The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1861-10-31
A Verse of the Poetry of an Old Thor.
Oughfare.

Every old region has an old and dis
used road, that like a line of poetry
forgotten and dim, only old-fashioned
people pore over. You have seen such
a thoroughfare. We have one in mind
at this moment. Straight over the hill
and straight through the big timber,
and plump into the swamp, and bounce
over the corduroy" went to the old
road. It's long bridges are broken and
mossy now, and the brown birds in
white waistcoats build nests beneath
them, undisturbed by the rumble of
wheels over head. Nobody goes that
way, not even the boys en- route TO
school for ever so many years ago, in
November day, they have heard, a
stranger went down by the old mill
You can see the rim of its old dry wheel
from here-and was never seen again.
Years after, among the hemlocks hu
man bones were found, and to this day,
on windy nights, groans come out of
the gulf, and the troubled ghost is
thought to be walking still. Over yon-
der, is a broad dished Sunfower and a
heap of stone. The latter was once a
hearth, for house once stood there,
and after the stranger disappeared, the
tenant grew suddenly rich, as the times
went, and showed gold with unknown
words upon it, that none of the neigh
bors could make out, and pretty soon
he took all he had and went west; as
some said, to the Genesee Country"
and others. to the Ohio" which was
yet more like dream than the Gene-
see. After that, nobody would live in
the house, and it grew ruinous, and was
haunted, and people saw light there
in dark nights, or thought they did, and
the children shunned 1t, except in the
brightest of mornings, when the sun was
shining and the birds were singing, and
the cows went lowing, Indian file, to
the pasture; and after while, the old
house tumbled down and crunbled
away.
Such stories thrive along old roads,
even as the May weed, and the thistles,
that nobody ever cuts down, and on
whose pink tops, the yellow birds rock
up and down, like little boats at anchor,
till the fall winds whistle away the
golden birds and the white down.
Even the brooks that used to trinkle
across the track and under the little
bridges, have somehow run dry, OF
gone another way, and you will see an
old trough, dusty and bleached, by the
road side, the strips of bark that brought
the water from the hills, broken and
scattered, and the earth worn hard and
smooth with the trampling of many
feet. Very long ago, tin cup used
to hang there, tethered with string
for the sake of thirsty travellers. We
like to stand by the deserted watering
place, where only broken thread oi
ice cold water trickles its way down to
the road side, and fancy how eagerly.
in the long summer. days, the horses
painting through the heavy sand and uF
the rocky hills, thrust their noses deer
into the overfowiDg trough OF crysta
GOODNESS, while ever and anon, the eau
tious drivers pulled up their heads with
jerk, until the leng-drawn breath O.
inarticulate centent. or 3a -@ nt''
We like to think how the dripping
cup was borne to bearded lips, thai
were eloquent and true of old, and lips
perchance of beauty, that are dusty
how bees, from the shimmering fields
came bugling thither, and crept, with
dainty feet along the trough's damn
edge; how birds sat there and drank
and rendered their little thanks, an(
rode away upon the biIlowy air; how
now and then a squirrel, red and sleek
|, with snowy throat, flashed chatterins
along the devious rails thereto, ant