The Bozeman weekly chronicle. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1883-1889, 1885-01-28
FARM LIFE IN THE SOUTH.
Description of Southern Farm Resi-
dences and Their Furnishings.

There is in this region singular
uniformity of architecture, writes a
North Carolina correspondent of the
New York SuR. The pattern after
which the residences are built is a
single story frame house of four rooms.
Two large chimneys stand at the ends
huge masses of extramural masonry
OF brick and stone, which are monu-
ments of the most wanton waste of
space, labor and material. The roof
projects over piazza, from which
doors open directly into three of the
rooms, for there is no hail. The s'big
room''-the room of general use, where
visitors are received-contains high,
rough, big bedstead, on which at all
seasons there is a feather bed, covered
with a scrupulously white counter
pane, a rickety table with blue cover
ing, rough, splint- rocking
chair, and two or three other home
made chairs, the legs of which are paint
ed blue, and on the back of which you
may read the name of the bungling
maker in big blue letters. The floor is
carpetless, but ii glistens from the
weekly scrubbing with sand.
Above the high mantel-piece there is
a religious chrome in terrifying colors,
and few religious books hold the table
in place. The three other rooms also
are bedrooms, and they are furnished
or unfinished in the same plain way.
The kitchen, which is built of logs,
stands fifty feet from the other house.
1t il innocent of a cook-stoVe, but is
guilty of the most extensive fireplace
that was ever constructed-big enough
to roast an OK whole. There is a large
yard OF large oaks, and for 100 feet on
either side of the front gate the fence
is of boards, the rest of it of rails.
Such is the residence of prosper
Gus man, so at least he considers him
self, who lives ten miles from Raleigh
and three from the village of Cary, and
the residences of the most of his neigh
bors are built and furnished in the
same way. He has three daughters and
two sons, and all but one little girl are
grown. The boys occupy one room
which, besides the bed and the wooden
pegs behind the doors on which they
hang their clothes, contains little but
their S'chests" plain, wooden boxes,
painted blue, in which they keep their
''store SUITS their pistols and their
fiddles. The gir.s have similar deposi-
tories for their Sunday .'finery."
The old lady and her daughters
make with their own hands nearly all
the clothes the family has. There was
a time when the old woman spun the
thread and wove the cloth, and she
maintains now that there is no other
thread so good to darn with as the
thread of her own spinning. So she
keeps her old spinning wheel for oc-
casional use and for spiritual comfort.
and last year she gathered cotton from
the field, which she followed with her
own fingers on its long journey from
the stalk 10 the stocking. Tne house,
work and the gardening are the only
emp oymen1s of the women, but they
always seem to be busy. Once week
they boil the clothes in pot suspend
ed 1r N the tops of three poles which
are placed in the front yard near the
WELL The monotony of wash-day is
often relieved by fishing for the bucket
with the pot-hooks. Cooking is very
simple thing, for the frying-paa and
the pot do their whole duty. Indeed,
fhe frying-pan is the origin of all the
ailments, certainly OF the old lady )
of the children's thin, gris
ly faces, and of the Oldest boys nec's
sity for grog. Fried bacon for early
breakfast viii postpone the milleninm
anywhere; add to that fried sweet po
4asooo onJ ~, ao+;va ont 1oor ISfa and
a perfect atmosphere must do their
hest to keep naturally robust people
from groans. The frying-pan is a
worse enemy of man in all this country
than whisky or politics When all the
ground is yellow with mellow apples,
and the odor of peaches and grapes is
blown over every breakfast table, no
body eats fruit except between meals;
and the very chickens have the pleas
ure of life taken because neither broiler
nor oven awaits one of them, but al I
ways the frying-pan.
In the evening after supper and be- /
fore early bedtime, the boys sometimes
play on their fiddles, their feet accom-
panying the three tunes they know,
''The Arkansaw Traveller, Fishers /
and The Old North State, y
while the rest of the family hold their
hands in silence. And many an evening
these five intelligent adults sit the live /
long hours holding their hands, saying
now and then word, as if by accident
and pretending TO do nothing; yet they
are happy. The art of resting has mol
been cultivated SO well anywhere else. /
True, the old woman does usually ply
her knitting needles, stopping now and I
then to remark, while she rubs snuff
that her old bones feel ''streaks' Of
bat that it's hard to wear
out an old leather string. The girls !
sometimes haye cuttings. and there
are the parties Of country society.