The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1880-06-03
An English village.

dren; the ever-open doorways and
bright firesides; the flowers in every
window; the silent sunny spaces by the
roadside; and the coming and going OF
wagons, carriers vans and coaches.
The principal shops were the clutch
er's," the i" tea-grocer's," the "green-
grocer and poulterer's I" the " bakers, y
the " dairyman's" and the draper and
mercer's." Around these prominent
trades-people circle a few lesser lights;
a cobbler, who worked most labOrious-
ly in his doorway, flarfked by two grilny
apprentices. and with perpetual back
ground of tall wife and elamOrous chill
dren; the tailor, who occupied a neigh
boring house, and stitched in fine old
kitchen furnished with Chippendales;
he SGT upon a table in a deep old win
dow fairly overhung with flowers, and
being a very old man brought his eyes
perilously near the needle at every
stitch. Sometimes passers-by would
tap on the window-pane and then bring
their heads in at the always open door
"How art ee, John Timbs?" we would
hear them saying.
ION the 60" from the tailor, who
never turned muscle toward them.
We wondered often, seeing his intense
application, whether the demand was
greater than the supply; but all over the
village his stitching was famous, and a
good pile of corduroys and waistcoats
was always waiting to be distributed.
The leading trades-people wore an air
of great responsibility; their shops were
trim and fine, and their customers usu-
ally deferential. This attitude of su-
periority was the great difference be-
tween London shop-keepers and them
selves; except when some one obvi-
ously belonging to the gentry" ap-
peared, the shop-keeper's tone was
lofty; his wife and daughters, usually
serving in the shop, would address the
customers with various degrees of IA
miliarity: "Well, now, Mrs. Bunting,
what for you to-dayPn or, "Well, Jane,
what zee been sent for, my gellP' or
"How do you do, Elizabeth Wills?
Have zee come for something warm this
weather."
These remarks would be accompanied
by agood- condecension, which
occasionally encouraged the customer
to sit down and rest awhile between
purchases, and possibly enter into fam
lily details l. is hard to characterize
all this. Differing subtly from the in
tercourse in American country stores,
il lacked our heartiness of question and
response; our never-failing interest
called by the satirical curiosity; our
readiness to be astonished or amused.
The English country man or woman
possesses but slight faculty for any such
expression or emotion; grave facts are
received with an unruffied calm, and
grief and Joy alike seem robbed of all
excitement; but there is a certain in
tensity in their brevity and quiet utter
ances not without its dramatic force,
and critical moments are sometimes
pathetic from their very silence.
TIE shops were ranged in the two
principal streets hard by the market
place. The butchers, as is customary
throughout England, was a very open
looking building, the butcher himself
usually visible on the doorstep, and all
the best meats hung without, exactly
as in the shops of Chaucer's day, or
that chaotic period before the exchange
was established to give system to trades
people and purchasers; the Diapers had
one bullying window, and a loud bell
over the door; and the bakers window
was principally filled with sweet cakes
and buns, which formed so grievous a
lure for the children of the neighbor-
hood that there was always a row of
little marks on the panes above the dan
gerous CONNECTIONS. and one never APP
preached the bakers without sending a
flock of Juveniles flying in various di-
rections. The shops were interspersed
with houses and inns, nearly all of
which were whitewashed and matched.
Many of the buildings were medieval;
some had curious old porches, with
seats on either side, and bit of tagged
court; here and there appeared the
peaked roofs and tiny windows of Henry
the Seventies day, and the six
teenth and seventeenth centuries
had furnished many models. In
the humber district every door
stood open, morning, noon and night,
so that, going up and down the street
one could catch glimpses of a succession
of interiors, all arranged much after the
same fashion, all characterized by deep
window-seats with high narrow case
mentS, giving the prettiest background
10 the stone-fiagged kitchens, with a
bit of muslin curtain, and always the
added grace of flowers. We used to
think we had never seen in any part of
the world so many flowers and children;
both seemed to grow equally carelessly;
every doorway overfOwed with little
people, bare-armed and bare-necked,
but never barefooted. and every window
was blooming with flowers and green
with ferns.
Away up at the end of the village
street was the forge, always open, busy
and cheerful, its shadows giving Rem
brandt effect to the angle of the road in
which it stood, and its luminous center
casting out lurid CLEANS in which the
duskv farriers could be seen at their
work. while outside was sure to be a
group of idlers about the horses wait
ING to be shod; old men, in smock
frocks and broad-brimmed hats, leaning
upon sticks; boys of every age, from
three to twelve; one or two shy, rosy
checked girls, in holland pinafores, with
hare red arms and enormous hob-nailed
shoes. Above this scattered group was
the dense foliage of an old tree whose
branches sheltered the roof and wide
portal Of the forge. 1t was very pleas
ing road picture, characteristic of
the village work and people, and formed
one of the half-dozen eenters for color
and effect.-MrS. John DiLlie, ia Hdr-
per'S Magazine.
TO Prevent Cattle from Jumping.
A way to stop an unruly COW or steer