Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-07-10


has committed some crime and does
not want to be known. There must be
something wrong about him or he
would speak The whole house goes
into the detective business. They must
find out about him. They must find
out about him right away. If he leave
his door unlocked by accident, he will
find that his rooms have been inspect
ed, his trunk explored, his letters fold
ed differently from the way they were
folded when he put them away. Who
is he? is the question asked with in
tenser interest, until the subject has
become a monomania. The simple fact
is that he is nobody in particular, but
minds his own business.
The best landlords and landladies
cannot sometimes hinder their places
from becoming pandemonium Of whis-
perers, and regulations are torn to tat
tiers, and evil suspicious are aroused,
and scandals started, and the paflia-
ment of the family is blown to atoms
by some Guy Fawkes who was not
caught in time, as was his English pred
ecessor of gunpowdery reputation.
The reason is that, while in private
them busy, in these promiscuous and
multitudinous residences there are so
many who have nothing to do, and that
always makes mischief. They gather
in each others rooms and spend hours
in consultation about others. If they
had to walk a half mile before they got
to the willing ear Of some listener to
detraction, they would get out of breath
before reaching there and not feel in
full glow of animosity or SANDER, or
might, because Of the distance, not go
at all. But rooms 20, 81, %, %, "a and
25 are on the same corridor, and when
one carriOn crow goes Cav! Caw!'
all the other crows hear it and flock to-
gether over the same carcass. "Oh, l
have heard something rich! Sit down
and let me tell you all about it." And
the first guffaw increases the gather
ing, and it has to be told all over again.
and as they separate each carries a
spark from the altar Of CAB to some
other circle until, from the coal HEAVIER
in the cellar to the maid in the top
room of the garnet, all are aware of the
defamation, and that evening all who
leave the house will bear it to other
houses until autumnal fires sweeping
across Illinois prairieS are less raging
and swift than that fame of consum
ing reputation blazing across the viii
lage or city.
HerdinE Together.
Those of us who were brought up in
the country know that the old fashion
ed Matching of eggs in the haymow re-
Quired four or five weeks of brOoding,
but there are new modes Of Matching
by machinery, which take less time
and do the work by wholesale. So
while the private home may brood into
life an occasional falsity and take a
long time to do it, many Of the board
ing houses and family hotels afford a
swifter and more multitudinous style
of moral incubation, and one old Cos
sip will get off the nest after one hours
brooding, clucking a flock of 80 lies
after her, each one picking up it's little
worm of juicy regalement. 1t is no ad-
vantage to hear too much about your
neighbors, for your time will be so
much occupied in taking care of their
faults that you will have no time to
look after your own. And while you
are pulling the chickweed out of their
garden yours will get all overgrown
with horse sorrel and mullen stalks.
One of the worst damages that come
from the herding of SO many people
into boarding houses and family hotels
is inflicted upon children. 1t is only
another way of bringing them up on
the commons. While you have your
own private house you can, for the
most part, control their companionship
and their whereabouts, but by II years
of age in these public resorts they will
have picked up all the bad things that
can be furnished by the prurient minds
of dozens OF people. They will over
hear blasphemies, and see Quarrels,
and get precocious in sin, and what the
bartender does not tell them the por-
ter or hostler or bellboy will.
Besides that the children will go out
into this world without the restraining,
anchoring, steadying and all control
ling memory Of home. From that
none of us who have been blessed Of
such memory have escaped. 1t grips a
man for 80 years, if he lives so long.
It pulls him back from doors into
which he otherwise would enter. It
smites him with contrition in the very
midst Of his designations. AS the fish,
already surrounded by the long wide
net, swim out to sea, thinking they can
go as far as they please, and with gay
toss of silvery scale they defy the
sportsman on the beach, and after
awhile the fishermen begin to draw in
the net, hand over hand, and hand over
hand, and it Is a long while before the
captured fms begin to feel the net, and
then they dart this way and that, hop
ing to get out, but find themselves ap-
preaching the shore, hnd are brought