Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1881-02-02

tsa LEN. A., w III
4 Coz NTRY TAVERN IN WIN
TER.
From Lippincott's Magazine for February.
Two O'Clock by the kitcken-clock.
At four at will be dark The dim red
sunset of fine days can hardly shine
through the December windows, and
now storm is blowing and it is in
tensely cold The tavern stands knee
deep in snow. Snow is piled high on
acknowledges and sashes, and the
rooms are muffied in a peculiar hush
caused by the woolly frost on the
panes, which thickened to bold alte re-
| lieCOs when the kettles were boiling
| for dinner; you have to scratch a hole
half an inch deep in order to see out.
Nevertheless, flowers of all heavens
grow on the landlady's windows. \
large, dark able woman, she sews be-
side her flowers, half remembering the
brief dream of summer, so hot while
the corn weather lasted that the
English sparrows gasped with open
mouths and lifted wings. half hoping
for the first heavenly day of spring
when the wind, blowing hundreds Of
miles from sea to the New York hills.
will begin to melt the snow under it.
icy crust The remark common to
woman, Il can't have anything as |
want it, is not one OF hers. She has
made sitting-room OF her ample old
kitchen, has fitted it up with rag
carpet. cherry bureau 'nlaid with
birch, and stand having gorgeous
brass handles and pair Of grcen-glass
candle2ticks, and has moved her kitch-
en- according to a fashion dear to
country wives, back to little pantry
surrounded room in The rear From
her chair she can hear Ann Smallhoof
in the kitchen singing with the voice
of wild bird, d,-screech-owl, for in
stance
| wants none of your rings nor money,
Fal de rang,
De rang edang eday;
Pm for the man that calls me honey,
Fal de rang,
De rang edang eday.
And she can look across the yellow
painted dining-room to a door of the
bar-room, which opens occasionally
with the announcement, Two travel
lers for dinnerp Whenever this hap
pens, the little pot standing full of
peeled potatoes in cold water in the
kitchen is clapped on the fire, and
twenty minutes later those potatoes,
mashed, enter the diningroom in the
company of ham and eggs and hot
coffee There are long, level roads
about Wet Falls aud the Malleable
Iron-W orks where the railroads have
killed the taverns. but among the hills
"A great deal of riding and driving still
goes on, and this tavern, on plateau
of the valley, with woody sweeps ris-
ing far above it, and below it cedar
scented stream running in woody beds,
lacks no company. Many traveller
breasts the storm miles and miles for
the sake of the landlady's cookery.
Snowy feet stamp on the porch, and
in stalks Squire Ford, of the Hills,
caught in the storm on his h0meward
way. He seats himself by the setting
room fire and tries to find some news
that he has overlooked in yesterdays
paper There is a vein Of melancholy
and irritability about the Ford race
he is not pleased to have to put up at
a tavern A Ford is never in scrape
No Ford every catches cold, or has his
house burnt up, or is poor. or drunk
ard, or cheats. Whatever Ford
does is right and success There is
old Bill Birkbeck: stepped on his
shoestring, fell and broke his hip, and
is famed for life. No Ford goes around
with united shoes And old Dan
Idlet dropped a stick Of wood on his
foot, and is bedrid after No Ford
drops wood on his foot The squire
should have forescen the storm.
While he reads, the sitting-room re-
ceives another arrival that banishes
his peevish looks,-the Melvincs Of
MelviDe Farm, belated in the storm
like himself They are fine couple,
the gentleman with glow Of amber
in his white hair, the dame in rich
wooden dress Of beauteous pigeon
blue and wearing blond lace on her
silken gray hair. ST Fl and rosy with
cold, they doT wraps, aud talk and
congratulations commence, for there
never were such friends as the Fords
and Melvines; their mere meeting is
exhlarating. The founders Of the two
families come together long ago from
Connecticut to New York's wheat
fields, that they might no more need
u eat rye and injin,' and their woods,
underwo oods, rivers, brooks and rivo-
lete' were enfeoiled to them from a
sachem named Ousamarquin, king Of
Pocanorcket
Melvine's fourth great-grandfatber
was an officer in the French and In
dian war, which is fine but Ford's
fifth great-grandiather was scalped in
the Pequod war, which is still better.
Melvine families have superior beauty
of phys1que, educate their children well
are fond Of travel and society, are hard
ut bargain and smart at making
money. Tney are an equable race,
having something genial in their very
anger, never specially enthusiastic
about anything, nor bent on reforms
which do not pay, nor distressed by
the nakedness of the poor. Our great
war did not disturb them. They give
some hundreds year to the Church
and go about their business with
minds disengagcd from thoughts about
the Infinite. They are satisfied with
their old preacher, who fills his SER
mons with cheerful and doleful anec-
dotes in equal parts, intersperscd with
such phrases as 'washings Of regenera
tion, root and branch, and pestilence