early favorite was of scarlet cashmere, cut in “Gabrielle” style, with scalloped neck, sleeves and hem, buttonholed with black silk, and on the front an embroidered bunch of barley, acorns and roses. With this dress went a little white fur overcoat, cap and muff, all trimmed with a narrow edge of black fur. So much for clothes. They were ordinarily buried under aprons.
Maine was a wonderful place! The leaves on the trees were red and yellow, brown and purple, instead of green, and when the wind blew they fell off. It left the trees very queer, but the dry leaves on the ground made a fine swishing noise when one scuffed in them, and when a little breeze picked them up and sent them scurrying after one they looked like the rats following the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Mamma gathered some of the prettiest, pressed them and waxed them with a hot iron and a paraffine candle. We took them back to San Justo with us and pinned them on the lace curtains, to remind us of Skowhegan.
Whenever we went to town on an errand or to church, we crossed the bridge, under which the great river rushed to pour over the falls below, a never failing wonder. On the far side of the island the water turned the wheels for cousin Levi Weston’s sawmill, an interesting, if dangerous, place to visit.
We had not been long in Maine before the air filled with goose feathers, only it wasn’t feathers, but wet snow. Then came sleds and sleighs, a snow man and Christmas, with a piggy-back ride on grandfather to see the tree at the church.
