long orchard ladder, and
asked us if we would care for a lift. Now it happened that his
suggestion came like a voice from heaven for poor Colin, one of whose
shoes had been casting a gloom over our spirits for several miles. So we
accepted with alacrity, and, really, riding felt quite good for a
change! Our benefactor was a bronzed, handsome young fellow, just
through Cornell, he told us, and proud of his brave college, as all
Cornell men are. He had chosen apple-farming for his career, and,
naturally, seemed quite happy about it; lived on his farm near by with
his mother and sister, and was at the moment out on the quest of four
apple-packers for his harvesting, these experts being at a premium at
this season. We rattled along gaily in the broad afternoon sunshine,
exchanging various human information, from apple-packing to New York
theatres, after the manner of the companionable soul of man, and I hope
he liked us as well as we liked him.

One piece of information was of particular interest to Colin, the
whereabouts of one "Billy the Cobbler," a character of the neighbourhood,
who would fix Colin's shoe for him, and, incidentally, if he was in the
mood, give us a musical and dramatic entertainment into the bargain.

At length our ways parted, and, with cheery good-byes and good wishes,
our young friend went rattling along, leaving in our hearts a warm
feeling of the brotherhood of man--sometimes. He had let us down close by
the "High Banks," the rumour of which had been in our ears for some
miles, and presently the great effect Nature had been preparing burst on
our gaze with a startling surprise. The peaceful pastoral country was
suddenly cloven in twain by a gigantic chasm, the Genesee River, dizzy
depths below, picturesquely flowing between Grand Canon rock effects,
shaggy woods clothing the precipitous limestone, and small forests
growing far down in the broad bed of the river, with here and there
checkerboard spaces of cultivated land, gleaming, smooth and green, amid
all the spectacular savageness--soft, cozy spots of verdure nestling
dreamily in the hollow of the giant rocky hand. The road ran close to the
edge of the chasm, and the sublimity was with us, laying its hush upon
us, for the rest of the afternoon. Appropriate to her Jove-like mood,
Nature had planted stern thickets of oak-trees along the rocky edge, and
"the acorns of our lord of Chaonia" crunched beneath our feet as we
walked on.

After a whil