Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-09-11

dole of tea. II pray the Lord to take me
out of this Troublesome world. she wound
up. aud next day she was taken out of II.
| The good manners of the old English
poor are forever to be admired. The old
woman who dearly longs to see the g,r d.
now come back as a married woman.
whom she had always known and cared for,
will yet not be guilty of the fashionable
vice of staring in order to crafty her wish.
Il did so want to see her, and | knew she
was in church. said this self-respecting
old lady of over 50 years; but did not
like to look as passed her"
What good English they talk, most Of
them! There are few mistakes, q few
VS. for VS.; but on the whole, how pure,
how expressive their speech How plain
ly has It profted by that English book
which has been their sole literature these
| three centuries.
1t almost startles one to hear some such
perfectly cultivated phrase as: ''She kept
her intellectual faculties to the last said
by poor old bell-ringer Of his wife. Or,
again, one hears some curiously luminous
idea like that enumerated by poor widow
who worked at 2tOne-plcklng and other
callings to support lot of orphans, when
she said to me: My children are back
ward in writing and reading. but they
/ get on better in their sums; they seem 70
! find more poetry IN that. Here was the
exact contrary Of what one would have eX
pected an uneducated person to say;
should have thought it had needed a Prof.
| Clifford to see embryo poetry In the
multiplication tablet
Speaking Of sums, very old man. Joe
| Edes by name, was discovered one day
calmly working out a sum IN long division
for his amusement. What a g0ntlemanly,
| am afraid the school exercises now in
use, with their long French and Latin
words, will not improve the English of the
their hands full of all sorts of printed rub
bish to take the place of the unique Book
penny dreadfuIs by the cart load and
the illustrated Police News, which furnishes
murderers for the four walls for many
cottage parlor. Now that all can read,
and all are hungry to devOur whichever is
offered to them, what is needed is to have
the country not only stocked. but flooded
with good cheap literature. Some people
may say in despair that the people don
like good literature; but that remains to
be proved What is unquestionable is
that certain things are adapted to their
stage of mental growth, and certain things
are not. Offer them all that is good, fresh
and clean, and let them choose. Their
choice, perhaps, will surprise US. Bertha,
who was my nurse-maid. liked of all things
in literature, those brief translations by
LOngfellow from Dante's descrint;On of
Beatrice, which were published among his
shorter poems, before the issue of the COM
plete version of the ''Devina Commedia. "
The poor like the objective, the direct;
they like man to be sure of what he
thinks and believes, and not to be sus-
pended In a nebulous luster of half per-
ceptlonS. They are outspoken themselves
"a little too much 50. 1t pains one to
speak before their invalids. A poor per-
son Is never so happy as when he can say
oh! you don't look bad. " ''She makes
me think OF her poor sister; she's going
just the same, and my husbands family
went that way too; there are six of them
lie in your church-yard. all along of the
decline" This speech is delivered in
presence of the daughter of IA, who per
haps has only red patch on her cheek
to give ground for this ruthless condemna-
ton.
have wondered the effect such speeches
have on those to whom this relates. 1t
may be that, generally, they produce no
effect at all. Sometimes the sick con-
template their END with prosaic stoicism
which takes away ones breath. A car
penter Che rose to be master builder, and
had passi IN for old violins) went to see a
Quaker friend of his on his death-bed
Now your here, William, " said the sick
NON, lust measure me for my coffin; |
shall be gone in a day or two, and it will
save no end of trouble" William said he
had never done such thing, and in fact
declined The man died in two days
Occasionally, however, have noticed ex
treme sensitiveness. At the cottage hos
pital young girl dying of consumption
cried for two days because one of the
patients began talking about an out house
used as mortuary by the name of dead
house 81 do not want to be put in the
dead housed" she said weeping. Dear,
tender-hearted little Nellie! Well | re-
member her bright, eager face. Hers is
one of the many lives have seen cut off
by the same fatal illness.-lives pure and
sweet, of the flower of village girhood,
which, when they draw near their close,
seem not to enter into gloom, but rather
to receive the efful gence of a spiritualized
glory, as of calm sunset
If gipsies are particular about water. the
laboring man is particular about bread.
1t is a fine thing for the English laborer
that he alone among workers eats the best
bread. There is good bread for the rich
everywhere, but what is the bread of the
poor? Where else would the cottage wo
man deem it the most exquisite compliment
she can pay the lady of the big house to
offer her loaf of her own making? In
Germany, where the peasant shares his
black bunch with his horse? In Italy,
where the unsalted, half mixed bread, sold
to the poor, is so unpalatable that they
fall back on the unwholesome monotony of
polenta? The English have one or two
superstitions about their bread. That
which is baked on Good Friday is warrant
ed to keep good through the year. A
woman used to send me a Good Friday
twist every year, and it certainly never
turned moldy. but | cannot positively as
sert that plain Monday cake would not
have kept as well.
The children grow up and thrive on this
excellent bread, with little jam or
treacle of butter to embellish it. Not long
since baby girl of two was asked:
where's little sister," ''At 'chool.'
And where's tall sister?' working
for butter "What?" Working for
butter ''She MEANS said the mother
coming to the rescue, working for bread
and butter, but she forgtts the bread"
Good Friday is dav chosen for various
title private tasks. There is no harm in
getting through stroke of work when
you have come home from church A
woman announced that on that day her