Down East Latch Strings/Chapter 12
_-_initial_B_-_page_92.jpg)
ut now let us resume our regular course.
From Waterville we had an all-day journey ahead of us, for we were bound to the Rangeley lakes. We had been at the head of the St. Croix an the Machias in the Schoodic lakes; camped on Chesuncook whence "bulges" the Penobscot, and at Moosehead,—reservoir of the Kennebec.
Now we were going to the sources of the Androscoggin river.
Thus far we had been blessed by beautiful weather, but this morning it was raining with long-restrained energy.
"This town's well-named," growled Baily, gazing ruefully at the streams of water coursing down the window-pane.
"No more appropriately than Bangor," quoth cheerful Prue, "which like that tune is all ups and downs."
"Or Bar Harbor," I add, "judging by the empty bottles one sees stacked up at the rear doors of its hotels."
"Or Bath," Prue chimes in, "which sits with its feet in the water; or—"
"Oh go on—go on! You'll be saying next, I suppose, that St. John is 'a voice crying in the wilderness.'"
Well, there is no telling what nonsense might have come next had not the breakfast bell turned our giddy thoughts to a more serious subject. And immediately after breakfast we went to the train.
All day we rode through blinding sheets of rain around the two long sides of a southward-pointing triangle having its apex at Leed's Junction, as the map will show you.
The first half of the journey lay through Oakland, Belgrade, Readfield, Maranacook and Monmouth. We saw misty stretches of ponds, gray and rain-hidden in the bedraggled woods, and crossed many a turbid brook, boiling down its brimfull channel; and we swept by farms and villages which seemed wholly deserted, for your Maine Yankee knows enough to go in when it rains.
All those streams and lakelets are filled with bass and perch and pickerel, and some friends of ours, who spend their summers in this part of the state, assert that in sunshine the scenery has great artistic value. They are esthetic souls, or they wouldn't load down prettiness with such a phrase. We are told that the territorial grant made here was called the "Pond Town Plantation," and that there are forty-four lakes of rare beauty within the limits now comprising Winthrop, Readfield and a portion of Wayne, with commanding sites for summer villas. "Lake Maranacook of itself, as it has been developed by the Maine Central, will surpass any spot in the country for facilities for boat-racing and other out-of-door sports."
At Leed's Junction (this town was the birth place of the soldier-philanthropist, Gen. O. O. Howard), we change to the train from Brunswick headed northward, while our train goes on to Lewiston and Portland by the way of Danville Junction, where it crosses the Grand Trunk leading to the White Mountains.
The region we now vaguely scanned through the obscurity of the rain, seemed to be a sparseley settled farming country with frequent villages devoted to milling by the water power of the rapid Androscoggin, which presently came in view on the left. Livermore Falls is the best remembered of these, and is the town which gave to the political world the Washburnes, statesmen and soldiers—three brothers,—all famous. Farrar's Guide to the Androscoggin Lakes, instructed us that here the distant mountains come into view; and we willingly took on trust its statement that "with the sparkling river in the foreground, and the bare-topped mountains Ii the distance, pretty pictures are formed with every curve of the road." By the middle of the afternoon Farmington was reached.
Farmington is the marketing centre for the Sandy River valley,—a region more populous a century ago than now. Its cultivated homes and maple-shaded streets made it one of the prettiest towns in the state, until two conflagrations, which occured a few weeks after our visit, almost obliterated it. One of the incidents of the first great fire, was the formation of a bucket brigade by some fifty girls from the State Normal School in a heroic endeavor to save the church.
"Case," says Baily, "where something more than Maine strength was necessary."
This school now occupies the old seminary building known as "The Willows," and in the suburb of Little Blue stands the Abbott Family School for boys, founded by Jacob Abbott, the author of the Rollo books. From Clear Water pond, five miles distant, and in view of Saddleback mountain, trout weighing fifteen pounds have been taken, according to Farrar.
Farmington is the end of the Maine Central, but a narrow-guage line, called the Sandy River Railroad, continues up the valley as far as Phillips, and se transfer ourselves to its little cars, which have room for double seats only on one side. Prue expresses her delight at this arrangement, and seizes upon one of the single seats, "where she needn't be bothered by any man beside her." We revenge ourselves by going away to the smoker, and a game of whist. The little train jogs out into the rain again and pursues its way over a number of high trestles, spanning gorges whose torrents are galloping noisily down to the swollen river, until it gradually gets nearer the level of the meadows. Grades are climbed again on approaching Strong Village, and, in bright weather, we should have enjoyed some very pretty views across the hills and up and down the fertile valley.
At Strong is the junction with the Franklin and Megantic Railroad, extending fifteen miles northward to Kingfield, on Dead river, whence stages run thirty miles farther, to Eustis, near the continence of the North and South branches. This is the route by which all sportsmen from Boston, or the West generally, would reach the Dead River streams, ponds and mountains.
Beyond Strong, the Sandy River Railroad works its way around some bluffs, leaps several deep brook-gullies, crosses the river, and enters Phillips, its present terminus.
The day closed with no diminution of storm, and light slowly struggled back to a drenched work the next morning, through a steady downfall of rain. Evidently there was no use of going on to the lakes that day. Prue kept her room all the morning, writing letters, etc. Baily cocked up his heels and devoured a novel, or played billiards. I devoted myself to bringing up my notebook to date and asking questions in regard to the neighborhood, and what lay ahead of us. The trout-fishing is so good in the neighborhood of Phillips, that when the storm slackened a little in the afternoon, Baily unpacked his rubber boots and started out a-fishing, persuading me to go with him, in hope of getting some glimpses of Blue, Saddleback, and the other mountains whose elegant outlines usually make a lovely background to the local landscapes. But the streams were too turbid for angling and the air too thick for sight-seeing; so we returned after a short tramp and resigned ourselves to staying indoors.
This was an easier task here than we had anticipated; for in the hotel we enjoyed, on a small scale, as elegant, comfortable, and city-like accommodations as could be desired.
In the evening we extemporized in the hotel parlor what at home would be called a musicale. The air had just chill enough to make a wood-fire grateful, and under the crackle of logs in the fireplace, and their warmth, all the stiffness of strangership quickly dissolved. Prue kindly forbore to exhibit her scientific accomplishments in piano practice, but played a lively little quickstep or something of that kind, that everybody could appreciate. A clever mimic from out west told a capital dialect story of Plains life, standing on his feet and acting the scene out somewhat, yet with a freedom far better than a studied recitation would have permitted; and Baily quite distinguished himself singing a little song to an air out of Patience, of which these are specimen stanzas:— It was a bright-witted and noble-looking young lady from Washington who played the accompaniment for my friend; she had been spending a part of the vacation with friends in a cottage on Oquossoc lake, as was her annual custom, and now was returning refreshed to her duties in the State Department. I don't wonder the boy forgot all his previous plans and assured her he thought no place equal to the Rangeleys, and meant, next summer, to come here for a long time.
"I shouldn't wonder, Theo," remarked Prue that night, as she blew out the candle and pulled down the window-top, "if he was really smitten."
This was apropos of nothing; but I knew whom she meant, and smiled to myself. These women! How little straw they require for a matrimonial brick!
Thus we had utilized our rainy day, defying the gloom; and such an experience is likely to be one of the most unexpected, yet best remembered, incidents of a summer jaunt through New England. Next morning came our sunny reward:—
In Concord coaches we were packed soon after breakfast,—or others were, for we three were lucky and energetic enough to get outside places,—and went rattling up the hard road, toward Rangeley City, "twenty miles away." The Sandy river is a pretty stream, full of attractions for artist and angler as well as mill owner. Madrid, six miles out, is a favorite point for sportsmen, and just above it are some pretty falls. Above the falls the narrow stream tumbles noisily through a great ravine, the brink of which is skirted by the road in crossing breezy Beach hill, whence some admirable views of Blue mountain, and the ranges of Abraham and Saddleback are gained in the north, while southward and westward far-reaching landscapes of great beauty open as the road descents toward the farming district of Greenvale. This town lies at the eastern extremity of the Rangeley lakes, and has a small summer hotel and steamboat landing. Five miles north is Rangeley City—a village of much importance as a supplying point for lumber camps in winter, and a tourist-resort in summer. It possesses a commodious hotel, with a wonderful outlook down the lake toward the sunset, and we reached it in the mood to do ample justice to its table fare. As the terminus of a telephone wire from Phillips, this village represents the forefront of civilization.
A steam yacht, commanded by a lad in a naval cap, awaited us at the wharf, and, after dinner all went aboard in great glee to begin our voyages upon the Rangeley lakes.