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"The King of Diamonds met his fate." (Camp Song, by the Stones.)
I first saw Camp Diamond in the dark of the moon, at two o'clock in the morning of July twenty-third,
nineteen hundred and eight. Actually, I saw nothing, for it was completely dark, when I stumbled for the first
time over the "Stone Trail" (or "Stony Point Trail") with the original Dr. Stone, and his oil
lantern, after a long day's journey.
I had left our summer home at Eastern Point, Connecticut, at seven o'clock that morning, probably taking the first
"Osprey" (boat) to New London; and had traveled all day by train, I suppose with many changes and up
the devious route of the Connecticut River; the arrival so far transcends the journey in my mind that I recall
nothing of the eighteen hours on the train. Those hours when I traversed New England from South to North,--and
when, in fact, I journeyed, in a day, from one life to another, came to a stopping place in the eerie shadows of
the Colebrook Station. There I saw the burly form of our Baltimore minister, Dr. John Timothy Stone, an ex-Amherst
football captain, and minister of Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church; and heard his hearty, cordial voice.
He handed me a bulky extra sweater and I tumbled into the back seat of the carriage with him; on the front seat
was Mr. Herbert Little, driving the two horses; and from half-past ten until almost two, in the cold, magic, mountain
darkness, height after height, we ascended the thirteen miles of road, and thirteen hundred feet of altitude, that
take the traveller from Colebrook to Camp Diamond, by "the Mohawk Road". The night became colder and
colder as the air grew rarer and clearer. I suppose those eternal Diamond stars were shining; but I went to sleep
three times on the broad, friendly, pastoral shoulder, and saw nothing. When we got out in the darkness and quiet
of the Camp street, everything was still invisible to me. Mr. Stone said, "Now we'll have to hoof it over
the trail." I've lighted his lantern, and led me through woods that seemed an impenetrable forest, apparently
deeper and deeper into the wilderness; we somehow made our way along the inky blackness of the trail, and at Stony
Point we were greeted by the burst of light and warmth and hospitality, which was Mrs. Bessie Parsons Stone. She
and her sister, Miss Jessie Parsons of Toronto, (soon to become "Aunt Jessie"), plied us with welcome,
and with offers of hot-water bags and quinine pills against the mountain cold; then darkness and quiet descended
once more, and I slept my first night's sleep at Camp.
Sitting up suddenly, about six hours later, at eight o'clock in the morning, in the middle front room on the second
story of Stony Point, I saw out the window, to my amazement, instead of a deep and trackless forest, that vast,
incomparable, open view, the magnificent glory of "the valle3/", spreading its broad meadows along the
Mohawk; and in the distance the hills of the Columbian Range.
Going back now to the origin of my trip to Camp Diamond, I will say that we have an art school in Baltimore, "The
Maryland Institute", now over a hundred years old, which conducts classes for working boys at night. My father
was on the Board of Directors of this school and, as a former ship-builder, was particularly interested in the
mechanical drawing of the night-school boys. When they had exhibitions, he would ask one or another of us to go
with him to see their work. One warm, light evening, the first of June of that year, I was the martyr, or victim,--
(or privileged one),--to go with him; and at the Maryland Institute we met Mr. Stone. I had heard for years about
the camp where the Stones spent their summers, and about the other guests there, especially Dr. Speer, whom all
my generation in College revered, and the Stones had always urged me to go. That evening the promise was obtained
from my father that I should go to the Camp in July. Thus all that followed for me may be said to have been the
reward for a customary evening's deference to my father's wish. "On such small trifles do great issues hang",
or to paraphrase Mr. Winston Churchill, 'No one ever owed much to so little."
Mr. Stone preached at our summer Chapel at Eastern Point on July twelfth of that same summer, the first and only
time that he ever did so; and during his visit with us there we completed the arrangements for my trip to Camp.
He told me that when I reached Colebrook, if no one met me at the station, I should go to the Monadnock House "across
the tracks" and spend the night, but promised my mother that he would be there, if he could. You must remember
that this was not long after the nineties, and young girls were not encouraged to travel alone overnight. Mr. Stone,
therefore, as July rolled towards its conclusion, urged the owner of the Camp, a certain Mr. Coleman, to let him
have a driver from the farm to go down to meet the girl from Baltimore at the late train. It would be a two and
half hours' drive down the road and three and a half hours back. Mr. Coleman very properly said that the farm hands
got up at four in the morning and worked all day and certainly he would not ask any of them to drive all night,--"and
besides, no girl was worth it. Let her come out in the morning with Rogers." This was old Mr. Rogers, the
rural postman for many years, predecessor of Mr. Sisco, and perhaps more picturesque. He carried the news on his
long drives and read the postcards,--(and lamented when the Adams' French nurse wrote "something he could
not understand"). he did the shopping for the Camp, as there were no cars then in use on the mountain roads
and very few journeys to Colebrook; it was he who, only two years later, bought for us in Colebrook the wire dish-drainer
from which I made Catherine's little lace-covered tray, and the clothesbasket, for which her father fashioned a
mattress, when Time reached the point in this story where there appeared "a little Coleman in the Glen."
However, Time held that future still concealed; there was merriment in the Camp that day, but Mr. Coleman's refusal
was obdurate. Resourceful Mr. Stone then went direct to Mr. Little, the head farmer and factotem for all the Camp,
and asked him as a favor if he would drive him down himself, and Mr. Little did,--(as he always would, in the kindness
of his heart). And so I arrived in the fulness of time, and crossed the Stone Trail that night; and recrossed it
the next morning, to the cheery world of the "Camp Street" and boardwalk, and dining-room, and breakfast.
My clothes were considered too grand, so I was loaned Mr. Stone's "twelve-cent hat", a fiat, round, floppy,
gray felt, which he had bought in Oxford for six-pence,--(and which later he gave me for an engagement present).
Mr. Coleman stood at the office steps, in characteristic pose, with one foot on an upper step, wearing his brown
suit, and ready with cordial greeting. Mrs. Stone murmured, (then or later), "Helen, this is Coley, the children's
nurse." He afterwards claimed that he liked the emphatic way I said, "Mr. Coleman, I've heard of you
before," but in fact I confused his name, in my diary, with that of Mr. Little, in whose care I had sent the
Stones' letters; and there it stands to this day. It was a confusion that did not persist. He had already had breakfast
but went in and had another with us at the Stone table.
