The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-03

There were fine low, wide stout timber
built homes; perhaps a half score of out
buildings for tiocks and herds, all ar
ranged so as 10 protect as much as possi-
bic both humans and animals from the
awful winter winds; a huge storehouse
as big as a village church for common
use; and curious old mill for grinding
grain, where the stream tumbled into the
chasm in which we had passed the night.
The larger fern house, or sort of patri-
arch to them all, had a wide, outer in
clused hall. In this were bestowed on
shelves, hung from pegs or stood in cor
nerS, a strange collection of oars, fishing
gear, rude farm implements, game-traps,
tremendous fur coats and rawhide boots,
stays heads and antlers tusks of wild
hoarS, pOwdor-horn and shot pouches and
firearms of strange and antique pattern.
The living rooms were four in number,
huge and square, leading from one to an
other through square openings; and in a
corner of each was an open fireplace as
large as have ever seen. Every article
of furniture-long, low tables, uncOuth
but comfortable chairs, cumberous chests,
bunk-bed built into and against the walls,
heavy shelves upon great pegs driven into
the house timbers, and even the gaily-
painted bureaus with the housewives
names and dates of their marriage upon
them-waS of home manufacture.
With all these evidences of ample con-
tent, if within primitive environment, l
felt abashed at my own constantly recur-
ring preconceived tendencies to construct
social and material pictures of meager-
ness and desolation where no such condi-
tions existed. AT middagsmad, or dinner,
which consisted of sort of vegetable
soup seasoned with bits of dried fish, the
universal fadbrod, something like the
Scottish hammock, black bread, inordi-
nate quantities of cheese, butter, cream
and milk, with great basins of tiny, but
berries, these things were frankly
spoken of, causing the greatest merri-
ment among the family of my hose.
What lacked they? Here are comfort
able homes and their land which has re-
manned unquestioned in the one family
since Norway was Narway. The women
spun the yarn, wove the cloth, made the
clothing they all wore, and besides at
tended to the cattle, and worked much in
the fields. The men felled timber in the
winter, hunted reindeer, trapped and shot
game, sometimes went on long fishing and
whaling enterprises; and the land pro
duced enough grain for food and grass for
fodder, besides furnishing grazing for the
animals of less fortunate peasants who
often brought their cows here for the
summer months and which explained the
gorge beside the ford
All these folk could read, though none
had ever attended school. Elementary
education seems almost hereditary here,
and books, from the musty sagas to the
prose poems of Anderson, were piled upon
the rude shelves above the fireplaCes.
Two or three times a year they went to
church at Bake. These were great oc-
casions, and all went in boats together.
In the long winter months the fires of the
great chimneyS rOared as loud as the
mountain tempests; with snowshoes they
visited other eagle-nest homes, and en-
ioyed much simple merry-making; and
from year nuntil year out indeed from
one generation to another they knew no
ineXtricable eXigency and experienced no
need or longing beyond their own mutual
provision and requirement.
More surprising than all, after we had
departed-the entire eagle nest" com
munity accompanying us to the edge of
the chasm and sending many a hearty
'E'avelN' after us even when the cliff had
hidden them from Shetland while de-
scending to the ford with the head
farmer and his son, we learned that these
folk had never seen or known any officer
of the law; and that there was not even
a tradition in the numerous family above
our heads of a title to their lands being
essential, or of any attempt ever having
been made for the collection of taxes upon
any of those Norwegian eagle-nest farms
EDGAR l.. WAKEMAN.