Seattle daily post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1883-08-28

People who Live the Life Of q nuu.
dFed yearx Am

WAKE CoUSTY, y. c., July 22.-There
i. la this region 4 singular uniformity
OF architecture. The pattern after
which the residences are built ia q sin
gle story frame house of four rooms.
iwo lsrae chirnneys stand at the ends
huge masses OF extramural masonry
OF brick and stone, which are monu-
ments OF the most wanton waste of
space, labor aud material. The roof
projects over a piazza, from which
doors open directly into three of the
rooms, Tor there IL 10 hall. The BIG
room, the room of general use. where
visitors are NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. a hiph.
rough, big bedstead, on which at all sea-
sons there Is a feather bed covered with
scrupuiouSly white counterpana. a
rickety table with a blue GOVERNS. a
rough, splint- bottom rocking chair. and
Two or three other home made chairs.
the Legs OF which are painted blue. and
on the backs of which You may read
the name OF the bungiing maker in big
blue letters. The floor ia carpetless'
bnt II Riistens FROM the weekly scrub
binC with sand. Above the high man
teipiece there Is religious chrome in
Terrifying colors, and few religious
books bold the table in place. The
three other rooms are also bedrooms,
and they are furnished or unfurnished
IN the same plain way. The kitchen,
which As built of logs, stands fifty feet
from the other house. 1t is innocent of
a cook stove, bat guilty of the most ex-
tsnsive nre place that was eyer con-
structed-big enough to roast An OK
whole. There is large yard of large
oaks, and for hundred feet on either
side OF the front gate the fence is of
boards, the rest of it of rails.
such Is the residence of a prosperous
man, SO at least he considers himself,
ten miles from Raleigh and three FROM
the village OF Cary, and the residences
OF the most of his neiehbors are built
ana furnished In the same wag. He has
three daughters and two sops, and all
but one little girl are grown. The bows
occupy one room, which besides the
ped and the wooden pegs behind the
door. on which they hang their clothes,
contains little but their "chests''-plain,
wooden boxes, painted blue. in which
they keep their store Suits" their pis-
tolls and their fiddles. The girls have
similar repositories for their Sunday
"fnery."
Ibis man owns three hundred acres
OF good land, nearly one hundred of
which are under cultivation, and large
part OF the rest is covered with oak and
hickory, which near good market,
would be worth fortune. He and his
sons work the farm, with the help at
the busy season of hired negro. Tney
go sfield early, but they work rather
slowly. Their methed of work was in
dicated by the trouble that they recent
ly allowed broken hinge to give them.
The barn door is unnecessarily heavy.
and fortnight ago one of the wrought
iron hinges wore in two. They swung
the decfepit door two or three times a
day on one hinge for a week, remarkino
every day that it ought to be mended.
and propped the door with rail. When
the other hinge was broken two rails
had to be used. Then one of the bows
took mule from the pillow, rode two
miles to blacksmith shop. and waited
tall pair of hinges was made. Next
day the door was mended, having cost
nearly two days labor of the boy and
mule, a weeks trouble, and the price of
q pair of hinges.
The old lady and her daughters make
with their own hands nearly all the
clothes the family has. There was a
time when the old women spun the
thread and wove the cloth, and she
maintains now that there is no other
thread so good to darn with as the
thread OF her OWN spinning. So she
keeps her old spinning wheel for ocoa-
sional use and for spiritual comfort,
and last year she gathered cotton from
the field, which she followed with her
own fingers on IFS long journey from
the stock to the stocking. The house.
work and the gardening are the only
empioyments OF the women, but they
always seem to be busy. Once week
they boil The clothes in pot, suspended
from the tops of three poles which are
placed In the front yard near the well.
The nonotony of washing ia often re-
lleved by fishing for the bucket with
the Pot-hooks. Cooking il very sim
pie thing. for the frying pan and the
pot do their whole duty. Indeed, the
frying pan is tbs origin of all their all
ments-certainly of the old Iady's dys-
pepsia, Of the children's thin, gristly
faces, and of the oldest bows necessity
tor gr0g. Fried bacon for every break
fast will postpone the millennium any-
where ; add to that fried sweet potatoes,
$3.50 hH oStafO O0bAOOf ilI6 hIlQ D6I-
fest atmosphere must do their best to
Keep naturally robust people from
groans. The frylngpan is a worse en-
emy OF man in all this country than
whisky or Republican politics. When
all the ground is yellow with mellow
apples, and the odor of peaches and
grapes is blown over every breakfast
table, nobody eats fruit except "be-
tween meals;" and the very chickens
nave the pleasure of life taken because
neither broiler nor oven awaits one of
them, but always the frying-pan.
In the evening, after supper and be-
fore the early bedtime, the boys some
times play on their fiddles, their feet
accompanying, the three tues they
know, The Arkansaw Traveller" "The
Fishers Hornpipe," and 1.-The Old
North State" while the rest of the fam
lily hold their hands in silence. And
many an evening these five intelligent
adults sit the livelong hours holding
their hands, saying nov and then a
word, as II by accident, and pretending
to do nothing; yet they are happy. The
art of resting has not been cultivated 40
well anywhere else. True, the old
woman does usually ply her knitting
needles, stopping now and then to re-
mark, while she rubs snuff, that her old
bones feel ''streaks" of rheumatism,
bat that it's hard to wear out an old
leather string. The girls sometimes
have cuttings, and those are the "par-
ties Of country society. Whom the
quilt has been quilted, the young ladies
and gentlemen will range themselves
around it; one young gentleman will
throw q cat on the quilt, and exact a
kiss, while Fishers Hornpipe" is
played, from the girl upon whom il
leaps. And this sport goes on while the
apples bake before the fire of liRhtwood
knots.
This man and his family are pros
porous, comfortable and very happy.
II you ask him about his we'll -beinQ,
he will assure you that his we'll con-
tains better water than any other in
the county. Nearly everything that he
needs or wants. including tobacco, he
grows on his farm, and If he has little
cash he has little use for it. His
children can read and write, but they
read and write little, and il would be
hazardous IL stand sponsor for their
orthosraphy. He receives his weekly
church paper from Raleigh, which
brings him a week old all the news he
hears from the world, saudwiched al
~ara NTH <vrs.>l J<~otrsu> ~~A ,x,s,,tu.l