The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-09-05

ABBY SMITH AND IAN IDYL or MOD
ERN NEW ENGLAND"

"A Room Especially For tho Childrsn-Odd
Things About woman's Age Greater
Love Hath No sIan--Ths Middle Aged
woman--Keeping the Baby Amused.
The Springfield Republican, printing
letter from Abby Smith, headed IL IAN
Idyl Of Modern New. England" and edi-
torially calling attention ia ,it said: I'VE
ask every thoughtful man who has the
ballot and every thoughtless woman who
Is in the habit Of saying she doesn't want
1t to read Abby Smiths story OF the New
Years call paid her by the tax collector OF
glastonbury. 1t Is well worth reading II
only for the quaint simplicity of tho
style This Is n bit of .Defoo's English.
But the matter Is still moro noteworthy
than the manner. In refusing TO continue
paying heaWcr taxes than any other prop
erty owners i'm Glastonbury, while refused
voice In assessing and spending them,
ABBY Smith and her sister as truly stand
for the American pripciple as did the citi-
gens who ripped open the tea chests In
Boston harbor or the farmers who leveied
their muskets at Concord And they seem
to have very much tho same quality of
quiet, old fashioned Yankee grit. They
don't shrek, nor wiring their hands, nor
make fuss of any sort. They are good
s1ature itself. But they are also logic it
self, and resolution itself, and pluck It
self. They simply stand upon their
rights"
From this .'Idyl Of Modern New Eng
land" here is q brief extract. Abby Smith
Is relating their case To the Springfield Re
publicari My sister went Into the yard
TO entroat him (the tax collector) to leave
Al. a 1.
that one might not be left alone. But
she could not prevail, and the little thing
(the poor mans portion) has cried ever
since. The cowsswere taken to a neigh
lhor's, and the neighbor said nothing could
exceed the trouble they had to get them
into his yard. He could do nothing with
them. These COWS will sometimes be very
contrary. when nobody can manage them
but my sister. She will call them all by
their names, and they will come TO her
upon the gallop. They will follow behind
her in single file, and she can lead them
wherever she chooses. When we had
new tenant. they wouldn't let him como
near them, and she has been Obliged TO
stand at their head (where they could SEQ
herr every day when he milked for ever so
long"
The names OF these famous cows werc
Daisy, Whitley, Minney, Jessy, Roxy,
Martha Washington and Abigail Adams.
The fame OF the sisters spread SO far and
wide that the mails Of glastonbury, hith-
erto not very weighty, went loaded down
with letters and papers from all parts OF
the country. Their table was piled with
them, and their time occupied in reading
and answering letters. 1t was quaint Abby
Smith who set the ball In motion and
kept il rolling by her unique speeches and
simple, old fashioned ways, but back of
her was Julia Smith, with her Greek and
Hebrew lore and her five translations OF
the Bible. And these and Abby and the
COWS together made a combination and a
fame which, for originality, has been un-
.rivalcd In modern times
People from many quarters made pill
grimages to the old Smith mansion, and
the sleepy town of Glastonbury, hitherto
without record in the worlds annals,
became distinguished by two women.
While Julia raised cows, Abby raised
the breeze that waited them to public
attention. But their fame rests equally
on both In the days of the "Millerites"
and their talk about the end Of the world
Julia wanted TO learn IL thero was any
warrant in the original Hebrew for Mil
ller's predictions fixing the end OF the world
in 1s43. So she Studied Hebrew and then
went to work and translated the Bible.
She translated IL Eve times, then put it
away in a bureau drawer and published
IL many years after, when she was SO.