The Washington herald., 1914-06-26
The Rural Trolley
ny EMORY J. HAYNES.


At first it seemed such blessing One could get
on at the old farm gate and go any time. At the
pasture bars, where the boy MIXED the at twi-
light the spruced-up young fellow hour later got
on the trolley for an evening in the far-away little
city. Indeed everybody on the farm at first laughed
for joy when the trolley line was surveyed the
hills.
But the trolleys eat up money as flock of sheep
denude pasture. Few rural lines content with
Io-cent fare, and many ask twice that. The farmer
realizes it at last the hole in his pocket. And it
eats up time though the face of things the promise
was of saving of time. The net result, on the
ledger of time is loss. For it seems easy
to go that going is more than quadrupled.
The trolley is inmical to the product of the farm,
because the laborer has gone somewhere else rather
than the corn field And the laborer does not get
to bed early. He comes in from the village on the
last trolley" which is nigh to midnight 1t is hard
to get up at sunrise, in the old way The trolley
farmer is seepyeyed half the mornings of the week
And certainly tells on his health He is less robust
than the old stay-at-homes
The trolley interrupts knitting the stocking darn
ing and the general needlework which grandma and
the girls do the summer veranda The temptation
to see who is the trolley" it creeps up the hill
the open car, is irresistible. There is nothing done
with the needle till the trolley passed out of sight
This waste of time is enormous in the course Of
season.
The trolley does not fit the landscape. 1t is not
poetic like the old stage coach with its magnificent
horses 1t to the shame and confusion of the
ox-cart and the handsome-faced roughly dressed boy
driver gets down hide behind the cart tail till the
trolley passes A trolley car would not paint well
side by side with a load of hay or pumpkins. No
artist would attempt such grotesque.
And when the has to slow down to get by a
herd Of Alderneys the shapely cows oushne the non
descript vehicle in the scarlet shafts of sunset As
for the colts in the pasture they refuse even to be
frightened, and do prancing They stare contemp-
uously at conveyance that has to do the heavy
work and release the horses to errands of pleasure
or "courting' moonlight drives.
The trolley has no use for the picturesque water
ing though falling into neglect nor Tor the guidepost
at the four corners, for the thank ye-mams' the
water bars, in the highway now fading away The
wayside spring longer quenches thirst with its
glorious elixir, at least do not people kneelng
to it The trolley would not stop for that The wild
flowers along the way bloom unnoticed for the trolley
is such speeder that only the distant landscape gets
any attention
The buzz of the motor is not musical sound
along the valley There is nothing more dissonant
The winds do manage to make CHEEKY music OF a
moving machines laughing clatter. But no wind can
get UP echo by waiting the truleys roar against
the hills. The noise is disturbing. 1t tells you some
one is coming and rouses you from your hammock
that you may sit up and take who is on the cars
The invasion is constant, by night well as by day
The sublime solitude of the hill country is desecrated
an intruder is in the temple with gong!
There police along the countryside to be
sure, and it used to be our boast that none were
needed. But now We hear OF a possible rural con-
stabuary. II you are a woman returning home from
the village church at evening, You favor the
Stabuary. For the conductor will not put of the
man. whom in pity he transports to the
fellows own farm gate. There are few situations
more embarrassing to women than a rural trolley at
night when registering youth think their license is the
proper end of making day OF it"
The trolley wire demanded that century-old trees
give up their branches. The Gothic arch like
cathedral nave, where aged elms overshadowed the
old road. this has often gone, nothing could resist
that wire. 1t cut you to the heart when saw and AK
slashed down these outrageous splendors. No lover
Of the trees will ever forgive the spoation
There still retreats amid the mountains where
the trolley has penetrated The quiet the seclu
sion the exquisite sences are not all gone where the
rising up the east road without a gong and
the setting fills the road from wall to wall
Where herds are not an impediment, lazily swinging
their procession along the pasture bars Where one
must walk to get there, and every step of the jour
ney is delight in the exhilarant air. And whence
one cannot come away without more walking The
rural landscape as it was hundred years ago. unim-
proved and grand