St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1892-03-24
"HuIdY sat all alone.

Out into the November sunshine
and the nineteenth century again,
short walk brought US to group
of famous dwellings,
house, almost painfully white, stand
ing a little back from the two roads
which it fronts, and near it is the
mansion were the Alcotts lived
while little beyond is Hawthorne
'Wayside," where margaret Sid
ney'' lives now. And here also
stands cozy, homely. red house,
which Miss Alcott called apple
Dump" where lived the originals of
Meg. 10. Beth and Amy, the Little
Women
Nothing in Concord forbids one
from wandering at will; the very
streets and houses have the habit, so
we climbed the ridge behind the
Alcott house, and struck across
toward the white stones which
CLEANED among the trees of Sleepy
Hollow cemetery. We did not find
Hawthorne's grave readily for the
enclosure is large, and the ground
broken, but we came to it at last,
where a cedar hedge encloses fiat
stone with only a name and dates.
1t is upon the summit of a ridge
where the trees are thickest, and
some of the most famous of American
authors are buried, their graves
marked very unobtrusively,- - the
Alcotts rest near the grave of Emer-
son, the latter marked only by a
mass of rough porphyry from Mount
Monadncck. About midway in a
list of names on a large stone, is that
of Henry D. Thoreau, and not far
from there is the fine monument to
Samuel HOar. This part of the
cemetery is quite distance from the
village, and we were able to do
justice to the good dinner spread for
us in the Wright's Tavern when we
got back, and after it we set out in
search of the Old Manse, without
knowing that we had passed it in
the train in the morning, as it stands
on the outskirts of the place.
We thought to come upon it
by surprise, but after wandering
through the streets for some time we
saw nothing of it, and came to a
stand-still The long wide street
seemed deserted; there was no one
in sight save little girl coming to
us on a tricycle., and to her, as the
sole representative of Concord people
my companion addressed herself, as
to the locality of this most famous
of Concord dwellings.
This small person not only knew
the place, but she volunteered to go
with us and show us the way, and
so wheeling around she chartered
along, and was presently Joined by
another little girl, also on tricycle.,
and these two by third, we two
elder people bringing up the rear of
the laughing procession. In Moses
from an Old Manse," Hawthorne de-
scribes the place, and it does not
seem to have altered much since his
time. The buildings stand quite a
distance from the road, as it now
runs.
The orchard and garden slope be-
hind the house toward the river, but
many of the apple trees have been re-
moved since he wrote about them.
The battle ground is behind the
orchard, on the old road now dis
used, except to cross the present
representative of the rude bridge
that arched the food" to the statu of
the minute man, on the other side The
river seems to me about sixty feet
wide, and has no current, seemingly.
It's retired spot, on the bank of this
quiet stream, "where its hitherto
obscure waters CLEAN forth with the
light of history" The graves of the
two British soldiers, of whom both
Lowell and Hawthorne have written,
are still to be seen, close to the orchard
wall. Our walk to the station of the
Fitchburg railroad on the south
side Of the village gave US opportun-
ity to call at the beautiful library,
where are portraits of Concord's
famous people, and other things
worth seeing.
Coming home on the train we pass
ed Walden Pond, where Thoreau lived
so long, and made it famous, the
CLEAN of its wood-girt waters seem
| ing a fit close to a memorable day.