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The carriole is for one passenger. It is falling into disuse, and its place is being taken by the stolkjaerre, a two-wheeled cart that will carry two passengers. It also has long shafts which extend under the axletree to make a support for the luggage and a seat for the driver.
Along this thirty-seven-foot road, of which twenty-four feet were laid with stone, the new era of American inland travel progressed. The array of two-wheeled private equipages and other family carriages, the stagecoaches of bright color, and the carts, Dutch wagons, and Conestogas, gave token of what was soon to be witnessed on the great roads of a dozen States in the next generation.
The carriage containing the trunks and the rest of the furniture was in the yard ready to start. Another two-wheeled vehicle was to take Jeanne and the servant. Old Simon and Ludivine were to stay until the arrival of a new proprietor, and then to go to some of their relations, Jeanne having provided a little income for them.
The American Jew and I took a caleche, a little two-wheeled local carriage, driven by a lively Frenchman with a factitious passion for death-spots and churches. A small black and white spaniel followed the caleche, yapping. The American's face shone with interest. "That dawg's Michael," he said, "the hotel dawg. He's a queer little dawg. I kicked his face; and he tried to bite me. Hup, Michael!"
The black bodies of the two-wheeled wagons pitched about over the ruts in the road like old belly-cracked boats tossing at the mercy of the waves. The wagon-hoods showed their reed framework here and there through the rents in their tarred canvas. Plasters of red paste covered some of the smaller holes. The ironwork was squeaky and broken, the breaks repaired with strings.
Very soon he got for her a two-wheeled trap and a Burmah pony, and she used to drive down of an evening to pick up Davidson, on the quay. When Davidson, beaming, got into the trap, it would become very full all at once. "We used to admire Mrs. Davidson from a distance. It was a girlish head out of a keepsake. From a distance.
Baggage of every kind was slung across the backs of horses, or stowed into cumbrous two-wheeled waggons made of rough planks, or of laths covered with twisted osiers, which had been seized from farmer or peasant for the king's journey.
For ten miles we had a good stone road and rattled along it at a lively pace. In about half that distance we came to a large brick church, where we began to see the rural population or habitans. They came mostly in two-wheeled vehicles, some of the carts quite fancy, in which the young fellows rode complacently beside their girls.
Everything in use in that country was of the most simple and primitive construction. There were no sawmills or gristmills in that region; sawed lumber was not in the country. The wagons were two-wheeled carts made entirely of wood not a particle of iron about them; the hubs were of white elm, spokes of white oak or hickory, the felloes of black walnut, as it was soft and would bear rounding.
The goodman Dodier brought the caleche to the door. It was a substantial, two-wheeled vehicle, with a curious arrangement of springs, made out of the elastic wood of the hickory.
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