Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1898-05-28

earliest recollections run parallel
with events connected with the war.
There was strife in the air; the senses
were set to martial measure; the
music was that which drum and fife
could interpret; the poetry was of the
strident order; orations dealt in "war
Clouds" earned hosts" and heroics
generally. The freight trains carried
cannon and recruits to the South,
and Confederate prisoners to the
North. There was n scarcity of men
in the fields. Women often followed
the horses, wearing the blue jackets
that were cheaper and warmer than
garments designed for their sex. Boys
too small for severe labor tugged at
harvest work in summer and sawed
logs in winter. There were good
many old men and good many Grip
Piles all over the neighborhood. But
everybody was busy at work in the
daytime, aud intently listening, con-
stantly expecting in the night.
My father was away there some
where, but since the battle OF Look
.out Mountain we had not heard from
him, and that awful waiting which
was almost worse than the certainty
of death tortured our home every mo-
ment of the terribly long day. There
were three boys of us, and the oldest
was not strong enough for the work We
had to do, while the younger ones,
condemned to labor in summer to es-
cape want in winter, would have been
better engaged with toys and play
time. Mother was out early and late,
wearing her frame and scanning her
face with labor never intended for her.
And we did all we could to help her
in the house and in the fields; but it
was a cruel burden. And added to it
was that dragging wait from day to
day, that watching each distant figure
as it approached, hoping till the last
moment it might be the one whose
coming meant release from trouble.
And then came Sin.
Sin was a Swede young woman, large,
fair and strong, capable of any amount
of work, accustomed to toll in the fields
as in the kitchen, willing always and
always with song on her lips and a
smile on the cheeks that would not
cover their pink and white however
the hot sun shone.
Her father and brothers came with
colony of immigrants, and they set.
tied up there in the maple and walnut
woods above our farm and began the
cntting of timber. They could moi
speak onr language as she could, and
they knew nothing of our laws. They
neglected enlistment and missed the
draft, and lived there in their cabir
and hewed the forest away arount
them. No one visited them, ofcourse
and they mingled very little among
the older families. There was moth
ing against them, of course. The old
man may have drank little too mucl
now and then, hut when they left theil
chopping for days work at n neigh
boris they were industrious and faith
full, and when they traded it seemed
they were honest. But they wer,
foreign, and lacked a little of adjust
ment to the status that environet
them.
Bob Elliott came home along abou
harvest time-came home with very
white face aud long thin fingers tina
gripped his crutches, for he had lost I
leg somewhere along the front a
Petersburg, and seemed mildly sorry
his life had not gone with it. But h,
got over that after time.
He had been wild and reckless
fellow before his enlistment. Most
of the people in our neighborhood
were either shocked at his perfectly
lawless behavior, or openly in advo
cacy of visiting him with retribution.
7 know when he rode his race horse
home from town on Saturday night,
whooping alongside Deacon Craw
ford's market wagon till the dull team
ran away, that some people thought
he should, in the name of public de
cency, be run out of the neighbor
hood. And when he broke up the
injecting" at Elmgrove Church ani
whipped the constable who came tc
arrest him there was a perfect unior
Of voices AGAINST him.