The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-17

Ss-oA w many. NOW tlat L nave
heard the long unhurried drawl of ver-
mont. my wonder is, not that the New
England tales should be printed in what
Ior the sake of argument we will call
Englsh and its type, but rather that they
shouid not have appeared in Swedish or
RUSSIAN; Our alphabet is too lin
iteu. his part OF the country be-
longs to laws unknown to the
united States, but which obtain all the
world over, to the New England story and
the ladies' who write it. You feel this in
the ar rs soon as you see the white-painted
wooden houses left out on the snow, the
austere schoolhouse and the people. the
men OF the farms, the women who work
as hard as they, with, it may be, less en-
loyment OF life, the other houses, we'll
painted and quantity rooted; that belongs
10 Judge This, Lawyer That, and Banker
ouch-an-One, all powers in the giddy me-
tropolis OF 5000 folk over there by the rail-
way station. More acutely still do you
realize the atmosphere when you read in
the local paper announcements of chicken
suppers" and ''church sociables" to be
gwen by such and such denomination,
sandwlehed between paragraphs of genial
and friendly interest, showing that the
countryside live (and live without Staying
each other) on terms of terrifying inti-
macy.
The folk of the old rock, the dwellers in
the older houses born and raised here
abouts, would not live out of the town for
any consideration; but there are insane
people from the South-men and women
from Boston and the like-who actually
build houses out in the open country two
anu even three miles away from Main
street, which is nearly 400 yards long, and
the center of life and population. With
the strangers, more particularly if they
do not buy their groceries ''in the street."
n1a Sc ~
has little TO do, but it knows everything
and much more also that goes on among
them. Their dresses, their cattle, their
views, the manners of their children,
their manner toward their serv-
ants, and every other conceivable
thing is reported. digested, discussed
and rediscussed up and down Main
street. Now. the wisdom of Vermont, not
being at all times equal to grasping all the
problems of everybody elses life with
delicacy, sometimes makes pathetic mis-
lakes and the town is set by the ears. You
VIII see, therefore, that towns of certain
size do not materially 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. 1t was IN the middle of New
Zealand, on the edge of the wild horse
plains, that heard this talk last, when
man and his wife, twenty miles from the
nearest nelghbor, sat up half the night
discussing just the same things that the
men talked of in Main street, Vermont, U.
5. A, IN almost the same words.
There is one man in the state now who
is much exercised over this place. He is
farmland, raised in a hamlet fifteen or
twenty miles from the nearest railway,
and, greatly daring, he has wandered
here. The hustle and the turmoil of Main
street, the raw glare of the electric lights,
Il a. ..x.l L
frighten and distress him much. He has
taken service on farm. well away from
these delirious delights, and, says he,
i've been offered S25 month to work III
bakery at New York. But you don't get
me to no New York. I've seen this place
an it just scares me-" His strength is in
the drawing of hay and the feeding of cat.
mean the comparative idleness that
is SO much written of. Each
hour seems to have it's sixty minutes
of work; for the cattle are housed and eat
eternally; the colts must be tured 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 haul
ing logs for firewood begins New England
depends for its fuel on the woods. The
trees are "blazed" in the autumn, Just be-
fore 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. After
wards the needs of the farms can be at
tended to, and a 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 disproportion) which are emptied into
I,t.s =. ~.
the "sugaring-oH parties") you pour the
boiled syrup into tins full of fresh snow,
where it hardens, 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.
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 vii
lagos. The men have gone away-the
Young men are fighting 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 old woman strive TO hold things
together without help, and the woman's
portion is work and monotony. Some
times 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 a great deal of wisdom in their own
way. That way Is not altogether lovely.
They desire facts, and the knowledge that
they are at a certain page in German or
Italian book before certain time, or
that they have read the proper books IN a
proner way At any rate, they have some
thing to do that seems as if they were do
ing something 1t has been said that the
New England stories are cranped AID
narrow. Even "A far-oH view of the IRON
bound life whence they were drawn just,-
fies the author. You can carve nut IN q
thousand different ways, by reason OF the
hardness Of the shell.
Twenty or thirty miles across the hills,
on the way to the Green mountains, lie
some finished chapters OF pitiiul s.ories-a
few score abandoned farms started in a
lean land. held tierce!y so long as there
was auv one to work them. and then lett
on the hillsides. Beyond this desolatlon
are woods where the bear and deer stiil
find peace, and sometimes even the beaver
forgets that he is prosecuted and dares TO
bui{d his lodge These things were told
me hv man who loved the woods Tor
their own sake and not for the sake OF
Slaughter quiet, slow-spoken man oil
the West. who came across the driits on
snowshoes and RETAINED from 4aush-
inp when I borrowed his tootgear ana
tried to walk. The gigantic lawn tennis
bats. strung with hide, are not easy to
maneuyer. If you forget to keep the long
heels down and trailing in the snow you
turn over and become as o man VINO ia'ls
into deep water with life belt tied to MS
ankles. If you lose your balance 40 nov
Nar.Hs ser y II