No one enjoyed such a jaunt better than Theodora, and one day early the previous August, they persuaded me to harness one of the work horses to the double-seated buckboard and to take them up there for the day.
It was a long, hard drive, for the old road was badly overgrown; indeed we were more than two hours in reaching the place.

What was our amazement when we drew near the deserted old farmhouse to see a "daguerreotype saloon" standing before it: one of those peripatetic studios on wheels, in which "artists" used to journey about the country taking photographs.

Of course, card photographs had not come into vogue then; but there were the daguerreotypes, and later the tintypes, and finally the ambrotypes in little black-and-gilt cases.
Those "saloons" were picturesque little contrivances, not much more than five feet wide by fifteen feet long, and mounted on wheels.

On each side was a little window, and overhead was a larger skylight; a flight of three steps led up to a narrow door at the rear.

The door opened into the "saloon" proper, where the camera and the visitor's chair stood; forward of that was the cuddy under the skylight, in which the photographer did his developing.
The photographer was usually some ambitious young fellow who, after learning his trade, often made and painted his "saloon" himself.
Frequently he slept in it, and sometimes cooked his meals in it.