Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-12-23
THE ROAD TO HoosIBR HOLLOW.
"A Country Village Hidden Away
From the Surface of Civilization
Amid the Dismal Hills.

Richard L. Dawson in Chicago Herald
The puzzle was this: Whether at some
period in the remote ages city had blown
up and a fragment of it fallen here and started
out anew as country village, or whether il
could be possible that deliberate plan was
laid by any rational mind to ram a town
into two feet of yellow mud, in a
dismal hollow, amid chain of desolate
hills. The first mentioned theory ap-
pears, at least, most plausible, as applied to
this town of Hoosier Hollow. Hills and
woods inclosed it. On one rather humble rise
of ground, church; dozen modest frame
houses running up another slope In the
midst, two blacksmith shops, cooper shop
and two rival stores, which deal in all known
articles Of merchandise, dry goods notions,
groceries, feed, drugs, hardware, tinware
ETC., and one of them being distinguished by
the postoffice. Two doctors of the strictest
school and two or three "squires,' who hold
court at their houses or on the store platform
at random; a variety of dogs cats and hogs,
roaming at will; horses and wagons hitched
on the open square, and the families them
selves make up the features of the village
Hoosier Hollow is not on the surface of
civilization, in the open thoroughfares of busy
life, filed with the clangor of trade, or dis.
turbed by the rush of the locomotive. No,
you have to get there. You leave your train
at small station, and while waiting for the
country hack" sit on the nail key in the
store and inhale the combined odors of cheese
and crackers, coffee, sugar, calico and
tobacco. The hack arrives. General
stampede. The mail bags are thrown in, and
the passengers Chamber up on the seats and
settle down for long ride, over roads deep
in mud, or frozen to terrible roughness, OF
whirling with summer dust, while the suns
heat rolls up intense and binding into their
faces The crisply, practical driver, with his
dry, wrinkled face overhung by broad,
slouch hat, thoughtfully sets his jaws to work
on a large quid of tobacco, and by it's aid
grinds out a perfect stream of horse talk,
farming wisdom, and jolly anecdotes, alter
mating these with another perfect stream of
saliva.
You stop at wayside taverns while the
horses are watered and the entire contens of
the city papers are read aloud by the driver
to gaping crowd of rustics You pause at
the crossroads postoffice to open the mail
bags and leave a few letters, and note here a
dirty, wild-haired girl, some wood choppers,
loungers and woman standing with arms
akimbo, in the door of the single house,
whence comes the sound and SAVIOR of frying
ham and onions. The driver gathers his reins,
clucks to his horses, and the scene recedes.
The road dives down into deep gully, shoots
up high hill, then stretches far ahead in a
white line cutting the woods You pass farm
houses, barns, pigs, cattle, horses, sheep,
barking dogs, noisy poultry and spreading
fields of grain. Long hours go by in this way
and at last you arrive upon the summit of a
very steep hill, and below lies the goal of
your journey. A final dash down the long
slope of a miles length, and the tired horses
are drawn up in front Of the high platform
at the postoffice in Hoosier Hollow.