Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1855-07-04
From the Chicago Daily Journal.
THE OLD VILLAGE PRINTING
e n OFF/CE. @

nest deity hidden by some bird Of Arabian
story, in the midst of the woods in the lap of
a valley, by the side of a stream.
The woods were no "grove" that the rhym-
sters delight in, but eternal forests, that stood
defiantly in the territory of New York, and
stand there yet, mocking its glowing hearths
and its laundering trains and bright plough
shares; forests that come boldly around the
little village we write of and throw their
broad shadows over the stage road, that, like
pale, yellow ribbon, seems the clue to es-
cape from its labyrinth of .solitudes; forests
whose borders tremble with the rush Of en-
gines, but whose great heart is yet full Of the
wilderness.
The stream rambles noisily along its rocky
way-sometimes stopping to laugh out aloud,
as it runs this side and that along the crags,
then plunging with shout down rude stair
way of stone, or gliding silently along under
the double laid shadows of the ever-greens
that border it, But then it never was any
matter how it behaved there, nor will it be
for many year yet, for Nature has nothing
in the world for it to do, and though it may
turn wheel or two for man, it is nothing but
pastime, as anybody would know who could
see how it trips it over the tops of the paddles
and away again to the Black River it has
started for. So playing by the way, it keeps
on, and you can hear it coming and going
like great many wheels over very rough
road.
But for the Village we began with, it is no
juvenile. There isn't much smell Of new
paint, nor much parade of new signs; the
houses are all old; the stumps are all old,
and the hair of the first settlers is very sivery
and thin. Tan bark made capital sidewalk,
twenty years ago; two generations of horses
have done going round and round in the old
mill, and the sidewalks are tan-bark STILL
People go stealing noiselessly about upon it,
as if fearful of startling the world that turks
in the edge of the woods, to seize upon any
thing eligible" and cut it up into bed-quilts
and turn its tavens into hotels, and its Vii
lage President into live Mayor, and make
Aldermen of the lawyer, the doctor, and the
merchant, every one.
There's good deal of moss on the north
ern caves, and the door-ways are rather low,
and the window-panes rather green, but then
those old houses are very pleasant, for each
one has its garden with its old-fashioned ro-
ses and its old-fashioned poppies, and its faith
full old sun-f1owers, and its corner for " Garry
ways" and corner for "Dill." Then there are
old Lombardy Poplars that stand like sentries
along the streets, and the Green where the
children play after the village tea-kettles have
sung their song. The tea kettles are old
fashioned too, and hang on hook, and are
coated with lime within. And the gates are
old-fashioned, for the children swing on them
from one end of the Village to the other.--
And the children are old fashioned, for they
wear blue checkered aprons that come snug
up under their chins, and puckered at the top
with string; and in the summertime, they
patter about with their naked feet like the
merry rain that makes them grow So" when
they play in it.
The girls-some of them-have beaux, land
husbands after seemly season, and the
beaux come on Sunday nights, and some of
them greatly affect peppermint, but that's a
weakness they get over in time. They !" SIT
mp" yet in the old village, though new Mil
liner that came there while ago, has substi-
tuted "'payin' 'tention" for the venerable old
term they had courted by, and their fathers
before them, and never, so far as we know,
had done anybody harm. But it will pro-
gress by and by, no doubt, to waiting upon,"
and thereafter to orange-fowers and trous-
seaus and what not.
Glorious old villages are they, where eve
ry body's children are permitted to play with
every body's children, and " our set" includes
the human race therein represented. What
luxury it must be, to be sure, to be the Doc
tor, the Minister and the Lawyer, but it is on
ly in such old Villages it can be enjoyed.
But the old Village had no hotels; only
two houses of entertainments One was cup
street," and that was an inn, so-and-sos inn I;
the other was "down street" and that was
Stage House, the Stage House, where once
day, the yellow, mud bespattered stage rock
ed dup and brought to, and the well-condition-
ed Bonitace shutting out from the grated cor
ner in the bar-room, like an over-fed old spi-
der opened the coach-door, and let out the
hungry travellers. They were alaoays hungry
when they got there for breakfast was Just
ready for southern migrants, and dinner for
northern; but then the landlord was not an
old spider, but very jovial, pleasant sort of
man, who made everybody feel much at home
as he was, and nothing more home-like could
be imagined, and so, very-well-to-do did he
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