The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-01-05
LIFE IN WEST VIRGINIA.


How the People live on The Ont
skirts OF CiVIIiEatiOn---A Glimpse
at Winter Scenes---The dO-Eess Char
act0r OF some OF the PeOPle---Thc
Status OF Things sincethe War.
CEREDo, wGxNE COUNTY, Dec. Is.
cOrrssPOHdeues Of the Springfield CMasa) Re
WINTER WEATHER.
Our winter has just commenced.
Last Sunday we had our first freezing
weather for the season. The week be-
fore 1 was riding on horseback, and
found it very pleasant and comfortable
without overcoat or fire, except at night.
The crickets seemed to have forgotten
that it was in the "sere ard yellow
leaf' of the season, and the birds of
early autumn still fingered about the
clearings and farm orchards. The
corn in the country is not yet more than
half harvested, although that is more
a sign of laziness on the part of the
farmers, than evidence OF the long
mild season, for they have more than
six months to cultivate one harvest.
This long season of warm weather
seems to encourage delay in finishing
up the harvest work. An old farmers
wife appeared to appreciate this fact in
a remark she made in my hearing a
few days since. Where 1 was staying
one night the talk was about the rich
prairies of the West, and the old man
was telling what he had heard
of the productiveness of the soil in
some of the States, and gave a COM
planning account of his own bad luck
here ever since he was "mightly tore
up" by the war. His best field of corn
on the mountain would soon be gone if
they did not get it in, he said. The
squirrels had already "destroyed a
heap, and seems like we don't have
any good weather any more, to gather
it. It's a mighty poor country to get
living in. We can't do much till some
on e'm comes with plenty of money,
and builds a railroad or fixes some way
fur us to get our coal and timber out to
market. Then we might do something.
It's mighty hard gettin' along now"
The old woman, who was busy picking
cotton of her own raising, of which she
had halfa pound in her lap, now spoke
up and said: "We've had too much
fine weather, the men don't work when
they have the best chances; we've had
plenty of mighty putty weather, but
that's the time when they want to go
hunting and be settin' round. They
are afraid of work. That's what's the
matter" Now you shall see how this
woman's speech hit the nail on the
head, uneducated as she is, and used
only to the customs of the people. she
is now living among.
A FARMERS s FAMILY ...
This family consists of father and five
sons, four of them able to work on the
farm; the mother and three daughters,
two of them as large as herself They
own a thousand acres or more, mostly
wild and hilly land, but over a hundred
acres cleared for pasture and tillage.
On the hills, where the blue grass is in
abundance, feeds a flock of sheep.
The women have the care of them ex-
cIusively. When shearing time comes.
the neighbors help clip the wool. 1t is
cleaned, carded by hand, spun, twisted
and wove, and made into pantaloons,
undershirts, shirts, co ats, jackets, petit
| coats, gowns, bed-hlankets, &c At
times, doubtless, every thread of cloth
ing used in that family is the product of
the farm. The women also have the
care of the cows, and go for them, no
matter how bad the weather, or how far
away they may be. 1t is considered
| small business for the men to drive up,
| feed and milk the cows. The women
must also get all the water used in the
| house. The great lubberly six-foot
tall son in this family, got up from
his chair to get a drink of water,
and roughly ordered his sister to
go for ''bucket of WATER" as he
wanted some. She was mixing
meal and water for the corn-dodgers,
but cleaned the dough from her fingers
and hurried away to get pail of water
by the time her affectionate brother had
all the tobacco cleared from his mouth.
The women have to cut the wood, too.
Many times have seen that, when the
man of the house was sitting in the
chimney-coTner, or leaning over the
fence gossiping with a neighbor. If
| there are any garden luxuries in the
house, the women have 10 raise them
The head of the house will tell you
proudly that his "old woman tends to
the garden truck.p
Now, then, what do you suppose the
| men do, after the women raise the sheep,
| and geese, and garden vegetables, pro-
| vide all the bed-cIothing and wearing
bacon? Why, they plant corn and har-
vest part of it, and get up the oxen oc-
| casionally to haul tree trunks to the
house for firewood. I don't know as
| they do much other work. But then
they have to know all about the busi-
ness of their neighbors, and the proba-
bility and danger of negro suffrage
must be discussed, although there are
only three colored persons within fifty
miles, and one of them female. Some
times they get few days employment
to help get out timber. The job is during
high water and they make a frolic of it.
WAITING TO BE MADE COMFORTABLE.
This is a picture common enough
back in the mountains where poor
man owning land, (and the more land
he has the poorer he isl does not know,
and does not try to learn how, to make
himself comfortable. The climate is
very healthy, the land generally pro-
ductive; the climate, soil and seasons
perfectly adapted to fruit and stock
raising, and yet the men are whining
about hard times, and waiting impa-
tiently for men of capital to come and
bring wealth into the country. They
can produce everything they want on
their farms, except coffee. do not
think that twenty dollars year is ex-
pended for all that family of ten per-
molasses, they have sugar tree orchards
and make their own sugar, and can
raise any kind of fruit or vegetables.
They Say to me, t'if this country is all
that you say it is, why don't eastern
men of money come and buy our farms
| and make us comfortable with cash Pr
am forced to tell them that don't
think money would make them COM
Portable. II, with all the chance they
now have, they cannot make them
selves comfortable, no amount ofmoney
would do them good. Then 1 refer
them to neighbor S., a Yankee, who
| rents farm, pays one third of all the
| product for rent, but lives as well as
/ any man in the county, and makes
money every year; then to Mr.. D., on
whose farm are apple and peach trees,
and who realizes a handsome sum
every year from dried apples or peach
es, and frequently from both; to neigh
bors O., who, this year, sold 5000 worth
of cider brandy from his little orchard
on the hill, and to Squire W., who
lately sold $500 worth of cattle that did