The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-02-21
CHAPTER II
~

We Consider Mrs. Wheeler, Victim
of Self-made Circumstances and
Gain Our First Picture of Mary
Wood
If you should come here co Paris,
20 eastward to the end Of Main street
and take the road over the Green
River bridge and past Haystack
Mountain you would ultimately find
yourself in rolling New England
country-meadow, pasture and wood
lot-with solitary farm homes barnac-
led against the rocky hillsides and
dusty roads winding ovor the hills
and far away. You would pass the
Marshall Mill Pond Bottoms, colo
quially known as the FLATS" You
would traverse the Green Mountain
Valley district and pass through ST.
mond's Woods. After an hour drive
through sumach thicket, deer bottom,
spruce timber and roadside briar
bloom, you would leave the dilapidat
cd McDermott lumber job behind you
and ascend Cobb Hill.
Near the top of Cobb Hill on the
right-hand side of the road, you
would come to u weather-beaten old
house now faded to a sun-blistered
mustard brown A crazy stone wall
beneath row of hoary, gnarled, I'M
pruned naples, divides the south
dooryard from the highway.
No one lives in that old house at
present For long time its rooms
have been empty, it's doors locked, its
blinds drawn. The ilacs grow rag
ged and frowsy at the corners, and
are full Of caterpillers. The back
yard is choked with careway-H
yard is choked with caraway, yarrow
and bastard raspberry with an added
mixture Of wild roses, syringers, bios
somless hollyhocks and coarse-grain-
ed rhubarb banked against the west
wall of the house and ell. A well
sweep by the opposite fence has def
ed the years but beyond it lie the
foundations and gray-timber ruins of
barn and outbuildings that collapsed
in the Shirkshire storm of four years
ago. Photographers journey long
distances to snap the place from diff
ferent angles. 1t is the typical New
England abandoned farm.
An abandoned farm indeedl There
are many of them scattered through
this section of Vermont True, this
particular place is not so dilapidated
and abandoned as some of them with
their sashless windows and sunken
roofs and fallen doors. But it is
pathetic enough, especially to those
who know the story of the place as
we of the Telegraph office have come
to know it.
The yard of the old place is picked
up very clean. The haylofts in the
old barn are empty. The place was
stripped of everything of value years
ago at. the time of the auction wher
Mary Purse came to live in the vii
lage. Even the three-forked Hghtn
ing rods on both gables OF the house
and on the front of the high barr
were bought for old metal by Jew
ish gentleman of our community Wit
is somewhat of connoisseur in ole
metal with clandestine remeltabl'
value. No, the place is abandoned
indeed and stands there on the littl'
hilltop all alone waiting the spar'
& from the pipe of some tramp or fus
urc northern gale to carry it down t.
oblivion Yet what has taken plac
in those naked lonely rooms, the un
81 speakable joys they have seen, tn
81 voorhees, griefs, the nameless sorrows
Fl brings Il warm glow about our heart
and wells our eyes with tears AM
there is nothing maudlin in this franl
confession either
Probably we in our little countr
daily Office know more about the kline
ology and inside history of ever
man, woman and child in our tow
than anyone else for that is our busi
ness. But we especially know nor
about this particular family, this alb
andoned farm, than any other nativ
because it is literally tied UP wit
the Telegraph Office with ties of bloc
We know there are times whel
thoughtless folk in our town drive tn
visitor and the stranger past the plac