The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1898-01-21
EAST DORSET.

Coastng is "Hlgh, dlddle, dlddle
for our youth commonly, but for
young Denis Flynn, son of section
boss, John Flynn, it was music of
different and more melancholy sort on
Friday last. The hind end of his
sled slued round against the depot
platform and one of his legs was
caught and both bones broken just
above the ankle. Our DR.. Bartlett,
who is quite an expert in that line,
reduced the fracture successfully ard
Denis will be riding his mended shank
where he listeth In due time.
A dance in the evening. Seventy
three couples "chased the glowing
hours with flying feet" in school house
hall till a. m. Till about now we
have had no hall favorable for dances
on which account our social natures
have had dwarfed and unsatisfac-
tory development The purpose APP
parently is to "let JOY be uncon6ned,"
from now and henceforth, a little
more than it has been. Why not
"shake off dull care" and let "hearts
beat happily" once in while
1t should have been occident not
"accident of Dorset" in our last.
Dorset is no accident. She was part
of the nothing foreordaned to be
made into our great terrestrial some
thing. she was present at creations
dawn and listened when the morning
stars sang together-her "hills rock
ribbed and ancient as the sun and
wales stretching in pensive quietness
between," one and all bear evidence
of design And when we dig into
those hills as if to see if they have
the appendicitis there is also indispu-
table evidence of design. Oh, no,
Dorset is no accident, any more than
the whole earth of which she is a part
Or Beartown Or Popocatapetl.
1t has lately appeared in print that
| Wanamaker and some others have it
in mind to buy the abandoned farms
in New England and farm them by
proxy. Joy be with and abide in
their enterprise. May they have
"perpetual feast of nectard sweets
where no crude surfeitreigns." They
will not have quite farms enough to
dispeople greater New York but
there are not half enough men in that
metropolis that are good as farmers
to serve their purpose. TO succeed
their farmers would have to duplicate
in large measure the farming methods
of the old pioneers aud their ways of
living. Those methods and ways are
bygones never to return. The num-
Der of their farms would be very
large, much larger probably than
most people would guess. In one
school district in Stratton, that near
est TO the mountain, there are easily
remembered seven farms wholly
abandoned and nine Others at least
on which nobody lives. Nobody lives
in the district except on two lumber
jobs-the proprietors and their en-
ployes. Both of these jobs are on
the Deerfield river, one on the high
way from Stratton to Arlington and
the other some mile and half down
stream in dense forest. Both are
very fourishing. The owners have
good houses and live like nabobs and
could dress in "purple and fine linen"
every day if they chose to. The one
fartherest down stream is said to
have much better house right among
stumps and mud holes than can be
found in any of our small villages
and to keep twenty fine team horses
and has children enough to drive
them. When he has lumber enough
he loads his teams and they start off
in long string for North Adams
with his children holding the ribbons.
Were any of these abandoned farms
or of those on which no one now lives
ever good for anything ? Well, one
of the largest was chopped out by
Levi Hale. His father came up with
him from LeomiDster, Mass, and
gave him 200 acres of dense forest
and an OK and told him to 90 it and
HE went it. When he had little
clearing and log house and barn he
took little wife and they had ten
children, six were twins and one of
the lpairs was Eli and Elias, well
known residents of Arlington or of
the near by. Hale had at one time
forty head of horned cattle including
five yokes of heavy oxen. He past
ured the woods largely and moved
the beaver meadows and all the land
he could clear and get into grass. All
the timber was burned on the ground
cleared and the grass grew for some
years high as the stump. 1t would
now on like land cleared in like man
ner. Several of the other farms were
quite large and kept considerable
numbers of cattle and sheep and the
Partisan fashion not having arrived