The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-01-09


Reath and Sleep the rest have wrought
-Scrioner's Hagasine.
A RIVER DREAM.
MuE-END was q small country town;
but such town! The houses were
packed and pressed and crowded to-
gether, making them look as though
they would suffocate for want of air.
Then they were SO dilapidated and
faded and tumble-down, it seemed a
wonder they kept up at all. To look at
them at . distance you would think,
from the queer way the roofs all slanted
and leaned toward each other, and a
trick some of the houses had of poking
up inquisitive looking dormer gables
and windows in quite unexpected places,
that they had some important secret
that they were whispering about and
hobnobbing over. And then the mar
row, crooked streets, with their seas of
mud and filthy cutters. and debris-lit-
tered sidewalks, the very stones of
which had dissipated. rakish air, as If
instead of lying quietly in their places
and doing their duty, they could do
nothing better with their time than go
knocking about in q disreputable fash
ion. to trip up unwary passengers. And
then the odors! Surely, Cologne itself
never boasted larger and more extern
sive collection; at least, for the sake of
its luckless inhabitants, let US hope SO.
A more unhealthy, undersized, dirty,
gossipping, miserable, worthless set of
human beings surely never existed any
where. The men were mostly out of
work and drunk. the women lean and
ragged and unwomanly, and the chill
dren little and weird and wolf-eyed.
Many was the drunken brawl and scene
of brutal violence that awoke the mid
night echoes of the streets, and fever
and malaria unmolested stalked abroad.
Within, the houses were as uninviting
as without with q separate. family on
every floor, sometimes within every
room. What wonder that the health
and the morals of the place should be
at terribly low ebb.
And what seemed to make it more
painful and pitiful was the loveliness of
the valley in whose lap lay this pesti-
lent little town. The green, flower
gemmed meadows were so fresh and
fair, the air was so fragrant and balmy,
the birds sang sc, sweetly, the little
flowers were 50 brilliantly hued and 60
daintily formed, the river and it's many
shady back-waters and tributary
streamlets were so fresh and bright and
sparkling, and the murmuring music
that they made blended in such sweet
harmony with the tinkling of the sheep
bells, the lowing of the cattle and the
clear, ringing note of the skylark,
whose bit of q body seemed q mere
speck far away against the blue. 1t
lay, this lovely valley, like q glorious
picture, nobly framed by shadow-swept
hills and over-arched by heavens cloud
fecked blue. But, though rich in
beauty and healthful with heaven'o
breezes, it yet clasped q canker-spot of
corruption to its breast; like q beauti-
full woman whose soul is worthless and
diseased. Very few of the miserable
inhabitants of Mile-end, not even the
children, ever found their way out of
the noisome atmosphere of the streets
into the purity and beauty of the woods
and fields beyond. Like the grub that
tastes of the nut it feeds and fattens on,
the dirt and squalor and poverty of the
place seemed to grow into the hearts
and minds and natures of its people,
and to rub out all capacity for enjoying
what was better and purer than them
selves. And yet even here, brutal and
degraded as were the many, in the few,
terribly small as that minority was,
might be found high and noble instincts,
that pushed themselves up through the
poisonous soil, and CROPPED painfully
upwards and onwards to the light
Even here, as everywhere, might be
found instances (rare perhaps, but still
there) of brave patience, endurance
and heroism under great stress of suf-
fering and misery and wrong. Then,
too. although in most of those poor
semi-savage breasts vice and sin had
nearly elbowed out any virtue that ma
ture might have originally planted. it
must not be overlooked that great as the
sin was. as great was the suffering; and
who shall say, if these poor souls had
been born into the clover of this life, as
regarded their physical and moral sur
roundings, what fair and delicate and
beautiful blossoms might not have ex-
panded and bloomed in their natures!
Mile-end was q very old as well as q
very dirty place. and one particular
house in its principal street stood for
ward into the road several feet beyond
its neighbors, its upper story quite
was 50 old that it almost tottered when
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end-even in spite of the wooden props,
themselves rotten now, with which it
had been buttressed up. But in spite,
or perhaps because of its age, and dis
comfort, and dilapidation, it was beau
tifully mellowed and harmonious in the
tone of its coloring. Tufts of vivid
green moss and yellow and gray ichen
at intervals carpeted and softened the
red tiles, and hardy clumps of orange
wailhowers filed up the gaps left BY
departed bricks and mortar, thus throw
ing over the actual decay and rottenness
q glamorous veil of picturesque beauty.
Within this house was cruelty old, and
cold, and comfortless; the beauty of
decay was all outside, and only its stern
reality existed within the frail and
draughty walls There were ten rooms
in this house, which gave shelter to
seven families. The9noise and brawl-
ing were incessant, never seeming to
stop night or day, for when at last the
sickly children were asleep, the night
was made hideous by the drunken bias
phemies and low quarrels of the de-
graded men and women, and the reek-
ing air was thick and heavy with gin
and tobacco and disease. In one of
thess rooms-it was In the projecting