modeled on the common, every-day things of life. Fifty or a hundred
years ago the man who was a "slow coach" to-day would be "geared low."

[Sidenote: _COL. JOHN ODELL._]

At least two of the many interesting buildings hereabouts are worth
noting. Standing back from the road a quarter of a mile or so, and
within the compass of the Ardsley Club grounds, is a plain little
cottage whose clapboards show no mark of the planing mill. Here once
lived the redoubtable Col. John Odell, whose father, Jonathan,
languished in a British prison in New York because his son was
fighting under the flag of freedom. At the time of his capture
Jonathan Odell was living on the Odell Estate, which was later sold to
a son of Alexander Hamilton. It is told that the Hessians hanged a
negro slave of Odell's three separate times in an effort to make him
disclose the hiding place of certain hogs with which the said Hessians
were anxious to fraternise.

[Sidenote: _CYRUS W. FIELD._]

A step further on stands the former residence of Cyrus W. Field, whose
place, known as Ardsley, at one time covered some five hundred or more
acres extending from the Post Road over the ridge to the Sawmill
River. The house was built in the day of the mansard roof, and is not
a particularly picturesque creation, but every American is interested
in the man who succeeded in linking his country with the outside world
as did Cyrus W. Field.

[Sidenote: _SUNNYSIDE._]

As we proceed toward the land of enchantment the surroundings seem to
take on a more mysterious air. Sounds that awhile before meant nothing
more than the wind in the trees now begin to make one think of the
rush of galloping cowboys or Hessians on mischief bent; or, if
perchance we catch through the gathering dusk a glint of white on the
river below, may it not be that Flying Dutchman who, tired of the
narrow bounds of the Tappan Zee, is trying to steal out to the open
ocean while the constable sleeps, but the cause of such speculation is
gone almost before the speculation itself takes shape. However, the
abode wherein so many of these marvels were clothed in becoming
language is close at hand--Sunnyside. No better description of the
place can be had than the artist's own: "About five-and-twenty miles
from the ancient and renowned city of Manhattan ... stands a little,
old-fashioned stone mansion, all made up of gable-ends, and as full of
angles and corners as an old cocked hat.... Though but of small