The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1904-03-11

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strictly it is to sell machinery in a
modest way, or go around the country
hay-baling or threshing. Occasionally
young Amishman who goes to mar
ket meets temptations, combined with
dress ridicule, which lure him from his
quiet home associations to city life,
but such cases arc exceptional. No
sect has the power of the Amish to
bold their young people inside the
lines of strictness the most extreme in
the way of religion, behavior and dress;
and this despite the crowding among
their outskirts of the ways and Gus
toms of the gay world brought about
by the influx of strangers through ad-
vanced modes of travel.
One of the non-resistant traits of
the Amish is an avoidance of lawsuits
among themselves. Their troubles are
settled by church leaders, and by out
siders oaly in cases Of extreme aggra-
vation. Their business meetings do
not seem to be held outside their Sab
bath gatherings. These are held at
one another's homes or in plain meet
ing houses as before mentioned.
The Amish have fine barns. They
think more of them than they do of
their houses, for in these is stored the
wealth of their farms, while in the
houses their money is spent. S!ateroof-
ed, the fronts painted the most pro-
nounced red, ,all-gabled, and dormer-
windowed and commodlous, the pride,
elsewhere subdued in the Amishman,
finds vent here. Not in as good re-
pair and spick and span as in the COS
and '70's, as any one has noticed who
has travelled over the Pennsylvania
Railroad. Then and in later years,
they shamed our eastern barns. FL
nancial trouble has taught the Amish
farmer to let the repairing and paint
ing of his big barn lie awhile in abcy-
ance, so that bright red weatherboards
are no longer in prominent evil
dence.
When the season is favorable these
barns are the Amish churches. And
where could these people worship with
more thankful hearts than in autumn
days, with the mows full Of sweet scent
ed hay and the yellow sheaves of wheat
and oats pressing heavily on top or
straining the girders Of the over-hang-
ing hay mows? The time of worship
comes, and place selected, finds the
threshing floor cleaned up, the heavier
farm machinery placed outdoors, and
the whole in readiness. But all the
preparations are not at the barn, for
the Amishman, his wife and children,
dressed as men and women down to
the smallest toddler, are no fasters on
the Sabbath-day. They believe in
good living, and great efforts are put
forth for the coming hosts, and we'll
they may be. The Amish are strenu-
Gus worshipers, for there is preaching
and singing of slow hymns from eight
o'clock until noon, four hours Of stand
ing for those not lucky enough to get
sitting room on the smaller machinery
remaining or in the now galleries.
Cold meats, bread and butter in gener-
Gus crooks, sauerkraut, al HJitum, are
spread on tables in the barn when
meeting is over. Sometimes three or
four hundred people, for the Amish are
pious folk, are fed, and the fences are
lined with teams, the yellow wagons
adding gay color to the scene. These
Amish wagons are another popularity
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and covered with canvas painted a
glaring yellow. These vehicles, enliv-
en- the road on Fast days, and, at rest,
do not lose their prominence. They
were at one time springless, but that
day of self abnegation is past, for the
Amish now patronize trolleys and
steam cals
The preaching, the singing, the eat
ing, the drinking-and generous drafts
of cider, sometimes of the snappy kind,
for these people are not built on strict
Iy teetotal lines, are not excluded-do
not end the ceremonies. AS in
Spanish countries the forenoons
Of the Sabbath are devoted to wor-
ship and the afternoons to cock
fights and the bull ring, 50 after-meet-
ing hours among our Amish friends,
that is, the young folks, are devoted
to games-l am sorry to say-the
Copenhagen kind. My inform INT, a
comparatively gay NJ mn mite, for re-
ligious asceticism is relative, once hid
behind fan-a grain fan AMI saw it
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