The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1926-03-04

uTlV6f 10 tI-c 6Ilu Ol HIS run.
Mrs. Glotfelty relates another Incl
dent that she frequently heard her
parents speak of which occurred while
they lived in what is now known as
Dixie Tavern. There were no restric-
tions in the making or traffic in booze
in those days and whiskey drinking
was an almost universal habit.
One evening while quietly sitting in
the public room of his tavern not long
before his usual bedtime, Mr.. Mat
thews was startled by man rushing
into the room, clad only in a night
gown, and frantically yelling, "For
Gods sake, George, stop them." Mr..
Matthews recognized the frightened
intruder as a neighboring tavern
keeper who conducted well-known
hostelrie several miles east of Little
Crossings. Mr.. Matthews, however,
could see nothing pursuing his neigh
Dor, but the excited and terror-stricken
visitor insisted that he was being
pursued by snakes.
The man who saw the "snakes" had
been drinking until he was seized by
delirium tremens, commonly called
'the snakes" or ''jimjams." So it
would seem that the heavenly" whis-
key of our forefathers, which we hear
praised so much in these days by peo-
pie who never saw or drank any of it
had enough kick in it to produce hell
ish results if sufficiently tempered
with.
After the locomotive and the vari-
Gus types of railway cars became
practical things, the railroads soon
sounded the death-knell of the passen-
ger and freighting business by means
of horses, wagons and stage coaches.
With the death. of wagon and stage
coach traffic on the famous old high
way, most of the old taverns were al
so forced to quit business and after
several decades many of them were
deserted by their owners or tenants
and soon were nothing but ghostly old
landmarks, pictures of gloom and des-
olation.
In writing Of the typical old aband
oned old fashioned inns, which all
along the National Pike could be seen
for years after the glory of the old
road had departed, their roofs moss
grown, floors Wondering, and here
and there one gnawed into shapeless
mass of ruins by the relentless teeth
of time, James Newton Matthews
gives good idea of the changed con-
ditions in the following lines from one
of his highly descriptive poems:
It stands all alone like a goblin in
gray,
The old-fashioned inn Of a pioneer
day,
In land so forlorn and forgotten, it
seems
Like a wrath of the past rising into
our dreams;
It's glories have vanished, and only
the ghost
Of a sign-board now creaks on its
desolate post,
Recalling time when all hearts were
akin
AS they rested at night in that well
coming inn.
Oh, the songs they would sing and the
tales they would spin,
AS they lounged in the light of the
old country inn!
But day came at last when the stage
brought no load
To the gate, as it rolled up the long,
dusty road.
And 10! at the sunrise a shrill whistle
blew
Ger the hills-and the old yielded
place to the new
And merciless age with its discord
and din
Made wreck as it passed of the pio-
neer inn.
No longer the host hobbies down from
his rest
In the porch's cool shadow to welcome
his guest
With smile of delight and a grasp
of the hand,
And glance of the eye that no heart
could withstand.
The kitchen is cold, and the hall is
as still
AS the heart of the hostess out there
on the hill.
The wind whistles shrill through the
wide-open doors.
And Lizards keep house on the moul-
dering floors.
The old road itself, as we'll as the
old-time taverns along it's course, also
lapsed into almost complete ruin, ex-
cept certain portions where there was
considerable traffic on it in spite of
the railroads. However, after the adj
vent Of the automobile and improved
road construction, the old pike was,
figuratively speaking, resurrected. 1t
is again teeming with activity and
the turning of millions of wheels, but
of different sort. The tremendous
tide of traffic that now sweeps over it
daily is almost horseless traffic, and
the great droves of cattle, sheep and
swine and large fiocks of turkeys also
that used to be driven over it in years
past by men afoot and on horseback,
will never be seen again on the old
pike or any other highway.
Gone, too, and forever, are the days
when Negro slaves were driven over
the nike. arranged in couples and fas-