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the soft green hills rolling away, ridge on ridge, the lovely valleys splitting down through them. On the way down, we stopped at an old cemetery where the stones went back to the early 1800's,  a place where the quarrymen and stone cutters have been buried all these years. Many of the monuments were made by the men over whom they rest, it having been a custom with many to carve their own memorial, putting all the skill they knew in it.

En route to Erie, Pa.
Wednesday, June 6,1939
Arose at 5 AM and drove to Barre, where we had breakfast in an awful dump where we faced a french fried potato machine full of grease that kept boiling over - very appetizing. Then we went down to the depot or freight house and made ourselves known to the men of the "Hill Job," a rather mild name for the Barre and Chelsea job that goes up to the quarries and brings down the loads of granite blocks. And then we rode the job up the "hill," seven empty flat cars and the buggy, and it was about all the engine could do, a 60 ton saddle tank. We rode the buggy. And we saw plenty of grade - 5%, 6% - 8% - 7% - 9% - all in the days work. The road goes up the mountain and then there's a network of tracks around the mountain top among the five quarries - Wells-Lamson, Wetmore-Morse, Smith, Rock of Ages and Pirie Brothers. It is full of derails to protect against runaways and of course we heard a flock of stories of mountain railroading that could fill a book. Examples:

(1) One of the brakemen told how he was in a runaway and the first possible place to unload was a barnyard. He unloaded, doubled up and rolled, winding up in a pig pen in "sh--- two feet deep!"

(2) On another runaway, a big block of granite was thrown off while rounding a curve, shot through a farmyard and hit the outhouse, demolishing it completely.

(3) Engineer told how he saw six cars of granite coming at them runaway while they were standing coupled to twelve cars of granite for a good backstop. He yelled, the fireman rolled backwards out his window, and the engineer out his. Fireman landed in a farmer's yard but engineer had to scramble up a "pile of rubble," but he