American inventions and inventors . brush and thicket for theremainder. No stream was bridged, no hill graded, and nomarsh drained. The path led through woods which bore themarks of centuries, and along the banks of streams that theseine had never dragged. The path was known as theBay-Path, or the path to the bay. It was wonderful what a powerful interest was attachedto the Bay-Path. It was the channel through which lawswere communicated, through which flowed news from distantfriends, and through which came long, loving letters andmessages. That rough thread of soil, chopped by the bladesof a
American inventions and inventors . brush and thicket for theremainder. No stream was bridged, no hill graded, and nomarsh drained. The path led through woods which bore themarks of centuries, and along the banks of streams that theseine had never dragged. The path was known as theBay-Path, or the path to the bay. It was wonderful what a powerful interest was attachedto the Bay-Path. It was the channel through which lawswere communicated, through which flowed news from distantfriends, and through which came long, loving letters andmessages. That rough thread of soil, chopped by the bladesof a hundred streams, was a bond that radiated at each ter-minus into a thousand fibers of love and interest and hopeand memory. The Bay-Path w^as charmed ground—a precious passage—and during the spring, the summer, and the early autumnhardly a settler at Agawam went out of doors or changed hisposition in the fields, or looked up from his labor, or restedhis oars upon the bosom of the river, without turning his TRAVEL—BY LAND. 193. eyes to the point at which that path opened from the browof the wooded hill upon the East. And when some wornand wearied man came in sight upon his half-starved horse,or two or three pedestrians, bending* beneath their packs andswinging their sturdy staves, were seen approaching, thevillage was astirfrom one end to theother. The Bay-Pathbecame better marked from year toyear as settlementsbegan to string them-selves upon it asupon a year the foot-steps of those whotrod it hurried moreand more until, atlast, wheels began to be heard upon it—heavy carts creaking with century passed away and the wilderness had was a constant roll along the Bay-Path. The finest ofthe wheat and the fattest of the flocks and herds were trans-ported to the Bay, whose young commerce had already begunto whiten the coast. The dreamy years passed by, and then came the furiousstagecoach, traveling night and day—splashing the mud,brush
Size: 1773px × 1409px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpubli, booksubjectinventions
