Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1891-04-16
4 SERMON ON MUD.
Why Good Roads Would Make Life in the
Country Much Pleasanter.

mighty. offering, as we are prone TO do,
various criticisms. Among the counts
in her indictment was one upon which
she arraigaed Providence with great
severity. 1t was that he saw fit to infict
upon the community so much mud. Her
words ran something hike this: mo
matter how much l may clean, my house
is continually tracked with mud; my
porches are kept in a filthy condition:
my carpets are filed with dust that spoils
them and can't keep my house neat
It's nothing but mud, mud, mud!' When
she had finished several other of the good
ladies present gave voice to fervent
"Amensr' But before the meeting was
dismissed the pastor rose and remarked;
81 cannot close this meeting without
saying that God is not responsible for the
mud. If there were no men there would
be no mud, and there need be none even
now that there are men. In Portland,
Ore. where it rains six months in the
year. there is no mud, for the simple
reason that the men who live there know
enough to use the intelligence God has
given them in building good roads,
That pastor was right. 1t is man and
not God that makes the mud. The sooner
the women whose houses are kept in a
filthy condition and whose backs always
ache from constant but futile efforts to
keep those houses tidy, realize this fact
the sooner will the remedy be applied.
If the wives, instead Of asking the Lord
at the Wednesday night prayer meetings
to dry up tine mud, would hold little
meeting in the family sitting room every
night. and preach short sermon to their
husbands on the necessities of road i'm
provement and the evils of mud, results
would soon begin to appear. The Lord
helps those who help themselves.
Mud "grinded in" the carpets does
more to wear those carpets out than the
oatter of a dozen generations of tiny
feet. And it wears out the patience and
health of the housewife qHicker than it
loes the carpets. She may sweep and
brush and scrub until she sweeps holes
in the carpets, scrubs the paint off the
floors. and alas! sweeps and brushes and
scrubs tue DlOoii Ol -iCi ShVShSs wy
brightness out of her eyes and the hap
piness oun of her heart, but she will
never get that mud out of the carpet I'M
I'll she puts a shovel into her husbands
hands and makes him go and use it on
The roads, and by intelligent work strike
at the root of the evil by making them
so hard and smooth that they won't gem
4 = A,-I..
Nor is the house the only place where
mud engulfs the happiness of the farm
ers wife. She is as much interested
in its adjustment from the roads as she
is in its exile from the parlor, and would
be, even if the two were not connected
bv an endless chain of footsteps. For
four months in the year woman living
in the country might as well be locked
in a prison with her family, so far as
seeing new faces or having any social
| intercourse is concerned" said one. And
il is true. Who is the jailer! Mud.
What woman, after trying days work
at the countless things which keep the
country housewife busy, would not be
glad for an opportunity TO drive to a
neighbor's or to an entertainment in the
nearest village. 1t would certainly be a
welcome relaxation and beneficial va
ration OF the grinding monotony of life in
n farm house kitchen. But what woman
would not rather do without the relaxa-
ton and allow the monotony to go I'M
broken than TO feel that when she asked
her husband to crafty her wish she was
asking him to undertake really formi-
dable task
To ,.harness up" and drive for a mile
or two on pleasant spring evening over
clean. hare roads would be a pleasure to
both husband and wife. But when the
roads are SO muddy that the iaded horses
can barely pull the wagon along; when
with every step the horses take their
hoofs 20 splash into a river of mud and
send blotches of it flying over everything
in the vicinity, including the people they
are drawing with so much difficulty, ami
when "A drive of few miles means an
hour or two ON the road instead of few
minutes. then the experience is robbed
of its pleasure. The chances are that
by the time the farmer and his wife
have arrived at their destination they
will be exasperated with the roads, with
themselves and with life. The con-
versatlon with host and hostess will
be half hearted. When the time comes
to return home, and the farmer thinks
of the half hour or hour he will
have to spend rubbing the dirt off his
horses before he can go to bed. and the
wife, more tired than cheered by the
visit. thinks of her life in a sea of mud, il
is more than probable that they who re
ally love and honor each other will moi
try very hard to keep back the i'll natured
words suggested by their general depres
sion. Mud is a great promoter of family
| jars.
But if instead of quarreling with each
other because the roads were muddy, the
farmer and his wife would logically look
into the situation, they would soon see
the real state of affairs. They would see
that if the money and labor expended on
the roads to make them muddy were in