When we got into the main street the long, low, broken line of booth-like, wooden, one-storied stores and houses, all looking as if one strong man could push them down, and one strong team carry them off, grated a little, I could see, on the feelings of some of the party. The redeeming feature was the trees, lining the street at long intervals, darkening the houses a little, but clothing the town, and giving it an air of age and respectability that was lacking in many of the bare rows of shanties, dignified with the title of town, that we had passed in coming here across the continent. The New England Hotel invited us in. A pretty plane-tree in front overshadowed the door; and a bright, cheery hostess stood in the doorway to welcome us, shaking hands, and greeting our large party of twenty-six in a fashion of freedom to which we had not been used, but which sounded pleasantly in our travel-worn ears. The house was tumble-down and shabby, and needed the new coat of paint it received soon after--but in the corner of the sitting-room stood a good parlor-organ. The dining-room adjoining had red cloths on the tables, and gave a full view into the kitchen; but the "beefsteak, mutton-chop, pork-chop, and hash" were good and well cooked, and contrasted with, rather than reminded us of, the fare described by Charles Dickens as offered him in the Eastern States when he visited America thirty-nine years ago. The bedrooms, opening all on to the long passage upstairs, with meager furniture and patchwork quilts, the whole wooden house shaking as we trotted from room to room, were not so interesting, and tempted no long delay in bed after the early breakfast-gong had been sounded soon after six. Breakfast at half-past six, dinner at noon, and supper at half-past five, only set the clock of our lives a couple of hours faster than we had been used to; and bed at nine was soon no novelty to us. The street in front was a wide sea of slushy mud when we arrived, with an occasional planked crossing, needing a sober head and a good conscience to navigate safely after dark; for, when evening had closed in, the only street-lighting came from the open doors, and through the filled and dressed windows of the stores. [Sidenote: _THE BARBER'S SHOP._] Saloons were forbidden by solemn agreement to all of us, but the barber's shop was the very pleasant substitute. Two or three big easy-chairs in a row, with a stool in front of each. Generally filled they were by the grave and reverend seigniors of the city--each man reposing calmly, draped in white, while he enjoyed the luxury, under the skillful hands of the barber or his man, of a clean shave. At the far end of the shop stood the round iron stove, with a circle of wooden chairs and an old sofa. And here we enjoyed the parliament of free talk. The circle was a frequently changing one, but the types were constant.