River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1919-10-23

Rich. They paid the inhabitant of
the girls room" two dollars week,
and, in the latter part of this period,
two dollars and half, and finally
three dollars a week. She was Irish
ordinarily, or German, or it might be
Scandinavian, but never native to the
land unless she happened to be per-
son Of color The man or youth who
! lived in the stable had like wages, and
sometimes, too, was lately a steerage
voyager, but much oftener he was col
ored.
After sunrise on pleasant mornings
/ the alleys behind the stables were gay !;
| laughter and shouting went up and
! down their dusty lengths, with lively
accompaniment Of currycombs knock
| ing against back fences and stable
walls, for the darkies loved to curry
| their horses in the alleys Darkies
always prefer to gossip in shouts in
stead of Whispers and they feel that
profanity, unless it be vociferous is
almost worthless. Horrible phrases
were caught by early rising children
and carried to older people for defini-
ton, sometimes at inopportune mo-
ments; while less investigative chill
dren would often merely repeat the
phrases in some subsequent furry of
agitation, and yet bring about conse-
quences so emphatic as to be recalled
with ease in middle life.
They have passed, those darky hired
men of the Midland town. The
stables have been transformed into
other l1kenesses, or swept away, like
the wOodsheds where were kept the
stovewood and kindling that the "girl"
and the hired man" always quarreled
over: who should fetch it.
So with other vanishings. There
were the little bunty street cars on the
long, single track that went it's
troubled way among the cobblestones.
At the rear door of the car there was
no platform, but step where passen-
gers chung in wet clumps when the
weather was bad and the car crowded.
The patrOns-if not too absent-minded
put their fares into a slot; and no
conductor paced the heaving floor, but
the driver would rap remindingly with
his elbow upon the glass of the door
to his little open platform if the nick
els and the passengers did not appear
to coincide in number. A lone mule
drew the car, and sometimes drew it
off the track, when the passengers
would get out and push it on again.
They really owed it courtesies like
this, for the car was genially accom-
modating: a lady cosld whistle to it
from an upstairs window, and the car
would halt at once and wait for her
while she shut the window, put on her
hat and cloak, went downstairs, found
an umbrella, told the "girl'' what to
have for dinner, and came forth from
the house.
They even had time to dance
square Dances" quadrilles and 'lan-
GERS" they also danced the "rac-
quette" and schottisches and polkas.
and such whims as the portland
fancy" They pushed back the sliding
doors between the 'parlor' and the
Sitting ROOM" tackled down crash
over the carpets, hired a few palms
in green tubs, stationed three or four
Italian musicians under the stairway
in the ''froRt hall"-and had great
nights!
Keeping open house." was a merry
custom; it has gone, like the all-day
picnic in the woods, and like that pref
test of all vanished customs, the sere-
made. When lively girl visited the
town she did not long go unserenaded.
though a visitor vas not indeed needed
to excuse a serenade. Of a summer
night young men would bring an or
chestra under a pretty girls window
or, 1t might be, her fathers, or that
of an ailing maiden aunt-and flute
harp, cello, cornet and bass VOL would
pleasantly release to the dulcet stars
such melodies as sing through sYouT
Remember Me-" 81 Dreamt That I
Dwelt in Marble Halls "Silver
Threads Among the Gold" kathleen
Mayourneen," or "The Soldiers Fare
we'll"
Croquet and the mildest archery
ever known were the sports of people
still young and active enough for so
much exertion; middle age played
euchre. There was a theater. next
door to the Anderson hotel, and when
Edwin Booth came for night every
body who could afford to buy a ticket
was there, and all the hacks in town
were hired. 1.-THE Black Crook also
nlled' the theater, but the audience
then was almost entirely of men, who
looked uneasy as they left for home
when the final curtain fell upon the
shocking girls dressed as fairies. But
the theater did not often do so well:
the people of the town were still too
thrifty.
They We're thrifty because they were
the sons or grandsons of the "earlv
settlers" who had opened the wilder
ness and had reached it from the East
and the South with wagons and axes
and guns, but with no money at all.
The pioneers were thrifty or they
would have persisted: they had to