The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-12-11
SUMNER In VERMONT.
Rudyard Kipling's Opinion Of
Visitors to the Resorts.
AMERICAS SHATTERED NERVES,
From the Plow to the Pavement Goes
Man, to Return at Last-Ths
Hard Battle OF Life.
copyright, 1892, by Rudyard Kipliug.,

won't recognize it. Look at this" He
handed over the long list of deaths from
heat that enlivened the newspapers. All
the cities where men live at breaking
strain were sending in their butcher bills
and the papers of the cities, themselves
apostles of the Gospel of Rush, were
beseeching their readers to keep cool
and not to overwork themselves
while the hot wave was upon them.
The rivers were patched and barred
with sun-dried pebbles; the logs and the
ioggers were drouth- bound somewhere up
the Connecticut. and the grass at the side
OF the track was burned in a hundred
places by the sparks from the locomotive.
Men. hatless, coatless and gasping, lay in
the shade of that station, where only afew
months ago the glass stood 50 degrees be-
low zero. Now the readings were 9S de-
grees in the shade. Main srreet-do you re-
member Main street of little village locked
up in the snow this spring ?-had given up
the business of life, and an American flag
with some politicians name printed across
the bottom hung down across the street as
stiff as board. There were men with fans
and alpaca coats curled up in splint chairs
in the yeranda of the one hotel--among
them an ex-president of the United States.
He completed the impression that the
furniture of the entire country had been
turned out of doors for summer cleaning
in the absence of all the inhabitants.
Nothing looks SO helpiessly ex as a presi-
dent returned to stores.'' The stars and
stripes signified that the presidential
campaign had opened in Main street
opened and shut up again. Politics evap-
crate at summer heat. when all hands are
busy with the last of the hay, and, as the
farmers put it, "Vermont's bound to GO
Republican" The custom of the land is to
drag the scuffle and dust of an election over
several months--to the improvement of
business and manners, but the noise of
that war comes family up the valley of the
Connecticut. and is lost among the
iddling of the locusts. Their music
puts as it were knife edge
upon the heat of the day. In truth.
it is a tropical country for the time being.
Thunder storms prowl and growl round
the belted hills. spit themselves away in q
few drops of rain, and leave the air more
dead than before. In the woods where
even the faithful springs are beginning to
run low, the pines and balsams have
thrown out all their fragrance upon the
heat, and wait for the wind to bring news
of the rain. The elements of wild carrot
and all the gypsy flowers camped
by sufferance between fence line and road
net are masked in white dust, and the
golden-rod of the pastures that are burned
to flax color burns too like FURNISHED
brass. A pillar of dust on tho long hog.
back of the road across the hills shows
where team Is lathering between farms
and the roofs Of the wooden houses
flicker in the haze of their own heat.
Overhead the chicken hawk is the
only creature at work, and his
shrill kite-iike call sends the gaping chick
ems from the dust bath in haste to their
mothers. The red squirrel, as usual, feigns
business of Importance among the butter
nuts. but this IS pure priggishness. When
the passer-by is gone he ceases chattering
and climbs back to where the little breezes
can stir his tail plumes. From somewhere
under the lazy fold of meadow comes the
drOne of q moving machine among the
hay-the wherr-ao and the grunt Of the
tired horses.
Houses are only meant to eat and sleep
in. The rest of life is lived at full length
in the veranda. When traffic is brisk
three whole teams will pass that veranda
in one day, and it is necessary to exchange
news about the weather and the prospects
for oats. When oats are in there will be-
slack time on the farm. and the farmers
will seriously think of doing the hundred
things that they have let slide during the
summer. They will undertake this and that
''when they get around to it," The phrase
translated is the exact equivalent of the
manana of the Spaniard, the kul hojaigo Of
Upper India, the yuroshii of the Japanese.
and the long-drawled tdihod Of the Maori.
The only person who "gets around" in
this weather is the summer boarder-tho
refugee from the burning cities of the plain,
and she is generally a woman. She
walks, and botanizes, and kodaks. and
strips the bark off the white birch to make
biue-ribboned waste paper baskets, and the
farmer regards her with wonder. More does
he wonder still ut the city clerk in
blazer, who has two weeks holiday in
the year and. apparently, unlimited
money, which he earns in the easiest
possible way by 'sitting at desk and
writing" The farmers wife sees the FASH
ions OF the summer boarder, and between
them man and woman get notion of the
beauties of city life for which their chill
dren may live to blame them. The blazer
and town-made gown are innocent recruit
ing sergeants for the city brigades; and
since one mans profession is ever a mys-
terry To his fellow, blazer and gown be-
iieve that the farmer must be happy and
content. summer resort is one of the
thousand windows whence to watch
the thousand aspects of life in the Allan.
tic states. Remember that between June
and september 1t is the desire of all who
can to get away from the big cities-not on
account OF wantonness, as people leave
London-but because of actual heat. So
they get away in their millions with their
millions-the wives of the rich men for
i've clear months. the others for as long az
they can, and. like drawing like, they
make communities. set by set breed by
breed. division by division. over tho
length and breadth of the land, from Maine
and the upper reaches of the Sague-
nay through the mountains and hot
springs of half a dozen interior states, out
and away to Sitka in steamers. Then they
spend money on hotel bills, among 1000
farms, on private companies who lease
and stock land Tor sporting purposes, on
yachts, canoes bicvcies, rods, chalets, cot.
tages, reading circles, camps, tents, and all
the luxuries they know. But the luxury
of rest most of them do not know and the
telephone and telegraph are faithfully
dragged after them, lest their men folk
should for a moment forget the ball and
chain az foot
For sadness with laughter at bottom,
there are few things to compare with the
sight of a cartless, muddy-booted million
ARE, his hat adorned with trout flies, aud
a string of small fish in his hand, cIawIng
wildly at the telephone OF some back-ot-
beyond heath resort" Thus:
"Heilo, Helioi Yes. who's there, On. all
right. 90 ahead. Yes. It's mel Hey, WHAT
Repeat. sold Tor how much' Forty-io snd
halt? Repeat No, / told you to hold on.
What? Wnatg " 40 bought at Ihat2 say, hold
Hold on. I'll come DOWN" Business with
watch ssTeiI scngefer I'll see MIN tomorrow.