Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1901-09-26
SUMMER TIME DOWN SOUTH.
Some of Lies Ameliorations in a Hot
Climate.

SOHlS OF t-tft AUTHORIZATIONS IN d TOT
Climate.
The household takes by instinct to
the siesta, real or feigned, after the
midday meal-the master and mis-
tress, the wee fodder, and the stranger
that is within the gate. "Ill get
you light cool wrapper and a book"
the hostess says to her guests at the
witching hour, and whether she will
or whether she won't, the guest is left
to her own diversions. Sometimes it
happens that the shadows have
heightened well on toward evening, be
fore, one by one, the household be-
comes visible. Any version of sum.
mer time south of Mason and Dixon's
line would be incomplete without ref
erence to these languorous hours of
indolence-hours spent behind green
blinds, occasionally watching the
breezes scudding about outside, and
thinking how tantalizing they are
to look so cool and blow so warm,
and listening to the call of the part
ridge sounding clear and full over the
fields. There may be hammocks on
the piazza and under the garden trees,
but-and this is secret-even that
degree of convention demanded by an
upper piazza hammock is more than
human nature can stand. The great
need is to get in out of the binding
white light without and get rid of all
superfluities of apparel and conven.
ton.
| On such afternoons things might be
cooked with convenience on the west
ern piazza; the pitch is oozing out of
the pine, everything is stepped, satu-
rated and rarefied in heat and the
spirit that is in young and old, as the
prayer-book has it, droops and fades.
There is nothing for it but to give up
and lose hold of time for space.
counting either the land of genuine
dreams or the imaginings of other
minds set forth in printed story.
Everything invites to drowsiness.
The bees and the big flies and yellow
jackets drone a lullaby. Even the
leaves and vine tendrils seem doing.
The cook takes cat maps in her do
main, the washerwoman in hers. Quiet
reigns on the premises aud II any in
truder ventures near, the house dog
knows better than to raise his voice
at this sacred hour, and merely looks
disapproval.
Summer time at the south means
boating parties and open air fetes and
moonlit nights besides, when the
earth seems baptized anew and
natures pulses stir with something so
near akin to alteration that the mock
ing bird wakens in her nest and is
moved to sing about it. The mocking
bird knows 1t all, and trills it out al
most as eloquently in the broad noon
day, at 2 o'clock as in the tender
mystery of the moon. She sings il
over in the quarter" and the black
skinned lassies and "mammies" come
out of their beds to listen, and the
rough pIowmen as well
There is something IN the southern
summer night that fosters wakeful-
ness. The negroes seldom sleep or
even lie down the entire night through
To use their own phrase--"They love
to git up and stir bout and this habit
accounts for their knowledge of wind
and weather, their weird prophesying,
and talk about jack-o-lanterns, queer
something that they see; the mean
ings that they give to the owls boot
ing and the bull-bats' behavior at Ger.
tain times and under certain circum-
stances.
One may have lived in Texas and
visited in Georgia, have had a glimpse
OF Mississippi and Alabama and be full.
ly aware of the variations in cline
and circumstance embraced in the
term south, yet I'm writing of summer
in that region the particular slice of
country or strip of shore where most
or ones summers have been spent will |
get the most attention. II was evi. |
IDENTIFY meant that people should take |
In things only in part. One may know
where the river rises and where IL |
empties and may have seen II various.
ly as 1t goes on it's course, but the |
one little span OF IL that the eye can
grasp at once Is limited. the rest Is |
only In the minds larger vision. So |
summer in the south is associated |
with stretch of sea-girted shore with |
surf warm and luxurious tossing on |
the beach and palms and oleander |
bushes set well back among white |
mounds of heaped-up sand, and houses |
with awnings and long
Slated piazzas-a place where the |
breeze blows perpetually, and the sun