Litchfield enquirer., 1873-01-30
From Old and New. ~ THEY SAW A GREAT lfGH1.
 -
 q Christmas Story, BIT R. F. HALE. zzs -s.
CHAPTER I. ANOTHER GENERATION.

He" was the ''post-rider, all instltn- ton now almost of the past. He rode by the house and threw of copy of the
 Boston Gazetts." Now the Boston Gazette" of this particular issue. gave the results of the drawing of the Massa- chusetts State Lottery of the Eastern Lands in the Waldo Patent.
 Mr. Cuts, the elder, took the ''Ga- zeste," and opened it with smile that pretended to be careless; but even he showed the eager anxiety which they all felt, as he tore of the wrapper and un
 folded the fatal sheet. ''Letter from London" Letter from Philadelphia, '
 "Child with two heads, thus hs ran down the columns of the little page. un- easily. Here it is! here it is!-Drawing of the great State Lottery. Tn the pres ence of the Honorable Treasurer of the Commonwealth, and of their Honours'the Commissioners of the Honourable Coun- cil, was drawn yesterday, at the State House, the first distribution of numbers First combination, 375-1. Second, 421-7 Third. 591-6. Fourth, 594-1. Fifth, and here Mir. Cutts started of his feet. - '219-7. Sybil, my darling! it is SO! 219-7. See, dear childi 219-7! 219-7! o my God! to think it should come so!'
 And he fairly sgt down, and buried his head in his hands, and cried.
 Yhe others for full minute did not dare break ill on excitement so intense, and were silent; but in a minute more, of course, little Simeon, the youngest of the tribes who were represented there, gained courage to pick up the paper, and to spell out again the same words which 1 Fo4 ho1 tion; and, with his sister Sally, who came nation, as to what prize number 5-219.7 might bring.
 For this was lottery in which there were no blanks. The old Commonwealth of Massachusetts, having terrible war debts to pay after the Revolution, had nothing but lands in Maine to pay them with. Now lands in Maine were not very salable, and if the simple and ordinary process of sale had been followed, the lands might not have been sold till this day. So they were distributed by these lotteries, which in that time seemed gi- gantic. Every ticket-holder had some piece of land awarded to him, think,- but to the most, fear, the lands were hardly worth the hunting up, to settle up on. But, to induce as many to buy as might, there were prizes. No. l, think, even had stately mansion" on the land, according to the advertisement No. 2 had some special water-power fa- cillities. No. 5, which Mir. Cutts's ticket had drawn, was two thousand acres on Tripp's Cove,-described in the pro- gramme as that 'well-known Harbor of Refuge, where Fifty Line of Battle Ship could lie in safety" To this cove the two thousand acres so adjoined that the programme represented them as the site of the great Mercantile Metropolis of the Future"
 Samuel Cutts was too old q man, and had already too critically tried his own power in what the world calls ''business, by asad satire, to give great deal of faith to the promises of the prospectus, as to the commercial prosperity of Tnpp's Cove. He had come out of the Revolution 8 Brigadier-G General, with an honorable rec ord of service,-with rheumatism which would never be cured, with good deal of paper money which would never be re- deemed, which the Continent and the Commonwealth had paid him for his seven years,-and without that place in the world of peace which he had had when these years began. The very severest tri- al of the Revolution was to be found in the condition in which the officers of the army were left after it was over. They were men who had distinguished them selves in their profession, and who had done their very best to make that profes- sion unnecessary in the future. To go back to their old calings was hard. 9th CT men were in their places, and there did not seem to be room for two. Under the wretched political system of the old Con- federation there was no such rapid spring of the material prosperity of the country as should find for them new fields in new enterprise Peace did anything but lead to Plenty. Often indeed in history has Plenty been little coy before she could be tempted, with her pretty tender foot, to press the stubble and the ashes left by the havoc of War. And thus it was that General Cutts had returned to his old love whom he had married in a leave of ab- sence just before Bunker Hill, and had begun his new life with her in Old New bury, in Massachusetts, at a time when there was little opening for him,-or for any man who had spent seven years in learning how to do we'll what was never to be done again.
 And in doing what there was to do he had not succeeded. He had just squeez- ed pork and potatoes and Indian meal enough out of worn-out farm to keep Sybil, his wife, and their growing family of children alive, He had, once or twice, gone up to Boston to find what chances might be open for him there. But, alas, Boston was in bad way too, as we'll as Samuel Cutts. Once he had joined some old companions, who had gone out to the Western Reserve in Northern Ohio, to see what opening might be there. But the outlook seemed unfavorable for car .rying 90 far. overland, delicate woman and six little children into 8 wilderness. If he could have scraped together little money, he said he would buy a share in one of the ships he saw rotting in Boston or Salem, and try some foreign adventure. But, alas, the ships would not have been rotting had it been easy for any man to scrape together a little money to buy them. And so, year in and year out, Samuel Cutts and his wife dressed tie children more and more plainly, bought less sugar and more molasses, brought down the family diet more strictly to pork and beans, pea-soup, hasty-pudding, and rye-and-indian,- Samuel Cutts looked more and more sadly on the prospect be- fore these boys and girls, and the life for which he was training them.
 Do you think he was a prodigate, my dear cousin Eunice, because he had bought lottery ticket Please to ob- serve that to buy lottery tickets was rep resented to be as much the duty of all good citizens, as it was proved to be, eleven years ago, your duty to make Have locks and to knit stockings. Samuel Cutts, in the outset, had bought his lot tery ticket only ''to encourage the oth- ers," and to do his honorable share in pay ing the war debt. Then, must confess, he had thought more of the ticket than he had supposed he would. The child ren had made romance about it,-what they would do, and what they would not do. if they drew the first prize. Samuel Cutts and Sybil Cutts themselves had got drawn into the interest of the children, and many was the night when they had sat up, without any light but that of 8 pine-torch, planning out the details of the little colony they would form at the Eastward, tiff only one of the ten great prizes should, by any marvel, fall |