The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-10-14
" Rock Ribbed, Ancient Vermont

Rock Ribbed, Ancient Vermont
f. D. Mussey, the versatile CORE.
spondent of the Cincinnati Commercial
Gazette, has recently been in Vermont
and contributes to his paper several
columns of his impressions of the
state-its scenery, people, customs,
characteristics, agriculture. 1t is some
times interesting to "see ourselves as
others see u.s." and we publish ex-
tended extracts from the Buckeyes
sketch, regretting our inability to give
it entire:
The State of Vermont has been getting
good deal of free and well-deserved adver-
Using lately through it's centennial, its
Bennington monument and jubilee, the
tour of the president and the consequent
activity of the historians. The eyes and
efforts of the people of the country have
been so long given exclusively to the pro-
digious West that at last they turn with
sense eff pleasure and rest to the old, beauti-
full and historic cradle places of the Nation.
Eyes wearied with the far-reaching monot-
onies of fertile praires, brighten at the
view of heroic mountains rising with
their kingly forest robes to the sky" The
| HdSn anu DuDDl6 OF clear mountain brooks
and mirroring surfaces of streams flowing
through green banks under over-arching
elms, are pleasant to those accustomed to
the flow of the yellow tide of western
rivers. We hear about " oommuning with
Nature" Do you have much communion
with Nature on plain that stretches to the
horizon on every side? Such a scene has
nothing to say to you, except in suggestions
of sordid and practical kind. But the
mountains have individuality and meaning,
Na,.,s a.. ~l.I
talk to you. They fill you with thankful
ness or with vain regret for the past-with
aspirations fears for the future. They
suggest memory that makes you smile, or
they touch chord that blurs your eye with
tears.
THE MOUNTAINS.
Said man to me, " When I came back
to Vermont after twenty years absence in
the West, and saw the mountains and
recognized them from the car windows,
peak after peak, as / had seen them
when a boy, my heart beat fast and |
out and hug them" When I throw open
the shutters of my room at daybreak, there,
across close, green valley and winding
stream, stands mountain peak, as though
it were waiting for me to appear, and it
cheerily and very plainly says: "Ah there;
good morning" The last moment before
going to sleep see its vast and shadowy
form standing like trusty sentinel over
the scattered farmhouses and clustering
villages, and the soft winds come down
from its scented slopes like a whispered
Goodnight" 1t is not always thus. 1t is
as full of moods as woman 1t is by times
gloomy, sunny, kind and coquettish.
Sometimes it gets angry, clothes itself in
scowling blackness and darts its lightnings
and thunders like Sinai. 1t sends its rush
ing torrents down its thousand ravines and
roars over the tribulatons of the lowlands.
Then it generally gets ashamed of itself
and hides behind penitential clouds for
day or So peepilg out at last with the re-
mark: Excuse me. | was only having
little fun" just now, clad in the oriental
splendors of the autumn, it draws the yash-
max OF silvery mists across its face and
fiirts with big Killington and Shrewsbury,
with even coquettish glance at far-away
Mansfield. In this enjoyment of the beauty
of New England in October you appreciate
the foolishness of mankind. People leave
the cities i'll the spring to enjoy the country.
At present they go tiocking back to the
cities just nature has the country ready for
them. They are there long enough to see the
preparations and the rehearsal, and they
leave just as the curtain begins to rise. The
beauty of autumn in the country far ex-
ceeds that of summer, and the city in the
summer months has points of advantage
The dusty roads of the country blaze in the
summer heat There is cold side of the
street in the city, and sprinkling carts. In
the city there are cool resorts, the chance
y
temperature, and there are home ease and
devices for personal comfort. Travel in the
summer is in sutfocating cars and over
crowded steamboats,. The: hotels are
thronged and coaches packed. Dust and
heat and crowds often make terror of the
summer vacation, and nearly all of this dis
appears in autumn. People who seek the
madding throng the gaiety and glitter of
life, will continue to take their vacation in
the hot summer months. Those who really
crave the bAautV and blessing Of the conn.
try will seek nature in her autumnal robes
, and smiles. The autumn is the time of
Towering and fruitfulness. The air is pure
and exhilarating and full of joys the crude
ness of summer cannot supply. The foliage
is many tinted, and the mellow forest depths
full of sweetness October gives a hundred
varying pictures at every turn. The
mountains are in their glory, the orchards
and gardens are full OF fruit, the woods full
, of the odors of pine and cedar and fern, and
8 streams bear upon their bosoms argosies of
colored leaves mountain, river, orchard,
, field and meadow are filed with the subtitle
!, delight that only the autumn can yield. II
your disposition is wholly TO balls and bath
, ing suits, to tiirts and tummery, if a prim-
rose by the waters brim is yellow prim-
rose to you and nothing more, things will
not appeal to you, and you had better take
your vacation in July and August. If you
, take pleasure in the attractions of nature
can imagine no greater pleasure in its way
for you than an autumn experience in YER
mont. There is not the bleakness of the
, coast OF Maine to awe and attract, the
wildness of her wildernesses or the stern
grandeur of the White Mountains. There
, is nothing to chill or repel, though much to
impress, solemnly as well as delightfully."-.
. There are few crags and bare mountain
> battlements The vivid, green velvet of
the meadow lands, laced with shining
! streams and white roadways, and spangled