St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1904-07-27
The Pleasures of Tramping.
Am Interesting story of Vacation I

| NSV. james ~. AiNoEu, pastor Vi tuS
Congregational church at Woonsocket,
R. l., writes very entertainingly in the
last Congregationalist ofvacation tramp
| trips and the letter has a local interest
as Mrs. Alvord, who always accom-
| panies him in the trips, is the oldest
daughter of Prof. Henry Fairbanks of
this place. Mr.. ard Mrs. Alvord a-e
now enjoying tramping tour through
| France.
The Congregationalistt threatened some
| time ago an article on pedestrianism. A
goodly word that, learned, Latinized,
classical, clerical word. Ny summer
| knows nothing OF the ilk. My vacation
period finds me just tramp. Pedestri
anism is lofty, naughty sport; implies
| sending valises ahead by express, packed
heavily with ministerial rainent, carry
ing boiled shirt to blaze in the glory of
a dinner party" and filed flush with
all the proper things to don at summer
watering places. Such is recommended
by the epicurean who tells his tale in
recent Atlantic. A wonderful creature
who seems to have pranced sixty miles
inside OF one wee twelve hours, Juggling
(beside the aforesaid garment) a guam
tity of condensed milk, chocolate, bacon,
flour and beans, blanket, an axe, file,
frying pan and series OF cooking
pots that fit the one into the other" and
mounting poetry all the way.
No, that is pedestl ianism. The tramp
cuts himself loose from all the ties OF civ
ilization. After he has once strapped
knapsack on shoulder, he refuses all
communication with trunk or bureau
drawer. He carries one change of linen,
a swe alter, a pair of light slippers,
paper novel tor rainy days, a guidebook,
maps of the road and Madame's heavier
articles. While MAZDA m.-well, it is her
duty to bear her share of the burden.
Last summer hers weighed three, mine
thirteen pounds. Thirteen is about the
limit for comfort. Then we start out;
the world is all before us, and the more
solitary our way, the jollier. There's
road in northern New Hampshire which
twists along tor IA miles through house
less woods beside the serpentine wind.
ings of the Androscoggin; road full of
deer tracks, whirring partridges, leaping
ra bbits, the ceaseless song of the dancing
river, of wide vistas where the scarlet
naples stoop to mirror themselves in the
water, lettering in admiration at their
feet; a road-but why digress? We say
to ourselves. as new Adam and Eve,
1--WE don't know where the nights lodg-
ing is, but we know there'll be one.''
Meantime, our nerves are weary,
stretched all winter long by the cry of
pain and sin and grief from other souls,
while here are only the woods and hills
and the river. A letter will take week
to find us; telegram cannot do it at all;
the parish can't guess within hundred
miles of where we are. Well walk until
we are hungry, then we'll cato ban
ished dyspepsia. how we will eat!
Well walk until we are weary, then we'll
eep-O vanished insomnia, how we'll
sleep!
Supper time may find us at a big hotel; if
so. the guests therein will stare unmerci-
fully at our abbreviated skirt. and trou-
sers, weather-stained coats and violently
sunburned faces. What of it? When
Adam has replaced his celluloid collar
with linen one, put on black necklie
(last remnant OF clericalism) and rubbed
up his an shoes; when Eve has changed
her shirt waist and her stock, there
comes huge sense of having done it all.
It is really ones very best; dress suit
and white silk couldn't give a more de-
lightful cling OF elegance; The Profile,
The Mt. Pleasant or The Balsams can
ask no more. If it find US at a small
hotel, the guests who ''spend their time
in nothing else but either to hear or to
tell some new thing" will crowd about
with eager questions and comments and
hatter the mistress of the manse up to
the danger point on her walking DOW
ers. AS to this interest. one of her trends
remarked cynically, ct isn't every day
that hrst-class circus visits a country
town." 1t at farmhouse, ali, then let
her attend to the negotiations! See that
she looks properly wan and dusty, that
she signs occasionally, that she simply
can't go a step farther and you are in
for luxury. Such bouncing feather beds,
such melting Johnnycakes, such cream
that masquerades as milk, such long,
long talks with the farmer-folk, until
what the tramp doesn't know about
dairy products and Vermont prohibition
would fill very short column in the
Congreg ationa.1st.
OF course sometimes the farmer folk do
look on one sort of suspicious like"
There's house in northern Vermont
ever memorable for the fact that the
good wife tucked US into a tiny bedroom
in the back of the house where the hired
| men could keep an eye on us through
| their hafi-open door, and forbade us to
use the bath ub-w hose presence had
| just gladdened our Observation-Disclosures it
! was new and clean" But on the other
| hand, there are farms and farms with
mt mories redolent OF milk and dough-
nuts bestowed with lavish hand that
insisted on no payment. There is that
dear old lady of Hazeus Notch who
declared, after we finally had induced her
to take a little pay for a bounteous meal,
When | sot her alookin at them two
| quarters and a-thinkin' as low l took
| EN- both for that thar dinner / guy yer,
I feel plum wicke ~
Talk alb ut the recollections which
barnacle boat! Why there's an old
| gray knapsack, dangling from nail in
my attic, that can tell tales Oh sonnet hin g
better than just one experience of ocean
foam and bree re repeated alter another
1t has journeyed with me along green
English lanes; across wild. wind-swept
rain beaten Yorkshire downs where
leagues Of brown grass and purple
heather roll up to the stormy sky; over
the broken waves OF the Wiltshire moor
! lands where the hot noontide blazing on
! the chalk track fairly scoiches the eyes
| with the scarlet of those miles OF peoples
III