The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1884-03-20
FARM LIFE IN THE SOUTH.
Description of Southern Farm Resi-
dences and Their Furnishings.

Ihere Is IN This region singular
uniformity of architecture, writes q
North Carolina correspondent of the
New York Saa. The pattern after
which the residences are built is a
single story frame house of four rooms.
Two large chimneyS 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 and material. The roof
projects over a piazza, from which
doors open directly into three of the
rooms, for there is no hall. The ''big
room the room of general use. where
visitors are Notwithstanding a high,
rough, big bedstead. on which at all
seasons there is Il feather bed, covered
with a scrupulously white counter
pane, a rickety table with blue cover
ing, a rough, splint- bottom rocking
chair, and two or three other home
made chairs, the legs of which are paint
cd blue, and on the back Of which you
may read the name of the bungling
maker in big blue letters. The floor is
carpetless, but it giistens from the
weekly scrubbing with sand.
Above the high mantel-piece there is
a religious chrome in terrifying eolors,
and few religious books hold the table
in place. The three other rooms also
are bedrooms, and they are furnished
or unfinished in the same plain way.
The kitchen, which is built of logs,
stands IF y feet from the other house.
1t is innocent of cook-stove. but is
guilty of the most extensive fireplace
that was ever construc;ed-big enough
to roast an OK whole. There sa large
yard OF large oaks, and for 100 feet on
either side OF the front gate the fence
is of boards, the rest of il of rails
Such is the residence of prosper
Gus man, so at least he considers him.
self, who lives ten miles from Raleigh
and three from the village of Cary, and
the residences of the most of his neigh
bors are built and furnished in the
same way. He has three daughters and
two sons, and all but one little girl are
grown. The BOYS occupy one room
which, besides the bed and the wooden
pegs behind the doors on which they
hang their clothes, contains little but
their "chests" plain, wooden boxes,
painted b-ue, in which they keep their
''store SUITS their pistols and their
fddies. The gir.s have similar deposit
tories for their Sunday 'finery."
The old lady and her daughters
make with their own hands nearly all
the clothes the family has. There was
n time when the old woman spun the
thread and wOve the cloth, and she
maintains now that there is no other
thread so good 10 darn with as the
thread of her own spinning. So she
keeps her old spinning wheel for oc-
casional use and for spiritual comfort,
and last year she gathered cotton from
the field, which she followed with her
own fingers on its long journey from
the stalk to the stocking. The house
work and the gardening are the only
employments of the women, but they
always seem TO be busy. Once a week
they boil the clothes in a pot, suspend
ed from the tops OF three poles which
are placed in the front yard near tic
well. The monotony of wash-day is
often relieved by fishing for the bucket
with the pot-hooks. Cooking is a very
simple thing, for the frying-pan and
the pot do their whole duty. JUDGED,
the frying-pan is the origin of all their
ailments, certainly of the old lady's
dyspepsia, of the chiidren's thin, grist-
ly faces, and of the oldest BOYS neces-
sity for gro@. Fried bacon for early
breakfast will postpone The millennium
anywhere; add TO that fried sweet po-
tatoes, and an active outdoor life and
a perfect atmosphere must do their
best to keep naturally robust people
from groans. The frying-pan is Il
worse enemy of man in AL this country
than whisky or politics. When all the
ground is yellow with mellow apples,
and the odor OF peaches and grapes is
blown over every breakfast table. no.
body eats fruit except between meals;
and the very chickens have the pleas
ure OF life taken because neither broiler
nor oven awaits one of them, but al
ways the frying-pan.
In the evening after supper and be-
fore early bedtime, the boys sometimes
play on their tiddles, their feet accom-
panying the three tunes they know,
1.-The Arkansaw Traveller" Fishers
Hornpipe, and 1.-The Old North State"
while the rest of the family hold their
hands in silence. And many an evening
these five intelligent adults sit the live
long hours holding their hands, saying
now and then word, as if by accident
and pretending to do nothing; yet they
are happy. The art of resting has not
been cultivated so well anywhere else.
True. the old woman does usually ply
her knitting needles, stopping now and
then to remark, while she rubs snuff,
that her old bones feel s'streaks'' of
rheumatism, but that it's hard to wear
out an old leather string. The girls
sometimes have cuttings, and there
are the parties" of country society.