Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1910-01-08
AS TO OLD FASHIONED WINTERS.

40 ~ UlU fHSHlUNcU WIN 6NSs
The man with the frost on his
temples who has been demanding an
old fashioned winter has little left
to demand. He has got it-most of
it. The cold has kept the mercury be-
of snow, and the wind has stayed
down. When he comes out in the
morning things look. smell and feel
considerably like old times.
OF course it is not quite the real
thing. So much is lacking. Mainly he
is lacking in many things he had when
the old fashioned winter was up-to
date. Somehow he doesn't care to ride
down hill There are no spelling
schools and literaries. If he We're 10
pile into a bobsled with a crowd TO ride
ten miles he would be lame and stiff
next day. Then he'd miss the buffalo
robes anyhow. You can't make an old
fashioned winter nowadays try as You
may. This old fashioned winter we
talk about is imitation
| Say, dye remember. along say in the
seventies, maybe a little farther back,
what those winters We're like? There
was some fun living in winter then.
Remember how father called up the
stairs, Boys what time do you spose
We'll get TO the woods if You sleep all
day." Did YOU open hot air register
when YOU arose? We'll we should say
not. You might have been obliged 70
go fifty miles to find one. You got out
of the feather bed and lit barefoot on
floor cold enough to make an Eskimo
scringe. You grabbed with one hand
for the wooden socks that Grandma
knit, and for your "breeches" with the
other There was flash of bare legs
into overails. a swift wriggle into vest
and "wamus' and a frantic dash down
d, the stairs for seat by the oven door.
/ You left behind trail of steam like
could feel the goose pimples sticking
out all over You like the fretful porcu-
pine, The old stove was roaring with
( its charge of sun dried maple or ash
or black oak like the furnace seven
times heated. It's top blushed red
Gushes of grateful heat poured from
those hospitable oven doors. "B-r-rh'
says YOU when ii struck you and your
tension relaxed. You stuck your feet
gingerly on the edge of the oven and
knew the limit of physical delight.
Back of the stove sat YOUR boots.
Cowhide, pegged, sewed like a mule
harness and hard as steel under the
action of the cold which had caught
them before they We're thoroughly dried
from yesterday. You took them up
rigid as drum. There you sat and
warmed them and kneaded them into
a sort of pliability You pulled them
on. donned your cap, tied Your tippet
about Your neck. perhaps. got on Your
cap and ovetcoat and plunged for the
barn. 1T was haven warm with the
bodies and breath of the hungry ami
mails which whinnied from the horse
stalls and lowed with shakings of head
and clatter of horns from the stanch-
ions. Hay and corn for all. the brush
hurriedly for the teams which were go
! ing TO the grove the milk pail for the
COWS, the stables cleaned. the cows
turned into the stalks anl-brealkf st
! by eandlelight. You can't buv such a
breakfast now; if YOU could vo,l
/ couldn't eat il as YOU did then. Those
big buckwbeat cakes the golden butter
that mother made. the sausage that YOU
helped stuff after the clock had struck
midnight on b1itcharin' day. the fried
potatoes-gee. why can't the cooks FRY
/ potatoes nowadays = YOU simply
SLAUGHTERED everything down to the end