The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1880-08-19
The Old Homesteads Of New England.

The sweetest and most natural out
growth of old-time pastoral life was a
love of and clinging to the old home
steads. Once New England was full of
them; great, brown, roomy, homely
houses, facing the south; led to by
green lanes; shut in by ancestral fields;
standing quite even with the green
sward, which they met with low-lying
stones dug out from their own pas
lures. Each had its family burying-
place-blessed spot. They were all
rich in springs, and brooks, and wood
lands. They had added to them, year
after year, the glory of trees, and BUSH
es, and vines; the wild growth of seeds,
flung by the winds into the crevices of
walls and unused places. That which
was peculiar to them, that which could
not be simulated by art, was a certain
beauty given to them by time, and use,
and decay sort of mellowing tints
the landscape of the piles and their
adjuncts, by which each homestead took
unto itself an individual expression for
its owner, and his descendants. The
aspect of q farmhouse was, to the chill
dren of it, as personal of recognition
as the face of a father. or grandfather.
It was to be held in the family name,
and 90 down with it. It was the sane
tuary of homely virtues, the center of
family reunions; the place of its yearly
thanksgiving; spot from which its
membership had enlarged and diverged;
and to which, when they died, its sons
and daughters were brought back for
burial.
In it, generation after generation,
there was always one left. 1t was either
a faithful son or daughter who had
married one of her own sort. These
men and women were spoken of as
"the boys and girls at home," and, as
such, they were most admirable. NJ
matter how little fitted they seemed to
be for any other sphere, as the append
ages and rulers of these old homes they
could hardly have been changed for the
better. They were portion, of their
appropriate machinery, and stayed by
them from choice, because their lives
had not grown away from them. The
men had a certain audacity of mien, the
simple abandon of persons whose deal
ings were largely with Nature. The
women had no artificial ways, little
learning but much good sense, and
their greatest charm was that they were
easily satisfied with small pleasures.
Their children were the country cous-
ins;'' as much sweet feature Of farm
life as were its dandelions and butter
cups and daisies.
Thus, by rotation, the homestead was
ALWAYS filled. The foreign land to
which its indwellers all travelled was
the little burial ground close by. The
journey was short by linear measure
ment, but, reckoned by the events and
worth of the days and months and years
it took to get there, it was travel won
derfully rich in effort and results. The
external signs of their journey were the
ruts in the boards and stones, worn by
the steady tramp of feet. What you
could not see was the life which had
been constantly diverging from such
fountains of piety, truth and industry.
As look back, what strikes me most in
that old country living is it's simplicity,
its earnestness, its honesty and its dig
nifty. The men and women seemed to
grapple with their inherited burdens.
They were q race of born athletes and
wrestlers with their soil, the natural
outgrowth of it.--Frons e. II. airs
"Nev England By Cones"
q THOSE who have no opportunity to
enjoy sea-bathing will be glad to know
that substitute nearly, If not quite,
as strengthening is found in an ammo
mia bath. A gill of liquid ammonia IN
Sv~xyS