The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-11-23
From the Boston Globe.l
THE FARM-YARD CLUB OF LOTHIAN.
BY DR., George B. Loring.


CROPS.
"The stormy March has come at last,
with wind, and cloud, and changing skies;
hear the moaning OF the blast,
Which through the snowy valley flies"
AS the spring approached, an unexpect-
ed public difficulty arose in lothian, which
for time, suspended the meetings of the
Club, and threatened not only the peace
and happiness of the community, but the
very existence of the club itself. The
municipal month of New England, the
"stormy March, the month of tempests
and town meetings was approaching. In
| lothian, the annual town election had new
err been exciting the appropriations were
| always small; the schools were not ex-
! peusive; the highways were kept in repair
| by the citizens, who "wOrked out their
taxes" and amended the roads" as soon as
seed.time was over, by ploughng the road
sides and shovelling the broken sOds and
| loan with great uneyenness into tho car
| riage- path; there we're no destructive and
| swelling mountain streams to bridge there
was 10 town-hall to repair, the meeting
house being used for this purpose; there
were no official salaries to provide for. The
municipality was model of harmony and
economy. and had been so for years The
line of town clerks did not number over
half dozen from the beginning of the
record. To three or four families had been
entrusted the duties of the board of Sc
lectmen, and the members of the board
had changed only with the changing gen.
erations. A political excitement IN the
town was almost unknown, except at a
Presidential election, or during great
party revolution in the state, in which the
issues were made up outside, and brought
into the town by the self. sacrificing gen.
tlemen who were busy in introducing them
into public affairs, and laying upon them
their own foundations.
But this political repose was not to con-
tinue forever. Peter Ilsley had long look
ed with envious eye upon the calm and
substantial prosperity of John Thomas,
" no WAS the chairman of the board of Sc
lectmen, as his father and grandfather had
been before him, and he had also watched
with that eternal vigilance, without which
popular freedom is always lost, the air CT
Unborn authority which had settled down
| upon this heir to the chief magistracy OF
the town. He remembered, too, the irri-
tatng and chatting discussions he had held
| with him in the club. He surveyed the
we'll proportional and well painted farm
| buildings, the neat fences, the well ordered
| fields, the thrifty orchards, the sleek and
well fed cattle, which gave peculiar charm
to John Thomas's home; and as he could
not account for all this satisfactorily SO in
contrast, as 1t was, with his own disorderly
premises and improbable farming, on any
apparent grounds of heavier crops or better
markets, he began TO entertain the thought
| that somewhere and somehow, and at some
time, the Thomas family had secured by
| or In vNrA-
perty, and had concealed it where the eye
| of the tax gatherer had not yet reached it.
He had heard of rings and jobs, and how
could he be assured that a long possession
of power, even in lothian, would, not lead
to profitable corruption He knew by OBJ
servation that ''miller's hogs are always
fat !" and so he forgot that prosperity and
thrift, with the substantial qualities which
attend them, are very often the cause of Of
| fetal prominence, and are not always the
| consequence. He was satisfied that the
public service demanded change, and that
the career of John Thomas must be check
ed. And so, for time he forgot the club,
and Dr. Parker's eccentricitles, and Clara
Bell, the schoolmaster, and all their assoc
Citations, and turned his attention to the
work of public reform
But Peter Ilsley was not recognized as a
reformer in lothian. That he was honest
as this world goes, and gave good measure,
and had rough sense of justice, nobody
doubted. But he was oitener found sailing
his cattle in his pastures on Sunday morn
ing, than listening 10 the sermons OF Mr..
| Howe; he always led the rough aud dis
satisfied element, if there was any, at town
meeting he had even been heard 10 swear
in the presence of the minister; he WAS
fond of arguing on finance with Mr.. Hop
kns, and on theology with Mr.. Howe; and
on law with Squire Wright, whom, in his
own mind, he left dead on the field; he
quoted Jefferson good deal and Tom
Paine little; he had strong passions and
prejudices, and ardent opinions, in ODE
dienee TO which he often wandered away
into new and untried paths, and formed new,
not always congenial associations; he was
bright enough to be most excellent MEM
Der of society, hut he was not bright enough
to know that the community could weigh
his motives, and could distinguish between
an imperious spirit and reformatory spirit
between high tone and high temper. II
was very easy for this man to clamor about
public corruption; he knew that the good
men wond approve, and that the bad men
would Join him in the cry; and he knew
that one public man was just as good as an
other for a victim, If any advantage was tc
be derived from his downfall