Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1874-09-04
5fiscellanu.
An Indoor Tragedy.

Well nigh half century ago newly
married couple settled in one of the
western counties of Pennsylvania. They
had what their neighbors deemed faii
capital with which to begin lie-a well
stocked though small farm sound health,
good common sense, and more than av.
erage amount of shrewd intelligence and
culture. Under all this was a sincere
trust in God, and jealous, sensitive
love for each other, neither of which
their neighbors knew much about. Am
erican backwoods farmers take pride
in covering their emotions under a hide
as tough as that of their own beeves.
They had three or four children, and
night after night, over the kitchen fire,
the problem they set themselves to an
swer was, "What is the best thing we
can do with them, and for them ?" The
question asked daily with such wrench
ing of heart in myriads of homes and
answered so differently. The fear OF
God seemed to Jacob and his wife the
best heritage to give them the next
best plenty of money. To give them
the first, they began by hedging the chill
dren's lives with system of rules, bor-
rowed half from the Jewish laws, half
from the theory of their sect. Strict
morality, the keeping of Sunday as a
periodical day of penitence and wretch
edness, the learning under penalty of
dark closets and thrashings of the chief
duty of man, therein was their religion
Life they we're shown as straight and
hard path through dark valley with
the terrors of Sinai behind, and the traps
and pitfalls of flaming hell on either
side. Even Jacobs wife, Mary, holding
her darlings to her breast, than which
no mothers ever ached or throbbed with
more tenderness, had no other sermon to
preach to them. 1t never occurred to
her or her husband that it was into Just
such fields of grain as those about them,
under just such towering cedars, that
Jesus led his disciples and taught them,
by the sunshine and the rain, the tender
mercies of God. The world grew green
around them, faded again and wrapped
itself in snow, year after year; the riv-
er sang its mysterious song to the woods
at their very door and overhead the
stars that had declared to the pstrlarchs
of the old world the infinite secrets of
Jehovah blazoned them forth still, unre-
garded. Day after day uttered speech,
and night unto night showed forth knowl-
edge of Him, but both farmer and wife
were deaf and blind. God was to be ap
preached only through dog-eared cate
chism, and fields and river were worth
only so much fish and wheat per year.
The childreD's salvation being thus
provided for, the next thing to be insur-
ed was money. Husband and wife
worked and stinted only as Scotch
Irish family can work or stint. All
produce that was salable went to the
market; the children were reared on
the refuse, the skim-milk, poorest bacon,
and watery potatoes. Their clothes were
coarse and patched, their feet bare and
chilblained. The house grew barer year
by year, the fathers back more bent,
his face harder, but the balance in the
bank increased dollar by dollar. As
for the plump, bonny Mary, she had
long ago joined that sisterhood of lean,
yellow skinned, toothless women, who,
with dirty calico dresses and wisps of
hair twisted up behind, are sometimes
found in farm houses, like ghastly me-
grims, or daylight spectres of wasted
life. When churning and scrubbing
were done, she would sit up until near
morning washing and darnlng their
clothes, that they might look more gen.
WI bhAh ShSt hVi DOuf
to look at them when they slept, praying
for them with fierce longing to have
power to be God, himself-to be able to
protect and care for them. The boys
had certain strong animal propensities
and physical tendencies which required
skill and knowledge to guide or restrain.
One had morbid Imagination another
a tendency to alcoholic poisoning, against
which his diet and training from infancy
should have defended him. The girls,
left to themselves, we're filling their
brains with sickly, false fancies of life
and their work in it. But what time
had Mary to read or acquire in any way
power to comprehend or help her chill
dren? There was the scrubbing and
to be done, the money to be
saved. Boys and girls were sent to col
leges and seminaries, every advantage
that education could give them was
theirs the only mistake Jacob and his
e.. .o.do =, 4h,z r.epoat ,-o, 80 a. i