Litchfield enquirer., 1874-12-31

ssta ssaffso eA Ezszsiaspe.@ sss .s <
 weapons glance alf hasnaless. s41g All the rest of the day she was like s
 thing possessed followed her to the h H-pastura, vi her she has gone to mind the cows.s and found her Eoiied np on the
 grass in the blaze of the afternoon sun, ikea little .aalamapder. She was lost in day-dreams.. and the decorous COWS had hoIiday f6f once in thsrB0ber lives, wandering beyond bounds asHEill, and even tasting ths dissipationa af the marsh. standing unheeded in the bog up to their sleek knees. Wnhenina had not many words to give mo; her English vocabulary was limited; she had never read a-line of romance nor verse of poetry. The near est approach to either was the community hymn-book, containing the Separatist hymns, of which the following lines are ! speeimen:- sasszsAz. &''i
 .esz -Rnhs 1t das besae Gut
 Dasz man haben kann:
 .Rsst is ths best good
 That man can hase,..-- -.sz.-.,s5 and which embodies theralgious doctrine Iof. the Zoar brethren, although they
 think apparently that the labor of twelve
 hours each day Unnecessary to its enjoy mept. The .:Ruhe." however, refers. more especially to their qniet seclusion away from the turmoil of the wicked vprrad 0sskasf3e fza a 2. z5GS-sE sl<zzt zf e The second morning after this it was
 abroad in the .phlegmatic, village. All the Wirfhshaas; Pauline went up to the bakery with her board, and returned with her Load of bread and sbretzels balanced on her head; Jaeobina served our coffee with her sloW precision; and the broad shonldefed. young-faced Lydia patted and puffed up our mountain-high feather beds with due care. The men went afield at the blast of the horn, the workshops were full and the mills running: But, nevertheless, all was not the same; the air seemed full of mystery: there were whisperings when two met, furtiye signals and an inward excitement glowing in the faces of man, women and children. hith- erto placid as their own sheep. seIhey have heard the news, said, after watch ing the tailor's Gretchen and the black smiths Barbara st5y to exchange a whis- per behind the woodhouse Later in the day we learned that several letters from the absent soldier boys had been received that morning, announcing their arrival on the evening train. The news had flown from one end of the villageto the other, and although the en-driHed hands swere all at work, hearts were stirring with the greatest excitement of lifetime, since there hardly was house where there was not one expected. Each large house oft en held 8 number of families. slowed away in little sets of chambers. with one dining grcom in common. s . z5 Several times during the day we saw
 the three trustees conferring apart with anxious faces. The war had been 6 sore trouble to them, owing to their conscien- tious scruples against rendering military service They had hoped to remain nom combatants. But the country was on fire with patrotisna. and nothing less than a bona fde Separstist in the United States
 uniform would quiet the surrounding towns, long jealous of the wealh of this foreign community, misunderstanding it's tenets, and glowing with that zeal aga1nst ssympathizers" whieh kept Che star span gled banners flying over every suspected house Hang out the fagP' was their cry, and they demanded that Zoar should hang out its aoldiers, eiving them to un- lderatand thak ifdnot solunkaxlly hnng out. fhay. would soon, be inYQlpntarily hung
 up A draft was ordered, and then the young men of the society, who had long
 chafed against their bonds, broke loose,
 volunteered, end marched away, princi-
 ples or no principles. trustees or no trus-
 tees. These bold hearts once gone, the
 village sank into Quietude again. Their letters, however, were source of anxiety,
 coming as they did from the vain outside
 world; and the old postmaster, autocrat
 though he was, hardly dared to suppress
 them. But he said, shaking his head. that that they ''had fallen upon troublous
 times. and handed each dangerous en-
 velope out with Q groan. But the soldiers were not skilled penmen; their letters, few and far between, at length stopped entire ly. Time passed, and the very existence of the runaways had become a far-off
 problem. to the wise men of the communi-
 ty. absorbed in their slow calculations and cautious agriculture, when now, suddenly it forced itself upon them face to face, and they were required to solve it in the twinkling of an eye The bold hearts were coming back, full of knowledge of the outside world; almost every house would hold one, and the bands of law and order would be broken. Before this prospect the trustees quailed Twenty years be- fore they would have forbidden the en- trance of these unruly sons within their borders; but now they dared not, since
 even into Zoar had penetrated the knowl-
 edgeth America was a free country. The
 younger generation were not as their fa-
 thers were; objections had been openly
 made to the cut of the Sunday coats, and the girls had spoken together of ribbons The shadows of twilight seemed very long in falling that night, but at last there was no further excuse for delaying the evening bell, and home came the laborers to their: evening meal. There was no moon, 8 soft mist obsoured the stars, and
 the night was darkened with the excess of richness which rose from the ripening valley fields and fat bottom-lands along the river. The community store opposite the Wirthshans was closed early in the eve ming, the houses of the trustees were dark, and indeed the village was almost
 unlighted, as if to hide its own excite ment. The entire population was abroad
 in the night. and one by one the men and
 boys stole away down the station road, a lovely, winding track on the hillside, fol- lowing the river down the valley to the little station on the grass-grown railroad. . branch from the main track As ten o'clock came, the women and girls, grown bold with excitement, gathered in the
 open space in front of the Wirthshaus,
 where the lights from the windows illu-
 mined their faces. There I saw the broad d-shouldered Lydia, Rosine, Doroty, and all the rest, in their Sunday clothes. flushed. laughing, and chattering; but no l Wilhelmina.
 "Where can she be?" said.
 If she was there, the larger girls con cealed her with their buxom breadth: I looked for the slender little maiden in F ''Shu!' cried the girls, ''de buglel' Far dove the station road we heard the fbugle and saw the glimmering of lights among the trees. On it came, a will-o'. the-wisp procession; first a detachment of village boys each with lantern or torch, next the returned soldiers winding their
 bugles, for. German like, they all had mu- t@sical instruments, then an excited crowd
 of brothers and cousins loaded with knap- E Il