The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1890-10-07
Dates His Letter from The Hornets
Ne~st,"--In the Grand Cat
skill Mountains.

qualntance VINO had named his place Inc
Films. Invent partly because his invitation
was evidently so hollow and insincere
that to punish him severely l went.
He had The Films worked on his clothes,
and embossed on his stationary, and
blown in his glass, and it panied him to
eat his victuals from linen that didn't have
The Films emb,azoned on it. He told me
to come and surprise him any time, and
shoot in his preserves and stay till bust
ness compelled me to ONE to town again.
He had no doubt heard that / never sur
prised anyone, and neve went away from
home very much, and so thought it would
be SAFE. Therefore 7 went. | just went
to teach him a valuable lessen. When l
90 to visit a man for a week be is certainly
going away a better man, or else punish
ment is of no avail, and the Christening
rod entirely useless in his case.
The Films was a miSnOmer. 1t should
have been called The Shagbark or The
Doodle Bugs Lair. 1t was supposed to
mean a wide sweep of meadow, q vine
covered lodge, a broad velvet lawn and a
carriage way, where the drowsy locust, in
the shadow of magnanimO us
elms, gnawed a file at intervals through
the day, while back of ali this the messy
and gray whiskered front and corrHgat, d
brow Of the venerable architectural pile
stood of and admired itself in the deep
and CLASSY pool at its base.
In the first place none of the yeomanry
for eight miles knew that he called his
old, malarial tank The Elms, so it was
hard to find But when I described the
looks of the lord of The Films they wank
at each other and wag ged their heads and
said, cob hell, yes, we know him" or
words that were still ever less ~euphonious
than that.
When I got there he was down cellar
Sprouting potatoes, and his wife was
hanging cut upon the clothes line = pair
of gathered summer trousers that were
evidently made for a man who had been
badly mangled in a saw mill.
The Films was not even picturesque,
and The preserves were out Of order. l
was received with the same cordially
which you detect on the face of any other
kind Of a detected liar. He wanted to be
regarded as a remarkable host and landed
proprietor without being really hospitable.
l remained there at the Films for two days,
rubbing rock salt and Cayenne pepper into
the wounds of my host, and suggesting
different names for his home, such as The
Tom Tits Eyre, The Weeping Willow,
The Crook Neck Squash aid The Musk
rats Retreat. Then | came away. His
old look Of apprehensive cCrdiality did
not leave him until he had seen me climb
on a load of hay with my trunk and start
for home.
So when 1 put a May-Agnes- Fleming
name on any place I may be at, when l
write a piece for the paper, it is mostly
done to be mischievous.
The Catskills are full of people this
summer, and 1 presume there is a larger
population of "boarders, y as we are called
indiscriminately, than ever before; for the
number of available points to which the
victims of humidity and poor plumbing
may retreat in summer time is constantly
on the increase, while, so far as I know,
all the private and public boarding places
are filed to their utmost capacity. This
means a good deal when one considers the
great area of country called the Catskills.
Everywhere the gaudy boarder in fannels
and ecru shoes looms upon the green lawn
or the brown dirt road, or scales the
mountain to-day and stays in bed the fol-
lowing week, rubbing James B. Ponds
Extract OF his swollen joints.
I scaled Mount Utsaysntha a short time
ago in company with others. We picked
out a nice, hot day, and selecting the most
erect wall Of the mountain, facing west,
we scaled it in such a way that it willn not
have to be done till new scales grow out
on it.
Mount Utsayantha is 1866 feet above
sea level, AID has a brow which reminds
me of mine. 1t is broad, massive and
bleak. The foot Of the mountain is more
massive, however. From the top of the
mountain n gets a view of six or seven
States with a good glass, 1 was told. Pos
sibly there were that many in sight,
though at this season of the year States
look so much alike that it takes an expert
to pick them out readily. When States
are moulting it is all I can do to tell Yer
mont from Massachusetts,. One gets a
nice view from this mountain and highly
~exhilarating birch beer.
Albany can be distinctly seer with a
glass-a field glass, l mean, not a glass of
birch beer. Some claim that the hub Of
Governor HIPS boom may be seen pro-
truding from the State house with the
nude vision. Others say they can see the
NIOCh L1OuLILo4ASI o4O a 1dI SOuG1 dS Tic
eye can reach. We took two. hours and
a half for the ascent of the mountain, and
came down in about twenty minutes. We
descended ungracefully-the way the
Irishman claimed the toad walked, viz,
=" git up and sit down"
Mount Utsayanth-I use the accepted
orthograph as found in the Blackhswk
dictionary-has a legend also. Many
centuries ago this beautiful valley was in
tested by the red brother and his bronze
progeny. Where now the red and blue
blazer goes shimmering through the
swaying naples, and the girl with her
other dress on and her straw colored can
vas chinch knocketh the croquet ball
gayly west, ono there dwelt an old chief
whom we will call Polka Dot, the pride
of his people. He looked somewhat like
William Maxwell Evarts, but was a heavier
set a Places where old Polka Dot sat
n