After passing Concord we advanced through wilder regions where the swiftly changing views of clustering villages and quiet farm-houses alternated with wooded slopes and glimpses of pond or river forming a series of charming pictures.  Nature was at her best and the picturesque hills of New Hampshire were beautiful in all their June finery.

At Penacook the granite monument on Dustin Island was pointed out.  In 1697 Hannah Dustin, with her six weeks’ old babe and its nurse, were captured by Indians at Haverhill and brought to the wigwam camp on this island.  The babe was killed before her eyes but the mother planned an escape.  Awaking the nurse and a white lad who had been taken prisoner also, she took the Indians’ own tomahawks and dispatched the men and one woman.  The brave white women then spiked all the cannon save one and taking the scalps of their victims with them, they embarked on the Merrimack, then high with the spring floods, and soon reached Haverhill.  Afterwards she was called to Boston, publicly thanked by the General Court and received a grant of fifty pounds.  Fifty years later the Indians attacked and massacred the settlers in this valley.  Today their descendants, the “Kanucks,” cross the country daily in the modern express trains and find employment in our manufacturing cities.

As we go northward Kearsarge may be seen from the back of the train, now sinking behind the green hills, now rising abruptly from the horizon and looming grandly above the surrounding country.  Cardigan does not come into view until we have nearly reached Canaan, whose fair and happy land was our destination.  On alighting from the train, amid the crowd of assembled villagers, a three seated carriage and two immense Shaker wagons awaited us.  The ride of six miles was a welcome change from the preceding railway travel.  Coming from a city where the mercury had reached 96 deg. in the shade but the day before, the fresh invigorating mountain air was like a breath from the open doors of Paradise.  The stout horses scrambled up the steep hills altogether unmindful of the wagon-loads of people behind.  Perhaps the light hearts and buoyant spirits of the party lessened their avoirdupois and the tonnage was actually less than it seemed!

Billowy mountains, charming valleys, winding streams and picturesque bypaths varied our course over the rural highways.  The blackberry bushes were white with bloom and the gardens of the farm-houses gay with peonies and flower-de-luce.  After passing a small mica quarry, we came suddenly upon a bend of the road where was revealed a grand sweep of the hazy Green Mountains, and a bewildering view of the New Hampshire hill-country.  Shortly afterward we passed the little box-like white building, which serves as both church and town house, where the sixty votes of Dorchester are counted.  This building constitutes the entire town of Dorchester.  Surely, in view of the stony soil, the inhabitants of the place may be said to show great wisdom by not living there!