The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1884-02-07

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Il sha'n't cut down more than is
REILLY needful," he said, when she urged
him to fetch her load; woods alters
GROWN when We don't cut it, and
maxim for lumber; and lumber is better
to sell, at sight, than cord wood. Ye
must git along somehow with brush;
mother used ter burn next TO nothin."
She did not remind him that his
mokher 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 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 10 the shed, built
against the chimney that it might not
freeze there in the winter, only aired
by one small Slated window; the churn
was an old wooden one with dasher,
and even the "spaddle" with which she
worked her butter was whitfield out of
a maple knot by Amasa himself, and
was heavy and rough.
Then belonged to her the feeding of
the pigs-gaunt, lean animals with
sharp shouts, ridgy backs, long legs
and thin tanks, deepset eyes, that
cleaned with malice and never-satisfied
hunger. 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
she had brought. For Amasa underfed
and overworked everything that be-
longed to him.
Then there were hens to look after
the oId-fashioned barn-door "creepers,'
who 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
dec mated 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 hey ond the ruinous old
coop contrived for them by Amasas in
ventive 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 "biled dinners" whose strength lay
in the vegetables rather than 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 annual
baby, life became terror and burden
TO the poor woman.
But what did Amasa care? He too
worked from sun to sun"
He farmed in the hard old fashion,
with rude implements and no knowl-
edge, but
"My father done il afore me, so am
agoin' TO do it now, no use talkin'."
One by one the wailing puny children
were laid away in the little yard on top
of tho sandhill, where the old fuckers
and their half-dozen infants lay already
rough inclosure, full of mulleins, bur
docks and thistles, overrIln with low
blackberry vines and surrounded by q
rail fence. 1t had been much handler
for the fuckers to have graveyard
close by than to travel five miles to the
Mills with every funeral and they were
driven by public opinion in regard to
monuments; they all lay there Like the
hearts that perish, with but one slant
gray stone to tell where the first occu-
pant 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, mischieyous, self
willed little imp, the delight and tor
ment of her little worn-out mother.
Young Amasa was a boy quite beyond
his fathers understanding; as soon as
he was old enough he began to help his
mother in every way he could devise.
and when his term at the village school
was over, to his fathers great disgust,
he trapped squirrels and gathered nuts
enough to earn him money and sub
scribe for an agricultural paper, which
he studied every week till its contents
were thoroughly stored in his head.
Then began that noble discomfort"
which the philosophers praise.
The elder man had no peace in his
old-world ways; the sloppy waste OF
the barnyar6 was an eyesore to this
"book-learned feller," as his father de-
risively called him. And the ashes OF
the wood fire were saved and sheltered
like precious dust, instead of being
thrown in a big heap to edify the wan
dering hens. The desolate garden was
plowed, fortified and set in order at
last, and the great ragged orchard
MANFRED, the apple trees thinned and
trimmed, ard ashes sown thick over the
old massy sod. Now these things were
not done in a day or q 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.
Then came heavy blow. Lurana, a
girl OF 10, fresh and pretty as wild
rose, and tired of the pinching econ
omy, the monotonous work, and grind
ing life of the farm, ran away with a
tin peddler and broke her mothers
} heart; not in the physical sense that
hearts are sometimes broken, but the
weary woman's soul was set on this
l,ric,ht xa-fnCo,na ,h,1J 81 -. 1.fo L.