News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1914-04-22
BY FIRESIDE AND WAYSIDE
John Elliot Bowman
While the Wind Blows

There are few companions like the
wind on a winters night. There may be
those who dislike the sounds over the
housetops. Prudent thoughts concern
ing the condition of their chimney f1ues
disturb them. To many others the wind
is welcome visitor. The fire likes him
and laughs more cheerfuly at his call
from without. These two friends of ours
are like many mortals; good confederates
if the acquaintance is not too intimate.
However, ones fire can be so arranged
that the wind encourages it to activity
without instigating mischief.
The wind is great story teller. Il
brings tonight tales of homely flavor
1t has clown along the coast of Mt Des-
ert, driving the clouds before it. AS
these broke, the moonlight, shining
through, cleaned upon the snowy side
of the mountains. The tall form of the
lighthouse stood out distinctly beyond
the Cranberry Islands. Tho moon may
shine or may disappear, the great lantern
flashes its alternate bars of light, now
short, now long, from sunset to sunrise.
What multitude of such lights there
are along the coast, and what a contrast
with the days whom the caravels of Co
lumbus, or the banks of Cartier, of Hud-
son, or of Smith sailed the unchartered
ocean in the dark. The beacons cling,
perhaps, to rocks along the shore, or
stand on inland heights. Like the hermit
on Mt. Desert Rock, they inhabit al
ocean solitude, or, like the harbor ligh
in some great port, they uplift their
torches above maze Of shipping. Our
coast lines differ but little from those
that were visited by the carly voyagers.
Cape Ann, Cape Cod and Cape Hatterae
were much the same three centuries ago
as they are today; the difference
is mainly in the fact that men know
where the danger points lie. The shores
of the Atlantic are not the only coasts
that have been charted and provided with
lighthouses while these centuries have
come and gone. In government, and in
social life. men know where some reefs
and shoals lie; but dangers still exist and
the wise mariner is ever on the watch.
Against the berg that can sink Titan
ic" the barometer is an uncertain means
of protection and who knows where the
craft that plunges forward at full speed
may encounter the derelier, the passive
sport of waves that sweep across her sod
den deck?
The winds tonight seem to converge
from all directions. One participant in
the melee is fresh from the hill tops of
western Massachusetts where it has raced
northward through the village streets
The snow-crust and ice are thick upon
the country roads so the wind has been
unable to indulge in its favorite sport of
changing the location of snow drifts
the driver of the Buchfield /
stage will know where to find the road in |
the morning instead of being obliged to |
make a circuit through the fields. How
the wind can blow oven those hill.tops as |
it sweeps up the Connecticut Valley. 1t !
has been known to blow from the NORTH
west for week at a stretch. The snow
lies on level in the fields with only a
low swell in the white expanse to tell |
where the walls run. Snow is able to
ignore surveyors lines and unites, i'm
partially, fields of widely differing value.
Yet the landmarks set by the compass
and the stones piled by toll worn hands
are there, and will re-appear. SO also,
we may be sure, it will be with the fields
Of thought, over which custom spreads a
neutral covering. The upland cornfield
and the swamp have much the same APP
peaTance while the snow is over all, but
the dividing fences will re-appear with
the first thaw. When will the snow melt
rom some of the fields of pseudo-Chri
.ianity? The barren nature of some of
hem has been revealed; others are still
lnder cover and any new Elijah will al
ways be able to convince many people
hat his stony pasture, overrun with
is wheat field.
Continued
Can't look well, eat well, or feel we'll
With impure blood Ksen the blood nura