News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1914-06-03

BY FIRESIDE AND WAYSIDE
Rev. John Elliot Bowman ...a
While Lilacs Bloom

l
The odor of the lilacs drifts in at tn
window and the branches tap at inter
walls against the pane. 1t is fifty year
since the shrubs grew about the window
high enough that their leaves nigh
serve as shade. Two generations of chill
dren have rejoiced since then, in the tim
OF lilac blooms as in festival season
The fragrance of the flowers is in the al
but it is not moro evident to the sens,
than is to memory the oder of other bios
SONS that wilhered years ago; the bunch
es of lilacs that were carried in warm
moist hands to school as an Offering t
Teacher" those that wilted in the shal
low ink wells of the double desks in the
rear row of seats; those that were tori
in pieces in order that their fragments
might be strung upon broom corns at the
hour of recess. The School Directors
never could understand why broom
should wear out sooner in the short
spring term than during the long session
of tho winter.
The lilacs grew in one place that the
children did not frequent, the old East
Burial Ground. The thick states show.
ing the trace of English workmanship,
the thinner slabs with their cherubin
and hour glasses, the product of colonial
handicraft were surrounded only by the
low blackberry vines and wire grass.
Here and there protruded from the earth
a rough field stone, bearing, scratched
upon its surface an eighteenth century
date, perhaps the only memorial of some
broken soldier of the French wars whom
the graveyard mercfullY claimed before
the selectmen appointed him with the
family who would keep him at the least
expense for food and lodging. The same
low growth of grass and vines overran
the mounds, and the sunken graves I'M
marked by any stone, whore the first
generation of settlers had received burial.
Where the rectangular tablets of mar
BILE designated the burial plots of the
villagers who died in the thirties and
fol ties of the nineteenth century, the
lilacs grew in abundance A hedge of
the bushes overshadowed the stones, and
the turf was knitted together by the
tangled roots so that the surface of one
grave could not be told from that of an
other. Not less closely were those whose
dust rested below identified, yet they
were very different in their lives. The
grandfather, deacon of the village
dwelt in mansion house that
stood where the road from the village
turns toward Muskelaquid. 1t was burned
more than fifty years ago. For nearly
twenty years it had been vacant, with the
furniture standing as his widow left it at
her death. The deacon's porch faced the
held where his great-grandfather, first
of the parish, had dwelt as pas
or for half century after his gradual
ion in one of Harvard's earliest classes.
The parsonage in the early days of that
ong pastOrate had been garrison house
or the protection of the villagers against
he Indian enemies from beyond the
derrimac. A century and quarter had
passed since those early ministerial la
'ors had ceased. The deacon, great-grand- !
on OF the first pastor, was a hospitable
nan, and the young ministers from Cam.
ridge, who came as candidates to sup !
y the vacant pulpit of the village |
hurch, found cordial welcome in his |
ONE. Each Sunday he sat in the family /
ew, stately figure; he was one of the
lst of the townsmen who wore into the |
ineteenth century, the powdered queue 4,
Revolutionary days.
His daughter, the maiden Aunt Ruha-
lah, beloved by the community as
lend, general adviser and teacher in
ne Sunday School, sat beside her father
| the family pew. Her kindness was
nown to all; but many of her charities
ere unknown save to the recipients.
he was the representative of the family
caring for many of the village poor.
The deacon's younger daughter sat in
lie pew across the broad aisle. She had
arried the village merchant, whose
1use with dwelling above and store on
lie ground floor stood beneath the elms,
cling the unfenced Village Common.
er husband was captain of the town
ilitia and an important figure in the
life. His store was a central
lint for trade and barter. Thither the ,
untry people brought their produce.
t regular intervals teams transported
e butter, eggs and cheese to Boston
d returned with the sugar and molas- a
the salt fish, cotton cloth and West {
dia rum that were the staples of trade. a
Ow many hogsheads of the commodity ?
It mentioned were skidded into the
pre- through groups of lOiterers as redo
1T of the liquid as any other cask might
/. A barrel of the fiery liquid was a. ! {