The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1885-01-17
WINTER.
An Essay Thereon by Man WAC Sees No
Charms In Cold Weather.


Charms In Cold Weather.
Winter hath no charms for us. We
would always have the birds here. We
lesire the eternal presence of the flow
.rs, the beautiful leaves, the buster and
:he ice-wagon. There are mary things
about winter that makes US tired. We
.an stand it to get up in the morning
and run all over the house, and across
,il-cloths, on our bare feet, looking for
another match. But it is hard TO en-
lure the man who comes half block
put Of his way to tell us it is awfully
cold, and to lie to as about his Their
mometer. II these fellows will leave us
alone we will get along without sensing
the cold so much. Every time they
strike us with one of their thermometer
lies it seems to freeze an ear or frost a
toe. We actually believe if the Their
mometer were above zero liar might
tell us it was fifty degrees below, and
after that we would freeze sitter than a
| wedge in trying to walk down town.
On the other hand. if it were forty de-
grees below zero we would not know it
| was very cold if nobody gave it away.
People who love to talk about the
| weather are generally the greatest falsi-
fiers in the land. They don't feel the
slightest pang at lying three or four de-
grees, while some of them will 90 to
extremes. We had a neighbor last
| winter who would come out and stick
| his head over the tight-board fence eve
ry cold morning, as we were feeding
the pigs, aud say to us in quivering
| voice: "Aw-fully-yc-c-cold this num-
| morning. Mummy thermometer S
twenty-th-three degrees below z-z-zero.
We learned, after the thing had been
going on most of the winter, that he
had never had thermometer in the
| house.
The nights are periods Of terror, too.
Sometimes we feel tempted to sit up till
| morning, on extra cold occasions.
There is sort of lstless delight in hug
cling the stove, with your heels on the
fender and your knees under your
arms, and gaping ami looking at the
clock, and saying to yourself: II must
| go to bed in just few minutes.
| Just think how nice it is when you en-
| ter the chamber, and a column OF
! frozen breath from your mouth shoots
across the room. Then it fun to jump
| into bed when the sheets are frozen
stiff, and have them almost take the
skin off, while u shudder rurc yom
whole length that almost uncouples
| every joint in your body! You think
you might as well go boldly about get
ting the bed warm the whole length.
J So you shove your feet down, till they
| strike the red-hot fat-iron that has
been hidden there by your officious
grandmother, and you jump upward
and hit the head-board a bang with
your skull that splits it clear across. 1t
| isn't all in taking the first chill out of a
bed. A fellow will perhaps drop to
sleep for an hour. He then wakes up,
and finds the clothes halfway down his
| body, and his shoulder cold He pulls
| the clothes up, and his feet stick out
! about ten inches below. And he pulls
and pushes the blankets till morning,
and keeps half frozen at both ends. We
are not ordinarily superst- tious. but We
do believe bed clothes shorten up about
three feet on very cold nights.
There is not the fun in winter that
there was years ago. Last season we
started in with the first snow, resolved
to make the most of winter. We would
enter into what joys there were, and see
if it wouldn't tighten up the gloom. We
| started down town. A crowd of boy.
were snow-balling on a corner. "Givt
us leavep' one of them asked, as ht
pulled ball way back. "You bet, ;
we called, as we reached down anC
scooped up a handful of snow anC
shaped ball as large as baby's head
They let fly and hit us in three places
We pulled back, with the intention ~
annihilating the whole crowd. W,
slipped as the missile left our hand; th>
effort nearly threw our shoulder out o.
joint, and the SNOWFALL hit hired girl
who was sweeping off a porch, in the
back of the neck. We looked the Other
way, and walked briskly down the
street. Eyes, sir, winter is fraud, and
we would trade our share off for vel
low dog. -Aurora Blade.