Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1857-07-11
NJ | sc E L L A N Y.
THE COUNTRY STORE.

In Athens, the people used TO have their
theaters and their games. In Rome, amuse-
ments held high place Of necessity. London,
Paris, New York, Boston, all the large cities
OF the time, feel obliged to cater for popular
wants in this direction, and hence arise splendid
piles and open, magnificent halls that are de-
voted to nothing else but the entertainment of
the sovereigns and masses.
Back in the country they have no amusements
at all. 1t isn't nonsense to say so, because it
is too true. They live hard, bald, dry lives,
and dry deaths. OF course we mean with now
and then an exception. They. get up in the
morning and work with their patient cattle till
sundown They dress themselves in their stiff
fest and most starched up things on Sundays,
and go to meeting from nothing but sense of
dnty They huddle at all the funerals, and
manage at those times and places..to get through
as large an amount of talk as our busiest mer-
chants do any day in whole hour on change.
Not that adj farmers are quite as bad as this,
for we know better ourselves. But the excep-
tions are "mghty scarce" as the boy said
Beyond the reach of what are popularity sup
posed TO be the refining and truly humanizing
icaly at all aow--men and women do not seem
to know how TO amuse themselves at all or if
they do here and there chance to get an inkling
of what they need 10 the way of pastimes, they
set about it SO much like going about their work
that the wbele affair becomes nothing less than
series of downright efforts of the most severe
and unnatural character.
have said ii before, and ] say it again.
country people don't know how to amuse them
selves They require something quite differ
ent from what their city cousins call for, grant.
But il is so different, as the case stands now, II
makes one laugh out of the left-hand corner OF
his mouth so think of the consummate absurd
ity of the thing. For example: instead of
meeting and greeting one another In natural
and easy way at party, hall, husklng, or
something of that sort, they atte0d faithfully
upon all the funerals, meeting up at the "meet-
ing house." auction sales Of sherifs and ad-
ministrat0rs, militia mnsters, aad annual agrl-
cultural shows, wearing countenances as long
as the ndred-and-aineteenth Psalm. set,
dry, fixed and totally Ungenial ia their ways and
manners careful 10 let no impulsiVe expressions
escape them if they can by any rigid possibility
help it, and fixing unmcrclful stares OF astOnish-
ment and reproof on all the younger ones who
can not help now and then laughing at the
tWang, the thump, or the topic of the minister.
Hence, for want of theater, concert, and
things of that sort, the people FAR back in the
country have shrewd way ofresoriag to some
thing that they no doubt think altogether better.
1t is the COUNTRY STORE.
An institution all by itself is the country
store. 1t stands out as distinct and vivid in the
social landscape OF the rural districts as the
monument does on Bunker Hill. AL parties
resort TO it. All the loungers, all the oilers,
and all the village gossips, as well as those who
go to buy molasses, keg nails, tobacco, and
raisins, congregate and loiter, and gossip, and
listen. in the convenient resingplace Of the
country store And il it Furthermore happens
to be the Post-office, then follows patronage
from the soyereigns far and near, which II would
be idle indeed for me 10 attempt to descrioe'-
Besides the sugar, nails, goldfish, aHd brooms,
there lie all the letters that belong TO the men,
women and children of the town. The SUN
total of their correspondence with parties resi-
dent abroad is to he found just there, and just
nowhere else. Therefore oil the men collect
about this swarming focus. Therefore they
CONG and sit evening after evening, alternately