Omaha daily bee., 1874-06-26
PENNSYLVANIA MENNoNITEs
Where And How They Live.

Where And How They Live
We leave Reading, then, the
technical extremity of the parent
road, and begin to travel due wes1
through the gently-rolling farm.
country of Berks and Lebanon coun.
ties. 1t Is not romantic, like the
valley of Schuvlkill; nevertheless, 9
long continuous enhance called
South Mountain, bears up below us,
and keeps in sight like a rampant as
we trace it from the car windows,
separating US ann Conestoga Greek
and its ~afiuehts, and from the re-
gion of Ephrata and Lancaster.
The towns lying on either side our
path are half or wholly German in
name, sometimes p~erpetuating
fondly the inconsistencies of those
who called them after well-beloved
spots in the Fatherland. Heidel-
berg, WOmelsdorf, WOhlebertOwn,
lie around US, and farther Offin these
same counties are Naftzingerville,
Rehrersburg, StrausstOwn, and
Milbach, which last doubtless was
originally Muhlbach. The people
who come into the cars from the
small stations are as strange-lOOk-
lug as if from the antipOdes. Two
or three women enter, gentlylaugh-
ing and talking among themselves
in unknowable language, but for
all their gaiety looking as if they
have great need of protection from
the wiles of a corrupt world. They
r dressed i'm narrow suits of black
and deep tunnel-like bOnnets,
homemade - bonnets black as
Erebus, with an enOrn Ous capef fall
ing over the shoulders, Stats OF card
board sewn into the stuff so as to
form the cylinder, and the crown
gathered neatly to q button In the
centre. This kind of bonnet shades
the rosy, laughing face. One of
them carries a boy, a chubby, apple
checked, blond-headed Teuton, In
whose pretty lips the Outlandish
Pennsylvania Dutch Is greatly soft
ened, and whose suit Of clothes
has a general look of having been
made by Japhet's wife in the
ark. To protect the child and its
mother sits a simple, square, bodied
man of forty, with the red, innocent
face of a boy, a mop of touzled yell
low hair, apple-wOOd buttons, and
homemade clothes; he is more
German than q BerAner, for he and
his have been away from German
progress for centuries, sticking like
STOCKS where they were planted.
The goods of this family are carried
in sacks resembling meal-bags.
Other passengers Of the same gem
eral appearance enter-One an old
man whose gray locks tumble over
his shoulders, whose long beard ways
like a goats, and whose principal
garment is an all-embracing army
overcoat, These elder personages
veal felt hats, drab or brown, with
very wide brims curling up evenly
al around, and seeming to have
been turned In lathes or run into
moulds like car-wheels. These are
the mild Pennsylvania Germans.
They are about as aggressive as
rabbits; yet, as rabbits will always
find some frog or other to be afraid
of, SO these families of the Palatinate
eaused apprehension, when they
cau5e over . hundred and fifty years
agO, 70 the wary and unwarlike
Quaken. 1--WE have Of late,p wrote
James Logan, secretary of the pro-
vince, in 17l7, "a great number a.
Palatines poured in upon US without
any recommendation Or notice,
which gives the country some UNI
easiness." They never made much
trouble, however, In the pacific COM
munity. They simply took to fer
tilizing the English language with
their own, producing i'm the end that
wonderful patois which now distin-
cuisines the region. These are the
frust(ulb uinRs who still vote for Gen.
Jackson, and who, believing that
Governor Ritner perpetually yields
the sceptre of the State, sing com.
plimentarily:
Der Joseph Ritner is der mon,
As unser Staat ~rigeron kon!
They are the natural enemies Of
progress; even coal, the theme of
all our present panegyric, the bene-
ficent and indispensable, they look
at with some distrust, as if it were
o gift from the powers below. The
warmth to which this primitive race
gives its truest welcome is the
natural heat of the sun, the halo
of gently stealing mildness that
comes In spring, when the Pennsyl.
vania peasant-girl may pause at her
ploughing i'm the mild weather, and
listen to a few tender words from
her blae-coated farmer-lad. A
country Sappho Of her race, Miss
Rachel Bann, of York county,
makes this naive little confession, re-
sembling at once a yawn and q
smile:
Well. anyhow. wann's Frueyoh'r kummut,
Bin ich geplessed iIst-rate! -
Some of these communities are
very ascetic. When the brethren
established themselves at Ephrata,
in 1870, they first lived as solitaries;
they then put up their wooden mo-
nasteries, shingled to the ground.
The sisters occupied one large on
vent, the brothers another. Here
are to be still seen the apparatus of
mortification-the narrow cells with
a plank for q bed, the doors just the
size of a coffin-lid, the halls 50
Strengthened that two persons cam
not pass The large Sadls are al
most completely papered with the
Hdctur-schrJtenr, or texts in PEN
manship, i'm which pictorial art vies
with ingenious. chirography to ex-
plain the path to heaven.
Presently the Snitz Creek winds
down from the iron hills, and makes
a turn close to where the railroad
stretches along. This is the site of
Lebanon. As We approach Leba-
non through the thriving farms,
many
Mennon' st his bearded chin