Shortly after this we spent two very interesting days in visiting Mt. Holyoke and Smith colleges. They gave both to Winnie and me a desire for a higher education than that which we were receiving at Madame's. Miss Sartoris wandered slowly through the Art Building of Smith, looking longingly at its superb equipment. The college is charmingly situated in the old town of Northampton. We were told that the students had just acted a Greek play, the "Electra" of Sophocles, very successfully, and we looked at one another in envy as we thought how impossible it would have been to present such a drama at Madame's.
We passed the Holyoke range on July 1. This barrier marks as distinct a climatic change as Cape Cod in the Atlantic currents, for, just as, south of the Cape, and apparently threatened by her bent arm, the Gulf Stream sweeps to the north the tropic sea-weeds, and north of it, and gathered close in its embrace, the Arctic mosses cling to the cold heart of New England; so, south of the Holyoke range the air may be tepid and lifeless, while beyond it invigorating breezes from the Northland are dancing cheerily.
We had eaten the last native Connecticut strawberries, but they were just in their glory north of the barrier, and though the almanac said July, it was June weather still.
Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke stand as sentinels at the entrance of a lovely region, through whose elm-covered villages we drove at leisurely pace, resting over a Sabbath at old Hadley, one of the most charming places, with its principal street a double cloister of elms and maples, and where a Sabbath peace and stillness brooded even on week-days. Mr. Stillman found, for the next few days, a ready sale for his fireworks, exhausting his stock and adding twenty-five dollars to the treasury. About twelve miles north of Mount Holyoke rises Mount Toby, a noble mountain, which assumes, from certain directions, the shape of a crouching camel. The resemblance is even more marked than that of the Rock of Gibraltar to a lion. It dominates the country round about, and from its summit nearly a score of nestling towns and villages are visible. Among these Mr. Stillman sold his rockets, and proposed that we should spend Fourth of July night on its summit, and there watch the little fire-fountains on the plain below. It was an attractive plan, but Mr. Stillman had not counted the weather into his reckoning. It had been a sultry day. As we stopped at a farm-house on our way from Sunderland to Mount Toby, the good woman told us to look out for rain. "The grass has been waiting two days to be cut," she said, "but it looks kinder lowry, and the men-folks daresn't begin haying."