engine drove from the hills and valleys the crack of the stage-driver's whip. To most of the quiet towns along this line, the arrival and departure of the stage was the most interesting event of the day. To be at the post-office or tavern at that hour, was to know who had come to town, who was leaving, who had a letter, and, if you chose, where the letter came from,—matters of no small moment in those days of slow news-gathering, before shipwrecks and railroad accidents, murders, suicides, bank robberies and star-route trials had become every-day occurrences among us.
Well do I remember the childish enthusiasm with which we children were wont to proclaim to every body, within the reach of our voices, the tidings " The stage is coming!" at the first sound of the rattling wheels in the distance.
That was a day to date from, when, after a severe snow-storm, the stage tipped over just below our house, and some half dozen or more men and women came in to warm themselves, while the stage and horses were set right, and made ready to proceed to the tavern, a distance of a mile and a quarter. Nobody was hurt. We chil- dren received many pleasant words and some pennies from the good- natured passengers, and. altogether, it was the one interesting and thrilling event of that season at least.
At another time, when the snow lay so deep that the plows, in breaking out the roads, had cast up a ridge on each side some four or five feet high, so that turning out, by heavy teams, was quite out of the question, except in certain favorable spots where the snow lay thinner, or some previous track had been made, the stage sud- denly stopped in the level road across the plain just above our house, then moved a few paces on and stopped again, proceeding in this way till quite beyond our sight, a distance of more than half a mile. This was such a fine piece of road that the horses generally struck into a brisk trot on
��reaching it, and, therefore, their very slow and hesitating movements on that day, gave rise to many speculations and conjectures, among inquiring minds, until it was found that this trav- eling institution, of man's cunning de- vice and invention, had been intercept- ed and impeded in its progress by a traveler of much more ancient origin. This was a small, fur-clad individual belonging to the genus Mephitis Amer- icana. Complexion black, with two white stripes extending the length of his body ; head terminating in a some- what sharply-pointed nose, neither Ro- man nor Grecian in profile, and carry- ing above his back a graceful, bushy, black-and-white plume, as a signal of his strength. He took the middle of the road, marching in front of the United States mail with an air of con- scious security, receiving every intima- tion of impatience from those in his rear with the coolest indifference. There was a stage-load of men — "lords of creation" — mighty to will and to do, and six horses beside ; but this lit- tle creature, smaller than the fur-gloved hand of the driver, was mightier than they all ! His Afefihitisship having, by virtue of possession, first right of way, thus deliberately maintained it at his own creeping pace, against the shiv- ering and impatient travelers, until they reached a farmer's door-yard, where they found a chance to turn out and leave him at a properly safe and re- spectful distance.
Many years later I chanced to be a stage passenger on the day following a long snow-storm. The snow lay two feet deep on a level. The day dawned bright and keenly cold, with a wild north-west wind which filled the air with the newly-fallen flakes, piling them into miniature mountains across the road in some places, and leaving it bare for rods in others. The stage was well filled with passengers, and drawn by six stout horses. As the round-faced driver drew the lines over the backs of his ready roadsters, we had only a parting glimpse of the swiftly receding objects about us, for
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