on the back platform
of course tho man with tho field glass !!
there he alwaya Island look back TO 500 one
peak after another seem 20 slide down beneath