The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1882-05-31
Fenther Beds.

!
ments, the one desideratum for family
comfort and responsibility, was to have
for every sleeping room in the house a
nice, soft feather bed-oi live geese
feathers, If possible-but feather bed
OF some sort for every one of the in
mates. Otherwise it was impossible to
be considered we'll. l.to-do people, and to
receive the prestige which assured
wealth gave to the first families in those
good old times.
But within the last thirty or forty
years q new generation rose up, who
declared that most of their worthy an
cestors' notions were old fogyisms,
which should be discarded by their
wise descendants along with the tallow
candle and other relics Of barbarism
with which their unfortunate progeni-
tors blundered along through life.
Candid ones among the new lights
admitted, indeed, that some of
the fathers lived worthily and left
goodly heritage to their children but
then "they didn't know the comfort
and healthfulness of our modern mat
tresses, and the only wonder is that
they lived so long and did so we'll"
Softly, good friends Did it never occur
to you that, in the ceaseless revolutions
of Fortunes wheel, not only do the low
ones go up and the high ones go down,
but that, also, many discarded and OBJ
solete fashion in dress and household
furnishing and architecture comes to
the fore? And that the present is pre-
eminently time for the restoration of
the manners. customs and habits of the
olden time, at which it was once the
fsshion to scoff and sneer? Do not
pictures of our great-grandmothers
walk the streets in high-heeled shoes,
with frizzled hair and looped-up kirtles
that show bewildering checks and
colors in dainty stockings on daintier
feet? Do we not build 'sceilsd houses"
now (if we can afford it), and consider
wood panels finer than unbroken
stretches of whity-brown plasteripg,
and that oak and other hard woods,
that bear the brunt of life and leave no
scar to tell of childish or clownish buf-
fet, are slightly in advance of the
painted pine in which we reveled gen.
Grafton agop
In this secular restitution of all
things the feather-bed has not been
forgotten. 1t appears in our best houses,
along with the brass andirons and fen
ders, before whose supernal brightness
our dignifed grandsmes dispensed
their courteous and bounteous hospi-
tality. Rich people, initiating the Eu-
ropean style flor most of these old-new
fashions come of travel, and are more
or less limitations of the prevailing
style of living among the English
gentry, have beds of the costly elder
down, lighter than air, and softer than
the ''fowery beds of ease" against
which the austere poet warns us. In
Germany the one luxury of that frugal
people, after music. seems to be beds OF
downtown above and down below
for, with the very refinement of luxury,
they sleep between feather beds. Peo-
pie of more moderate means pride
themselves on live geese feather beds,
and so on down to cheap hen
and turkey feathers, which are
but little better for resting the weary
back and shoulders than ''the soft side
OF plank" or, what is it's equivalent
in the estimation of people of feather
bed proclivities, the modern mattress.
To country people the feather bed is
not merely luxury but necessity; for
though, In city houses, warmed through
out with furnace heat, they do not alb
solutely need it, it is still impossible
for any Except the most robust peoplel,
who sleep in cold rooms in winter, to
keep comfortable during those arctic
months without the elastic feather bed
that curls about the shoulders and fits
| mi thnda hoI s.l,
that saucy vagrant, Time, delights to
chisel when he has once obtained the
mastery over youth and plumpness and
rounded grace.
And this somewhat lengthy preamble
brings to us the main point OF this arti.
ole, which is to urge upon farmers and
poultry fanciers generally the keeping
of ducks and geese, which shall not
only furnish dainty roast for the
family or the market, but will yield
their worth yearly in feathers for your
own use or for sale. Geese feathers al
ways command handsome sum (any,
where from sixty cents to dollar per
pound) and duck feathers are little, il
any, inferior. Farms which contain q
brook or small pond are the natural
forage grounds Of the semi-aquatic
fowl, and they obtain considerable OF
their living for themselves in these
natural reservoirs of food. But even
these "water privileges" are not essen.
tial, as they do nearly as well with a
lfaJsy meadow or pasture and
a tub OF water 10 drink from
night and morning and for an
occasional bath. The European method
of keeping young boy or girl to look
after the flock in It's wanderings might
properly be adopted here. 1t need not
be such an unintellectual pursuit here
it Is in most foreign countries, for