The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-12-01
EDITORIAL CORREsPONDENOR.

Rain in the country means a dark
day, wet grass, flowers smiling through
tears, dripping trees, slippery highways,
and leisure time indoors for books or
music. In the city, and especially in
New York, rain implies mud, confusion,
hurry, filth and umbrellas. We had
engaged to visit South Manchester,
Conn, on such an afternoon, but we
were only a novice about New York
rain, so the fact that, in spite of lower
ing weather, we must spend the fore
noon alternately in North William
street and Broadway, among printers,
stereotypers, designers, engravers and
publishers, inspired US with no forebod-
ings, and we set out very early in order
to complete our rounds by twelve O. clock,
when we were to take the train for the
evenings destination.
Verdant novice that we were, we had
donned good clothes to encounter that
rain. Mud why, we've seen the horses
mire in the Weiser Slough of Eastern
Oregon, have almost lost sight of their
ears in the sticky clay of the Sierra Ne
vadas of California, have plowed
through seas of slush along the Cowlitz
IN Washington Territory, have rode
hub-deep through the black loan
Illinois bottoms, and seen the bottom
itself fall through the highways OF
Hardscrabble in Oregon, but for intru-
sive, sticky, sloppy, nasty, abOminable
mud, we never saw anything worth
complaining of till we encountered
New York rain storm and was COM
PEELED to cross Chatham street afoot,
ride through the Bowery in a crowded
street car, get wet through and through
when wading through the slush among
the teams at the street crossing beyond
Cooper Union, and cap the climax by
lodging behind the steaming horses on
Broadway, carrying bundle in one
hand and an umbrella in the other,
leaving our skirts to catch the Shiny
ooze of the thoroughfare and our COM
planning shoes to absorb the filthiness
that skirts failed to encounter. But, by
noon, we were ready for the train, in
spite of adverse circumstances, and
were glad of the darkness that hid the
worst of our Predicament from the hos
pitable friends who greeted US at night
) fall at the mansion home of Frank
Cheney, Esq, and his genial wife and
daughters, who welcomed us with as
kindly greeting as though our bedrag-
gled skirts and shoes were invisible
: creations of a morbid fancy.
: Our route lay through the beautiful
o valley of the winding Connecticut
through New Haven and Hartford, anC
q beyond the Charter Oak city, out into 6
4 lovely alluviaI succession of hills anC
dales, as beautiful as the surrounding
of Roseburg and as peaceful as the vale!
. of Yamhill.
The rain had not yet overtaken Soutf
,, Manchester, and the blessed Indiar
b summer was in haze of glory.
To our surprise and joy we found tha
i Mrs. Cheney was one of the Cushing
daughters, family well and honorabl!
known in Illinois when we were boil
I children, and when Delavan Prairie
where her father lived, was howlin
i wilderness.
u Brought up almost within hail c
81 each other, yet she had removed in he
lie early maidenhood to the farthest East
e, we to the farthest West, and now, wit
ii sons and daughters grown to maturity
'e while yet gray hairs are strangers to th
OF temples of both, we are permitted. t
Oh meet beside the cheerful fire of her elC
e, CANT home and recall the history of
Us Saltenstall, Stockwell, and Perkin
lg the memory of a Scott, Roleofson,
IL Wright and Cushing, and all the ha
We lowed associations of the springtime
Ell life with which these names were a.
We sociated. Again, as when we visite
rs dear old fremont and its environs, ol
u fingers tiagIe to leave the tracks
u prose and wander into realms of vers
d. But there is other work than retrospe
Pr tion before us, reader.
~ ~ Morning came, and presently churC
time. A stroll abroad through Il
- country air on that quiet day of da.
~ was indeed a privilege. The mansion
"s of the Cheney brothers, four of who
Is reside within sight of the pattern
homestead of a hundred years ag
which is now occupied by an unmarri
-. one Of their number, and kept in pc
-. feet repair by loving hands that delig
to preserve its low ceilings, quaint lit
,1 window panes, old-fashioned cloc
with pulses stilled in the long ago, ev
-" as were the heart beats of its ancie
-" owners, form an agreeable contrast |
tween the ancient and modern, and
uS' reach the model church with our mi
full of pleasing and painful fancies.
VI The church is called a hall, and
used, as all churches should be, for b
20 manity, its builders having sufficie
faith in God to believe Him capable
i,, building His own special castles, if
wants any, which we honor Him (
7He highly to believe for an instant. o
of the progressive steps in the religi
eSS Of Christ will he the dOinp awav as I