Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1884-02-04

just oCIOle IHdHhoSlFlHS, "H0h on
event occurred in Midgeville that ag-
itated Midgeville from center to cir
cumference.
1t was no new thing to Midgeville
society to be agitated. Indeed, it
would have been a much newer thing
for it to have remained unagitated
for any length of time.
Mrs. Priscilla Downs often said
that "Midgeville was the excitingest
place she ever lived in.'' AS her
youth had been spent in the whirl of
gaiety at Bald Hill Cove, and fifteen
years of her married life within three
miles of Poverty Corner, this was
saying great deal, but it was true
nevertheless there was, as NJ.
Priscilla affirmed, always something
happening at Midgeville.
When the Downs moved thither
some ten years ago, the public-spirit-
ed Midgevilleites had just purchased
a ten-acre lot of Mr.. Slocum, for a
burying ground, and great was the
CONSERVATION produced thereby,
some of the oldest inhabitants going
so far in their opposition as to say
that "they would never be buried in
Bill Slocum's sheep pasture as long
as they lived;' and hardly had the
matter been compromised by their
dying and being buried there, when
the school-house burned; and wheth-
er it caught fire from the stove door
being carelessly left ajar the night
before, or was set on fire by some
young scamps in the neighborhood,
was an unfathomable mystery that
again perplexed the good people of
Midgeville. Following close upon
the heels of the disaster Addison
Snow mittened Serena Ann Baker,
after being as ''good as engaged to
her for nigh on to six years.
1t nearly broke the poor girls
heat; but the Midgevilleites were
wonderfully sympathetic as a class,
and Serena found great consolation
in visiting among them and telling
to willing listeners how she had
''sot her life by Anderson y of the
tender little things he had to say to
her, and how "nigh she came to
faintin' dead away when he proposed
quitting
She soon received greater consola-
tion from the attentions of Caleb
Perkins, and merrily rang the bells
Cor would had there been any bells
in Midgeville to ring and they were
wed. In less than three months af-
ter this remarkable affair one of the
Blaisdell boys was arrested for steal
ing hoop-poles and although it was
terrible shock to the community to
find they had been harboring thief
in their very midst, it set their
minds to rest as to the origin of the
school-house fire.
One year later Union church was
built, and Midgeville fairly ontdid it,
self in getting agitated.
There were four denominations be-
sides the outsiders interested in its
construction and as each individual
member in each denomination Count
ing the "outsiders" as one) was firm
in his conviction that if there was
any one thing that he did know, and
his neighbor did not, it was just how
to build a meeting house, it is not
surprising that the discussion in re-
gard to the height of the steeple, the
bepth of the gallery, the shape of the
windows, the form of the pulpit, and
the size of the pews should be fire.
quent and animated.
But the building was finally CON-
pleted, and the Methodists carpeted
it with red because it was "kind of
cheerful and lively looking" and the
Presbyterians had the pulpit furniture
covered with green because it seemed
''sort of subdued and solemn. !"
The Congregationalists bought,
with sectaIian money, an organ
that discoursed unsectarian music,
while the Baptists purchased a COM
munion set and showed Christian
spirit by allowing others to use it
when they did not. The ''outsiders'
enjoyed great liberty in providing for
the mortgage.
Union church affairs being thus
amicably adjusted, Midgeville had
fallen into state of apathy not un-
common after great and prolonged
excitement, when it was again arous-
ed by the startling intelligence that
the widow Benson and her two chill
dren had been turned out of doors.
Widow Benson had formerly live(
in Pinewood, but three years before
had bought a pretty cottage of DR.
Holmes and with her family had ta
ken up her abode at Midgeville.
, She had paid $500 down 9TH
| neighbors soon found out) and al
unmarried brother who was earning
good salary in the city, became lie
sponsible for the remainder. But tn
brother had died soon after the puI
chase was made, and, being unabl
. to make the payments herself, th
: widow was now to be turned out c
e house and home into the cold, col
u world.
At least, such was the story and
OF 1rrhf tb