Baddeck and That Sort of Thing | Page 8

in a retired place on the guard of the boat,
in an unexcited tone, was evidence of the man's simplicity and sincerity.
The very act of traveling, I have noticed, seems to open a man's heart,
so that he will impart to a chance acquaintance his losses, his diseases,
his table preferences, his disappointments in love or in politics, and his
most secret hopes. One sees everywhere this beautiful human trait, this
craving for sympathy. There was the old lady, in the antique bonnet and
plain cotton gloves, who got aboard the express train at a way-station
on the Connecticut River Road. She wanted to go, let us say, to Peak's
Four Corners. It seemed that the train did not usually stop there, but it
appeared afterwards that the obliging conductor had told her to get
aboard and he would let her off at Peak's. When she stepped into the
car, in a flustered condition, carrying her large bandbox, she began to
ask all the passengers, in turn, if this was the right train, and if it
stopped at Peak's. The information she received was various, but the
weight of it was discouraging, and some of the passengers urged her to
get off without delay, before the train should start. The poor woman got
off, and pretty soon came back again, sent by the conductor; but her
mind was not settled, for she repeated her questions to every person
who passed her seat, and their answers still more discomposed her. "Sit
perfectly still," said the conductor, when he came by. "You must get
out and wait for a way train," said the passengers, who knew. In this
confusion, the train moved off, just as the old lady had about made up

her mind to quit the car, when her distraction was completed by the
discovery that her hair trunk was not on board. She saw it standing on
the open platform, as we passed, and after one look of terror, and a dash
at the window, she subsided into her seat, grasping her bandbox, with a
vacant look of utter despair. Fate now seemed to have done its worst,
and she was resigned to it. I am sure it was no mere curiosity, but a
desire to be of service, that led me to approach her and say, "Madam,
where are you going?"
"The Lord only knows," was the utterly candid response; but then,
forgetting everything in her last misfortune and impelled to a burst of
confidence, she began to tell me her troubles. She informed me that her
youngest daughter was about to be married, and that all her
wedding-clothes and all her summer clothes were in that trunk; and as
she said this she gave a glance out of the window as if she hoped it
might be following her. What would become of them all now, all brand
new, she did n't know, nor what would become of her or her daughter.
And then she told me, article by article and piece by piece, all that that
trunk contained, the very names of which had an unfamiliar sound in a
railway-car, and how many sets and pairs there were of each. It seemed
to be a relief to the old lady to make public this catalogue which filled
all her mind; and there was a pathos in the revelation that I cannot
convey in words. And though I am compelled, by way of illustration, to
give this incident, no bribery or torture shall ever extract from me a
statement of the contents of that hair trunk.
We were now passing Nahant, and we should have seen Longfellow's
cottage and the waves beating on the rocks before it, if we had been
near enough. As it was, we could only faintly distinguish the headland
and note the white beach of Lynn. The fact is, that in travel one is
almost as much dependent upon imagination and memory as he is at
home. Somehow, we seldom get near enough to anything. The interest
of all this coast which we had come to inspect was mainly literary and
historical. And no country is of much interest until legends and poetry
have draped it in hues that mere nature cannot produce. We looked at
Nahant for Longfellow's sake; we strained our eyes to make out
Marblehead on account of Whittier's ballad; we scrutinized the entrance
to Salem Harbor because a genius once sat in its decaying
custom-house and made of it a throne of the imagination. Upon this

low shore line, which lies blinking in the midday sun, the waves of
history have beaten for two centuries and a half, and romance has had
time to grow there. Out of any of these coves might have sailed Sir
Patrick Spens "to Noroway, to