The Connecticut labor press., 1919-09-06

1 abandonment in the attic. And there
 was always "spare room," for visi- 1 tors (where the sewing machine usu-
 ally was kept), and during the seven 1 ties there developed an appreciation ! of the necessity for bathroom. At the rear of the house, upstairs, was bleak little chamber, called ''the girls roOm," and in the stable there 1 was another bedroom, adjoining the 1 hayloft, and called "the hired mans
 rOom." House and stable cost seven
 or eight thousand dollars to build, and | people with that much money to invest in such comforts were classified as the Rich. They paid the inhabitant of ''the girls room' two dollars a week,
 and, in the latter part of this period,
 two dollars and a half, and finally three dollars a week. She was Irish | ordinarily, or German, or 1t might be Scandinavian, but never native to the land unless she happened to be a per son, of color. The man or youth who lived in the stable had like wages, and
 sometimes, too, was lately a steerage l voyager, but much oftener he was col ored. ,-ss.-
 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 l 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 1 were caught by early rising children and carried to older people for defini- tion, sometimes at inopportune mo- l ments; while less investigative chil- ] 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 srables have been transformed into
 other likenesses, or swept away, like the woodsheds where were kept the stovewoOd and kindling that the ''girl"
 and the hired man" always quarreled r over: who should fetch 1t.
 So with other vanishings. There were the little bunty street cars on the long, single track that went its
 troubled way among the cobblestones. At the rear door of the car there was
 no platform, but a step where passen- gers clung fin 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 1t l off the track, when the passengers would get out and push it on again i They really owed 1t courtesies like i; this, for the car was genially accom-
 modating: a lady could whistle to 1t l 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 umbrelIa.- told the "girl" what to
 
 | the house.
 They even had time to dance
 square dances" Quadrilles and Han
 cers;" they also danced the "rac- quette" and schottisches and poIkas,
 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 l in green tubs, stationed three or four
 Italian musicians under the stairway Fin the front 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 pret- 1 tiest of all vanished Customs, the sere- made. When a lively girl visited the flown she did not long go unserenaded, I though visitor was not indeed needed 1 to excuse a Serenade. Of summer
 night young men would bring an Ur- l chestra under a pretty girls window f or, it might be-, her fathers, or that
 of an ailing maiden aunt-and flute,
 harp, cello, cornet and bass viol would pleasantly release to the dulcet stars | such melodies as sing through You'll
 Remember Me-" 'I- Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls" "Silver
 Threads Among the Gold" Kathleen | Mavourneen,"1 or ''The Soldiers Fare | well'
 ] Croquet and the miIdest archery
 ever known were the sports of people 1 still young and active enough for so