Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1873-05-15
Those Good old Times. "

In Mr.. Knapp's autobiography he
alludes to the modes of life followed
by our grandfathers in the following
unfattering style, giving some per-
sonal "reminiscences which do not con-
firm popular impressions:
Why do we SO often hear elderly
people speaking Of the ''good old
times" and lamenting the present
degeneracy? They must have had
a singularly happy childhood, or a
faculty of forgetting the evils and
meseries Of tile past. My experience
is all the ether way. never knew
what happy childhood was, in any
modern sense Of the phrase. My own
happiness began with manhood, and,
/ am bound to add, has been increas-
ing this NANNY, many years. L say
this here only to encourage the read
er to 60 on with the present sad chapt-
or which embraces my four years,
from eight to twelve, except two
months each year at school, in the old
red factory, where, under an ignorant
and tyrannical overseer, worked
twelve hours day, standing on my
bare feet most Of the year, was poorly
fed and poorly clothed. | had no
holidays save those ofFast and Thanks
giving, the former being more than
an offset to the latter. Oh, the un-
naturalness, the monotony, the wearin-
ness, the actual privations, the posi-
tive sufferings of such life to sen
sitive boy no language can describe.
| remember | got along with the
confinement much better in winter
than in summer. The first year my
carding machine stood near window
where | could look out over an OF
chard and meadow; and when | saw
the COWS lying in the sunshine on the
green grass and the birds hopping and
singing in the fragrant apple trees, l
felt as if must do some desperate
thing and get out among them. |
doubt if prison life was ever sadder to
any man than this factory life was to
me.
On one occasion my longing for a
day out Of doors, with some little
variety to it, was so great that | de-
liberately but my finger into the cog
wheels of my machine, where it would
get so crushed as to reprive me till
it became healed. The pain of the
wound was nothing to the joy of lib
Grafton from such bondage. And to
this time | never can hear factory
bell ring in the early morning, or see
those buildings lighted in the even
ing, without thinking of my many
long miserable days, extended through
those four long miserable years.
I have spoken of my summer trials
But think of the short days of winter,
when a little boy, TO whom sleep is
always so sweet, had to get up, eat a
poor breakfast, and go long distance
in the cold, by the time it was light
enough to commence work run home
at midday, eat dinner, and get back
in forty-fve minutes, and then work
on till halfpast seven in the evening
two or three hours after dark /! Of
course | was then too tired and sleepy
even to feel my hunger. "And what"
it may be asked "did you get for such
work ?" | answer, taking the four
years, from soventy-five cents to $1.25
per week.
Oh, those sold times" were any
thing but "good' to me! Six days
of such work, and then the Jewish
Puritan, Or to the boy, repressive,
stupid Sabbath. AS | look back upon
it, it is difficult to decide which Of the
seven days of the week was the most
wearisome, monotonous, hateful. /
must not go out into the fields, | must
not play or make any noise. My ma
ture must be repressed in every direc-
ton because it was the Sabbath. |
grew up in the idea that God requir-
ed such a strict observance on his own
account. 1t never occurred to me
that ''the Sabbath was made for man"
and certainly not that it was made for
boys. Then l remember going be-
tween ten and twelve o'clock, about
two miles, almost every Sunday, to
church. This walk, in warm wealth
er, was the one retreshment' of the
week, because it took me across the
the fields and through the woods,
where heard the songs Of birds, and
saw so many beautiful leaves, MOSES
and wild flowers. But of the meet
ing, when the walk was ended, have
none but the most dismal associations