The Monticellonian., 1919-01-10

T WAS the vintage time, and l
 B tried to forget that half of Chris
 tendon was plunged in great
 war. Leaving the fighting line, l wandered about in the lovely freedom of the hill country of Tuscany, past vil- las which are surmised rather than seen through the long vistas of grave, still expresses and around smiling, sil- vergreen olive slopes from whose sum- mits beckon dignified palace fortresses of the Medicis or sterner and more aged ivy-decked towers, writes q Tus- eany correspondent of the New York Evening Post. Finally, l reached the road of my mornings quest and stopped where q high wall after many turns and twists, suddenly opened to a vision of green terraces. Ii was the gate to the podere upon which Ton ino and his forebears have labored for the last century and half-the fam fly going to the land" not as serfs, but as willing servants of the soil.
 Entering the terraced farm, l skirt ed a stout wall with Ivy spreading low ingly over it's gray stones hedge of winter roses followed me in fragrant eompanionship all the way to Tonino's farmhouse. a structure poised bravely over a precipitous ledge of rocks.
 The house itself might be called an architectural slant of walls, ehimneys, stone flags and steps running off and down in all directions till they seem to merge with the vines and the olive tree and the green sod. Fingered q mo- ment. then followed in the wake of primitive oxeart, painted bright red, on which the empty grape yats rumb- bled sonorously as the ploddng beasts dragged their draft over the stony road.
 Harvesting the Grape Crop.
 It was q pagan-almest baeehanalian picture. as Nose huge cattle, white and big-horned. moved slowly and pro- occasionally down the way, fanked by grape vines in endless, festive wreaths and feStoonS strung from tree to tree.
 At the lower terrace host of neigh bors was busiiy at work cutting the deW-moist grapes dropping the Ius- cious punches into picturesque bas- kets lying all about. The sun played in glad, shifting shadows in and out of the vines and olive trees, while the damp soil, drinking in the solar warmth eXuded a moisture heavily odorous with the abounding vitality of Mother Earth.
 The harvesters included many wom- on, some territorial soldiers on leave and q few children No one, old or young. gave signs of fatigue; the labor was pursued slowly and easily. not at all as struggle in overcoming time. or resistance. It was this seeming slowneSs of the laborers in Italy which often gives to the outsider, especially to the nervous and strenuous Ameri- can observer. the impression of waStage of time in the accomplishment of things. This apparent slowness. however, is rather wise restraint and distribution of effort, coupled with tra- ditional skill or special hardness, which bring about results by deftness as well as by mere expenditure of force.
 Sc, at this harvesting, all of that crowded, terraced acreage had been shorn of its grapes by sundown, and all the fruit carried away to the wine press.
 Supper for Tonino's Laborers.
 At nine in the evening we gathered at Tonino's house for the harvest sup per, to which. by immemorial custom, everyone who has labored in the vine- yards must be invited We entered by the kitchen door, near which hung little oil lamp patterned after those of the Etruscans; at the long table in the main room of this casa colonica