just as well as
they could, is'nt it?" But before Mrs. Tracy could answer him they had
arrived at their destination.

The next day they took a drive around the town, or rather the city,
since a short time before it had become such. Its wealth of trees was a
source of joy to them.

When they were crossing Mill River, on the old covered bridge on South
street, uncle Edward stopped and told them that this was the only bridge
on the river which was saved from the awful catastrophe of the bursting
of the reservoir at Williamsburg, ten miles from there. When they drove
off the bridge he told Reuben to notice the river as it flowed so
peacefully along, in apparent forgetfulness of its dreadful havoc of ten
years ago when about one hundred and fifty lives were lost, and
factories, houses, and churches were swept along, as so many leaves, by
the rushing torrent. He told, among other facts, how a cousin of his was
seated at the breakfast-table with his whole family--a wife, two sons,
and a daughter--when they were swept up by the waters, house and all,
and all drowned. And while he was telling these incidents, which were so
much to him, he made them more effective by driving up some little
distance through the district which had been devastated. Thus Reuben
learned of a peculiar tragedy, in a manner which no reading in itself
could so well have taught him.

They spent a day or two more in looking around the different public
institutions, the Clarke Institute for the Deaf, on Round Hill, giving
them the most interest. But in spite of these attractions, Mrs. Tracy's
keen mother-eye noticed that Reuben was getting a little impatient to
climb a mountain, that mountain "with the tunnel" as he expressed it. So
she decided to go there the first pleasant day; and as it was now the
time of full moon she proposed to remain upon the mountain all night,
much to Reuben's delight.

The next day proved to be pleasant, so they in company with Uncle Edward
and his wife started for Mount Holyoke, a distance of three miles. A
short drive brought them to the Hokanum ferry where they were to cross
the Connecticut. As they drove upon what seemed to Reuben a wharf, he,
accustomed only to the Boston ferry-boats, remarked that the boat was
not in yet. And it was not until a moment later when he found himself
moving away from the land that he discovered that he was on the boat
itself! The way in which they were being borne across the river by man's