The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-03-26
THE PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
The Merchant and the MINER.
A TALE OF NORTHERN NEW HAMPsHIRE
BIZ VIRGINIA F.. TOWNSEND.

were growing cool and long, by some glowing birch
wood fire in an old farm kitchen, among the mountains
of New Hampshire ? Those grand, old, druidical
about which the summer streams hang
their silver necklaces, and over which the winter
storms weave their garments of snow Then, while
the fire flames dashed their yellow light ever the
great, brown ~rafters, and with every break of wind,
the Withered leaves ratified against the panes, have
you listened to the story of some sold settler whose
memory reached back to the time when bear and the
wolf came down to the fields; and sometimes OF an
autumn morning the little children would go softly
through the woods to school, almost expecting to see
pair of wild glaring eyes among the bushes, and
whispered how they had heard the night before, OF
some neighbours sheep cote which had been broken
into. and the blood-draggled grass had told the story
next day
Well, listening to just such tales, in the autumn
evenings, we dreamed among those gray old noun
tains the story we are about to tell you.
"I guess we shall have a real warm day Of it to-
said the widow Pease, as she stood a
in the kitchen door of the old farm house, at
the close of an April day, some two score and q half
ago, just as the sun was resting on the tops OF
the mountains that bounded the horizon. Sixty years
observation of the winds and clouds had made Mrs
Pease a kind of weather oracle in the village; and
the good woman prided herself no little upon her
elemental foresight.
sWell, Letty,'' she continued, as she closed the
door and returned to her knitting and her chair by
the fireplace, 81 guess it'll be a first rate day to bile
sap. I'll tell Enoch and Cyrus to pile up the boughs
u ulSuG, eUU uIuS On IL lux 81 yOO "a
all ready to kindle in the NORM. You know they
said the trees was funnin' briskly to-day, and they'll
have two tubs full afore night"
"They didn't though, mother :" SAID Lefty,
pausing a moment in her work, for she was setting
the supper table. "Goody l am so glad, for do
love to have a sap boilin'.'
Lettia Pease was the child of her mothers old age,
and a dantier bit of Natures handiwork you have
seldom looked upon. The next summer would count
her twentieth, and her blue eyes were clear and bright
as her New Hampshire skies, and the mountain winds
had kindled a ruddy glow in her fair cheeks. she
was rather short, but straight, with q finely curved
figure, and plump as health and o hearty appetite
could make her.
For her Characteristic was a right down, good
hearted, light spirited New England girl. That
pretty little head of hers had been slightly turned by
the hattery that sundry Swains had poured into 1t;
but considering that she was the handsomest girl ID
the. village, and knew it, too, Lefty conducted her
self remarkably well. And perhaps, after all, 1t was
not so much her face as it was the smiles that broke
up from the warm fountains of her nature and always
dimpled it that won so many hearts towards her.
She was not sentimental, or inclined to the blues.
Alas the damsels of fifty years ago had not so intl-
mate an acquaintance with these matters as their de-
scendants.
But now reader, in order to do full penance for this
latter remark, We just admit that, for one, we don't
believe our grandmother were any better than we
are-nOt q bit
Nicer pies and buildings they could indisputably
make, thrifty housekeepers, faithful wives, and loving
mothers they surely were, and for these things blessed
be their memory But, after all, spinning wheels
alone cannot enlarge ones sympathies, or daily darn
ing stockings enrich ones intellect; and instinct and
habit narrowed down to the circle of their own faml-
lies, the views and feelings Of the woman Of the last
century.
And the true woman OF the present time has
broader social sympathies and richer life and although
she must acknowledge that her first duties are in her
home, she will not think they end there. as her
grandmother did. knowledge that Is true TO itself,
expands the moral as well as the intellectual life;
and the world hasn't gone backward with the substl-
tuition of botany for butter churnS, ana mathematics
for milking pals.
But to return to our heroine. When Enoch and
Cyrus, two tall, s%unburnt, but fine looking young
farmers, came in to supper, they were full OF a story
which quite drove out all thoughts of the sap b
from the head of widow Pease and her daughte4
Some terrible depredations had been committed the
night before, on Squire Hubbard's sheep and lambs
the dog had been devoured, and two large bears
had been seen providing around Burberry Hill, just
in the edge Of the previous evening.
The young men were greatly excited, for o large
party had been organized to 60 out that very evening
to Squire Hubbard's who lived in an adjoining town
not more than ten miles off, for the purpose of de-
stroying the wild animals, as il was apprehended
their former success would stimulate them to fresh
depredations. So. with that belligerent propensity
which is so strong an elemement of Anglo-Saxon
character, Cyrus and Enoch descanted glOwingly on
the best method Of surprising and dispatching the
animals; while the mother and sister listened with
the indeinable mixture of wonder, admiration ana
terror, which woman always awards to manly courage
and skill.
But, dear me- said Lefty, as she poured Cyrus
third glass of milk, 6 what if a bear should come
round here some of these days ?-You know Elder
Smith said he saw one ON his farm last autumn. Oh,
my [ believe it would take the breath straight out
of my body to come across one of the creatures-p
And the rosy cheeks grew pale at the thought.
Nonsense, sis % said the hearty voice of Enocb,
as he spread a double stratum of butter on his fourth
slice of rye bread, Sc there's no sort o. danger around
here. Nobody in these parts was ever touched by one
Of them ERE chaps. 1 reckon there smart enough
not to venture their heads far into this town. They
wouldn't stay on long, if they did, that's sartin."
Now whether there was much philosophy in this
speech or not, it had the effect Of quieting Letty's
fears; though if Enoch had been called on to give
his reason for exempting Berry gate from bear incur
sions, he could probably have found no better one
than the propensity indigenous to human nature, Of
~supposing ourselves less liable to i'll fortune. than our
n%eighbors.
Well, after supper the boys started of, in high
spirits, duly equipped with rifles and long knives re-
ceiving many solemn injunctions from their mother
to see that them critters didn't get hold of their skins,
maternal warnings which have a remarkable faculty
of going in at one ear and out at the other.
81 declare, Lefty, we'd forgot all about that sap
boiling 20 suddenly remarked the widow to. her
daughter, who, having washed up the tea dishes, was
busly smoothing down the wavy folds of her hair, at
the little mirror on one side of the kitchen, while
some pleasant thought was slyly dimpling round her
ripe lips, and Frightening through her blue eyes.
$50 we have, and they haven't piled up. any
boughs. It's too bad, with such nice weather for
boiling, and it's likely to set up and rain a week