The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-01-13

he grudged its use.
| shan't cut down no more than is
really needful," he said when she urged
him to fetch her bad.
Woods alters CROWN when ye
don't cut it, and maxim for lumber;
and lumber's better to sell, a sight,
than cord wood. Ye must get along
somehow with brush; mother used to
burn next TO nothin'."
She did not remind him that his
mother was bent double with rheuma-
tism, ard died of her fifth attack of
pneumonia.
There were eight cows to milk, the
milk to strain, set, skim, churn or make
cheese, and nothing but the simplest
tools to do it with. A cloth held over
the edge of the pail served for strainer,
the pals themselves were heavy wood;
the pans old and some of them leaky,
the holes stopped up with bits of rags
often to be removed. The milk-room
was in the shed, built against the chin.
uey that it might not freeze there in
winter, and only aired by one small
Slated window. The churn was an old
wooden one, with dasber, and even
the spaddle with which she worked
her butter was whitfield out of a maple
knot by Amasa himself, aud was heavy
and rough.
Then TO her belonged the feeding of
the pigs, gaunt, an animals, with sharp
shouts, ridgy backs, long legs and thin
TANKS; deep set eyes that cleaned with
intelligent malice, and never sat'd
hunger. Wealthy grew almost afraid
OF them when they clambered up on The
rails of the pen in their fury for food
and Tapped their pointed ears al her,
squealing and fighting for the scant
fare that she brought. For Amasa
underfed and overworked everything
that belonged to him.
Then there were hens to look after;
the oldfashioned barnyard "creepers,"
who wanted food, too, yet catered for
themselves in great mt asure, and
made free with barn and woodshed for
want of their own quarters, and were
decimated every season Oy hawks, owls,
skunks, weasels and foxes, to say moth
ing of the little chickens on which
crows and cats worked their will if they
dared to stray beyond the ruinous old
coops contrived for them by Amasa's
inventive genius out of sticks and
stones.
Add to this the cooking, washing,
baking and sewing; the insufficient
supply of pork, potatoes and tough pies;
the chilled dinners" whose strength
lay in the small square of fat pork
cooked with them, of which Amasa in
variably took the lions share; these ac-
cumulating and never-ceasing labors
all wore day by day on the vitality of
Mrs. Tucker, and when to these were
added an annual baby, life became a
terror and burden to the poor woman.
But what did Amasa care? He, too,
worked from ''sun to SUM-" He farmed
in the hard, cid fashion, with rude inn
plements and no knowledge, but
My father done it afore me, so
Pm goin' to do it now; no use talkin'."
One by one the ailing, puny children
were laid away in the little yard on top
of sand hill, where the CID fuckers
and their half dozen infants lay al
ready; rough inclosure, full of null
lens, 5urdocks and tbistles, overrun
with low blackberry vines and sur
rounded by rail fence. 1t had been
much handler for the fuckers to have
graveyard close by than to travel five
miles to the Mills with every funeral,
and they were not driven by public
opinion in regard 10 monuments; they
all lay there like the beasts that per-
ish, with but oneslant graystone to tell
where the first occupant left his tired
bones.
Two children of Wealthy's survived
Amasa and Lurana, the oldest and
youngest of seven. Amasa was con-
siderate, intelligent boy, who thought
much and said little; and Lurana, or
Lury," as her name was usually given,
mischievous, self-willed little imp, the
delight and torment of her WORKOUT
mother. Young Amasa was a boy
quite beyond his fathers understand
ing. AS soon as he was old enough he
began to help his mother in every way
he could devise; and when his term at
the village school was over, to his
fathers great disgust he trapped squir-
rels and gathered nuts enough to earn
his own money and to subscribe for an
agricultural paper which he studied
every week till its contents were thor
oughly stored in his head.
Then began that "noble discomfort"
which philosophers praise. The elder
| man hnN hO pOoSO III LILO OiU-VOiio
ways; the sloppy waste of the barn
yard was an eyesore to this "book-
learned felier," as his father derisively
called him, and the ashes of the wood
pile were saved and sheltered like pre-
cious dust, instead of thrown into big
heap to edify the wandering hens. That
desolate garden was plowed, fertilized
and set in order at last, and the great
ragged orchard was MANFRED, the ap-
Pile trees thinned and trimmed, and
ashes sown thick over the old messy
sod. Now these things were not done
in day or year, but as the boy grew
older and more able to cope with his
fathers self conceit, more was done an.
nually, not without much opposition
and many hard words, but still done.
Then came heavy blow; Lurana, a
girl of fifteen, fresh, and pretty as a
wild rose, and tired of the pinching
economy, the monotonous work and
grinding life of the farm, ran away with
q tip-na6dlar apA broEa har ~ y IN N 40