Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-17
KIPL|NG IN VERMONT.
4 Pen Picture of the Bleak
New England Hills in q
Blanket of Snow.
DRIVING ON AN 0X-TEAM,
Jealousies and Internal Dissensions
of Typical Village.
SLEIGHING IN THE MOONLIGHT.
Essaying Snowshoes and Listening to the
Tales Of Woodsman.
DRIVING ON AN OX.TEAM,
SLEIGHING IN THE MOONLIGHT.
A GLIMPSE OF MoNADNocK MOUNTAIN
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH. l

After the gloom of gray Atlantic weather
our ship came to America in food of
winter sunshine that made unaccustomed
eyelids blink; and the New Yorker, who is
nothing if not modest, said: "This isn't a
sample of our really fine days; wait until
such and such times come, or 60 to such and
such a quarter of the CITY,"
We were content and more than content
to drift simlessly up and down the brilliant
streets, wondering a little why the finest
light should be wasted on the worst pave
ments in the world; to walk round and
round Madison Square, because that was
full of beautifully dressed babies playing
contingent games, or to gaze reverently at
the broad-shouldered, pug-nosed Irish New
York policemen. Wherever we went there
was the sun, lavish and unstinted, working
nine hours a day, with the color and the
clean-cut lines ofperspective that he makes
That anv one should dare to call this
climate muggy, yea, even "sub-tropical,
was a shock. There came such man, and
he said: go north if you want weather.
weather that is weather. Go to New Eng
land
So New York passed away upon q sunny
afternoon, with her roar and rattle, her
complex smells, her triply overheated
rooms and much too energetic Inhabitants,
while the train went north to the lands
where the snow lay. 1t came in one sweep
almost, it seemed, in one turn of the
wheels-covering the winter-killed grass
and turning the frozen ponds, that looked
so white under the shadow of lean trees,
into pools of ink.
First sight of an American Cutter.
As the light closed in, little wooden
town, white, cloaked, and dumb, slid past
the windows and the strong light of the car
lamps fell upon a sleigh (the driver furred
and muffied TO his nose) turning the corner
of q street Now, the sleigh of picture
book however well one knows it, is alto
Cether different from the thing in real life,
means of conveyance at journeys end,
but it is well not to be overcurious in the
matter, for the same American who has
been telling you at length how he once fol-
lowed killed Scots soldier from Chelsea to
the Tower out of pure wonder and curios-
itv at his bare knees and sporran, will
laugh at your interest in ''just cutter"
The staff of the train-surely the great
American nation would be lost if deprived
of the ennobling society of brakeman, con-
ductor, negro porter, ard newsboy, told
pleasant tales, as they spread themselves at
ease in the smoking compartment, of snow
ings Up on the line TO Montreal, of desper-
ate attacks-four engines together and
snow-plow in front-on drifts 80 feet
high, and the pleasure of walking along the
tops of goods wagons to brake train with
the thermometer so below freezing SIT
comes cheaper to kill men that way than to \
put air brakes on freight cars, said the
brakeman.
Kip,ing Takes a Sleigh Ride.
Thirty below freezing! It was incon-
ceivable till one stepped out into it at mid
night, and the first shock of that clear still
air took away the breath as a plunge into
sea water does. A walrus sitting on a
woolpack was our host in his sleigh, and he
wrapped us in hairy goatskin coats, caps
that came down over the ears buffalo robes
and blankets, and vet more buffalo robes,
till we, too, looked like walruses and
moved almost as gracefully. The night was
as keen as the edge OF a newly ground |
sword, breath froze on the coat lapels in |
snow, the nose became without sensation, |
ard the eyes wept bitterly because the |
horses were in a hurry to get home, and |
whirling through the air at zero brings |
tears |
But for the jingle of the sleigh bells the |
ride might have taken place in dream, for |
F,
the runners sighed now and again as they |
glided over an equality, and all the sheeted |
hills round about were dumb as death Only |
the Connecticut river kept up its heart and |
q lane of black water through the packed |
ice. We could see the stream worrying |
round the heels of its small bergs. Else |
where there was nothing but snow under the |
moon-snow drifted to the level Of the stone
fences or curling over their tops in tip of
frosted silver; snow banked high on either |
side of the road or lying heavy on the pines |
and hemlocks in the woods, where the air |
seemed, by comparison, as warm as a con- |
servatorv. Il was beautiful beyond ex-
pression-Nature's boldest sketch in black |
and white, done with Japanese disregard |
OF perspective and daringly altered from
time to time by the restless pencils of the |
moon. |
Observations on Ox-Driving. |
In the morning the other side of the pic |
ture was revealed in the colors of the sun |
light. There was never cloud in the sky |
that rested on the snow line of the horizon |
as sapphire on white velvet. Hills of |
pure white or speckled and furred with |
woods rose up above the solid white levels |
Of the fields, and the sun rioted over their |
embroideries till the eyes ached. Here and |
there on the exposed slopes the days
warmth-the thermometer was nearly 40 |
degrees-and the nights cold had made
bald and shining crust upon the snow; but |
the most part was soft, powdered stuff, |
ready to catch the light on a thousand crys-
tails and multiply it sevenfoId
Through this magnihcence, and thinking
nothing OF it, wooden sledge, drawn by |
two shaggy, red steers, the Embarked logs
dismond-dusted with snow, shouldered
down the road in cloud of frosty breath.
1t is the mark OF inexperience IN this Sec
tion OF the country to confound a sleigh
which you use for riding with the sledge
that is devoted to heavy work, and it is, I
believe, a still greater sign of worthlessness
to think that oxen are driven, as they are in
most places, by scientific twisting of the
tail. The driver, with the red mittens on
his hands, felt overstockings that come up
TO his knees, and perhaps sil7er-gray COON
skin coat on his back, walks beside CRYING,
"Gee! Hawr' even as is written in the
American stories. And the speech of the
driver explains many things in regard to
the dialect story, which, at its best, is an in
Fiction to many.
Stories in Swedish or Russian.
Now that 1 have heard the long, unhur-
ried drawl of Vermont, my wonder is, not
that the New England tales should be
printed in what for the sake of argument
Ive will call English and its type, but
rather that they should not have appeared in
Swedish or Russian. Our alphabet is too
limited. This part of the country belongs
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 air as soon as
YOU see the white-painted wooden houses