The Catskills or Blue Mountains, as they are known from this distance, fill the western horizon, while the beautiful landscapes sloping down toward the river are so exquisite that the traveler involuntarily pauses to take it all in. For a goodly portion of the time the road keeps well up along a side hill, giving an extensive view over the valley beneath and to the mountains beyond--the autumn colors and softness are like the fairy dreams of childhood. With the blood dancing under the influence of the brisk morning air, walking is a luxury, and the glow that comes with the exercise, as well as every sight and sound, a new found joy. The people hereabouts, while used to all sorts of freaks, can hardly understand how one can idly walk through the country with no higher ambition than the taking of a picture here and there, and many are the questions to be answered as to the whyness of the whichness, the old farmer generally going on with a dubious shake of the head, convinced that there is a screw loose somewhere. [Sidenote: _FARMER FOLK._] A farmer, on whose load of potatoes I rode into Kinderhook, thinks farming doesn't pay--would have been better off if he had worked at days' work all this time. He was cheerful, however, and wholly free from care; his horses were not matched, one doing all the pulling, the other all the sojering, and they went their own gait without interference from him. "Apples! Why apples aren't worth picking this year." It happened that I fell in with the other kind near Stone Mill. He made $1,000 from apples alone last year; would not make so much this season, but they were well worth the gathering; there was money in the ground for him. The individual seems to count in farming, same as in everything else. Just out of Claremont a young fellow was thrown from his runabout, his horse being frightened at an automobile, and it was only the quickness of the chauffeur that saved him from being run over. Did he curse the rich man's machine? Not he! His only idea was to find another and show his "new animal" who was master! Aside from this irritating feature, the whole affair was a huge joke on him. He was as handsome and wholesome looking as good health and an outdoor life could make a man. [Sidenote: _LINDENWALD--JESSE MERWIN._]