NEXT day I left Albany for Rochester, _via_ the New York Central Railroad. Those who have done much traveling by railroad must have been annoyed and tormented from time to time by the flying dust, and the smoke and cinders from the locomotive. Every dying spark that flies from the chimney seems to go right for the eyes of any unhappy visage that dares to thrust itself from a car window for a breath of fresh air or a glance at the scenery ahead. And O, how it does hurt! The sting of a bumblebee is joy compared with it.
On this occasion I determined to adopt a plan that would enable me to thrust my head out all the time if I chose, and stare at the locomotive with impunity. Before leaving Albany, I purchased a pair of fifty-cent goggles—window-glass focus—which I wore during my journey from Albany to Rochester (a distance of over two hundred miles). Hence, my eyes being secure, I paid no attention to the smoke and dust I was continually _breathing_; and the result was, that next morning my throat and lungs were so sore as to interfere materially with my articulation, and for some weeks I was afflicted with a regular “grave-yard cough,” that I had reason to fear would merge into some permanent pulmonary affection. I got over it, though, and I also got over wearing goggles on an express train.
To this day, I can not help shuddering as I contemplate what a frightful appearance I must have presented with those goggles on. A good-looking young man like myself, on a crutch, with such an immense round patch on either side of his nose, must have been a marvel to look at. I regret that I did not procure a mirror, and take a look at myself while wearing them, for I have never had the courage to put them on since.
My memory records that several passengers, with subdued smiles on their countenances, manifested the most intense interest in my welfare, and asked me what was the matter with my eyes? In reply to this impertinent question, I gave them to understand that it was an hereditary weakness of the “windows of the soul;” and intimated that the Smith family had, from time immemorial, been amateur astronomers, and had done a good deal of gazing at the moon and stars.
The New York Central Railroad takes its way through the beautiful Mohawk valley. That valley is famed in history, and we read of a great many bloody scenes enacted there by the savage Mohawk tribe; but I think that now, with its green meadows, its fields of grain, its grazing sheep and cattle, its farm-houses and dairies, with PEACE smiling over all, it is far more beautiful and interesting than it was in its wildness, when the red-skinned son of nature made it his home, and followed killing bears, deer, and the pale-faces for a living.
