Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1889-07-11
SOME COUSINS WHO NEED OUR
ACQUAINTANCE.

81 give fifty cent fur 'mestic missions
but bless my soul donno know a mes
tic mission wen see one." He was a
good natured old soul and his half dol
lar had gone free as water because the
parson had asked it. Many people who
wear better clothes than Uncle Jochebed
and talk much better grammar wear be-
meath their long garments the Identical
make of brogans the old man wore to
preaching that day. One half the world
after six thousand years remains a rank
stranger TO the other half. The staring,
wide-mouthed. baekwoodsman, plodding
down the street, has never dreamed of
the life that is lived within yonder man
sion; no more have the mansion jewellers
a thought of the dark corner from which
he drove his ox-load that morning. Let
me tell some OF these jewellers in beauti-
full homes where Uncle Jochebed's half
dollar went.
1t was a moonshine district in sob.
pshaw!" interrupts pair of pretty lips,
''You can't tell me anything, I've been
to the mountains and know all about it.
Pardon me, my dear, | did not mean
to insinuate that the fairest of my read
ers had never travelled. You went on
Pullman believe and put up at a four
dollar-a-day hotel at the Springs. And
you saw some of those moonshiners too,
you passed little knot of them during
an afternoon ride few days before the
season closed, and you will never forget
how picturesque they looked standing
there in the mellow light of the setting
sun and in the strangest looking clothes,
with huge gray rock and some terrible
crags for back ground.
"But their faces were hideous! What
have we do with such people anyway
sob nothing, nothing; only | have
been thinking how your great grand-fath-
er and their great grand-fathers were
raised in the same village together In the
old country and came over in the same
ship, were playmates in childhood, ! be-
lieve. and cousins. You saw something
of their clothes aud of their faces. let me
tell you something of their lives as /
have seen them in their homes. They
are very ignorant.
''0h should think So"
Yes they are very ignorant. they have
never seen bicycle, nor phonograph,
nor a porous plaster, nor an electric
light. ("Oh myi'0 And they have
never seen Bible, nor a Webster's blue
black, nor an Episcopalian, nor digest
ible biscuit. nor an ice cream. They
never heard of Rider Haggard or the up
per four hundred in New y ork, ('Oh, y
and they don't know who is the COVER
nor, or that there is a governor and they
don't know their A. b. C's or that there
are A. B. C's, many of them. They know
peach brandy when they see il and they
know a revenue officer. though they
sometimes mistake a Methodist mission
airy for one. and they know how to hunt
deer and distill bad whiskey on the sab
bath. On most other points their knowl-
edge is both limited and uncertain. They
will tell you that the stars are holes
made in the sky, and an old man whose
opinion hadtrequested, lowed that the
sky ''mought be eZ much as three hun
dred yard high, an then again it mought
MT ! never held out in contending that
the earth Is not fiat.
Are they very religiousS Yes, very.
The kind have been talking about do
not worship God, but the conjurers and
wizards and root doctors, whom they rev.
erence. are all most as numerous as the
gods of the pagans. They do not send
for the Lord to heal their sick, but for
old aunt Kezzy and her mysterious pipe
and strong smelling herbs. for the poor
sick child Is bedeyiled and the old boy
must be smoked out of the room. There
Is another class-a class Il step higher
who believe in the Lord and aunt kezzy
too, especially.
But il would take a week 10 tell all a
knows about these odd cous-
ins of yours, my dear. suffice il TO say
that uncle Jochebed's half-dollar went
to carry little gospel to those very
If you send any "Seasides" or I
secondhand question books it will be /
better to prepay the express.-Exchange. /