The record-union., 1896-03-21
THE COLONEL.

or shamble, had no stoop in his shoul-
ders. and showed that clear brown,
F1Iddy skin that man should show who
leads the Finest life in the world? Has
anyone ever tasted from a farmers ta-
BILE food that, but for the Spartan sauce,
he GOULD honestly call as palatable or
as wholesome as good city fare? Will
anyone think it worth his while to COM
pare the health Of the farmers wife
and daughters with that of the average
society woman of the day? He either
cheats himself too much or his sense
of smell is small who has not remarked
that the typical farmhouse is, as a
fact, pervaded, not by the perfumes of
lavender and roasted apples, but by a
certain queer compound aroma, aslgnl1-
icant genus sign, as special as tneodor Oh
our paper money, and as clearly showing
forth a surplus of human use and Iacsr
of the good offices of ar dnG sunshine.
Yet one of the pleasantest Octooers
that / have ever known L passed IN
farmhouse. 1t was up in the eastern
hills of Massachusetts. Concord ana
Lexington were within driving distance,
and on a clear day Mount Monadnock,
across the New Hampshire boundary,
and Mount Holyoke, seventy miles
away, appeared distincly within the
view. 1 remember them well, for my
room looked toward the north and west,
where they lay, and the gnarled old
grapevine that covered that end of the
house frequently attracted me to the
windows. where I could devour Isabel
las and mediate on the prospect, like
comfortable, Eliminating cow.
And the days were always clear ex-
cept in the early morning. In the first
hours of sunshine a hight, white mist
sometimes lay over the cranberry bog
at the foot of our hill, and marked like
a trail of smoke the sinuous course of
the stream beyond; but by o'clock all
that had burned away, and the world
stood forth in unclouded brilliancy.
What beautiful country it was, and
what a wealth of magnificent color
everywhere! In the orchard back of the
house the winter apples were still hang
ing, scarlet and crimson and yellow, on
half leafless boughs, against the tur-
quoise sky. The corn stood stacked In
the fields beside golden-drab and rust
ling, and big yellow orange pumpkins
lay in piles between the sheaves. Every
pasture had its tangled hedge of golden
rod and aSterS, and scarlet woodblne
glorified stone walls and stumps and
tree trunks. On the fences hung and
swayed the silver-feathered clematis
Bright sumac lined the narrow lanes
and famed along the waysides, where
the graceful barberry bushes were
bending with the weight of their beauti-
full fruit. Overhead and everywhere
blazed the splendors of autumn foliage
red naples and yellow, bronze oaks,
pink poplars-and if the chestnut leaves
were somewhat dull and sere, should it
not be forgiven them since at your feet
they had cast hundreds of prickly jewel
caskets, each one lined with creamy
velvet and holding a thing whose
beauty could not be matched in any
1apidary's tray?
In such clear, frosty air as swept
over those blue hills one could tramp
and ride from morning until night with
out a thought of firing, but one did get
most insatiably hungry. No amount
of application to breakfast, dinner and
tea could prevail to sustain the spirit
in superior spheres between times Not
all the influence that 'hills and val
leys, dales and fields, and all the craggy
mountain yields" could save one from
yearinings after doughnuts and milk
at reprehensible midway hours.
In consequence of this chronic want,
/ made the acquaintance of not few
farmhouses besides the one where was
domiciled, and developed more or less
intimacy with the inhabitants thereof.
There were not many young people
among them Most of the boys had
gone to the city to enlarge their chances
of fortune, which certainly were incon-
siderable when limited to the paternal
acres; while such of the girls as could
be spared from home were glad to make
a little ready money by working at the
making of watches in the factory town
near by 1t was not in the nature of the
people to be taciturn, and some of them,
particularly the old men and women,
who, having passed their active days,
had arrived at the time when they
might properly permit themselves the
Indulgence of protracted conversations,
welcomed as a real treat the advent of
a socially inclined stranger. Like most
other persons, they were at least as
well content to talk as to be talked to-,
so that 1 came to hear many curious
"reminiscences and tales, both dull and
lively, of old days and new.
Of all these, the one that stayed in my
mind the most clearly is precisely the
one I most hesitate to repeat. The
human possibilities of rural New Eng
land have been so persistently explored
with, broadly speaking, such uniform
results, by the story-tellers of these
latter days, that one feels, however un-
Oh al 10 xuhnco iC
laid with theirs, even though its char
acters be aliens, must be seriously in
danger of the imputation of pinch
beckery when it wanders as far afield
as this.
Yet if any faith be on the tongues of
the people of the place, the identity of
which 1 have pretty clearly indicated
to one who knows the region at all,
this account is absolutely true; for, due
allowance being made for personal
equations. it came unvarying from a
dozen different sources.
1 myself was skeptical at first, and
more than suspected that the very old
lady who first recited it to me as she
sat stringing dried apples on her sun
shiny back porch, was somewhat con-
fused by the multitude of her recollec-
tions, and that she was now regaling
me with some half-remembered tale
from the "Fireside Companion" in lieu
of that which I had asked for-the his
tory of the house on the south road.
But all her neighbors bore her out. The
story, from whatever lips, preserved its
integrity unassailed.
Any stranger must have noticed the
house. for it was in many ways con-
spicuous; first, because of its location,
which had plainly been selected with