San Andreas independent., 1856-12-13
The Old village Printing once.
BY B. F. TAYLOR.

story, IN the midst OF the woods, In the
lap of valley, by the side of stream.
The woods were no "grove" that the
rhymsters delight iu, but eternal forests,
that stood defantly in the territory of New
York, and stand there yet, mocking its
glowing hearths and its laundering trains
and bright ploughshares; forests that come
bold 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 escape from its labyrinth
of solitudes forests, whose borders trem-
bic with the rush of engines, but whose
great heart is yet full of the wilderness.
The stream rambles noisily along its
rocky way-sometimes stopping to laugh
aloud, then plunging with shout down a
rude stairway of stone, or gliding silently
along under the double laid shadows of
the evergreens that border it. But then
it was never any matter how it behaved
there, nor will it be for many year yet,
for Nature has nothing for it to do, and
though it may turn wheel or two for
man, it is nothing but pastime, as any
body would know who could see how it
trips 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, and the hair Of the
first settlers is very silvery and thin
Tan bark made capital side walk, twenty
years ago; two generations of horses have
done going round and round in the 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 anything eligible and cut it up
into bed-quilts, and turn its taverns into
hotels, and its Village 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
northern caves, and the door-ways are
rather low, and the window-panes rather
green, but then those old houses arc very
pleasant, for each one has it's garden with
its old-fashioned roses and its old d-fashioned
poppies, and its faithful old sunfowers,
and its corner fr Caraways' and corner
for Dill Then there are the old Lom-
hardy Poplars that stand like sentries along
the streets, and the Green where the chill
II VII Zoo L hox
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 vii
lage to the other. And the children are
old-fashioned, for they wear blue check
cred aprons that come up snug under their
chins, and puckered at the top with
string; and in the summer time, 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,
and husbands after seemly season, and
the beaux come on Sunday nights, and
some of them greatly affect peppermint,
but that's weakness they get over in
time. They sit up yet in the old vii
lage, though new Milliner that came
there while ago, substituted 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 progress
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
every bodys children are permitted to
play with every body's children, and 'our
set includes the human race therein repre-
sented. What luxury it must be, to be
sure, to be the Doctor, the Lawyer, the
Minister, but it is only in such old villa
ges it can be enjoyed.
But the old village had no hotels; only
two houses of entertainment One was
sup street, and that was an inn, so-and-
SOS inn; the other was down street, and
that was a Stage House, the Stage House,
where once day, the yellow, mud be-
spattered stage rocked up and brought to,
and the well-conditioned Boniface came
shuffiing out from the grated corner in the
bar room, like an over fed old spider,
opened the stage-coach door, and let out
the hungry passengers. They were al
ways hungry when they got there, tor
breakfast was just ready for southern MI
grants, and dinner for northern; but then
the landlord was not an old spider, but
very joyial, pleasant sort of man, who made
everybody feel as much at home as he was,
and nothing more home-like could be ina
gined, and so-verywell-to-do did he get,
at two shillings meal
! So much for the old Village just now,
for here we are, passing an orchard, and
there, with broader philactery of tan