Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1857-06-13

by MISS sEDGwiCK.
"Why weep ye then for him. who having won
The bound Of mans appointed years. at last,
Lfe's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors DONE
Serenely to his final rest has passed
While the son memory NJ his virtue vet
Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright is set"
bryant.
The master ofour village post-ofce for many
years past was an old man but the real dis
penser of its joys and sorrows was his son,
youth who performed its duties with inteli-
gence, exactness, and delicacy. Some persons
may not be aware how much the quality is call
ed into requisiton in village postmaster.
Having the universal country acquaintance with
his neighbors affairs, he holds the KEY 10 all
correspondence. He knows, long before the
news transpires, when the minister receives a
call, when the spectators affairs are vibrating;
he can estimate the conjugal devotion of the ab-
sent husband but most enviable is his knowl-
edge of those delicate and uncertain affairs SO
provoking 10 village curiosity. Letters, direct
ed in well-known characters, and written with
beating hearts within locked apartments, pass
through his hands The blushing youth steals
in at twilight 10 receive from him his doom {;
and 10 him is first known the results of vii
lage bellies foray through a neighboIing dis
trict. Our young deputy postmaster rarely be-
trayed his involuntary acquaintance with The
nature of the missives he dispersed but, when
every sympathy was permitted, his bright smile
or radiant or fearful eye would show how earn
est part he took in all his neghbors suffered
or enjoyed Never was there kinder heart
than Lloyd Barnard 's-never truer mirror than
his face.
Every family, however insignificant in the
strangers eye, has world in its own. The
drama and the epic have their beginning, their
middle, and their end, in the material world
The true story of human relations never ends,
and this seal Of Immortality it is that gives a
dignity and interest to the affections ofthe hum
BILE and unknown, beyond that which fiction and
poetry, even when il makes gods and heroes its
actors, can attach to qualities and passions that
are limited TO this worlds stage. This inirin-
sic dignity claim for the subjects of my hum
BILE village tale.
Lloyd Barnard's father, Colonel Jesse Bar
nard, belonged to that defunct body, the aris-
tocracy of our country. He served in the rev.
oluionary war, he did good service to the state
in the subsequent Shay's rebellion, and, though
he ailerward inexplicably fell into the ranks OF
the popular or democratic party, he retained the
manners and insignia of his caste-the prescrib-
ed courtesies of the old regime, with the neatly
tied cue, and the garment that has given place
10 the leveling pantaloon. He even persevered
in the use of powder till il ceased 10 be an ar
tice of merchandise and to the very last he
maintained those strict observances of polite
ness, that are becoming, among us subjects Of
tradition and history. These, however, are
merely accidents of education and usage. His
moral constitution had nothing arislocraic or
exclusive. On the contrary, his heart was ami
mated with what we would fain believe TO be the
spirit of our democratic institutions, universal
good will. The colonel was remarkably ex-
empt (whether fortunately or unfortunately each