The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1883-05-12
TWO OLD LOVERS.

Leyden was emphatically village Of
cottages, and each of them built after one
of two patterns; either the front door
was on the right side. in the corner of a
little piazza extending third OF the
length of the house, with the main roof
jutting over it, or the piazza stretched
across the front and the door was in the
center.
The cottages were uniformly painted
white, and had blinds of bright spring
green color. There was little flower
garden in front of each; the beds were
laid out artistically in triangles. hearts
and rounds, and edged with box; boys
love, sweet-williams and pinks were the
fashionable and prevailing flowers.
There was general air of cheerful
though humble prosperity about the
place, which it owed, and indeed its
very existence. also, to the three old
weather-beaten boot and shoe factories
which arose stannchly and Importantly
in the very midst of the natty little white
cottages.
Years before, when one Hiram Strong
put up his three factories for the manu-
facture of the rough shoe which the
working-man of America wears, he
hardly thought he was also gaining for
himself the honor of founding Leyden.
He chose the site for his buildings mainly
because they would be easily accessible
to the railway which stretched to the
city, sixty miles distant. At first the
workmen came on the cars from the
neighboring towns, but after q while
they became tired Of that, and one after
another built for himself cottage and
established his family and his household
belongings near the scene of his daily
labors. So gradually Leyden grew. A
built his cottage like C, and b built his
like d. They painted them white and
hung the green blinds, and laid out their
flower beds in front and their vegetable
beds at the back. By-and-by came a
church and store and post-office to
pass, and Leyden was afull-hedgedtown.
That was a long TIME ago. The shoe
factories had long passed out of the hands
of Hiram Strong's heirs; he himself was
only memory on the earth. The business
was not quite as wide-awake and vigor-
GUS as when in his first youth; it droned
little now; there was not quite so much
hustle and hurry as formerly. The fac
tories were never lighted up of an even
ing on account OF overwork, and the
workmen found plenty Of time for pleas
ant and salutary gossip over their cutting
and pegging. But this did not detract
in the least from the general cheerful
ness and prosperity Of Leyden. The in
habitants still had all the work they
needed to supply the means necessary
for their small comforts, and they were
contented. They too had begun to drone
little like the factories. ssAs slow as
Leyden," was the saying amongst the
fsster-going towns adjoining theirs.
Every morning at seven the old men,
young men and boys in their calico shirt
sleeves, their faces little pale-perhaps
from their indoor life--filed unquestion-
ingly out of the back doors of the white
cottages, treading still deeper the we'll
worn foot-paths stretching around the
sides of the houses, and entered the fac
tories. They were great ugly wooden
buildings, with wings which they had
grown in their youth jutting clumsily
from their numbering shoulders. Their
outer walls were black and grimy,
streaked and splashed and patched with
red paint in every variety Of shade. &C.
cordingly rs the original hue was tenn
pered with smoke or the beatings Of the
storms of many years.
The men worked peacefully and evenly
in the shoe shops all day; and the women
sfaid at home and kept the little white
cottages tidy, cooked the meals and
svnaohod the clofboo and III <h< -o..,:.-