December 18th to 28th
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Thirty below freezing! It was inconceivable till one stepped out into it at midnight … But for the jingle of the sleigh-bells the ride might have taken place in a dream, for there was no sound of hoofs upon the snow, the runners sighed a little now and again as they glided over an inequality, and all the sheeted hills round about were as dumb as death. |
This is from “In Sight of Monadnock””, from Letters of Travel 1892-1913. Rudyard Kipling married Caroline Balestier, an American, in the early days of 1892. On their honeymoon journey they set off across the Atlantic and travelled coast to coast across America, on the way to to Japan. In this passage they had just arrived in Brattleboro, Vermont, at midnight. They were met off the New York train by Rudyard’s brother In law, Beatty, who swathed them in hairy goatskin cloaks and heavy rugs, and carried them home by sleigh.
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