Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1880-01-28

py manner:
Once more see that troop of little girls
With shining hair. all Innocent of curls.
Imprisoned close in little siken nets,
Barefeoted, and with calico pantalets
All vending schoolwards on the summers day
Now stopping to pick berries by the way
Now standing all arrow, with glances shy,
To " make their manners" to the passer-by.
What house could hold that of boisterous boys
Whose sex and presence were made known by noise,
As of winter morning they rushed in
With caps of fur, and dnner-pails of tin.
With trousers legs tied down with bits of twine,
With rosy cheeks that evermore did shine
With health's own luster; with the melting tracks
OF snowballs sticking still upon their backs,
And Stood in coats that their own mothers woye,
To thaw their aching fingers at the stove?
There stands the youngster, with quyering lip,
Who was the snapper when they snapped the
whip"
And whose short length end over end did 20
And struck head foremost in drift OF snow
After faithfully picturing the episodes of
the school room, the poet took the teacher
upon his peregrinations of " boarding
round" and closed with picture of the
farmers home on long winters night,
and touching tribute to the mothers of
the broad-shouldered men present, that
brought down the house:
Like their spirits' fond caresslng,
Let their flames fall like blessing
On our children as we bring them TO the front;
For something nobler than all others
God created all our mothers
God created oil the mothers of Vermont.
COL. N. WATERMAN.
Vermonters at home and abroad"
was responded to by Col. A. N. Water
man. lie said that, assembled in the
metropolis of the northwest surrounded by
so many evidences of wealth and luxury,
they might almost forget that the state
whose sons they were had no great cities.
and that the people out from among whom
they had come were in the main of frugal
habits, humble means, and simple ways.
Her thirty thousand farmers, with farms
averaging less than 100 acres each,
found in the cultivation of her hll-sides
that something more than mere tickling
was needed to make them laugh with an
abundant harvest. Farm life in Vermont
was struggle with inclement weather,
stubborn rocks, tough stumps, and mea-
gre soil. The winter was consumed in
foddering cattle and getting out tirewood,
odd times being filled in by the manufac-
ture Of sap-buckets, which from immem-
oral usage had become legal-tender at 10
cents apiece, while the small remainder of
the year was devoted to II sharp endeavor
frs, to get behind and then to got ahead of
the frost ever lingering near. The Vermont
farmer worked hard, lived well. and, if
one reckoncd his gains by dollars and
cents, died poor; but if one weighed him
and his in the scales of eternity, "by
Heaven" it would be found that his class
were the richest people in the universe.
The end and aim of civilization was the
promotion of human happiness. If they
did not conduce to this, then wealth. art,
science, literature and law were useless.
Judged by this standard, there was in the
world no higher civilization than shat of
Vermont. Nowhere were to be found less
of the extremes of wealth and poverty,
less of violence, destitution, suffering, and
crime, more of industry, sobriety, and
prosperity, as well rs actual and practical
liberty, equality,and fraternity. Mankind
had never seen government the superior
of that under which the Vermonter lived
a government that more perfectly an
swered the end for which governments
were instituted, the protection of life, the
stcuii.y ,u VI properly '"nu .ue ess.psuen' n Wn
O,ont rou,ay ~ ,,J sno Ioo s,at IInsr' AGsr ou,
.ii', niomt was hoi s.a"" s'''.u niio' l,,; ooia
i,, pnno'ili .no MGon h;tIi, ~ INV n,'eu w.
state, the speaker referred to the men at
l'on''' anu a9Aoa "he'ne' 'o''hoh' WIS
no' u Sf'ii' s'"'e
"ouR CARTER"
.Chic,oo Oar Adoo,ed Ham. and ns
Mavor" was ,ha srntim.nt IN which the
Han Carrier II Harrison was calleJ ,n,n MN
70 re.uonI lie said That brevi,v - w,s 'rb pba
snnI nf wit and Lo nrncasJaG ,o ~ mate n NV n
vnrv hrinf md sh,rrI., n,,inted aJdross IN
which hc s,il il h,J bern stated NV , nra. a.
vions sncaEer M That NC Cbicarn wac noteI nI pl for
lie ,noi.s,n sn was ;,s ,n.ror ~ RI a,rh
far # had ,lso heen ~ stata1 that ~
shou,d not fnrrs mseif into of,ice | hnt
should bn C,reoI to ,nna,, Th,, Uo' ,o, "s'
,rtlv ,bn wav If wss witb tho ,,aror " ~ of