The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-03-01

was only the beginning.
Hard as Wealthy had worked at her
uncle's, here she found harder burdens
she had to draw and fetch all the water
she used from an old-fashioned well
with heavy sweep, picturesque to see,
but wearisome to use; wood was scarce,
for though enough grew on the hundred
acres that Amasa owned, he grudged
| its use.
81 sha'n't cut down no more than is
really needful," he said, when she urged
him to fetch her load; woods alters
CROWN when We don't cut it, and a
maxim for lumber, and lumber's better
to sell, sight, than cord-wood. Ye
must git along somehow with brush;
mother used to burn next to nothin'. "
She did not remind him that his
mother was bent double with rheuma-
tism, and died of the fifth attack of
pneumonia. Wealthy never wasted
words.
Then there were eight cows to milk,
the milk to strain, set, skim, churn or
make into cheese, and nothing but the
simplest utensils to do it with A cloth
held over the edge of the pail served
for strainer, the pals themselves
were heavy wood, the pans old and
some of them leaky, the holes stopped
with bits of rag, often to be renewed;
the milk-room was in the shed, built
against the chimney that it might not
freeze there in the winter, and only
aired by one Slated window; the churn
was an old wooden one with a dasher,
and even the ''spaddle'' with which she
worked her butter was whitfield out of
maple knot by Amasa himself, and
was heavy and rough.
Then to her belonged the feeding of
the pigs-gaunt, lean animals with sharp
shouts, ridgy backs, long legs and thin
TANKS, deep set eyes that cleaned with
intelligent malice and never-sated hun
ger. Wealthy grew almost afraid of
them when they clambered up on the
rails of the pen in their fury for food,
and tapped their pointed ears at her,
squealing and fighting for the scant
fare that she brought. For Amasa I'M
derfed and overworked everything that
belonged to him.
Then there were hens to look after
the old-fashioned barn-door ''creepers'
that wanted food, too, and yet catered
for themselves in great measure and
made free with barn and woodshed for
want of their own quarters, and were
decimated every season by hawks, owls,
skunks, weasels and foxes, to say moth
ing of the little chickens on which crows
and cats worked their will if they dared
to stray beyond the ruinous old coop
contriyed for them by Amasa's invent
i've genius out of sticks and stones.
Add to all this the cooking, washing,
baking and sewing, the insufficient sup
ply of pork, potatoes and tough pies, the
''biId dinners, whose strength Law
in the vegetables rather than in the
small square of fat pork cooked with
them, of which Amasa invariably took
the lions share. These accommodating
and never-ceasing labors all wore day
by day on the vitality of Mrs. Tucker,
and when to these were added an an
nual baby, life became terror and a
burden to the poor woman.
But what did AmaSa carep He, too,
worked from sun to sun"
ale farmed in the hard old fashion
with rude implements and no knowl-
edge but:
''My father done it afore me, so | am
a goin' to do it now; no use talkin'.
One by one the wailing, puny children
were laid away in the yard on top of
Sandhill, where the old fuckers and
their half-dozen infants lay already; a
rough Enclosure, full of mulleins, bur
docks and thistle, overrun with low
win Tod n
rail fence. 1t had been much handler
for the fuckers to have a grave
yard close by than to travel
five miles to the mills with
every funeral; and they were not driven
by public opinion in regard to monu-
ments; they all lay there like the beasts
that perish, with but one slant gray
stone to tell where the first occupant
left his tired bones. Two children of
Wealthy's survived. Amasa and Luz
rama, the oldest and youngest OF seven.
Amasa, considerate, intelligent boy,
who thought much and said little, and
Lurana, or "Lury," as her name was
generally given, mischievous, self
willed little imp, the delight and tor
ment of her. little WORKOUT mother.
Young Amasa was boy quite beyond
his fathers understanding; as soon as
he was old enough he began to help his
mother in every way that he could de-
wise. And when his term at the village
school was over, to his fathers great
disgust he trapped squirrels and gath
cred nuts enough to earn him money
and subscribe for an agricultural paper,
which he studied every week till its
contents were thoroughly stored in his
head. Then began that mobile discon-
tent which the philosophers praise.
The elder man had no peace in his
oldworld ways; the sloppy waste of the
barnyard was an eyesore to this 'book-
learned feller," as his father derisively
called him. And the ashes of the wood
fire were saved and sheltered like
precious dust, instead of being thrown
into a big heap to edify the wandering
hens. That desolate garden was
plowed, fortified, and set in order at
last, and the great ragged orchard
MANFRED, the appIe-trees thinned and
trimmed, and ashes sown thick over the
old messy sod. Now these things were
not done in day or year, but as the
boy grew older and more able to cope
with his fathers self conceit, more was
done annually, not without much oppo-
sition and many hard words, but still
done