San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1894-09-05
OLD WEST VIRGINIA.
The Modern aud the Colonial are
Found in the State Side by
Side

SOho Al Nh6 0IdI6 sue DY |
Side
Harper'S Magazine:
At any point on the frontier Or
in the heart Of West Virginia you
step from your Pullman to the
eMgon that awaits you, and the
length of a mornings constitu.
tional finds you in the dominion
of a belated century. The time is
right by your watch, but your
pocket calendar is a hundred
years too far ahead. 1t is true
that the present era jars
the past in places. The
Chesapeake and Ohio railroad,
which bisects the state, is modern
even TO elegance, but thousands of
the people near its steel threads
have never ridden over a mile of it.
That modern statesman, w. l..
Wilson, halls from there; but the
life in the mountains is so ancient
that George Washington, were he
back on earth, would say, after a
tour of the whole country, "At last,
here | find a part of the world as l
left it,"
went into West Virginia over
the Pennsylvania boarder last
summer, and put up at a noun
tain spring resort. There was a
clashing of two centuries there.
The arch city maiden in white
flannel was there trimming her
! hat with butterflies, sticking a hat
pin into them at twenty places,
$50 as to find their hearts and kill
! them without hurting them too
much" and at night she banged
out Sousa's last two-step in a way
that filled the old woods with the
breath of a Michigan avenue board
ing house. But in tho early morning
when her flannel suit hung over a
chair, and her "white sailor" sat at
the top of the bed room pitcher
with a rakish cant to one side, the
squirrels and the lOcusts and katy
dds had the forests to themselves
and the early stirrers on the noun
tain roads were the old time West
Virginians, as simple and genuine
assfresh air.
Observing that the stranger at
the Springs came from unthought-
of distances to drink the sulphur
water that bubbled up in the
meadow by the hotel, they, too
paid the tardy century the cOmpli-
ment of drinking its catholicon.
But with never failing shyness
they always came at sunup, with
out noise or hustle, though in
strong force, to fills their pals and
cans and Buckeyes and carry the
liquid away. They and the nine
teenth century boarders were i'm
pressed and cozened by the same
fact-the waters smelled so bad
and tasted so nasty that it must
certainly be good medicine.
| never will forget how the
mountaineers interested me. The
women came sidewise bobbing up
and down on the horses, with both
feet side by side on the animals
ribs. The capes of their calico
hoods waved prettily in the breeze.
The teamsters knew better than to
sit on jolting wagons that pounded
over the rocks in the road, so each
saddled the left hand horse Of his
team and rode at ease, while the
horses tugged up the hills with a
force that had to be met and eased
by mean of the harness Of broad
straps, which is the hOrsegear Of the
entireAppalachian world. The little
boys brought trousers that did not
know their shoes, never having
met them, and jackets that MINI
licked the trousers by being too
short-in the sleeves as well as in
the body. The little girls were
bare at both top and toe, as betitted
creatures that did not have to go
into the thorn and bramble thick
cts, as the boys had to do in order
to be boys. But their tubular cot
ton drawers desired to see as much
OF life as possible, and therefore
reached below their little dresses.
All alike were simple, honest, I'M
odtrusive and shy.