The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1884-10-30
A PRODUCT OF THE WEST.
Bill Nye Discourses Upon Life
In Dugout.
Psculiarities and Disadvantages Of a Dug
out as a Place Of Residence

out as Place of Residence
There's no use talking, roughing 1t
in pleasant weather with good compa-
ny and as little civilization as possible
is pleasant and healthrul. Shooting
or fishing all day IN the mountains,
with plenty of blankets, bonfire and
a briar pipe at night, after a sage
chicken or trout, or elk supper, is not
really roughing it after all, but a dug
out is certainly the abomnation OF
desolation. can stand a grown per-
sons dose Of poverty, I believe, and
never squeal; but l will never sleepin
dugout until this mortal has put on
immortality. I've slept in a log cabin
with no roof over it whatever, in log
ging camps, where l could count the
principal stars in the Ornament, while
the thermometer was below forty de-
grees, and have rolled myself up in a
pair of. government blankets and the
zodiac at a height of 5000 feet above
high water mark, with the Uriah Heep
cayote Sinking in the distance, and
singing anon the weird style of solo
that makes your heart sink; but | nev-
er slept in dugout. That is Joy
that L never have experienced, The
adobe is not very bad house, whether
it be the original Mexican adobe ofsun-
dried brick, or the corruption thereof,
which is found further north, ,and which
is sod. These houses are built of the
tough, square block cut from a grassy
flat, and some of them are good-looklnG
and comfortable, but the dugout is a
hole in the ground with a dirt root
over it in which you live like a prairie
dog and get fresh air on ground hog
day, if the Indians will let you. The
rustic dugout, 1 am glad to see. is not
holding its place in our modern archi-
lecture, and looks now as though il
might some day disappear entirely. II
had its good points and had its disad
vantages. In the days when valley tar
roared up and down the land seeking
whom it might devour, the dugout wa'
q boon to many, for the households
could come home at any hour of tht
night and fall into his house. But herr
the way was opened for serious draw
back. The architecture of the houst
allowed the vagraat mule and the high
: spirited Texas steer to fall into th'
house also, and no one knew, when HI
sat down to dine, whether it would bt
a stray pack jack or an absent-minde'
grizzly that would fall through the roo
| into the pork gravy or fill the slum
: gulion with hair and gravel. Other
may like excitement at meals, but d
l not 1t certainly does not alu Urges
: ton, and a man who has once picke'
Y a grizzly out of his coffee does no
" wish to do so again.
But the deserted dugout is the mos
cherries place know. The drainag
= of a dugout is never good, and afte
e the inhabitants have gone and there
r no one to get the water out on bail, tn
home-like and cheerful air that shoul
{ dwell there is gone. Dear reader,
c you are disposed to drag on your stead
nerve and regular pulse letme ask yo
n to spend the night in deserted dugou
s in the bosom of the earth hundra
r miles from feed or water. If you d
not hope before rosy morn that som
border rullian will come along and XII
/ you. YOU must be, indeed, hardened.
p would rather crawl into the sarcoph;
gus of total stranger than to spen
+ the night in the deserted dugout of
most intimate friend,-BW Me.