e only one of the party who had visited
the place. She had taken a trip there the summer before with a party of
scientific people, and had not wearied in speaking of its peculiar
characteristics. No wonder that Agassiz himself had come to see it, and
expressed his admiration for it. Then such an immense boulder resting
upon another boulder and bearing upon its summit a thrifty pine tree,
was certainly a wonder. And they all thought so too, when in the
afternoon they were climbing the rough ladder (manufactured by two
Manchester gentlemen for the purpose) to obtain the views over all the
trees of the town, and islands, with the ocean winding in and out. They
found it hard to believe that such boulders found in thick woods could
have been borne hither in ages gone by, by the force of the waters of
the sea. But Tom declared, with a student's air which did not escape his
father's attention, that since they all showed the marks of glacial
action, it must have been so. After visiting this novel freak of nature,
they drove up through the Essex woods. These woods of nearly four miles
in length were especially dear to Mrs. Gordon, since they were so
associated with good times of her youth. She silently thanked the
far-seeing people who, to preserve them from the hand of the wood-cutter
had secured a portion on each side of the road.

These drives around Manchester led her to reflect how the town was
improving under the influence of its summer residents. New roads had
been made, and one long since closed had been reopened. Bessie had told
of this the summer before, when she had driven over its several miles of
woods to the Chebacco lakes. The streets were now lighted and watered,
and even some of the fences had been removed. This she considered a
great improvement. Indeed, since her visit to Williamstown, and other
towns in the Berkshire hills, she could not be wholly satisfied with any
place seeking beauty as long as the houses were shut in by fences. She
looked upon these as relics of barbarism, necessary only to primitive or
disorderly regions. To be sure she did not see but four or five of the
eleven or twelve cabinet manufactories which she used to see, but she
saw a public library well patronized by the nearly two thousand
inhabitants.

The large cobble-stones in front of some of the houses so attracted
Tom's attention that they all decided to go the next day to Cobble-stone
Beach to see these "hard-boiled eggs of the sea"