Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-17


towns of a certain size do not ma
terially differ all the world over. The talk
of the men of the farms is of their farms
purchase, mortgage and sale, recorded
rights, boundary lines and road tax It
was in the middle of New Zealand, on the
edge of the wild horse plains, that heard
this talk last, when O man and his wife, 20
miles from the nearest neighbor, sat up half
the night discussing Just the same things
that the men talked of in Main street, Yer
mont, U. s. A, in almost the same words.
There is one man in the State now who is
much exercised over this place. He is a
farm hand, raised in hamlet 10 or20 miles
from the nearest railway and, greatly dar-
ing, he has wandered here. The hustle and
the turmoil of Main street, the raw glare of
the electric lights, and the five-storied brick
business blocks frighten and distress him
much. He has taken service on farm,
well away from these delirious delights,
and. says he, "I've been offered $25 a
month to work in bakery at New York.
But you don't get me to New York. I've
seen this place an it scares me-" His
strength is in the drawing of hay and the
feeding of cattle.
The Farm Hands Winter Soft Snap.
Winter life on farm does not mean the
comparative idleness that is so much written
of. Each hour seems to have its 60 minutes
of work; for the cattle are housed and eat
eternally; the colts must be turned out for
their drink, and the ice broken for them if
necessary; then ice must be stored for sum-
mer use, and then the real work of hauling
logs for frewood begins New England de-
pends for its fnel on the woods. The trees
are ''blazed" in the autumn Just before the
fall of the leaf, felled later cut into four
foot lengths, and as soon as the friendly
snow makes sledging possible, drawn down
to the woodhouse. Afterward the needs of
the farm can be attended to, and farm, like
an arch, is never at rest.
A little later will come maple sugar time,
when the stately naples are tapped as the
sap begins to stir, and beringed with absurd
little buckets "a COW being MIXED into
thimble gives some idea of the dispropor-
tion) which are emptied into caldrons. At
terward (this is in the time of the Sugar
ing-off parties') you pour the boiled syrup
into tins full OF fresh snow, where it hard
ems, and you pretend to help, and eat and
become very sticky and make love, boys |
and girls together Even the introduction |
Of patent sugar evaporators has not spoiled |
the love-making.
The over-Supply OF Women.
There is certain scarcity of men to make |
love with. Not SO much in towns which |
have their own manufactures and lie within |
lovers Sabbath day journey of New York, |
but in the farms and villages. The men |
have gone away-the young men are fight 1
ing for fortune further West, and the |
women remain-remain for ever, as women
must. On the farms, when the children |
depart, the old man and the the old woman
strive to hold things together without help, |
and the woman's portion is work and |
monotonv. Sometimes she goes mad to an |
extent which appreciably affects statistics,
and is put down in census reports More
often, let us hope, she only dies.
In the villages, where the necessity for
heavy work is not so urgent, the women
find consolation in the formation of literary
clubs and circles, and so gather to them
selves great deal of wisdom in their own
way.
That way is not altogether lovely. They |
desire facts, and the knowledge that they |
are at certain page in German or Italian
book before q certain time, or that they |
have read the proper books in a proper way.
At any rate, they have something to do
that seems as if they were doing something.
1t has been said that the New England |
stories are cramped and narrow. Even a
far-off view of the iron-bound life whence
they were drawn justifes the author You
can carve a nut in 1000 differeut ways, by |
reason of the hardness of the she'll.
Kiplipc Tries Some Snowshoes,
Twenty or 80 miles across the hills, on |
the wav to the Green Mountains, lie some
finished chapters of pitiful stories-a few
score abandoned farms started In lean
land, held fiercely SO long as there was any,
one to work them, and then left on the hill |
sides Beyond this desolation are woods |
where the bear and the deer still find peace,
and sometimes even the beaver forgets that
he is I.ersecuted and dares to build his
lodge. These things were told me by man
who loved the woods for their own sake and
not for the sake of slaughter-a quiet, slow
spoken man of the West, who came across
the drifts on snowshoes, and refrained from
when I borrowed his footgear and /
tried to walk.
The gigantic lawn tennis bats, strung
with hide, are not easy to maneuver. If
you forget to keep the long heels down and
trailing in the snow you turn over and be-
come as a man who falls into deep water
with a lifebelt tied to his ankles. IT you
lose your balance do not attempt to recover
it, but drop half sitting and half kneeling
over as large an area az possible.
When you have mastered the wolf
step, can slide one shoe above the
other deftly, that is to say, the SEN
sation of padding over q ten-foot deep drift
and taking short cuts by buried fences if
worth the ankle-ache. The man from the
West interpreted to me the signs on the
snow and showed how fox (this section of
the country is full of foxes, and men shoot
them because riding is impossible) leaves