“No,” I replied, telling a white one, “I merely threw my cane down because I can get down better without it.”
I did, however, get along better without it, for I could now grasp the railing all the time with one hand while the other held the crutch.
Well, it is not my intention to write an ordinary book of travels. That has been done too often. All the places I have visited have been described time and again; and I will only entertain the reader with my (John Smith’s) odd adventures therein.
While in Boston I had the pleasure of an introduction to Mrs. Partington. That amiable old lady is a jovial, round-faced old _gentleman_ of fifty-five or sixty. His name is B. P. Shillaber, and he is connected with the Boston _Gazette_. He is a noble-hearted, excellent gentleman; and the people of this country owe him their thanks for the many happy smiles his eccentric and inimitable pen has called out upon their faces. Long life and many happy years to Mrs. Partington!
I remained in New England during the rest of the winter, and had a pleasant time and many sleigh-rides. I visited Lexington, Lowell, Lawrence and most of the large towns of Massachusetts; Manchester, Concord and Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Bellows Falls, Rutland and Burlington, Vermont; and Portland and some smaller towns and cities in Maine.
In the city of Portland I hired a horse and sleigh one morning, and resolved to drive a few miles into the country. It was snowing vigorously, but was not very cold; I had a spirited horse before me; a good light sleigh under me; and away I went, bounding over the road, neither knowing nor caring whither I went. By and by, when I had traveled five or six miles, and distanced a number of other travelers, in similar vehicles, on the way, I saw a town just ahead of me. The snow was still falling so briskly that I was almost in the town before I saw it. As I drove along, I asked a boy what place it was, and he said, “Westbrook.” I entered the village, and found it to be one of considerable extent. In fact, I drove half-a-mile, and still there was no end of houses. On the contrary, they became thicker and thicker; and I began to conclude that “Westbrook” must be quite a city. By and by I found myself on a street that reminded me forcibly of one I had seen in Portland; and, what made it more remarkable, I observed that it rejoiced in the same name. What a coincidence! But I marveled more still, as I followed this street a little way and passed an hotel that was the very image of the one I stayed at in Portland—and lo! there stood at the door a porter who was dark-skinned and cross-eyed, exactly like the porter of my hotel in that city! Was I dreaming? No, not exactly; but I must have been during my drive, for I had wandered around among the country roads in the snow-storm, lost my reckoning, and actually entered Portland again. I had come in through a little suburban village, north of the city, called “Westbrook;” and hence my delusion.