Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-08-02
NO. 1876.
miscellaneous.
LETTER FROM CAMBRIDGE.
CAMBRIDGE, July 28, 1879.

CAMBRIDGE, july 2S, 1879.
Mr.. EDITOR Our usually busy streets are
remarkably quiet now the exodus of our seven
hundred students, with several thousand
school children, and a multitude of other
pleasure seekers from the city. creates dull
ness of business that is almost exasperating
to traders.
The old "Widder" Butler is prowling
around and narrowing up the denizens of the
old Bay State again. She wants to be COVER
nor bad, but the people here are distrustful of
the old lady, and the indications are, that she
will get her quietus at the coming election.
A strange coincident, call it a coincident,
there are other names for it, occurred here
this week. Mr.. Joseph H. Holmes, of the
firm of j. A. Holmes & Co., wholesale gro
GERS, died suddenly of heart disease Saturday
morning. His wife and four children were at
Hampton Beach. At four o'clock, A. NJ, the
hour and minute Mr.. H.. expired, Mrs.
Holmes was suddenly wakened by the pres
sure. as it seemed to her, of cold hand upon
her face Springing upright in bed she saw,
as plainly as she ever saw him. her husband
standing beside the bed with face pale and
wan, and clothed in the ghastly habiiments of
the grave. Faint and sick from horror, she
aroused the lady with whom she boarded,
and told her what she had seen. The lady
tried to laugh her out of her fears, but to no
purpose. She insisted that her husband was
dead, and as soon as the telegraph Office was
opened she hurried there and waited for the
telegram which came at IL 80, with the omi-
nous words, "Come home"
The following is an extract from boys
letter. The lad is down among the pines Of
good old Maine, and he writes to his school
mate. There is no doubt the boy is having a
good time and things are lively:
''You bet am havin the boss time, and all
the felers with me too They dig potatoes
with harrow, which is sport. We hev green
corn right off the vines, and it is nice you bet.
There aint no policemen here, and we can
holler all we want. Me and some other
fellers tied a cows tail to fence, and
then scat her so she run and brok her leg, so
my father will have to pay some money for
it. Hickey, that's a boy from Charlest0wn,
shot a hog with pistol and his mother is aw-
full mad about it. l eat three pints of cur
rants and like to died. Billy has got three
fingers broke with horse rake. The boys
round here chew gum and sometimes tobac-
co, and don't wear no shoes. / got fighting
with one of EN- the other day, and my eye is
awful sore now, he was bigger'n me and we
shall have another fight soon. Jimmy and
me went in swimmin the other day and so he
didn't know how to swim and he didn't come
up. and so he got drownded and his mother
had to go home and git him into grave. We
have great fun pluggin stones at horses and
hens, out in the fields. They have machines
to cut up grass, and beans, and cucumbers,
and corn and everything.
1t is all woods round here and they have
sick looking churches and they don't have no
bells in EN-, and there amt no steamers to
put out fire."
Heaven help that boys poor mother; she
must be in perpetual torment. A Pleasant
street man sent his boy up to New
Hampshire few weeks ago, to keep him
out of mischief. He didn't stay but two
weeks and when they brought him home he
looked as if he had been run through the
stones of grist mill. This was the result
of little fun he had with wild calf. When
his mother opened his trunk, she was horri-
fed at the contents. An old stocking leg
partially filed with gunpowder was jammed
into collar-box with two or three punches of
friction matches. A loaded pistol was tucked
away in a base ball cap, and two mud turtles
were wrapped up in his linen dustcr. Care
fully stored away in the centre of his trunk,
was large hawk which he had shot week
previously, and which was badly decayed.
When a boy goes from the city into the coun-
try he seems to grow bad at once, and press
es with the stride of giant into more than
the enormities of an Elah Gobalus.
+. B. GETCHELL.