Los Angeles herald., 1907-11-17

SalloW man with tWinkllng eyes dnu
sensitive, homely mouth, stood on
the front porch of an old farmhouse and
talked to the neighbors he had known for
three score years. The keen autumn wind
blew his white hair back from his fore
head. The Lenawee hills, their slopes
swathed in blue haze their heights radi-
ant with the leaf crown of scarlet and
gold, smiled wanly upon the gentle scene.
The country people from a dozen towns
in the southern tier of Michigan counties
gazed with fond, upturned faces into the
eyes of the poet whom they think of as
peculiarly their own-Wil Carleton, who
| had sung to them and their fathers of
"Over the Hills to the Poorhouse," of
! BETSY and Are Out" "Out of the Old
House, Nancy" Gone with Handsomer
Man" and Uncle Sammy" From the
steps of the house where he was born
sixty-two years ago he talked tenderly to
them in his own way and their own way.
| He had come back to them from his east
ern home for day and they had come
by train and farm wagon to greet him
and tell him how proud of him they are.
L
race. Around us stretched unbroken for
est when first the Carleton axes were
heard here. l remember many a night
when I've sat out here and wondered If
could ever go to Hilsdale college. 1t
didn't cost much in those days, but If 1t
had cost million dollars 1t would have
meant as much to me, for it was money
that had to he made.
"I can remember when the railroad
that bears the New York Central cars by
this door now was laid with rails Of hard
maple wood. Later these rails were COW
cred with strap iron that had way of
curling up and ripping its way through
the floor of the car that made the aisle
of one car a more desirable place than the
Seats
All morning the trains that pass hun
dred feet from the door of the Carleton
homestead had made special stop in the
silent fields to unload the pilgrims that
had come to participate in the home COM
ing festival.
Father" he continued, would never
have believed that this farm would ever
become a railroad station, even for sin
gle day. All here was woodland when ne
arrived; no railroad, no highways, but,
boys, Indians plenty of them. Always the
Indians got friendly welcome at fathers
door. An Indian, If you treat him well,
will remember 1t Just the same as he will
remember It If you treat him badly. re-
member that progress finally forced the
tribe-and 1t was a gentle tribe-still far
ther west, old Chief Bawbeese came to
say good by. He kissed the children and
he went through the house and blessed
everything. He blessed the doors, blessed
the windows, blessed the floor, blessed the
roof, blessed the table where he had often
al a,,1x IL 11o1
blood here He turned his face westward
and we saw him no more, for he went with
his people into the path of the setting
sun.
The Poorhouse Hill
"Over there to the west, in Hillsdale,
there stood in the old days county poor
house Sometimes I had to visit the In
mates there and hear their troubles. And
sometimes I used to see old people-old
women, yes, old women-who had put
their property into the hands of their
children, passing up the road on their
way to the poorhouse on the other side of
the hill to the south of Hillsdale, about
three miles. 1t was a pretty large hill.
had thought much about the cruelty OF
children to parents, and when 1t came
time to write the poem called over the
Hills to the Poorhouse' I may say that
IL seemed IdlTly 10 WTllt lloCll- Nhy Ai'hiN'
I think I may say, has always wandered
that way-a single idea has served as a
sort of magnet that gathers to itself all
I have ever heard or seen or learned about
the subject have in hand. Such was the
origin of that poem"
The Carleton home coming festival was
the idea of Joseph w. Mauch, president
of Iillsdale college, originally Free VIII
Baptist institution, where the poet was
educated between whles of teaching in
district schools and where he took mis-
degree in 1869 and of which he is now a
trustee.
Mr.. Carleton has lived in Brooklyn. N.
Y. for more than a quarter of century.
He stills owns the old Carleton homestead
farm of sixty acres twent:.' miles east of
1Iillsdale
The whole spirit of the occasion was
fragrant with the new doctrine Oh
back to the land" that is beginning
to permeate American life. and penslVe'
too, with it's tokens of that passionate te
yearning for home which never dles
in the country bred American ana !.
minded me of East, West Hame
Best" -
II proyed. too. that there is the sense
of noetry and the love of 1t in every
dav American life, for 1t is a STRIKING
thing that a farming region Tor "a
dius of fifty miles should pour out lts
pIowmen and parsons, school children
and its shopkeepers to honor the man
who had taught them. that there was
poetry in every aspect of their prac-
| ticel lives and their sedate landscape
Half a mile down the highway IRON
the Carleton farm stands the stocky'
hoxIike little white school house where
tbe poet learned his three "Rs. Ihey
call il now the "Carelton school, ana
portrait of him hangs on the walls
along with one of the president. "A
flag fluttered in the doorway. Great
SPRAYS of asparagus and red perries
were the interior decorations. 10 thls
one-story. one-room structure which
stands in a lonely place at the inter-
section of the roads. the pilgrims re-
naired at o'clock. In accordance
with ancient district school tradition
the room was insufferably hot, a sheet
| iron stove working over time IN the
center aisle. On the blackboard, In the
round correct hand of the teacher'
were chalked these words:
Bows flying kites haul in their white-winsed
You can't can't do that way when you're flying
thoughts pts9' unexprossed may sometimes fall
Eut God himself can't kill them when they're
| said