Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1923-12-27
WITH THE
HIGH SCHOOL.
CLASSICS
BY MARGARET BOYD
- an =
llHaHuIllItHRlilllGlGl OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES

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slow through the suburbs plod-
ded the German farmer, with flow
ers and fruit for the market"
-Evangeline.
The descendants of the German farm
ers who plodded through PhiladeIphias
streets during Evangeline's day are
the Pennsylvania German or the Penn
sylvania Dutch of the present.
The land of the Pennsylvania Ger
from Philadelphia hundred miles or
so in each direction, and so far as
7 language and customs are concerned
is foreign land. Tie country is rich
farm land and the Pennsylvania Ger
man is a notable farmer.
His language is not German, but
Pennsylvania German-a dialect that
savants say has not been spoken in any
part of Germany for nearly a century.
In order to conduct his market BUSH
ness it has been necessary for the
farmer to learn some English, but it is
not unusual to find stay-at-nome mem
bers Of the family who Can neither
speak nor understand English, al
though they and their parents and
their grandparents were all born in
America. The English they do speak
is Queer hybrid, of the sort spoken
by the tired maEket woman who re-
marked that she was s'feetotally ausge-
spelled
Most of the Pennsylvania Germans
belong to the Mennonite, or the Dun
ker church, although there are other
sectS among them, including one that
holds it sinful to cut the hair or to
wear buttons on the clothes. 1t is
well worth trip through a city market
to see elders of the latter sect, long
haired, much-bearded men,. with their
clothing held in place by large hooks
AMI eyes.
The women all wear dresses with
tight-ftting waists and long, gathered
skirts. The dresses are usually brown
or black-never OF any bright color.
Their head covering is little white net
cap and a little dark bonnet. The
young girls dress in the frivolous style
of the town until they join the church.
Then they turn plain and don the
conventional white cap From that time
forth they are required to keep their
heads covered. On very hot days the
mAtron at work in hot kitchen may
shove her cap far back on her head,
but she never altogether removes 1t.
"SIeep that knlts up the raveIl'd sleeve
of care,
The death Of each days life, sore la
boris bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great natures sec
ond course,
Chief nourisher in Iife's feast"
Macbeth.
Man can live longer without food
than without sleep. There are many re-
corded instances where men have gomez
for forty or more days without food
and have recovered from the expert
ence. do not know the maximum num-
Der of days that man can go without
sleep, but it is far short of forty. The
expert workmen who line the great dir
gesters in paper mills must often work
foR sixty hours without more sleep
THAN they can snatch during the time
that new material is being brought in
to them, never more than ten minutes
at time Surgeons and doctors some
times work continuously for fifty or
sixty hours at time after great bat
ties. These men are always exhausted
afser such periods of work and sleep
excessively long periods in order to get
back to normal 1t If probable that
man who was not Working could go
without sleep for longer period but
it seems to be the general testimony OF
those who have been kept awake for
as much as sixty hoFlrs, by third de-
gree methods, that By that time they
are willing to confess to any crime or
do anything else to get sleep.
The virtues of sleeo as a "ba1m of
hurt" minds is sung By Shakespeare in
the Tempest as follows
1t seldom visits sorrow; when it doth
1t is comforter.
Young expressed rluch the same
thought in the lines:
Tired natures sweet restorer, balmy
He like the world, his ready visit pays
Where fortune smiles the wretched he
forsakes.
While the ancients described Som
nus, the god of sleep, as the gentlest
Of the gods, ''the tranq1ilizer Of minds
and soother of care-worn hearts, Sir
Philip Sidney sang of seep as:
The batting place of wit, the balm of
The poor mans wealth the prisoners
release
Mrs. Browning refers to the Psalm
lists exaltation of sleep:
Of all the thoughts tf God that are
Borne inward into soulS afar,
Aiong the PsaImists music deep,
Now tell me if that any is.
For gift of grace surprising this
He gtveth His beloved steep.
Scientists try every now and then
to find some substitute for sleep, lust
as they search for the secret of eter-
nal youth and for perpetual motion.
Instead of begrudging the third of our
lives that we must spend in sleep, how
ever, it seems much moe to the pur-
pose to try to live more intensively
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