Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1873-05-16
Written for the Free Press & Times.
Tropical Hospitality.

f"fhNHh
Splendid grand imposing in more
senses than one.
You are riding through thinly settled
region of country where stages and hotels
are unknown, where we should naturally
suppose a traveller from the outside dis
tant world would he regarded asa GJdssnd,
and heis
You are frequently hailed by strangers
with all the cordiality and seeming affection
of a bosom friend or born brother. and most
pressingly invited and urged to turn in and
partake Of their fare. to tarry a week OF
month. if You will Can it be possible that
our poor humanity was ever so glorifed
Incredible Why, such hospitality is equal
to the kings feast in the gospel parable.
1t is Divinely royal and princely. Talk
about millennium coming / felt altogeth-
er sure | had myself come to the very
thresi hold Of the millennium. and that all
mankind We're made kith and kin by the
kindly looks and manner of the man before
me, whose hearty greeting and welcome
TRANSPORTED an entire stranger intoanangel
Of light and love. Stop?'' ~ a matter
of course Immediately dismounted. How
could resist his benevolence ? would re-
joiee to stop forever if the dream did not
break-if the cheer held out Stop2'
Certainly, most assureily. Ny dear sir,
this is the very end of my journey, right
here where We stand looking into each
others eyes. This is the final blessed des,i-
nation towards which have been travel
ling all my life long
But, alas, the joy was too fine to De real
too exquisite to last Ny host was rich and
had large cash income from herds and
focks. and farm embracing eight or ten
townships. The style Of his establishment
was lordly in intention. but in fact. sloyeulv
and grovelling.
| remained fortnight, and most of the
time lived on hog and hominy. eat peck
OF dirt, slept with bed-hugs and c0ns6rted
with Doors. When | was not engaged in I
fighting bed-bugs, digesting hog and homi- .
ny with heavy nightmare on my breast. /
never plantation slave was in such request I
and made 20 do 50 much work.
Rainy days they set ne to teaching the T.
children and posting them up in everything .
that had occurred for the previous six thous- 4
and years Evenings a crowd would gather /
and demand recitations in poetry, declama-
lions IN prose, songs and stories endiessly
These hOspitable people all about within
circle OF twenty miles expected me to sur
yey and plot their farms Just a q return for
their neighborly call and smile
preached nine times and at every service
ny host insisted upon taking up a collec-
putting it into his own pocket
lectured ten times and he passed the hat to
very man and woman in the house and put
I all in his own capacious pocket. wrote
wo columns week for the country news
laper IN praise OF his place, and three poll
lcal speeches for his own personal use .as he
vas sure Of a nomination Tor the Legi>la-
ure by the party or himself
Ii began to creep through my hair By
his time that the obligation was not all on
he south side. But they entertained quite
different notion, and there was but one
ray for me out Of the Scrape Besides
hree hundred dollars, worth Of labor. / had /
o give each Of the six children a gold eagle
piece, permit Mrs. BludSOe to appropriate
~ forty dollar watch and then. with my
lOt IN the stlrrup,l had 70 lend old Blud-Oe
round hundred dollars on his naked word. :
That Is tropical hospitality How DO
on like 1t as far as You have read? For my
wn part, | could cheerlully endure all i /
ave related and call my experience cheap. 1
he time, toll and money ! could pass over d
; a trifiing loss but to suffer the compulsion L
t being d" hail fellow well met" with such :
gang-to be familiarity slapped on the
lck, turned inside out, all the sacred priv I
y of your soul broken into and laid hare h
T. the coarse coutact-Bah That is the O
optical hospitality for which hear Won L
Oh +
Polar coldness and some little respect for C
'ur personality-for the amenities of spir-
nal being-i> to me infinitely better and o
ore enjoyable. II
Rely upon it, there must be some good n
zed sell about these Wanted frontier graces -
ID humanities, or else our intellectual and \
tristan civilization of the nineteenth CEN
~ Is a fraud. Which Is it, now2 You
II. Felt IT Or. 7
April, 1873. q