The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-11-04

lnSton, New Jersey0 sharing the par
lor with the photographs of the family
and the framed mourning cards of their
deceased relations. They were simple
FOLK, this farmers household, with a
love of flowers and that hatred of blank
spaces which marks the aesthetic sense
OF the uneducated. Scarcely a square
inch of blank wall, and tables so COW
cred with Woolly mats and bits of china
purchased at the Jahr-market that it
was difficult to find a place to put a
book down. but the whole redeemed
ffom ugliness by the tenderly cared-for
plants and the trailing greenery.
went outside and stood on the edge of
| the NIL. Places are strangely human;
| with some we are a home from the
Hlst, others after years Of acquaintance
remain strangers still. | should be hap
Ply here. | knew it in moment. The
whole aspect of the farm was so friend
| ~ and welcoming, if one may rescue
that word aspect from the degrade
ton 1t has suffered at the hands of the
speculative real-estate agent. And SO
| found it. The place was ABSOLUTELY
lonely, and one never felt alone. Now
and again, strolling through the woods
|
a forester sometimes wandering father
afield, passing laborer gave me
suten abend but unless you crossed the
field and stumbled over the road to the
village the civilized world was as if it
were not. But what matteled it when
| cuckoos woke you in the cool grey of
| the summer morning and you watched
| through the blindless windows the
dow l,,,i,N /, ~.
| tie went on steadily munching, untrou-
| bled by the gambols of the colt, and the
fa1m-yard cocks joined with the cue
koos to shame further sleep away?
Cuckoos shouted to one another in the
hot MONDAY stiffness; they suddenly
woke the slumber of the woods in that
lanr of afternoon; they called softly as
the sun sank low, and the pheasants
stalked confidingly to my very feet as
| sat motioness watching the rabbits
creep out and the squirrels run along
the branches. Then the nightingales
began.
And the full moon and the white
evening star. All the wonderful still
loneliness of the summer night. There
as no Overwhelming beauty about the
place in the daytime, only soft sense
of perfect contentment as one watched
the clouds drift up the valley of the
LIN, clouds soft and rounded against a
blue as pure and transparent as the |
skies of Italian art But the midsum-
mer nights bring always that passion
ate pleasure, that exhausting sense of |
beauty beyond ones grasp which be-
longs to the first blush Of spring, to the |
splendor of mountains. to the greatest |
works of art. There is no such witness |
to the eternal fitness of order and ritual |
as the quckness with which life slides !
into certain routine. The walk to the |
village to fetch yesterdays paper as
sumes the solemnity of religious rite |
by no means to be intermitted, though I
the weather keeps country folk indoors.
Indeed, these people are strangely fear
full of wetting their feet and facing
little wind and weather; it is only the
effeminate Herr Amerikaner'' for
whom muddy roads have no terrors.
One realized this when medltating on
the waywardness of the country post
man. The regulations of tyranncal
government ordained that he should de-
liver letters at the farm; but, as cart
tracks and wet fields were to him Meth
cI ilpN tl VI cilil rttliNti ne NdllGu Ibi ali
interval of leisure and a moment of
calm weather, or, meeting the farmers
boy by the way he would hand him
the mornings mail, regardless of the
fact that the boy was boun for some
distant farm not to return until night
fall. This bit of rustic humor had its
in the pleasantries of the
railroad board which had erected large
poles painted red, white and black
across the road at crossings. not less
than nine feet high, and the wayfarer is
strongly forbidden" to climb over the
a train is passing"
Wandering one day down the hill and
over the stepping stones which crossed
he shallow river at the bottom. |
,ltmbed up through a wood. lonelier
still than the wood behind the farm.
The trees stood thinly at first here and
here We're sunny patches of tiny frs,
md bushes in between oak and beech.
But of a sudden / came through a
hicket to grove of fir trees standing
lose tOgether-still solemn and mysteri-
,us. Here the underground was high
With branching fronds, like asmniature :
crest overshadowing fairyland, and
bove it the straight, tall STEMS line
beyond line, absolutely satisfying in
heir intricate regularity. 1t is so easy
n wood to lose all sense of distance
II direction, and when | came out on to
he open hillside, up which a soft grey
mist was stealing from the river, g
ound myself close to dreary little V
which I had often seen dim1y t
cross the valley. 1t had been an house f
or storing hops, but when the hop I
ardens failed, some peasant converted t
into a cottage. With little windows f
Ugh under the roof and step-ladder a
p to the door. [ had heard some talk d
f man lying sick there, but none Il
aemed to know much of the house or II
s inmates. they were somehow outside o
ne kindly familaIties of village life fl
here was rough patch of neglected b
arden in front of the house-only bit t,
f land reclaimed from the wilderness Il
f fern and tussocked grass that COW o.
red the hillsidea goat was tethered "
ear, and two little children We're play n
g by the door. I stopped to ask the II
ay, and at the sound of strangers II