New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-10-31

encounters, which one can not we'll dis
sociate rom ideas of complete mental
repose. If they had NO thOughts, they
have not the irrelevance and super auity
of words They are . signally silent race
have seen two Of them, old neighbors
meet after an absence, and when they had
hornily ratified their callOus palms together
stand staring at each other, their dry, ser
rated lips falling apart their jaws mutely
working up and down, their pale blue eyes
vacanty winking, and their weather heater
faces as wholly discharged of expression al
the gable ends of two barns confronting
each other from opposite sides Of the road
no figure can portray the grOtesqueness OF
their persons, with their feet thrust into
their heavy boots, and their clothes-OriRin
ally mlsshapen in slOp shop after some
by-gOne fashion, and now curi0usly warped
outgrOwn, Outworn-climbing up their lege
and mounting upon their STOPPING shout
ders. But il they are silent they are NO,
surly; give them time and they are amiable
enough. and they are first and last honest
They do not ask too much for board, and
they show some slow willingness to &C,
upon bOarder's suggestions for his greater
comfort. But otherwise they remain un
affected by the contact. They learn nc
greater gllbnees of tongue, or liveliness OF
mind, or grace Of manner; il their city guests
bring with them the vices OF wine or beer
at dinner and tobacco after it, the farmers
keep themselves uncontaminate. The only
pipe you smell is that of the nelghboring
Irishman as he passes with his OK team;
the gypsying French Canadians, as they
wander southwark, tipsy by whole families
in their rickety open buggies, lend the sole
bacchanal charm to the prospect that il
knows. These are of race whose indomit.
able light heartedness no rigOr of climate
has appalled,, whereas our Anglo Saxon
stock in many country neighborhoods OF
New England eeems weather beaten in mind
as in face; and this may account for the
greater -wittedness of the women,
whose Indoor life 10 more protected from
the inclemency of our skies. 1t is certain
that they are far reader than the men, more
intelligent, gracious, and graceful, and
with their able ccnnivance the farmer
stays the adversely creeping upon his
class, if he does not retrieve its old
prosperity. In the winter bis daughters
teach school, and in the summer they help
their mother through her enterprise Of
taking boarders. The farm feeds them all,
but from the women's labor comes thrice
the ready money that the land ever yields,
and it is they who keep alive the sense of
all higher and finer things, Heaven knows
with what heroic patience and devoted en-
deavor. The house shines, through them,
with fresh paper aud paint; year by year
they add to those comforts and meek aspi
rations towards luxury which the summer
guest accepts SO lightly when he comes,
sulling askan,e at the parlor organ In the
corner, and the black walnut framed
Oh romO Autographs on the walls.
Nehemiah Woodward left West Pekin in
his youth, after his preparation in the acad.
envy, which still rests its classic pediment
upon pair Of fluted pine pillars above the
village green, and went to Andover, where
he studied divinity and married his land
lady's daughter: She was still, come
what austere girl, and she had spread no
lures for the affections of her lover, who
was Of tenderer years than herself; he was
not her first love; perhaps he was az last
rather her duty, or her impOrtuning fate.
In any case che did not deny him in the
end; they were married after his Ordina-
ton, and went away to the parish in
New York State over which he was settled,
and she left behind her the grave in which
the hopes of her youth were buried. The
young minister knew about it; she told him
everything when he first spoke to her of
marriage; they went together to bid fare
well to the last resting place of the dead
rival whom he had never seen; aud his
sublime generosity touched her heart with
a life long gratitude.
1t was his only inspiration, poor soul he
was dreadful dull mau-toe dull even for
the inarticulate suffering of country congre-
cations. Parish after parish shifted him
from its aching shoulders: they loved him
tor his goodness, but they could not endure
him, they hardly knew why; it was really
because his sermons were of lead, and final
ly none the lighter that they were beaten
out SO thin. He had thus worn west ward,
leaving deeply striated human surface be-
hind him, in the line of the New England
emigration, as far as to the farther border of
Iowa, and he was an elderly man with half
grown family, when his father died and left
the ancestral farm at West Pekin, to which
noLe OF the other cons would return from
their prosperity in the neighboring towns
or the new countries where they had set
tied. But it was not fortune that Nehe-
miah could refuse; possibly he had always
had bis own secret yearnings for those bar
rem pastures Of bis boyhoOd; at any rate he
gladly parted from his last willing parish,
and went back to the farm. Once returned,
he seemed never to have been AWAY; he
looked as much . fixture of the landscape az
any out building of the place. Hequick!y
shed whatever clerical dignity had belonged
to his outward man, and slouched into the
rusty boots and scarecrow coats and hats
that costume our farmers at their work, Us
easily as II he had only laid them off over.
nigst. The physical shape Of the farm was
favorable to his luckless gift of going
down bill, but the energy of his wife
now stayed his further descent as effect.
ually az ii he had been log propped on
the edge Of slope by some jutting
point of granite. She had indeed always
done more than her half toward keeping
her family's souls and bodies together; now,
with q lasting basis to work upon, she took
the share on which Nehemish's lax hold had
falsered. The house was built with the sub
stantial hande0meness which . farmer could
afford who two generations ago sent his boys
to the academy. 1t was large and square,
Y tn ample halls crossing each other from side
70 side, and dividing it into four spacious
rooms below and answering chambers over
head. some of which, after season or two
IF summer boarders, Mrs. Woodward was
sbssN to cut in two and still leave large
enough for single beds. In times series Of
very habitable chambers grew out over the
,ne story wing; broad new piazzs invited
The breeze and shade around two sides of
the house, from whose hill top perch you
Douid lo0k out over . sea Of rolling felds
and voods, steeply shored on the south BY
Inc M long hsnk Of Scatticong mountain.
vas, delicious; the walks and drives
through the white birch groves
were lovely beyond compare; and long be-
lore the summer of which write, the fame
Of Mrs. Woodward's abundant table and
educated kitchen had made it privilege to
be her boardere for which people endesv.
pred BY engaging her rooms year before.
hand whoever abode there reported it o
house flowing with upstinted cream and
eggs: pease, besns, squash and sweet corn
In their season, OF y favor that the green
grocer newer knew; blue berries, after their
kind; and broad With whose iust praise one
must hesitate to tax the credulity Of ones
bearer.
Mrs. Woodward not only knew how to
,erve her guests veil, but how to profit by