News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1914-06-03
ways on tap with copper dipper chained

| ways on tap Win acopper upper cnaineu
in convenient proximity thereto.
The tavern stood hard by, and its tap
room door was always open. Those were
the golden days of which we often hear
that liquor did no harm because it was
pure. Nevertheless, the merchants son,
grandson of the venerable deacon, became
the village drunkard, not the only one
either, it must be confessed, despite the
purity of the liquor, but the one who
held among them a sad pre-. eminence.
We cannot remember those good old
days "when liquor hurt nobody" but
we'll remember this bye-product or ex-
ception TO their uplifting influences, as
| he fingered on, repulsve man Of sixty.
He was a man of mental power. Not
more constant had his grandfather been
in his attendance at the Sabbath service
in Pastor Gowing's day than was "old
'Sias" in his presence at church. There
may have baen little resemblance be-
tween Deacon Josiah in his formal suit of
black, and we'll powdered queue, occupy
ing the family pew in the First Parish
church, and "old 'Sias," who as the sew
entities were waning, sat In back seat in
one of the village meeting houses, with
his stiff leg extended on the pew cushion
and his head against the wall. Yet there
may have been something about his FORE
head that would have suggested to old
h,t De 10 Is..th for kho
village drunkard would return from morn
ing service to the tavern and give an out
line of the sermon, with caustic comment
thereon. He was supported by a small
inheritance left by relatives to the care
of trustees. Practically this served as an
educational endowment, maintaining HIM
as pedagogue in vicious living to one
generation after another of village lads. |
A bachelor through all his life, he re-
tanned room in the building that had |
been his fathers home and there he kept |
his lodging convenient to the tavern and |
TO the hotel that succeeded it.
Today there are men of more than mid
die age walking about the streets who |
bear them ineffaceable marks of the |
course taken in his school. He died,
leaving such property as was his to kind
ly neig hbors who had cared for him at !
the last. His grave is marked by plain |
stone furnished by the national govern |
ment The flag floats over it and flowers
are strewn beside it with each return of |
Memorial Day for the village loafer an
swered the call to arms in '61, and served. |
so his comrades claimed, as faithfully as |
his grandfather ever could have done in
the War for Independence.
The INTERVIEWING roots of the lilacs |
bind the graves of the three generations
in tightly blended mass.
How many sites of old houses are
surrounded by the lilacs. Each clump
of the bushes shading the roadside wall
or standing tar off in some closely
cropped pasture is the memorial of a
home.
So completely do the shrubs seem as
sociated with our New England life, so
intimately does the odor of the blossom
mngle with all the memories of child
hood that it is difficult to realize that the !
lilac is of foreign birth. You will find |
the same shurbs with almost the same |
name in eastern Europe and western
Asia. The English settlers brought the |
first slips here, but the bushes were not |
of native English growth. |
A Flemish diplomatist who held posi-
ion in the court at Constantinope about
,hree hundred and fifty years ago is cred.
ted with the introduction of the CON-
non lilac into Europe. In Elizabeth an
lays it had become fully wonted to the
GRACE of English manor houses. Sir
Francis Bacon in his essay "Of Gardens"
mentions "the lilac tree" as suited to
blossom in April in "the climate of Lon
lon." From English soil the transporta-
ion to the New world was easy. The
PURITAN might leave behind the mistletoe
nd the Yule log. Let us be thankful
hat his wife brought the lilac slips.
low, when, on many New England
Inside, emigrants from eastern Europe
re entering upon lands left vacant by de- .
cendants of the men of Naseby and of
Iarston Moor, may the lilac bushes blend
Memories of the Old World with inspira-
on for the work that lies before the H
yentieth century settler in America.