The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1916-09-07


OF goods in style and kind.
And ribbons fair, and notions rare,
To suit a cranky mind.
There were nuts and nails and waterpails,
Candies and caps and corn:
There were whippe-trees and beans and peas,
And jewsharps, and horn
One could blow 80 loud it would rend cloud,
When heralding the moon.
There. were pants and pins, all sorts of tins,
Goldfish and aleWives too;
There were raisins weet, and hoop skirts neat.
That buged like wide canoe.
There were cowhide boots and icorice roots
And saws and chises and fans,
And pewter pots and hose with dots,
Prints. patterns and tin pans.
There was barreled sugar. crackers, flour,
And cheese, the binding kind,
And butter and eggs and wooden pegs.
And combs and clothes well lined.
But, of all the things within that store.
The molasses hogshead held
The sweetest thing to the eltin boys
In the sugar brown that swelled
And caked in the head and chinks
OF that hoped package rare,
When with one head out, empty but stout,
1t lay in the open air.
Molasses gone, but sugar left,
Caked round the head and Climbs.
And the elfs from school were coming home,
Oh then, what times, what times!
They were like drove of hungry rats
Ia the gristmill cleansing tower;
They were like swarm of honeybees
In honeysuckle bower,
They buzzed around the open head,
They swarmed about the bung,
They flew in fury round and round,
But never body stung.
They filled their sacks till they looked like
packs
That peddlers crrried round:
They gasped and groaned and dismal moaned;
They rolled upon the ground"
John Randall, the keeper of the Union
Store, his hand with fingers gone, his
tact, his inspiring look and gracious
word for every conner, his skill at count
ing eggs, and rejecting the bad ones, the
money box once broken into by mice, the
corn box and measure and corn streak
Josiah Conner, who hauled the goods by
team from Belfast, the boys ready al
ways to unload and receive their reward
in treat Of candy, raisins and nuts-all
received special treatment in the depic-
ton of words in rhyme. Especially was
depicted the group of reubs that used to
gather about the stove in the store on
winter nights, and tell yarns.
"Oh, Jack was jumping jack at words,
And Jim first warbler of the birds,''
The Canto eliminated IN the winter
past the Union Store, on double horse
sled with Charles Randall steering on a
handsled between the thills, the merry
crowd on the sleds singing war songs,
for the period covered was in the sixties
when the great Civil War was on. Yes
they sang, "The Union Forever" ''In
the Prison Cell | Sit, - "Now Things
Look Mighty Dark. But Our Good Old
Union Barque, - John Browns Body"
''Nicodemus the Slave" etc.
"Oh, the slides we slid. and the skids we skid,
AS slid down Randall hill,
Past the flag staff high, past the graves hard by,
| Past the store with d roar, past the gristmill
| door,
Way round to the carding mill
| But we can't forget the buzZing bees
| That buzzed around the hogshead bung,
When never a lad was bit or stung,
And when from the bung we'd get our fill,
In joy pain we'd climb the hill,
Oh, life's long ways are JOY and pain,
and We old chaps are boys again.
But the bees for US they buzz no more
Around the good old Union store"
The golden rod. the national flower.
was in its glory. The platform and stand
showed profusion of it. Beautiful bou-
quets of sweet peas were also in evil
dence, and, believe me, Miss Angie M.
Esancy brought spray of most beauti-
full apple blossoms that opened the day
before, Aug. 18TH nine months ahead of
dame natures intention when she plant
ed the buds on that tree on Mr.. John F.
Esancy's place on the south side of Ran
dali hill. The sleeping buds woke up
after the long, cold rainy first half of
summer, and. evidently concluding that
their time to open had come they opened
had thou
the tree, in the following six weeks
would have developed into 1917 apples in
this year of grace, 1916.
The President of the Club, Chief of
the Clan, if you please. has had gratified
the wish of long and busy years, a So
journ of three long, beautiful summer
months In the Dale of his boyhood, beau
tiful months of rain and sunshine, sun,
moon and starlight, dew and shower,
leaf and bloom, and song of birds, many
varieties having of late returned, SO that
they seem as wonderful as in the days OF
his childhood. One great desire he has
publicly expressed, wish yet to be
gratified in one of the years to come,
and that is to spend three white winter
months in the Dale, at the fresiGe, Out
in the roads, the woods and logging roads
included, among the friends of his boy.
hood that linger, talking old times, know
ing no differences of opinion in politics,
religion, or world events, knowing only
the gracious meeting of neighbors and
friends, finding above the white glisten-
ing SHOWS and beneath the glow of the
stars and the CLINT of moonlight the in
SEPARATION that is waited from the spirits,
the immorta personalities of those who
have there lived and died. Cherished
memories, hallowed associations! In the
tide of them give me back my
DREAMS.
| can dream beside the meadows
Deeper dreams than by the sea;