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 From a Canvasser's Note Book 
 
 Variety is the Spice of Life" 
 
 BY SUMNER F. CLAFLIN 
 
 MANCHESTER, N. H. 
 
 MANCHESTER, N. H.: 
 
 Printed by <s^^^^e> A. Ruemely 
 
 1905 
 
-T 
 
 Gin 
 
 Author 
 APR 23 f9n. 
 
MEMO 
 
 Legend :— Don't ask posterity to 
 print the stuff you write— print it 
 yourself ! 
 
 The following unassorted bunch of verse and incident 
 is taken mainly from the pages of a scrap book to which. I 
 have been constantly adding for thirty years. 
 
 I lay no claim to genius, but merely to industry, and 
 print this collection largely to meet a genuine desire, often 
 expressed, of my many good and true friends scattered over 
 the hills and valleys of New Hampshire, where my humble 
 life work has been done. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Manchester, N. H., June i, 1905. 
 
VARIETY 
 
 1. MY NATIVE HEATH 
 
 New Hampshire, how I love your rugged features ! 
 Your wild hills, your pleasant valleys, your ponds, lakes, 
 rivers and brooks, the winding roads, the picturesque seen, 
 ery, the nestling farm houses, the village homes, the 
 busy cities of industrial activities, embowered in the midst 
 of the richest of nature's wonderland. The weary mechan- 
 ic has but a short walk from his machinery, with its noise 
 and dust, to the freshest of God's pure air, the brightest of 
 sunshine, the most entrancing scenery and the completest 
 repose; where only the warble of birds, the hum of insects 
 and the chatter of squirrels break the calm silence. 
 
 I have grown up among these green hills : I have wan- 
 dered to every corner of this field of natural delights. My 
 eye has lingered upon the winter mountains, with their 
 white summits ''cloud-crowned in the sun" and has drunk 
 deep from the island-studded depths of fair Lake Winnipe- 
 saukee. The valleys of the Androscoggin, the Merrimack, 
 the Connecticut, the Ammonousuc, the Ashuelot, the Saco, 
 and the dozens of smaller rivers that course the state, are 
 as familiar to my eyes as the school ground of the old red 
 school house where I went to school when a boy. 
 
 The reaches of sand and shore that stretch along our 
 Atlantic border where the great gray giant of fathomless 
 waters alternately kisses the smilmg strand and then beats 
 upon it with all the fury of the wind-driven tempests. Me- 
 
6 VARIETY 
 
 thinks I hear now the mournful tolling of the bell buoys off 
 Portsmouth's well protected harbor swinging forever up 
 and down, up and down, over the treacherous rocks, warn- 
 ing and beckoning. Now tipping easily with only the swell 
 of the great deep rolling at the beck of the moon, and 
 again, clanging in a tumultuous fury, as the great storm- 
 swept waves wrench and tear at its solid moorings, as 
 though to wrest the chains from their grip on the everlast- 
 ing rocks. 
 
 Is there anywhere on the broad earth a fairer land- 
 scape, a purer air, more health-giving springs or a more 
 hospitable people ? Where are the forests more refreshing 
 or the fields more inviting.? Other lands have taller moun- 
 tains, larger rivers, sandy, burnmg deserts, forests, in- 
 fested with lurking foes, volcanoes, swamps and the ruins 
 of past greatness to boast of; but should I wander to the 
 ends of the earth, I would find but one New Hampshire 
 and thither asfain would I return. 
 
 THE OLD iMAN OF THE MOUNTAIN 
 
VARIETY 
 
 AS GLIDE THE VESSELS OF TIME 
 
 Into the realm of the future I sailed in the vessels of time, 
 
 My wife and my little children, and all that I called mine. 
 
 With the glass of enlightened vision I scanned the shores I passed ; 
 
 My vessel turned never backward, the view was my first and last. 
 
 Far back, in the dreary distance, the landscape faded away 
 Into a dreamless twilight, where grotesque shadows lay ; 
 Gibbets and crosses of martyrs and the gleam of hate's cruel fires, 
 Poor peasants' huts, kings' palaces, mocking cathedral spires ! 
 
 And the king, the priest and the peasant, begger and bandit band, 
 Held ghostly and grim carnival in the faraway twilight land. 
 Then I turned away in sorrow from the endless woeful years, 
 From the tombs of the murdered prophets and just men's bitter tears, 
 
 To the changing shores of the present, as swiftly they recede ; 
 Glanced down at the loved little ones, my solace and hope indeed. 
 The shores that lay beside me appeared like our world to-day ; 
 Men eagerly hunted each other, the poor were lawful prey; 
 
 And as fast as the laborer gathered, the crafty covered it in ; 
 
 Law for the strong, a club for the weak, and they hustled their booty in- 
 
 For this have the circling ages the changes of time rolled on. 
 
 But does might make right to-day, what is morally wrong ? 
 
 Beyond the shores of the present the new shores spread in view ; 
 The clouds of doubt are uplifted and the prophet's words prove true, 
 For there spread out before us, as sail the vessels of time. 
 Is the realm of the beautiful future, which may be yours and mine. 
 
 There, neighbor calls unto neighbor from under the fig and the vine, 
 And the spoilers cease their spoiling, the hearts of the people are kind. 
 The children cry never with hunger, the songs of the new time are sweet. 
 While we of the old time, in wonder, seek vainly for woes' retreat. 
 
 And no one needs miseries' visage to measure the joys in his store, 
 And none waste the power of manhood frantically grasping for more ; 
 Nobody is spurred into action, because he is hungry and poor, 
 Yet genius was never so mighty nor ever was love so pure. 
 
 It must be, my brothers, it must be, as the vessels of time glide on. 
 That man will grow better and wiser 'til his weak peevish childhood is gone, 
 'Till God's wealth of love and blessing to every heart shall be known, 
 'Till God's will shall sit in judgment and man shall come to his own. 
 
VARIETY 
 
 3 CURSED; A STORY OF ROCK RIMMON 
 
 The fogs of a fresh June morning rise silently over the lake ; 
 
 The sweaty earth breathing upward hangs dewdrops on bush and brake ; 
 
 A rainbow in mist hangs over the Namaske's foamy way, 
 
 But no eye of the greedy paleface measures its silvered spray. 
 
 The gentle wind of summer goes soughing through the pines, 
 Shaking the buds and blossoms that hang on the dewy vines ; 
 On Rimmon's bald crest in silence a dusky woman stands, 
 The wild fog-swathed landscape with eager eyes she scans. 
 
 There are tears on her swarthy cheek, and tears in her brimming eye, 
 That seeks for a sign of her missing boy, or his wee baby cry 
 There in the silence, broken only by beast and bird, 
 Manitou hears a mother's prayer and answers — not a word. 
 
 The heron hovers stealthily where Piscataqua's waters flow, 
 The gray mists vanish and the sun pours scorching rays below ; 
 Among the pines that raise their heads around Rock Rimmon's feet, 
 Within a grassy opening her darling lies asleep. 
 
 The eyes of the mother rest on the tawny face of her child, 
 "With a joy unspeakable and a love that is undefiled ; 
 But the eyes of a beast in hiding peer out from the tangled briars, 
 Snapping with hunger and burning like liquid fires. 
 
 One swift-winged moment passes, then his hot fierce breath 
 
 Is on the cheek of the child like the baleful wind of death ; 
 
 Was white-robed Justice sleeping, when the blood-flecked panther dined .'' 
 
 Was gentle Mercy paralyzed ? — were the eyes in heaven blind .-* 
 
 She stands a study in horror, a picture of helpless woe. 
 Drawn by her fixed gaze heedlessly toward the scene below. 
 Drawn by her mother love — to be dashed upon ragged stones, 
 To writhe and breath her life away in pittif ul useless moans. 
 
 The sun glides over the dome of day and sinks on the evening side, 
 And the fair twin mountains raise their heads its dimming disc to hide ; 
 A swart-faced savage steals within the opening at Rimmon's feet, 
 Slays with a blow the torpid brute, glutted with human meat. 
 
 A broken bow on the grassy turf ; the bloody blanket of his son 
 Clutched in stiff hands, her hands, his own, God pity this helpless one ; 
 The rocks are more tender than his poor heart, whence joy and hope have fled. 
 The prowling cat and the rattlesnake and the eagles bury his dead. 
 
ON RIMMON'S BALD CREST 
 (See page 8.) 
 
VARIETY 9 
 
 But among the hills and beside the lake and over the piney plain 
 Was heard for many a day the yell of a beast with a human frame; 
 And when he died, or where he died, his fellows did not know; 
 But the) nor their children forgot the brave that was cursed by Manitou. 
 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 Suggested by the numerous b:irying grounds scattered over the landscape as seen from 
 any roadside or hillock in Carroll County, and expressed in verse. 
 
 There is a mighty army 
 
 Gathered and gathering far, 
 That was never yet defeated, 
 
 Though waging endless war. 
 
 Scattered over hills and valleys, 
 
 And ocean's solemn main; 
 By land or sea unconquerable. 
 
 Its foemen fight in vain. 
 
 Its straggling squads recruiting 
 
 Wherever man abides ; 
 The sons of men join in its ranks, 
 
 No party clique divides. 
 
 While all the world 's contending 
 
 For gain, the sword is drawn, 
 All factions fade before the music 
 
 Of this army's bugle horn. 
 
 And high and low, rich and poor. 
 
 Of every shade unite 
 To swell the ghostly columns 
 
 Of this army in its might. 
 
 By the side of every river, 
 
 And in every quiet glen. 
 Rise the white and changeless standards 
 
 Of long forgotten men. 
 
 And though you build your fortress 
 
 Where the eagle builds his nest ; 
 Though you seek some strong Gibraltar, 
 
 The mightiest and the best; 
 
10 VARIETY 
 
 Though you clothe your ships with scales of steel, 
 
 That sail in every sea, 
 And train your shotted guns to sweep 
 
 The headlands and the lea ; 
 
 You shall never be a victor 
 
 O'er this foe of mine and thine ; 
 You shall not break the thinest 
 
 Of his lengthening battle line. 
 
 You may strive for terms of yielding, 
 But you surely waste your breath. 
 
 Lay down your arms, you're conquered, 
 By the legionry of death. 
 
 FIRSTLY 
 
 I'm deeply interested, as I read the morning news, 
 
 In the Cuban situation and the leading coinage views, 
 
 The dismemberment of China and Africa's sad fate. 
 
 And the rocks that seem to threaten the good old ship of state. 
 
 I want to know the weather and the latest Klondike bluff, 
 And about those office-seekers, who never get enough ; 
 The doings of "sassiety," of high and low degree, 
 And the chronic labor troubles mostly always trouble me. 
 
 But the thing I look for firstly, I don't mind telUng you, 
 Is the modest poet's corner, and I have to read it through, 
 Just to satisfy myself that Kismet 's shining still, 
 Then I know that everything is going well, or will. 
 
 THE SPRING POET HEARD FROM 
 
 Stop, friend ! The springtime is with us again ; 
 
 Let us offer the thanks that are due. 
 Our souls are refreshed with the sunshine and rain. 
 
 And the verdure that springs forth anew. 
 
VARIETY II 
 
 The speckled red trout at Escohas falls, 
 
 And the salmon that glint in the sun, 
 The pickerel that lurk in the Molnitchwalk pools 
 
 Furnish many a fisherman's fun. 
 
 The amiable sport of the gun and the rod 
 
 Brings death to the pool and the wood, 
 Though the fish and the game were provided by God 
 
 For the lord of creation's own good. 
 
 All men are hunters and fishermen bold, 
 
 And in quest of earth's treasures we go ; 
 The green mother earth is our field and our fold, 
 
 And we scour it high and low. 
 
 You may hunt for hid trea^^ure in dales far and near ; 
 
 You may trace out the haunt of the fox and the fowl ; 
 You may fish for the salmon or trap for the deer, 
 
 Seek the nest of the eagle, the roost of the owl ; 
 
 But I will go look for the beauty of vales, 
 
 Caressed by the sun and the breeze, 
 Watered and nourished — ■ His mercy ne'er fails — 
 
 For I am a hunter of these. 
 
 I'll dream on the rocks in a notch in the hills. 
 
 I'll list where the forest streams roar, 
 I'll watch the white clouds that the azure blue fills 
 
 And cover the mountain tops o'er. 
 
 But when it is time to bethink me of grub, 
 
 I'll go find you fellows, I think, 
 And strike up a trade for some sort of a swap 
 
 Of spring poems for victuals and drink. 
 
 UP THE MAGALLOWAY 
 
 How beautiful all nature is at this time of year. I 
 started out through the wonderfully picturesque Dixville 
 Notch, ten miles from Colebrook, a few days ago, and had 
 for company a clerical friend, well known in Berlin. He 
 has a wheel and thinks he can save money and acquire a 
 
12 VARIETY 
 
 large chunk of robust health, using it in keeping his vari- 
 ous professional appointments. He was on his way from 
 attending a very successful Christian Endeavor convention 
 at Colebrook then. 
 
 It is a pretty well demonstrated fact, however, that 
 when a man gets a wheel to save money traveling, he gener- 
 ally travels so much more than he did before, that his trav- 
 eling expenses increase rather than diminish. 
 
 At the Balsams, or rather about a quarter of a mile 
 away from them, we observed signs stating that the prop- 
 erty was ''private" and there was no thoroughfare, so we 
 skirted around the little artificial lakelet and went up into 
 the queer portals of the notch. Snow still lies in the ra- 
 vine. The crags, jutting eleven hundred feet above the 
 roadway, shut out the sun in places, even at noonday. 
 About a mile and a quarter from the entrance we passed 
 Pulpit rock and a little farther the paths to the "Flume" 
 on the left and the ''Cascade" on the right, and descended 
 into the beginning of the beautiful Clear stream valley. 
 On the left of the road is the Whittemore burying ground, 
 surrounded by a rude fence, where sleep the remains of an 
 early settler and his family. For four miles one passes along 
 a narrow silent valley, where are many locations for sum- 
 mer homes. Abut ten miles brings us to Errol, where is a 
 considerable settlement, and in the Androscoggin at Errol 
 dam and various ponds and basins in the neighborhood is 
 splendid fishing. I went up the Magalloway from here to 
 the end of the settlement near Escohas falls and within two 
 miles of Parmacheenie lake, another famous fisherman's par- 
 adise. In fact, all the streams in this region, scores in num- 
 ber, penetrating unbroken woods, teem with trout and other 
 gamey fish, and catering to the sportsmen from far and 
 near is an important occupation of many of the inhabitants. 
 I would like to say for the benefit of some poor, strug- 
 gling physician, who is looking for an opening, that this 
 opening, up in a secluded neck of the woods, is from twenty 
 
VARIETY 
 
 13 
 
 to forty miles from any other other physician, and the reg- 
 ular charge for a visit here is just twenty-two dollars. A 
 good physician located at Errol would have a cjear and 
 large field and could cut the above price per visit down 
 more than half and make a fair living out of it. 
 
 Coming down the river through the thirteen mile 
 woods I passed the camp of the river drivers at the head of 
 the Molnitchwalk falls (I think they were) and saw how 
 some people live. While it is a life that has none of war's 
 alarms, it is fully as rough and nearly as dangerous. A 
 young man of twenty-five, named Waiker,from West Milan, 
 was one of the most recent victims of the treacherous drive. 
 He was drowned, I believe, in a tributary of Umbagog lake 
 and his body has not been found at this writing. He was 
 an ambitious young man, with a host of friends, and was 
 calculating with the money earned this spring to bid good- 
 bye to the river and take a course in Shaw's Business Col- 
 lege at Portland and fit for less dangerous business than 
 river driving 
 
 As I sit on the cool veranda of W.G.Wentworth's,near 
 Chandler's well-known station on the up-river road, a troop 
 of about thirty horses of the B.M. Company have come down 
 from their winter quarters in the woods and been ferried 
 across the log-sprinkled river to the ample pasturage in 
 Dummer meadows, where they will spend the summer free 
 from corking care and from confining iron shoes (though 
 some are partly shod). They will come out in the fall sleek 
 and fat for their winter's work. This company employs 
 about six hundred horses. A good many of the men when 
 they get out of the woods are not so fortunate — but that's 
 another story. 
 
 I wish to contradict the rumor that I came up here to 
 escape a draft. My services are offered to the government 
 freely as a brigadier-general or even a brevet colonel or 
 aid-de-camp, if the salary is not less than one hundred and 
 fifty dollars mounted. My physician advises that my health 
 isn't strong enough to stand thirteen dollars a month. I 
 am willing to be a hero as indicated above — not otherwise. 
 
 June 8, 1898. 
 
^4 VARIETY 
 
 8 TO THE RAW RECRUfTS 
 
 From the Ammonoosuc valley 
 We have heard the martial call, 
 
 And responded quick : '^ We are ready 
 For the conflict, one and alll " 
 
 " Cuba libra," suffering Cuba, 
 That lies by the southern sea, 
 
 In the name of fair humanity, 
 She shall and must be free ! 
 
 Not ours to reason wherefore ; 
 
 Our country calls to arms. 
 They have laid the gage of conflict. 
 
 We respond to war's alarms. 
 
 And while we fight for Cuba, 
 
 We will fight for freedom true, 
 'Till its banners o'er all nations 
 
 Wave in peace beneath the blue. 
 Here's a curse for every tyrant 
 
 And the bonds upon the slave ; 
 May the true God teach us wisdom. 
 
 As he taught us to be brave. 
 
 '^ REMEMBER THE MAINE'^ 
 
 But don't forget Hazelton 
 
 The night was dark and calm the lights 
 On Havana's harbor shone ; 
 
 Riding in her appointed place. 
 The Maine rose grand and lone. 
 
 Quick, as a flash, across the bay 
 
 The electric current flew. 
 Deep-toned and awful rose the roar 
 
 Of the wreck that Spain must rue. 
 
VARIETY 15 
 
 Rise, brothers rise ! Remember the Maine, 
 
 And her sailors tried and true ; 
 Remember the Cubans, starving there, 
 
 Their voices call to you. 
 
 This was a deed that was done in the dark. 
 
 And the starving a measure of war ; 
 But the men of the mines of Hazelton 
 
 Died at noontide obeying the law. 
 
 Remember the miners of Hazelton, 
 
 Ye men of brain and brawn ; 
 Or some day you will be shot hke slaves, 
 
 When liberty is gone. 
 
 Under the flag unarmed they marched. 
 
 Hungry, wretched and guant; 
 Shot 'neath the flag by the house of have — 
 
 Brothers of the house of want ! 
 
 There is war in the land that will not cease 
 
 When Spain is humbled low ; 
 For the wrongs of labor cry against peace. 
 
 More than a foreign foe. 
 
 Remember the Maine, but do not forget 
 
 The miners snot down in the street ; 
 Remember the starving Cubans — yes ! 
 
 And the battle for bread and meat. 
 
 For this is a struggle fore-ordained. 
 
 By the wolfish greed of man ; 
 When hushed are the drums of a foreign war, 
 
 It will still be on in the .'and. 
 
 So, when bugles blow and waving flags 
 
 Call our young men to foreign wars ; 
 Think hard ; think wisely ; know you well 
 
 Who leads you from your shores. 
 
 Men do not fight with the tools of peace — 
 
 'Tis a useless and idle class, 
 That robs the vineyard, the shop, the mine, 
 
 To bring its own schemes to pass. 
 
 How long must the world be warrior-cursed ? 
 
 When will its battles cease ? 
 When the poor of all nations refuse to fight, 
 
 Then comes the reign of peace. 
 
l6 VARIETY 
 
 10 ONE OF CLAFLIN'S RAMBLES 
 
 Chicken Hollow Park, July, i; 
 
 I have not written you lately, so I thought the boys 
 would like to hear from Comrade Claflm, some ways from 
 the front. I will give you a few of my passing impressions. 
 
 From Chicken Hollow, which is in Jefferson, the Star 
 King range and portions of the Presidential range of moun- 
 tains are plainly visible in fair weather. Immediately in 
 front of the village of Chicken Hollow, which consists of 
 three one-thousand-bushel charcoal kilns, a railroad station 
 and half a dozen back-number lumber shacks, is Cherry 
 mountain, a portion of which slid down into the valley a 
 few years ago, without any public announcement, carrying 
 trees, rocks and large chunks of devastation along its path. 
 Reaching the settlement, it struck a barn in which a Mr. 
 Walker was milking a brindle cow and injuring Mr. Walker 
 so they had to kill him. At least, I was told he would have 
 been alive now if it had not been for the doctor. 
 
 During the succeeding summer a thriving trade in 
 cocktails and light summer drinks sprung up at the foot of 
 the slide, owing to the prevalent desire to view the ruins, 
 on the part of thirsty tourists. Sunday excursions became 
 quite popular. 
 
 But, speaking of slides, Brown's Lumber Company of 
 Whitefield has slid more lumber into their immense mills in 
 a single week than slid down from Cherry mountain, and at 
 present they have a pile of lumber covering more than 
 ten acres and thirty to fifty feet deep, ready for sawing. 
 Every bit of wood down to* the saw dust is utilized, and 
 hundreds of men and women are given employment. It 
 has got so here that women work in a saw mill, in the kind- 
 ling wood department, I believe. 
 
 I am the guest here of an old gentleman who once 
 lived in Lyme, N. H., and while a young man, he told me, 
 

 "A SWART-FACKD SAVAGE" 
 
 (See page 8.) 
 
VARIETY 
 
 17 
 
 he knew a blind man there about twenty-five years his sen- 
 ior who was remarkable for his ability to move around 
 without aid. "I have seen the old gentleman come down 
 to Grant brook, at East Village," said my host, "when 
 they were putting in a new bridge, three stringers long, 
 and walk directly across on a single stringer, when it was so 
 dark you couldn't see a rod ! Another time I was going to 
 Orford, and on the top of Sand hill I overtook the blind 
 man going in the same direction, and he got in and rode 
 along with me accurately telling the names of the people 
 living in each house and their location as we passed them, 
 also the location of a pond some distance from the road on 
 the left as we passed it." 
 
 Another blind man whom I met at Laughrey's board- 
 ing house, near Brown's lumber yard in Whitefield, had 
 been blown up in a stone quarry at Barre, Vt., another man 
 was killed, one was made stone blind and the other stone 
 dead by the same explosion. If they had got ''blowed up" 
 in a family row, instead of a stone quarry, the result 
 might have been different. I told the latter gentleman 
 that I supposed he had learned to bear his affliction with 
 becoming patience and fortitude, and presumed that in 
 his isolated position he was developing those saintly 
 virtues that I always look for in blind men and 
 cripples. This seemed to please him a good deal, but did 
 not hinder his trying to work me for a raffle ticket through 
 the alluring prospect of winning a twenty-five-cent meer- 
 schaum pipe. The other gentleman, who was present, also 
 pressed me to accept ''sunthin " from a large bottle he car- 
 ried where I keep my testament, tattered old wallet and 
 other sacred things, in my hip pocket. I bluffed them off on 
 the ground of pr-r-inciple, though sometimes I have to add 
 principle and interest both. Young man, set your face like 
 a skin-flint against all games of chance and costly luxuries, 
 and when you become considerably older than I am you 
 will have lots of good health and money in the bank, or at 
 least supposed to have. 
 
1 8 VARIETY 
 
 My host at Chicken Hollow, to whom I have referred, 
 used to river drive down the Pemigewaset years ago, and 
 one spring they had about three million feet hung up at 
 Livermore Falls, where the state fish hatchery is now lo- 
 cated. " One great pine log in the middle of the stream 
 held back the jam," said my host. *' Below, full forty feet, 
 were the swirling waters of the eddy, fifty feet deep. In 
 the gang of drivers one. Bill Robinson, a fearful example of 
 drunkenness and general perversity. Bill went out on the 
 jam one morning, after we had been hung up there for a 
 day or two, with his ax and a load of odds and ends from 
 his last night's jag on him and climbed down on to the great 
 pine that held the mountain of piled up timber back. It 
 shivered, as he stood on it. The boss, from the shore, 
 screamed out: 'For God's sake don't strike that log, or 
 you are gone ! ' 
 
 '''Wot t'ell you care,' screamed Robinson back to him. 
 'We've got to start this jam er stay up 'ere all summer, an' 
 here she goes.' And with that. Bill struck the log a heavy 
 blow, and the next minute we saw him drop the ax and grab 
 around the log with both arms as it shot out over the yawn- 
 ing abyss and dove out of sight into the eddy. The jam 
 came roaring after him, end over end, and the drivers in 
 their boats below dare not move out into the swirling flood, 
 but watched with eager interest for poor Bill. In another 
 moment his head bobbed up and he struck out for the 
 shore which he reached without a scratch. 
 
 "He had taken the one chance out of a thousand, and 
 and come out alive. His first articulate words, as we bent 
 over him and he gradually came to, were. 'Boss, I guess its 
 your treat,' and a happy smile flitted across his weather- 
 cracked face in anticipation. It was a closer shave than 
 Bill was used to, but he always said that if a man was going 
 to die of the jimjams, he couldn't be drowned, and I guess 
 he was right, pretty near. " 
 
VARIETY 19 
 
 11 THE YOUNG MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 Thou venerable, silent seer of the hills 
 
 Guarding these valleys fair, 
 Facing the storms, as we life's lesser ills, 
 
 I look and lisp, Ah ! there. 
 
 Welcome from far, the cities of the plain, 
 With trunks and trappings piled, 
 
 Thy moveless features chiseled ifi disdain 
 No maiden's heart beguiled. 
 
 I hate to say it, but you are out of date. 
 
 Old Man of Mountains white. 
 The nice young man's a greater potentate. 
 
 In fact he's " out of sight. " 
 
 We love to see you guard these valleys fair, 
 While gray heights mirror in the lake. 
 
 If only our young mountaineer be there, 
 You bet he takes the cake. 
 
 But I'll not guy you, father ever true 
 
 Would that all men learned 
 To be as steadfast, grim old man, as you, 
 
 Mid storms as unconcerned. 
 
 12 CITY OF THE SILVER STREAMS 
 
 Here's to the city of the silver streams 
 Married in your midst, the Merrimack 
 
 Flows forth to move ten thousand swift machines 
 Along its busy track. 
 
 You, Pemigewasset from Franconia's heart. 
 Boiling, turbulent, along a siuuous way, 
 
 Dammed once, once only from thy distant start 
 No power could stay. 
 
20 VARIETY 
 
 By you fair Winnipesaukee, child of the lakes, 
 Whosr calmer course a double service gives, 
 
 Spouse of your fellow as you come to mate 
 t'air P'ranklin lives. 
 
 And here by day and night, forever more, 
 
 Your ceaseless current turns the useful wheel. 
 
 The hum of industry along your shore 
 Insures your weal. 
 
 So once again, to Franklin and her streams. 
 Married by nature, by man named anew. 
 
 We send our greeting; may your brightest dreams 
 Prove always true. 
 
 13 LIMERICKS 
 
 The following found on the Dundee rosd is thought by some to be the work of the 
 thieves who broke into Chas. King's and stole cider recently. Whoever was guilty ol it ought 
 o be severely dealt with : 
 
 There was a young man in Dundee ; 
 He courted a school-girl quite free. 
 
 She was trundlebed trash ; 
 
 He was minus of cash, 
 But they figured on matrimonee. 
 
 Now this brilliant young man of Dundee, 
 A schemer of schemes was he ; 
 
 He ran into debt for his clothes. 
 
 From his head to his hose, 
 And had the knot tied to a T. 
 
 But the man who went good for his suit, 
 Concluded that he was a " bute, " 
 
 When he gave back the clothes, 
 
 For which he still owes, 
 This cheap matrimonial recruit. 
 
VARIETY 21 
 
 To the sweet boys and girls of Dundee, 
 I'll extend this advice, which is free^ 
 
 Whenever you wed 
 
 Don't rob the trundlebed. 
 And pay the price, whatever it he. 
 
 14 DREW'S POETRY 
 
 The late Robert Drew of Silver Lake resembles a poet about the same as a sheep does a 
 goat, and many old residents will remember his efforts to touch the tuneful lyre aad other liars 
 that were not so tuneful. It has never been satisfactorily settled why he did it. Not even 
 Jehu Sanborn of Effingham Fails, the voluminous writer for the local press can say, but he 
 did it, and the doctors say it was not the immediate cause of his death. He did it on a little 
 hand press and took evident pleasure in watching its effect on his neighbors and friends as they 
 perused the following hand made poetry : 
 
 "There's A man in our neighborhood 
 
 he is neither short nor tall, 
 he writes for all the papers, 
 
 and scandelizes all. 
 he listens at the windows 
 
 and at the outlet of the sink, 
 and before we hardly know it, 
 
 all our doings are in print. 
 
 He sends his little daughter out 
 
 to forage around for food 
 and sits and writes his locals 
 
 while his wife saws up the wood 
 if you should meet him on the street 
 
 you would hardly get a pass 
 for he covers half an acre 
 
 when he's well filled up with gass. 
 
 He swells up like a bladder 
 
 if he ever gets a dollar 
 and when he goes to silver lake 
 
 he wears a papper collar 
 he wears a jockie hat 
 
 when he is picking up the news 
 and When he goes to sandWich 
 
 he borroWs coat and shoes 
 
22 VARIETY 
 
 I have lived in days of old angsinen 
 I am foar score years and ten 
 
 but never before have seen an ape 
 that called himself a man." 
 
 It is strange what genius wastes itself upon the desert air. 
 
 15 WINTER ON THE SACO 
 
 The road snowrollers have been in requisition all through this section the past week, and 
 with over a foot of snow on the level it is hard to realize that hardly a hundred miles away at 
 this writing mud and bare ground are the rule. 
 
 The Snow King sat where the Winter is born, 
 On the regal summits o'er Saco's vale; 
 
 Gathering his force for a blinding storm, 
 When the wild winds race with the icy gale. 
 
 And the beech and birch and bowing pine, 
 
 The spruce and the hemlock, as dark as night, 
 
 Stood waiting the shock of the northern wind 
 And the gale and the tempest clothed with might. 
 
 And the pine flung his branches out to the firs, 
 Roaring in the four winds, like a heaving sea; 
 
 And the spruce and the hemlock from beetling spurs 
 Below the summits sang dolefully. 
 
 Down in the vales, by Saco's sinuous way, 
 
 The slender birches tossed their graceful stems 
 And laughed derision at the storm king's sway. 
 
 And tossed their plumes unheeding o'er the glens. 
 This was but yesterday, the woods do-day 
 
 Stand abject slaves, covered with white shrouds; 
 A ghostly host, like monks that bend and pray 
 
 Beneath the frowning of the wintery clouds. 
 
 How laughs the birch, poor soul, on the drear lea. 
 Bent prostrate, every branch and stem ice-clad. 
 
 Buried in drifts, abject captivity, 
 
 With naught to mitigate nor ought to add. 
 
VARIETY 23 
 
 You reign today, King Winter, and you will, 
 But know that Spring will come to every tree 
 
 And every blade that grows on every hill. 
 And Spring shall set your every captive free. 
 
 16 A TALE OF BARTLETT 
 
 ''This, ladies and gentlemen, is Sawyer's rock" re- 
 marks the conductor in the observation car on the Maine 
 Central as the train rolls slowly through the valley above 
 Upper Bartlett. "The place where frontiersman Sawyer 
 killed a moose. The rock you see projects down to the 
 brink of the Saco. The moose was trying to climb the 
 steep side of the rock and Sawyer followed and cut the 
 cords of his legs and then cut his throat. " Such was the 
 story, and as I looked across the meadows another story 
 came to my mind, told as I sat by the fireside of one of the 
 prosperous woodsmen and farmers near the pretty town of 
 Upper Bartlett. 
 
 Newton Ford was a proud young man when first he 
 was promoted to the responsible position of conductor of 
 the freight between Portland, Me., and Lunenburg, Vt. 
 Proud for himself, and pleased that the partner of his suc- 
 cesses and failures would share in the benefit of his 
 advancement. 
 
 A modest cottage on the ridge at the upper end of the 
 village near where the great railway embankment stretched 
 along the narrow intervals by the side of the Saco and 
 plunged into the jaws of the mountains, was the home of 
 Newton Ford and his little family, and there he spent as 
 much of his time as he could spare from his railroad duties. 
 As the years went by the Maine Central regarded him as 
 one ol its deservedly trusted employees. 
 
24 ' VARIETY 
 
 The years were not without accidents, however, and 
 numbers of more or less severe shakeups and several wrecks 
 occurred, but so far as my informant could remember, the 
 buggy of that freight never left the track. In the 
 station at Upper Bartlett is located a telegraph station^ 
 where the clicking instruments carry the swift messages of 
 the train dispatcher and direct the control and management 
 of every train on the road. In this station is also located 
 an eating saloon and, as it is a place of stopping for all 
 trains, it is a railroad center of considierable importance. 
 Two operators are employed here, and the general supervi 
 sion of business at this point was, at the time of which I 
 write, in the hands of John McCrillis, who had to keep 
 track of the money taken in and disbursed at this point 
 and report daily. 
 
 There was a big safe in the office and in order that the 
 telegraph operator might attend to the little business that 
 came in during his stunt on duty, the safe door was 
 never locked. For some weeks Asrent McCrillis had 
 
 o 
 
 missed Small sums of money, which sums he had to make 
 up from his own wages and it really didn't suit his ideas of 
 thrift and prudence and one day, as the little gentlemanly 
 Frenchman, who was serving as night operator, sauntered 
 in to assume his duties, Mr. McCrillis lit on him somewhat 
 savagely and charged him with the peculations. This was 
 met with a vigorous and emphatic denial — and the assertion 
 by the operator that Mr. McCrillis might consider his posi- 
 tion vacant just as soon as he chose, as the said operator 
 had never yet been accused of being a thief without proper 
 resentment. Some of the employes crowded around and 
 urged the operator to stand his ground and not be driven 
 out without proof, and Mr. McCrillis drew off non-plussed 
 for the time being; but he determined to catch the thief in 
 the act, if possible. So, watching his opportunity, he took 
 a large auger and bored a hole in the floor above and when 
 the night operator went on duty the next night, Mr. Mc 
 Crillis also went on duty in the vacant room overhead. 
 
THE NICK Y()LIN(t MAN" 
 (See page 19.) 
 
VARIETY 25 
 
 The hours sped by. The operator stuck to his key- 
 board, and trains came and went. At last, toiUng wearily 
 up from the lowlands of the Saco, came the long freight, 
 conducted by Newton Ford. It came to a standstill and, 
 while the busy inspectors went down the long length of the 
 train, carefully testing the wheels for the long hard run up 
 through the white hills and on to Lunenburg, Newton 
 Ford stepped into the office, no one was looking — he slid 
 around to the safe — no one saw him — a half dollar is quick- 
 ly transferred to his pocket and he is innocently drumming 
 on the window sill, and waiting to give the signal to send 
 his train upward over the heavy grades. It is a little 
 thing. He has done as much before and no one seems to 
 mistrust, done it perhaps a score of times — the company is 
 rich. A half a dollar means a jolly time with the boys, a 
 glass of beer all round or cigars for the crowd — and the 
 company is rich, you know. They give away a thousand 
 times more than that in free passes every year. ''The head 
 ones take what they like when they can, and why shouldn't 
 I.?" He argues. Newton Ford that won't do. If you are 
 going to be a rascal, be a big one. If you could only steal 
 a whole railroad, they would call you a good financier, but 
 you — you have thrown away a good job, at $2.50 per day, 
 by sneaking that beggarly half-dollar out of the drawer. 
 The eye at the auger hole is on you. While you are put- 
 ting your train up over the treacherous rails along the diz- 
 zy curves by Elephant's Head and the swaying Franken- 
 stein trestle, John McCrillis is telegraphing a bill of partic- 
 ulars into the Portland director's office. At Lunenburg a 
 special dispatch is handed you. Ah! What is this.? Want- 
 ed on my arrival at Portland at the office. What does that 
 mean.? What can it mean.? Perhaps that run to Portland 
 is an agreeable one. Train disposed of, engine in round 
 house, silent, sullen, you swing out of the cab and make 
 your way to the office. '' Mr. Ford, here is your pay up to 
 day — we have no further use for you on the Maine Cent- 
 raf. Good day, sir!" And that is all. 
 
26 VARIETY 
 
 17 THE MURDER OF EZRA DODGE 
 
 The topic that still interests everybody and will until the meeting of the grand jury in 
 April discloses what, if anything, is to be done about it, is the murder last September 
 13th of Ezra P. Dodge of Tamworth. The writer heard some seventeen distinct versions of 
 the affair from as many eye witnesses of the finding of the body, and he has been strongly 
 tempted to write a book on " What I Know About the Dodge Murder, " but he didn't, and 
 merely contents himself with the following supposedly poetic observations on the same : 
 
 Crushed and bruised and lying in the sun, 
 By the heathside in the bushes by the wall ; 
 
 Was it at noontide when the horrid deed was done, 
 Or when the stars their silver light let fall ? 
 
 Was it after hot words the cruel blow was given. 
 Or with coolness the dread bullet sought its mark ? 
 
 Who can tell us how this poor soul all unshriven 
 Went out from us into mysteries more dark ? 
 
 Was it a hand that raised with him the glass 
 Of commradship, that struck that wicked blow ; 
 
 Was it the hp protesting to the last 
 A friendship its owner did not know. 
 
 Was it for half the contents of his purse 
 The fiend required of him his all, his life ? 
 
 A wretch so sordid it would seem were worse 
 Than had he struck the blow in angry strife. 
 
 Whoe'er he be and whereso e'er he roam 
 
 God marks him day and night and night and day. 
 
 Bitter shall be his cup, and hell shall be his home 
 Till blood and tears shall purge his sin away. 
 
 And as he walks on green earth or the snow, 
 'Neath summer's sun or winter's death-like chill. 
 
 His victim with him walks ever to and fro, 
 In dark or light he walks beside him still. 
 
 There is no place among the circling suns. 
 In Heaven or earth or deep beneath the sea. 
 
 Where punishment shall fail the guilty ones — 
 Let in the least their cowering souls go free. 
 
VARIETY 27 
 
 The earth cries out, he bears the brand of Cain, 
 He shudders as he hears the whispering pine, 
 The winds are vocal with the murderer's name, 
 And Heaven assures him " Vengence alone is Mine. " 
 
 18 ONLY A PICTURE 
 
 " Make me a picture of baby, " I said to the artist one day, 
 " A picture of my little baby, whom death has taken away ; 
 Make his hair sunny and golden, and tangled about his face, 
 Not brushed, as in silence we saw it, but full of life-like grace. 
 
 " Make his eyes blue as in summer glows the morning sky; 
 And, say, can you light them with gladness that cannot fade or die ? 
 Curl his red Ups and round them, and dimple his cheeks just so, 
 (But his nose was a pug, no matter, you'd call it funny I know). 
 
 " And give him a checkered apron, with pocket for 'kerchief and toys, 
 And some copper-toed boots with red tops, and a drum to make a noise. 
 (We used to scold Tommy for that then, but so quiet our rooms have grown 
 That 1 long for the romping baby and cry when I'm alone)." 
 
 The artist painted my picture with patient and tenderest art ; 
 
 He seemed to feel my longings and the hunger of my heart. 
 
 He outlined a chubby angel and give him a form most fair ; 
 
 He put the fresh glow on his soft cheek and the sunlight in his hair. 
 
 The drum, the boots and the apron were just as like as could be. 
 And the hands that held the drumsticks were the ones he reached to me 
 When the choking night-scourge seized him and bore his life away. 
 But the eyes were not my baby's, their light was too cold and gray. 
 
 I do not blame the artist. His art was tender and true. 
 And the grace of his nameless cherub I loved, and so would you, 
 But, oh, the light of my baby's soul, glowing in his eyes. 
 Greets me no more — methinks 'tis hid with God in Paradise. 
 
VARIETY 
 
 19 AUTUMN 
 
 Last night I looked abroad, 
 
 The sun was setting in a cold grey cloud, 
 
 The earth was sere and dank, 
 
 Near all the leaves had fled. 
 
 Last night I thought of God, 
 I thought me of my approching shroud, 
 And as I thought my spirit sank 
 Almost to meet the dead ! 
 
 For what are we ? hke leaves and summer smiles, 
 We spring to bloom through Ufe's short year, 
 We sail amid earth's ever pleasant isles, 
 Its sudden storms, its calms, love's witching wiles, 
 We fade and pass like summer — such is man ! 
 
 The goldenrod and rank bush hides no more 
 With green and bloom the graves on yonder hill. 
 But ragged rocks and forest skeletons 
 Beneath a cold dead sun my visions fill. 
 
 There is a time in every passing year 
 
 To 'mind us of our own departed youth ; 
 
 There is a time when all the world goes mateing, 
 
 A noontide, a decline, a sad awaiting, 
 
 A time of shrouds and the eternal bier! 
 
 But all these times are God's time — 
 Brother mine — He grows not old as we do, 
 He was never young, but in our "seven ages," 
 Doth He rejoice and make of all things good ! 
 
VARIETY 29 
 
 20 THE DANCE OF THE LEAVES 
 
 Which occured simultaneously and without previous notice Sunday, November 10, 1902, 
 Manager, Old Boreas; Musicians, Bare Limbs, Green Boughs; Wind Instruments, Gates,' 
 Signs and Wire Fences. 
 
 Oh, it was a jolly dance, 
 
 All the high-toned folks were there. 
 Oak and maple, popple, birch, 
 
 And willow, lithe and fair! 
 
 How they raced along the highways, 
 How they surged and choaked the byways, 
 How they doddled, how they spun, 
 
 How they sailed and soared and swirled. 
 How they doubled, chained and swung 
 
 Over all the wind-swept world ! 
 
 Come together on the square, 
 Come from out of everywhere, 
 Chased around right merrily, 
 Tripped and turned quite airily, 
 This one dance the leaflets had 
 E'er they hied them off to bed. 
 
 21 AN OCCASIONAL OCCURRENCE 
 
 I halted at the school house door, 
 In a secluded glen it stood, 
 
 I'd been there several times before 
 On my usual errand — doing good 
 
 I rapped quite slowly, tap, tap, tap, 
 Stepped back and calmly waited, 
 
 The hum inside grew still at that, 
 The studious buz abaited. 
 
30 VARIETY 
 
 And just as I would rap again, 
 
 The door was opened to me, 
 There stood the school marm on the sill, 
 
 And smiled as though she knew me. 
 
 I'm selling monthlies, Miss, said I, 
 Full of lore on rules and training, 
 
 To teach the young idea to shoot, 
 The various ways explaining. 
 
 " I thank you for your kindness, sir, 
 The school marm blushing said, 
 
 My school will close week after next. 
 And then I'm to be wed." Nuff ced. 
 
 22 WHY I LOVE YOU 
 
 I know why I ought to love you, and I do. 
 
 There is a joy to go where duty calls. 
 Nor left nor right to look, but just to you. 
 
 My dear, until life's final curtain falls. 
 
 The one who knelt with me by bridal bed, 
 And rose to face life's varied scenes together, 
 
 The mother of my children, living, dead 
 
 Who taught me courage whatso'r the weather — 
 
 Do I know why I love you ? Yes, I do! 
 
 It is no dream I chose, or sudden passion, 
 A pretty face, a figure fair and new; 
 
 My love is builded from another fashion. 
 
 For our two lives are linked as one forever. 
 And dearer are the ties as we grow older, 
 
 I could not trust a passion that could sever, 
 Or grow less pure with age, or ever colder! 
 
 I love you, dear, because when comes life's fading, 
 
 Towards which we glide from childhood's sunlit shores, 
 
 I know that you'll be with me, loving, aiding, 
 Your heart my home and my heart only yours. 
 
VARIETY 31 
 
 God wills it so! Youth may may not know the reason 
 Why love comes in to gladden soul and mind ; 
 
 But happier age, ripened in its due season, 
 Knows why it loves ; it is no longer blind ! 
 
 So I know why I love you — only you. 
 
 From all the women in the world beside; 
 Forever one — this God hath made of two, 
 
 And one forever gladly we abid. 
 
 23 QUEEN CARRIE 
 
 I sought her when the world was young, 
 
 I courted her with joy, 
 She was the queen of Mytown 
 
 And I a barbarous boy. 
 
 I bowed to my dear queen's decree, 
 
 A servant at her throne, 
 Her every wish was law to me 
 
 When e'er that wish was known. 
 
 She gave me people for the land 
 
 As fair as e'er were seen. 
 She held the scepter in her hand 
 
 I was consort to the queen. 
 
 As chief I ranged the earth for her, 
 And brought to her the spoils. 
 
 To build and deck her capitol 
 The aim of all my toils. 
 
 I thought to live and die her slave, 
 
 (A wilUng slave was I.) 
 No harm should come to my dear queen 
 
 With her prince consort nigh. 
 
 But lo ! there came another king. 
 Who reigns from shore to shore. 
 
 To take Queen Carrie from her throne 
 And he has pressed her sore. 
 
32 \rARIETr 
 
 Though bravely fights our dear home queen. 
 
 To hold her fair domain, 
 And all the people of her realm 
 
 Give battle in her name. 
 
 Still day by day the hidden foe 
 Will drag her from her throne, 
 Till Mytown is left desolate 
 Without the queen of home. 
 
 24 IN THE VASTNESS 
 
 How sunny the light shines about us,. 
 
 How gaily the shadows chase by. 
 When the hillsides echo with laughter, 
 
 And pleasantly blue is the sky. 
 The young birds mate in the meadow ; 
 
 The kine and the wood fo-lks gay^ 
 With never a thought o-f tomorrow, 
 
 Are living and loving today. 
 
 In this day lives the young man and maiden. 
 
 And why should their joy he denied ? 
 The storms just ahead may be hidden, 
 
 The fortunes of fate undescried. 
 Eut, I say, drink your goblet of pleasure, 
 
 Drink deep, heaven meant it for you;, 
 To be happy in life is a duty, 
 
 As much as it is to be true. 
 
 As I think of the vastness behind us. 
 
 And gaze at the vastness before. 
 I feel that heaven has designed us 
 
 To live one life at a time, and no more I 
 To live it each day as a unit, 
 
 Making it count for its most. 
 To take out the best there is in it, 
 
 And the fragments, that nothing be lost. 
 
"AND A DRUM TO MAKE A NOISE 
 
 (See page 27.) 
 
VARIETY 33 
 
 I have walked down into the breakers, 
 
 Where the waves of eternity roar, 
 I have stepped my bare feet in chill waters 
 
 That girdle and threaten the shore ! 
 I have list to the plaint of my dear one. 
 
 Sinking into the vastness from me, 
 I have tasted the horror and sadness 
 
 Of the infinite, measureless sea ! 
 
 And as we stood there at the parting, 
 
 A moment, and looking behind 
 The long way reaching back in the sunlight 
 
 I lovingly called to her mind 
 The sweet road we had traveled together, 
 
 The burdens we joyfully bore, 
 For the sake of the children God gave us; 
 
 In our thoughts we reviewed it once more. 
 
 But we said not a word of the future, 
 
 My dear one I held by the hand, 
 'Till God took her forth in the vastness 
 
 That stretches away from the land ! 
 And God, in his infinite goodness. 
 
 Will give her the peace and the calm 
 Of the deep sea, where never the breakers 
 
 Shall threaten her dear soul with harm. 
 
 In the deep sea of infinite pity. 
 
 That flows in the world of the blest. 
 Where the hunted and harried find haven. 
 
 And the burdened and weary find rest, 
 I know that the Father who forms us. 
 
 As the potter his pliable clay. 
 Has nothing but good for his children 
 In the vastness that hid her away. 
 
 25 THE MEETIN' AT SOUTH ROAD 
 SCHOOL HOUSE 
 
 I was over to the South Road school house to meetm' 
 the other Sunday night and Elder Meacham was there a 
 
34 VARIETY 
 
 leadin' the meetin', and John Ferguson had told us how he 
 expected to go to Heaven when he died because there was 
 a place provided for them that loved the Lord as he did an' 
 he should go any way, whether anybody else went or not, 
 an' he was glad the Lord had kin'ly showed him the way to 
 salvation, an' that he lived in a land where the true gospel 
 was preached. An' Miss Jennison had explained how the 
 Lord had called after her when she was very young, an' 
 how she pittied them that set in darkness in foreign lands, 
 an' hadn't never had no religion worth speakin' of, an' so 
 forth. An' Elder Meacham had hinted for the third time 
 there was liberty, an' Jim Jones had coughed twice and I 
 blew my nose, to fill in kind of, when Peleg Johnson ris up 
 an' broke the silence which had become oppressive,as it were. 
 Peleg don't often speak in meetin', an' every one rubbered 
 more or less when he begun, but he stuck to it an' spoke 
 his little piece good an' loud so's they all could hear quite 
 distinct. He says something about like this: 
 
 ** Brethren and sisters: — I aint exactly religious, but 
 I've been thinkin', an' I hope ye won't think hard of me if 
 I tell you what I think. Honest now, it appears to me 
 more as if 'in the beginning' (or pretty soon after), man 
 created God after a notion of his own, an' different men 
 had different notions, an' as time went on an' times changed, 
 their notions changed, an' that is why we have so many 
 different things said about the same great Being. Then 
 too, them that wrote the Bible, (the one we read out of), 
 thought it would be a good plan to work in a lot of wonder- 
 ful things into their histories an' chronicles, novels and 
 psalms, an' they salted an' peppered them to suit the ori- 
 ental taste. Now I can't see as there is any more credit 
 coming to a Christian or a Hebrew for pretending to be- 
 lieve things his judgment don't approve of, than there is 
 for a Hindoo or a Chinaman or a Turk. We go an' tell 
 them about Jonah an' the whate, an' Elijah, an' the three 
 worthies, an' walkin' on the water, an' the miracles of the 
 
VARIETY 35 
 
 loaves and fishes, an' they say the oriental for 'Ah! Go on! 
 We've got stranger tales than that in our religion, and just 
 as good principles too. Lord a massy, we've got gods enough 
 now, don't fetch us any more.' Now I say that's natural, 
 an' you can't blame them people if ye will only put yourself 
 in their place. It don't make much difference whether ye 
 say the golden rule backhanded, as the Chinaman does, or 
 frontways, as we do, if ye remember to keep within forty 
 rods of the practice of it. I'd rather be a heathen that 
 Hved up to his lights, than a christian, that hides his under 
 a bushel basket when makin' a boss trade. I tell ye, breth- 
 ren and sisters, it does a man a lot of good to run across 
 them words: 'What doth the Lord require of ye but to deal 
 justly, love mercy an' live humbly.' If any on ye sees me 
 slip a cog on this doctrine, let me know an' I'll thank ye 
 kin'ly. It ain't what ye don't know that needs to worry ye 
 so much as the practice of what ye do know." An' th^n 
 Peleg set down. 
 
 26 ONE OF ALFRED AUSTIN'S 
 
 Apropos of one of Alfred Austin's on the occasion of the Duke's return 
 
 Poor grinder out of weak, sporadic verse, 
 
 Whose wrecked machine is twisted out of gear, 
 Devoted Austin, your rhymes are worse and worse, 
 
 Your boss, the king, will fire you I fear ! 
 For home from sailing to the Jack cursed shores. 
 
 Where British feet press down unwilling necks. 
 The scions of the robber, German boors. 
 
 Come with your drivel to so weak text. 
 And while you prate that England's lands are free. 
 
 And her vast subject peoples are content, 
 The bitter Hindo bows the fanlined knee 
 
 And Ireland yields because her power is spent ! 
 
36 VARIETY 
 
 While from South Africa's gold and diamond shores, 
 
 The wail of slaughter from prison pen and field 
 Rises to Heaven from the devoted Boers, 
 
 Doomed to die because they will not yield. 
 Yet, Alfred, here, you have my sympathy, 
 
 Coupled in regal meauure with contempt, 
 You cannot glorify a rotten royalty, 
 
 Or despot crime and hide the odorous scent. 
 
 27 THE NEXT ROLL CALL 
 
 Published in the Mirror in connection with the Decoration Day exercises of li 
 
 Strew well the flowers, old comrades, 
 
 It takes more every year, 
 I'm wondering this time twelvemonth 
 
 How many we'll number here. 
 The ranks are thinning ; the faces 
 
 We've met in the years gone past 
 Are lessening sadly, and whiter 
 
 The heads than when we met last. 
 
 My vision is fitful, old comrades, 
 
 The pictures are jumbled tonight ; 
 The living and dead together 
 
 Seem mixed in a wierd twilight ; 
 And over the graves they are marching 
 
 With banners and harness of war. 
 Silently, swiftly and grandly, 
 
 So grandly my soul is in awe. 
 
 The men who came back to the Northland 
 
 From facing the cannon's mouth, 
 The men who dropped bravely in battle 
 
 Their bones in the fields of the south. 
 Offered for freedom and country 
 
 So freely the gift that was due. 
 Approach the great roll call up yonder, 
 
 My vision reveals them to view. 
 
VARIETY 
 
 No more with the harness of battle 
 
 Mustering into a hell-heated strife, 
 But they meet on the mountains of Beulah 
 
 At the roll call of endless life. 
 Then strew well the flowers, old comrades, 
 
 We'll meet in the twilight too, 
 And all march home in the morning, 
 
 The faithful, fearless and true. 
 
 3; 
 
 28 A TRAGEDY IN JERICHO 
 
 A man coming out of Jericho met a man that dwelt by 
 the wayside on the bank of the Saco as it runs in the 
 valley of the mountains. And there are mountains of tin 
 there, and of iron, and of copper. And he tarried with him 
 all night. And the dweller by the wayside, manlike, com- 
 muned with the wayfarer and told him a story to relieve 
 the tedium of the evening, and it ran like this : 
 
 There was a dweller in Jericho, where the river of 
 Jericho runs down between the mountains of iron and of 
 tin, in the vale where it joins itself to the Saco, that lived 
 with his one wife and thirteen children and tried to be 
 happy. He worked hard every day and spent his labor and 
 strength to get food and clothing for his own family and a 
 roof to shelter them ; and his raiment was ragged and 
 stained with the stains of toil and his beard grew bushy and 
 his face became furrowed, and verily he was no posey in ap- 
 pearance, but his heart beat loyal and true, and a little ap- 
 preciation from those for whom he labored would have ho&n 
 worth a whole lot. But he didn't seem to get it. There was 
 another man in Jericho, (so ran the tale,) and he also had 
 one wife, but that didn't seem to make any difference, and 
 he became a frequent visitor to his neighbor's house. He 
 didn't take his wife with him either. Moreover he gener- 
 
38 VARIETY 
 
 ally timed it so that the other man wasn't there, and when 
 the "other" man mildly remonstrated, he told him to go 
 away, way back and sit down. Also his wife, the mother 
 of his children aforesaid, intimated rather curtly that he 
 wasn't up to date, and so this "other" man gave up the 
 struggle. Oh, 'tis rare to see a loving heart crushed ! To 
 see the light of hope and the joy of duty done fade out of 
 the existence of a too confiding man. If a serpent entered 
 Eden, then the devil came into Jericho. Its mountains 
 were tin and iron and to the " other " man verily the 
 heavens became as brass. He staggered too and fro like a 
 drunken man, his heart, yes, he had one, seemed frozen and 
 his brain was on fire. He knew not what to do nor where 
 to turn. Should he slay his supplanter and his faithless one, 
 then the law would destroy him. Yet it would be God's 
 vengeance upon them, but "vengeance ismine,I will repay," 
 says God. No, he will not do that! What then.? Shall 
 he live in Jericho, dishonored before his neighbors and 
 friends ? Even the fool by the wayside will wag the tongue 
 at him. Nay, nay ! Death is sweet to a suffering soul, 
 as to a suffering body. So thought the "other" man. 
 
 There was dew on the morning grass, but he did not 
 heed it. There was perfume of growing crops in the air, 
 but he smelled it not. There were songs of many birds in 
 the branches of the trees, whose lives were sweet to them, 
 but he never heard their joyous notes. There was poison 
 in the cup, the old cracked cup on the beam in the shed, 
 hidden away from the chickens. That was for him! Oh, 
 blessed sleep ! End of the fires of fantasy and the uncon- 
 trolable thoughts. He sought and found it. For what 
 can be hidden from him that seeks.? He hugged it to his 
 bosom and fled, kissing, e'er he went, the face of his last 
 born child, up beyond the houses of the little settlement of 
 Jericho, to the roaring boulder-strewn torrent. Then he 
 lays his hat upon a rock, amid the birches and a stone 
 
 upon his hat. Perchance they will find that and find "it" 
 
 sooner! Then to business. 
 
VARIETY 39 
 
 "Ohl wife, mother, darling, will this show you how well 
 I loved you ? Will this draw tender thoughts sometime from 
 you? " It is a bitter dose, but sweet to those who take it ! 
 There is a sickening struggle with self-inflicted death. 
 The clinched hands dig into the dry leaves of the forest, 
 the body rolls convulsively among the ferns, a bird in the 
 overhanging branches looks down with a sidelong glance of 
 curious wonder at the struggling form and then all is still. 
 The world is wide, so wide that one may disappear within a 
 hundred rods of his own door and never be found. This 
 one lay where the passerby in the highway might have seen 
 it, and the rain fell on its pallid face and drenched its rigid 
 limbs, and the ferns and flowers faded and fell over it, and 
 one by one in showers and eddying swirls the leaves fell 
 from the trees of autumn and drifted against it, e'er the 
 woodman swamping his winter road passed that way. 
 
 I had rather go a dozen miles than once to stumble on 
 such a gruesome sight. I had rather be in hell with my 
 neck broken than have caused the misery that led to this. 
 Husbands, love your wives ! Wives, honor your husbands I 
 Then shall life be truly worth living. In poverty or in 
 wealth, in Jerusalem or Jericho ! 
 
 This is the tale told, manlike, by the man who dwelt by 
 the wayside as you go out of Jericho. 
 
 29 BACK TO MY NATIVE HEATH 
 
 Again I journey by the sea, 
 
 In Rockingham, of all the earth 
 
 Made dear to me and near to me, 
 The county of my birth. 
 
40 VARIETY 
 
 I've been for many days among 
 
 New Hampshire's grander hills, 
 Where mountain winds have shrieked and sun^ 
 
 Above the ice-clad rills. 
 
 I love her mountains, every one, 
 
 And vales that lie between, 
 But lovlier shores beneath the sun, 
 
 My eye has never seen. 
 
 Seabrook lies full dark and drear, 
 
 Beneath a dripping sky, 
 While in the sullen night I hear 
 
 The whistling buoys' wierd cry. 
 
 Is it to warn the tempest-tossed 
 
 Away from treacherous shoals 
 That it wails, as wail the lost 
 
 The wrecked and ruined souls ? 
 
 The mighty main against the land 
 The ever changing nature's mood, 
 
 How typical of hfe they stand, 
 To give reflection food. 
 
 The Hampton hills, of gentle slopes, 
 Stretch back from Hampton river. 
 
 That runneth in and runneth out, 
 As run the tides forever. 
 
 For Hampton river's mouth is wild. 
 And changeable as cloudland, 
 
 But lo ! Like teeth its mouth is piled, 
 Across its shifting quicksand. 
 
 And as the toiling tugs at sea, 
 With measured motion creep. 
 
 Along the causeway by the lea 
 The swift electrics sweep. 
 
 But Neptune yields not easily 
 His sway at Hampton river, 
 
 He'll climb the stout piles noisily, 
 His bolts shall on them shiver. 
 
Carrie Cmma Carr Claflin. 
 
 at soob boifc anb motfjer, a faitfjful frienb. 
 
 Born March 31, i8bo. Died December 28, iq04 
 
 (See page 31.) 
 
VARIETY 41 
 
 And when the Storm King rides the main 
 
 Beware of Hampton's river, 
 Lest Neptune shall his own reclaim, 
 
 To have and hold forever. 
 
 Drive deep your piles with Titan stroke, 
 
 Brace well and spike together 
 For the dogs of the sea shall tear at the oak, 
 
 In the wild tempestuous weather. 
 
 •SO THESE HERE ELECTRICS 
 
 '* They've got these here electrics 
 
 A runnin' all around, 
 You can catch 'em any corner 
 
 An' go whizzin' into town. 
 
 An' it makes it mighty easy 
 
 For a poor suburbanite 
 To reach them 'ere emporiums 
 
 An' spend his little mite. 
 
 From Goose Corner to Bug Holler, 
 From Chick Street to Go Big, 
 
 From Sodom and from Jericho, 
 They run their whizzin' rig. 
 
 An' I swan to man I'm thinkin' 
 That the time ain't far away. 
 
 When they'll whiz along each cross road 
 A dozen times a day. 
 
 They're a mighty fine invention 
 
 For us poor suburbanites, 
 It's slickern grease to get ter town, 
 
 "When we want ter see the sights." 
 
42 VARIETY 
 
 31 A SEABROOK MYSTERY 
 
 A score of years have come and gone, 
 
 In Seabrook by the sea, 
 Since on a bright and sunny morn 
 * John Walton, with his dog and gun, 
 
 Went hunting o'er the lea. 
 
 But never since that day serene. 
 
 In Seabrook by the sea, 
 Has Walton or his dog been seen. 
 He vanished. like a fading dream. 
 
 Nor ever home came he. 
 
 They hunted high, they hunted low, 
 
 In Seabrook by the sea, 
 Purchance some hunted just for show. 
 For where he went some one must know 
 
 And where he hid might be. 
 
 Then to the seer in Hampton town, • 
 
 From Seabrook miles away. 
 Went some to Mistress Ellen Brown, 
 For second sight known all around. 
 
 To see what she might say. 
 
 " A grave in the slant of a gravelly hill. 
 
 In Seabrook by the sea, 
 His bones are there," quoth she, " and will 
 Be found some time, but not until 
 
 The bones of the others be. 
 
 For there are graves of other men, 
 
 In that hillside by the sea. 
 And one is new, while some have been 
 Long years upon that lonely fen, 
 
 And will be still," quofh she. 
 
 Upon the fens they searched in vain. 
 
 Along by the lonely sea, 
 'Till winter's rule and summer's reign 
 Full twenty times did wax and wane 
 
 In the tide of eternity. 
 
VARIETY 43 
 
 They in their shallow silent graves 
 
 Lay patiently and still, 
 Uncalled for by the roaring waves, 
 And hidden safe from human gaze, 
 
 Upon the wind-swept hill. 
 
 At last, the graders with pick and spade, 
 Of the road running down to the sea, 
 
 Came to the hill for gravelly grade. 
 
 One first did Walton's grave invade, 
 A luckless wight was he ! 
 
 The clothes beside his crumbling frame 
 Were the clothes John Walton wore, 
 But from his dead set jaws no name 
 Can ever brand his murderer's shame 
 Of twenty years before. 
 
 And that same digger with his pick, 
 
 On the hill beside the sea, 
 Dug forth another grave full quick 
 And then a third, whereat heartsick 
 
 From the gruesome hill fled he. 
 
 But the seer that lives in Hampton town. 
 
 From Seabrook miles away, 
 That bears the name of Ellen Brown, 
 Her fame has spread to the country round. 
 
 And thus has it come to me. 
 
 * Fictitious name. 
 
 32 OSSIPEE POCKET 
 
 We visited Ossipee Pocket this week. Some may be unkind enough to remark at this 
 point that we have visited many more, but let that pass. The school marm handed us the fol- 
 lowing, found in the sweepings,with three marbles, two cuds of gum and a safety-pin, and she 
 could only give a guess as to who wrote it : 
 
 In olden time, so runs the rhyme, 
 As travelers used to talk it, 
 
 From Ossipee all did agree 
 The road ran into a pocket. 
 
44 VARIETY 
 
 oo 
 
 Which ever way the traveler turned 
 He'd wish he'd gone some other, 
 
 No thoroughfare for him was there, 
 It made a nasty bother. 
 
 But now the pocket is ripped up, 
 And traveler traps no more, 
 
 For north or south or east or west, 
 It has an open door. 
 
 While from its high and sightly hill 
 The world lays spread to view, 
 
 The place should have another name. 
 How would Mount Look Off do ? 
 
 ^o THE COUNTY PRESS 
 
 I don't care much for foreign wars, 
 
 Or great affairs of state, 
 The news which interest me most. 
 
 Which I anxiously await, 
 Is what transpires at "Shattigee," 
 
 The news from " Barvelwhang," 
 " Whiteface " and " Skinner Corner " and 
 
 The noted " Stoneham " gang. 
 From " Jericho " and " Goshen " too. 
 
 From "Bear Camp" and "Dundee," 
 •'Dish Water Mills" and "Ballyhack," 
 
 It seems so good to me. 
 
 "Drake's Corner," "Taylor City," 
 
 "The Pocket" and "Pine River," 
 'Tis those I like to read about, 
 
 It kind of stirs my liver. 
 The folks I know Uve thereabouts, 
 
 The " Dick " and " Cropple Crown ; " 
 Old "Black Snout " rises in the west, 
 
 " Chocorua " looks down, 
 " Paugus " and " Passaconway," 
 
 And <* Wonolancet," too, 
 Stretch out along the northern sky , 
 
 And pierce the heavenly blue. 
 
VARIETY ■ 45 
 
 I like to get my weekly mail, 
 
 And read about the men 
 And women Brother Dorr has seen, 
 
 And what he's said of them. 
 Who went to Boston Saturday, 
 
 Or stopped the day before 
 And made the Pioneer a call 
 
 They never made before. 
 Or how Bill Thornet treed a coon, 
 
 Or how a rusty nail 
 Punched a square hole in Bub Smith's foot, 
 
 How William King broke jail. 
 
 Jim Jones' dog had to be killed, 
 
 And Peter Lattie's beans 
 Mysteriously walked off one night, 
 
 The pastor's social schemes, 
 The burning of Jim Abbey's barn, 
 
 The new road through Skeedee, 
 The remarks the Rev. Bumpus made 
 
 About his salary. 
 
 The regular matrimoaial gist 
 
 Ground by the county court, 
 Unmating the missniated ones. 
 
 While the devil holds the fort. 
 The news from " Tin Pot " alley, 
 
 '* Goose Corner " and *' Chicken " street, 
 " Potato " burrough and " Hedgehog" hill, 
 
 Just makes the tale complete- 
 
 You may think I care a lot about 
 
 Pink teas and Newport hops. 
 But I rather hear of handsome pigs, 
 
 And the prospect of the crops. 
 If Potts has shingled his old house, 
 
 Or Botts has dug a well, 
 Or Colonel Tabbs has giv-en the church 
 
 An elegant new bell. 
 
 I find it in my paper, and 
 
 It's what I'm looking for, 
 Dod gast your foreign lying news 
 
 Of pestilence and war ! 
 
46 VARIETY 
 
 Give me the good old county press, 
 For all your slurs and jeers, 
 
 'Tis there we get our money's Worth 
 For low ! these many years. 
 
 It jollies at our wedding feasts, 
 
 It briefly mentions births. 
 It sheds the sympathetic tear 
 
 That means the last of earth. 
 It cheers us on our trials, 
 
 It assists the lagging cause, 
 And compels the gang of plunderers 
 
 Of public funds to pause. 
 It is loved by wise and true men, 
 
 For the enemies it makes, 
 It deserves far better than it gets 
 
 And gives more than it takes. 
 
 34 * WHEN UNCLE JOE TAUGHT SCHOOL 
 
 The eye or memory looks back 
 
 Across the misty years. 
 To bygone times that ne'er return, 
 
 To scenes of mirth and tears. 
 
 Beyond the murmuring Saco, 
 
 From Jericho to Goshen, 
 He taught the young idea to shoot, 
 
 And stirred the Yankee notion. 
 
 His kindly smile, his serious look, 
 
 His nod of approbation, 
 His reprimand, 7ve dare 7iot brook. 
 
 That filled with consternation. 
 
 We knew when we had done our best. 
 
 We got his kind approval, 
 But shirking was good reason for 
 
 Our precipitate removal. 
 
VARIETY 47 
 
 He joined with us in summer sports, 
 
 And snowy winter days 
 Could never chill his interest 
 
 In all our pranks and plays. 
 
 But years have fled, the Saco flows, 
 
 Still murmuring, to the sea, 
 The boys and girls of other days, 
 
 Who knows where they may be ? 
 
 Yes, some live in the village still. 
 
 By Saco's murmuring tide. 
 Some sleep in peace upon the hill, 
 
 And some are scattered wide. 
 
 But here's good luck to all the crowd 
 
 Who yielded to the rule. 
 And drank from wisdom's open fount, 
 
 When Uncle Joe kept school. 
 
 I know the old man loves you still. 
 
 And trusts you, as of yore, 
 Hopes for you and believes in you. 
 
 And will forever more. 
 
 However far from Saco's vale 
 
 Your wandering feet may stray, 
 Rest sometimes and look back upon 
 
 The scenes of yesterday. 
 
 The village where old Moat keeps guard, 
 
 The white hills, high and cool, 
 The people of the old " lang sine " 
 
 When Uncle Joe kept school. 
 
 * Joseph Pitman, of Bartlett. taught 55 terms of school in the Saco Valley, beginning 
 * when he w as seventeen years of age. 
 
48 VARIETY 
 
 35 WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE 
 
 " We don't want to vote, 
 
 But, by gracious, if we do, 
 We want to know we have the right 
 
 To vote, as well as you ! " 
 
 Thus speaks the coming woman. 
 And who shall say her nay ? 
 
 For when a woman will, she will ! 
 So, brothers, clear the way ! 
 
 'Tis woman's right to earn her bread, 
 
 By any honest toil ; 
 To spin and weave, to scrub and bake. 
 
 To measure prints and oil. 
 
 And she has shown her skillfulness 
 
 In every human realm. 
 Oft' in domestic storm and stress 
 
 Her hand has seized the helm. • 
 
 And whereso'er the flag of truth 
 
 Has ever yet been set, 
 The woman's heart and woman's hand 
 
 Upholds that standard yet. 
 
 For woman at the cradle side 
 
 Baptizes with her love, 
 And woman to the vale of death 
 
 With us will ever move. 
 
 Then fling away that hateful bar, 
 
 That mars equality, 
 Give woman every human right, 
 
 Then may we all be free ! 
 
 So if they want to vote, 
 My brothers, clear the way, 
 
 Aud give to woman every right 
 That you enjoy to-day. 
 
AND OVER TIIK CRAVES THEV ARE MARCH I. \( 
 (See page 36.) 
 
VARIETY ' 49 
 
 36 HAMPTON RIVER BRIDGE 
 
 What have they done at the river mouth, 
 
 Where the marshes stretch away 
 'Till they reach the far off hazy hills, 
 
 Where the lambs in spring time play ? 
 
 What have they done at the river mouth, 
 Where the bars and shoals are shifting, 
 
 Where the curious folk of the sea disport 
 In the gray green waves uplifting ? 
 
 They have built a bridge at the river mouth, 
 
 And stretched a track upon it, 
 And the sea folk looked on innocently 
 
 Or slept in the depths as they done it. 
 
 ]5ut the fierce king that dwells in the sea, 
 He brought up his crew to the battle, 
 
 And the roaring storm raged over the bridge 
 Till it made the racked joints rattle. 
 
 And the old king wound his sinewy arms 
 
 Around the great logs pile driven. 
 And he yanked them out in his towering wrath 
 
 As he bellowed his rage to heaven ! 
 
 Then beware of the king of the deep green waves. 
 
 And if ever you trespass again. 
 Remember the power of his sinewy arms 
 
 And build as in fear of them ! 
 
 37 THE NEW YEAR 
 
 The old year dying, wreathed his face in smiles. 
 
 Goodby, old year, you've been a friend to me ! 
 Then fare you well, the new year with his wiles 
 
 Is here, I know not, friend or foe is he ? 
 
50 VARIETY 
 
 But friend or foe, newcomer, here's my hand, 
 I'll do by you as you should do by me, 
 
 I'll use you freely while in life I stand, 
 Or rest in you as in eternity. 
 
 How can I tell, or any other man, 
 
 What destiny confronts in this new year, 
 
 What fate may snare us in its shadowy hand. 
 
 What we may hope, or what the heart should fear 
 
 I shudder as I foot the perilous trail, 
 
 My hand draws back as from an unseen foe. 
 
 For Death lurks somewhere just within the veil, 
 But where and when God alone can know. 
 
 Then God give me to walk this new young year 
 Fearless, but thoughtful and striving for the right, 
 
 Give me to walk without conceit or fear, 
 
 W^alk firmly through the darkness as through light. 
 
 I make no boasts because a space of time 
 Has opened like the turning of a leaf, 
 
 I know my duty, there my joy I find, 
 And life's my opportunity, long or brief. 
 
 Goodby, old year, a smile was on your face, 
 
 A sunny day passed to an evening red, 
 You went in peace full of a hoary grace, 
 And here's my offering now that you are dead. 
 
 AS TO WATER 
 
 Water is good in its place, 
 
 But its place is the changeful sea. 
 
 And wherever the clouds of heaven bring 
 This water to you or me. 
 
 But water in railroad fares. 
 
 In oil or coffee or tea, 
 
 Water for stock for Bulls or Bears, 
 Is not the water for me. 
 
VARIETY 51 
 
 The leeches that bleed us o' nights, 
 
 The thieves " that infest the clay," 
 Sail their pirate ships by water rights 
 
 To the haven of boodler's bay ! 
 
 These pirate crews of the land 
 
 Sail their crafts in the fathomless sea 
 Of profits, that smell to heaven and 
 
 Outrival the *• heathen Chinee." 
 
 There'll come a time by and bye. 
 
 When the holy, stock-watering crew, 
 The pirates of finance and commerce will cry 
 
 To be spared, as their fate comes in view. 
 
 The warrior shall die by the sword, 
 
 At peace shall the peaceful one fall 
 But the crews of the pirates of finance and trade 
 
 Shall be drowned in their flood after all. 
 
 39 THE NEW MAN 
 
 The rats of the teaming mines have holes, 
 And the foxes of commerce burrow well 
 
 While the birds of fashion nest on high. 
 But where does the New Man dwell? 
 
 The man in whom reason sits enthroned, 
 The man of love, of faith, of power ; 
 
 The man for whom the ages groaned 
 In travail 'till his coming hour ! 
 
 This man shall scorn your caisioned walls. 
 Your skyward climbing, ravening dens 
 
 Your ghastly cities and reeking slums, 
 And your unkempt fields and fens! 
 
 But under his touch the earth will smile. 
 And every sea shall a message bring, 
 
 For man, who has dwelt a serf a while, 
 Shall forever dwell as a king ! 
 
52 VARIETY 
 
 And the world — this beautiful world of ours- 
 Shall discover its treasures rare, 
 
 And love shall abide and faith shall build, 
 And the God of Power shall be there. 
 
 And then shall the "Son of Man" appear, 
 As the clouds of the fables flee away, 
 
 And Justice shall wipe away each tear 
 In Heaven's millennial day! 
 
 40 THE ADVENT OF THE WHEEL 
 
 Once wearily I plodded along life's dusty ways, 
 
 I bore the heat and burden of the hvelong summer days ; 
 
 And the miles that stretched before me seemed like continents in length, 
 
 While in footsore, toilsome tramping I wasted all my strength. 
 
 But the gay and festive wheel, 
 Rubber tired and rimmed with steel, 
 With a ting-a-ling of its bell 
 Wakes the echoes of the dell; 
 And swiftly leaps to measure 
 Miles of heath and vale and plain. 
 Round about and back again — 
 Till the very joy of motion 
 Like a wind sprite of the ocean 
 Ihrills the dullest heart with pleasure. 
 
 Silent as the breathing wind. 
 Leaving leagues away behind ; 
 Swift as an arrow from its bow, 
 Coasting down tne hills we go ; 
 Bird and beast outstripped, surprised, 
 Wondering as they seek the cover 
 Of. the trees or nodding clover 
 What new steed has man been taming 
 In its knowing and its naming 
 Find their sharp wits exercised. 
 
VARIETY 53 
 
 What if now and then a tumble 
 Shakes our pride and keeps us humble, 
 Or we fly zip-bang together 
 In an effort to learn whither 
 T'other fellow meant to turn; 
 Sandy roads sometimes distress us, 
 Long smooth ways appear to bless us; 
 Farmers' dogs and stupid cattle 
 Make our wrathful souls to burn. 
 
 Now I race along the center of the soUd turnpike road, 
 Flashing on by dewy meadows, spinning through the piny wood, 
 Scaling heights that rise before me like a bird upon the wing. 
 And unless I bust a tire I can well afford to sing. 
 
 41 AUBURN 
 
 I saw the light of day there. 
 
 And that was all, 
 T yelled an infant yell there, 
 And staid a httle spell there, 
 Then vale and fare-you-well there 
 
 For that was all. 
 
 And still when I come back there 
 
 I love to call 
 And just exchange a greeting 
 With those who have been keeping 
 The memories of Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Safely withal. 
 
 How pleasant 'tis to find there 
 
 That one and all 
 Who knew us years ago 
 Are neither queer or slow 
 In they way they take to show 
 
 Good will not small. 
 
 Is there elsewhere a country 
 
 On God's green earth 
 Where hearts are e're more true 
 And seek to show to you 
 In kind ways not a few 
 
 Love's sterling worth ? 
 
54 VARIETY 
 
 42 MONADNOCK 
 
 I see you, old mount, in the midst of your wood, 
 With your summit cloud-crowned in the sun. 
 
 Standing boldly, majestically, where you have stood 
 Since the days of creation begun. 
 
 You saw the great trees of the forest arise 
 
 And tower in strength at your feet ; 
 You laughed, when the hurrying storm swept the skies, 
 
 And the wild tempest over you beat. 
 
 You saw the great trees of the forest lie low, 
 
 And a new forest rise in its place. 
 You stood by while centuries, measured and slow. 
 
 Worked their will upon Dame Nature's face, 
 
 I fear as I think of your numberless years 
 And the eyes that have sought you of old. 
 
 Of the loves and the hates and the joys and the fears, 
 That under your shadows were told. 
 
 I tremble with awe at the world you have seen, 
 
 Reaching back to the portals of time ; 
 At the thought of the ages that roll between 
 
 The date of your end and mine. 
 
 But you a mountain and I a man 
 
 Our mission was, each to be. 
 So stand still in your place and I will stand 
 
 In the place God gave to me. 
 
 43 MAN 
 
 One thought is ever with me, how can I best express 
 The dignity of manhood and life's own sacredness ? 
 Higher than all dogma, philosophy or creed, 
 Is the claim of human love and the call of human need. 
 
VARIETY 55 
 
 God dwells not in mysterious things that mind should fail to solve 
 In theories, the spiders' webs that cunning brains evolve, — 
 The Sinais and the Meccas, traditions of the past, 
 Were for those times and peoples in which their light was cast. 
 
 Why should I fight with phantoms and all those shades obscure 
 While human needs confront me and present wrongs endure? 
 While Christ, '' the poor and needy, " haunts street and garret dim, 
 How childish seems our flattery in temples named for him. 
 
 Why tell of "loaves and fishes " once to the people given, 
 Of glory to a master " away off there " in heaven. 
 While we stone the modern prophet 'and jail the modern Christ 
 And rear the tombs of martyrs that we helped to sacrifice. 
 
 I think Christ meant the temple and the altar should be MAN, 
 And that each should join its service was the simple gospel plan; 
 His sweet life sanctified it, but so may yours and mine 
 If we fill our proper places in the infinite design. 
 
 Not fearing men's devices or the hoodoos of the knaves 
 Who bind tradition's burdens on the trembling backs of slaves ; 
 But placing Love upon the throne with Reason at her side 
 What power shall overcome us or what can ill betide ? 
 
 44. ' TASTES DIFFER 
 
 The circus has its charms for some. 
 
 The evening concert on the lighted square ; 
 
 Baseball and football make, for others, fun. 
 But truth to tell, for these I do not care. 
 
 To sit absorbed in expert checker play. 
 
 Or listen to the click of ivory dice. 
 With cards and pool to while the time away, 
 
 I do not like, or any such device. 
 
 The ball-room and the stage together thrown. 
 With all their trappings and fine artful shams. 
 
 Find no responsive longings of my own ; 
 
 The "stocks" man finds me not among his "lambs. 
 
56 VARIETY 
 
 I love my home, my children and my wife ; 
 
 I love the friendship of my fellow men ; 
 I love the pleasant, comely things of life, 
 
 An equal vantage and a fearless pen. 
 
 I love to note the passing of events 
 
 Which prove that justice, truth and love grow strong, 
 That wisdom is at last the common sense ; 
 
 (Force reigned with folly and they both were wrong) ! 
 
 I love to taste a Uttle here and there 
 
 Of earthly blessings God designed to give; 
 
 Good food, good raiment, shelter and a share 
 Of ordered leasure while this life I live. 
 
 And dearly I should love in time to come. 
 When I have earned a time to call my own, 
 
 To see this world, each land beneath the sun. 
 And every sea below the starry dome. 
 
 Just to enjoy what God has made for man, 
 And learn more wisely to revere His name ; 
 
 As I spelled out His love in all His plan, 
 And saw the wisdom of His every aim. 
 
 45 THE PASSING OF THE YEAR 
 
 The earth in its ceaseless circles 
 
 Brings the New Year back to our door, 
 
 To hearts grown weary of striving, 
 To hearts that are heavy and sore. 
 
 Life ought to be happy and useful, 
 And labor should always increase ; 
 
 But alas for the toilers, forever 
 Who toil, while their scant stores decrease. 
 
 And alas for those poor standing idle. 
 
 While debts bear them down in the stream, 
 
 To begging, crime and the brothel. 
 To horrors that numb hke a dream. 
 
 Old Earth you are deaf to entreaty. 
 
 Indeed you are never to blame; 
 But couldn't you go out of business 
 
 If Ufe's to be ever the same .'' 
 

 Ap&^^ 
 
 NOW I RACK ALONG THE CENTER OF THE SOLID TL'RNPIKE ROAD. 
 
 (See page 52.) 
 
VARIETY 57 
 
 We strike in with such grand resolutions, 
 
 To be and to do and to dare ; 
 But a week at the longest and most of us 
 
 Must acknowledge defeat for our share. 
 
 Injustice stalks by in the highway, 
 
 While right edges on by the fence ; 
 Force gobbles the puddings and turkies, 
 
 While the weak gaze in hungry suspense. 
 
 It was thus with the year in its passing; 
 
 'Twil be thus for a twelve month more ; 
 Perchance 'twil be thus forever, 
 
 As it has been forever before. 
 
 I know there are more things that gladden, 
 
 And life without worry is good. 
 Faith that comes with food, clothing and shelter. 
 
 Is a faith that comes not as it should. 
 
 Be you pinched in the straight vice of poverty. 
 
 Rolled in the hard gutter of want, 
 Lean-limbed, hungry-souled and empty. 
 
 Loveless-eyed, hollow and gaunt. 
 
 And then if faith still remains with you, 
 
 Hope and love to the favored and fed. 
 Such faith is the pure coin of heaven, 
 
 Though reward may not come till you're dead. 
 
 46 THE LAY OF THE UNEMPLOYED 
 
 Empty is the poor man's barrel, 
 
 Every speck of flour is fled, 
 Happy thought, now softly whisper, 
 
 " Lord, give us our daily bread. " 
 
 Work shut down, the worker tramping, 
 " Vainly looking for a job, " 
 
 Starving little children crying; 
 Hear the poor wife sob. 
 
58 VARIETY 
 
 Hear the clink of golden millions, 
 Growing larger every day, 
 
 The President gets his $50,000, 
 But the devil is to pay ! 
 
 Homes are falling all around us, 
 Merchants driven to the wall; 
 
 Maidens sell their souls for mammon, 
 Did ye "see the sparrow fall?" 
 
 Ask ye " is there a God in Israel ? " 
 Rather ask " is manhood dead ? " 
 
 Man to man has been inhuman, 
 Else why lack for daily bread ? 
 
 Justice will not always slumber. 
 When he wakes, ye rich beware ! 
 
 If you fail to solve those problems. 
 Blood and rapine you shall share, 
 
 For your souls have swelled in pride, 
 Gold alone has been your trust, 
 
 Labor has been crucified. 
 
 Manhood trampled in the dust. 
 
 47 FREE SILVER 
 
 For a second time this season have the trees been dressed in ice clothes and the warm 
 rays of the sun have been playing wonderous tricks with the frost-laden boughs. Yesterday 
 the tree tops glittered more brilliantly than the gems in milady's jewel box, and when the sun 
 went down and the breeze came out the ice cracked from the limbs and fell with a tinkling 
 sound to the ground below. Although during the day the trees were a beautiful sight, they 
 were no less so when the evening luminary shed its bright light upon them. The icy branches 
 in spired the following lines : 
 
 The night had hung dark with the rain-clouds. 
 That followed the sleet and the snow, 
 
 But morning came full-orbed and glorious 
 As any a mortal could know. 
 
VARIETY 59 
 
 But cold with the breath of December, 
 
 And bitter frost filling the air, 
 The mints of Dame Nature were coining 
 
 Free silver enough and to spare. 
 
 Against the clear blue of the heavens. 
 
 Beside the white background of snow, 
 Hung pendent from bushes and branches 
 
 Such shapes as her handiwork show. 
 
 In spite of the doings of congress. 
 
 Of which there is much that is dark, 
 When Dame Nature strikes out for free silver, 
 
 She hits the bulls-eye of the mark. 
 
 And last night, as I witnessed the sunset. 
 
 O'er the hills of the west, bleek and cold. 
 As yellow as coin, "good in Europe," 
 
 The white was at par with the gold. 
 
 48 JUST ABOVE THE COLLAR BONE 
 
 " Why, my dear Christian friend," I remarked to a poetical friend of mine Tuesday, " you 
 look like the demon of Pluto. You are positively ill." " 'Tis nothing," he replied, with a 
 weak, wan smile. " I have been struggling with the muses all the morning." " Indeed, and 
 how many times did they throw you? " " Once out of three. Here is the result." And he 
 pressed a manuscript, containing the following, into my reluctant hand: 
 
 After the banks had busted, 
 After they cleared the wreck. 
 
 After the ball was over. 
 We got it in the neck. 
 
 The mills and shops and factories 
 Had stopped for funds, I expect. 
 
 But when again they started up, 
 We got it in the neck. 
 
 But rents are as high as ever, 
 Groceries and clothes are dear; 
 
 In the edge of the winter weather 
 What will the children wear ? 
 
60 VARIETY 
 
 A ten per cent, reduction 
 They trot upon the deck, 
 
 After the bankers' picnic 
 We got it in the neck. 
 
 So labor shoulders the burden 
 At capital's pittiless beck, 
 
 And struggles on with this millstone 
 Hung to its bleeding neck. 
 
 49 A CALL ON DAME CRICKET 
 
 I called on Dame Cricket quite early this morning 
 The grass was all dewy with gray cobwebs spread, 
 
 I rapped on the dry stump to give her a warning. 
 Dame Cricket peeped out of the hole for a bed. 
 
 "Chirp, chirp," said Dame Cricket, her scaly wings rustled 
 And like little black diamonds her beady eyes shone, 
 
 All over the stump top her progeny hustled, 
 I think though that old Mr. Cricket was gone. 
 
 " Mrs. Cricket, quoth I, you are black as Erybus, 
 And all of your children take after you quite. 
 
 Your chirp makes us shudder, you much terrify us. 
 Your shape casts a shadow within the deep night." 
 
 "Mr. Man," cried Dame Cricket, " too much you're intruding. 
 Your language uncivil, no lady should hear." 
 
 Then she lightly sprang o'er me, her long shanks protruding, 
 And a series of wingblasts cut into my ear. 
 
 Let me paint you this cricket, this black little cricket, 
 I'm sure I can't paint it half as black as it is. 
 
 For its swift speeding blackness was lost in the thicket. 
 And its musical wings disappeared with a whiz. 
 
VARIETY 6 1 
 
 50 TO THE CAPITALIST 
 
 You may keep your gold, my brother. 
 
 Dug out of God's great hills ; 
 You may keep your banks and counters, 
 
 Your railroads and your mills; 
 They vex God's earth with blistering bands, 
 They mar her face where a city stands, 
 They oopress the poor with their helpless hands 
 
 And their puny weakened wills. 
 
 But never on me, my brother, 
 
 Shall your yoke of usury fall, 
 My hand shall be free, my brother, 
 
 And open indeed to all, 
 And the hills and the vales of God's fair earth, 
 The far blue sky where the clouds have birth, 
 The stars that shine in the heaven's girth, 
 
 My very own, I call. 
 
 The wealth of the eye, my brother. 
 
 Of touch, sound, taste and smell. 
 The treasures of thought and fancy, 
 
 Such as no tongue can tell; 
 These are the riches that cheer me, 
 These are the creatures that hear me, 
 They come at my call, they are near me, 
 
 I know their value well. 
 
 I pray you, my burdened br(i)ther. 
 
 With shares and with stocks oppressed. 
 
 In folly dividing your baubles. 
 Filled with eternal unrest ; 
 
 Come back like a child to your mother. 
 
 She calls you as never another, 
 
 Become her defender, her lover, 
 The wealth of the Lord is best. 
 
62 VARIETY ' 
 
 51 THE HUNTERS 
 
 Do you ever think, who dwell in towns, 
 Mid its ceaseless turmoil and roar, 
 
 Of the wooded vale where the mountain frowns 
 On the river's silent shore ? 
 
 Where the wood life dwells in security, 
 
 'Neath the sun of a summer day, 
 Where the birds and beasts and fishes be, 
 
 And pursue their fearless way. 
 
 Ah ! well it is that the hunter's horn 
 
 Does never their haunt invade, 
 Or the hunter's dog or the hunter's gun. 
 
 Their souls to make afraid. 
 
 And every sort of life that lives 
 
 Goes roaming o'er earth or sea, 
 And hunts its prey, the good God gives. 
 
 Whatever that prey may be. 
 
 But of all the hunters, that roam the earth. 
 
 There is none like man so bold, 
 So pittiless, cruel and hard of heart. 
 
 So deadly his hands take hold. 
 
 For he reaches forth a hundred yards, 
 
 With a little hollow tube, 
 And he sets the cruel jaws of a trap 
 
 In the muskrat's sohtude. 
 
 The skimming water-fly hides his dart, 
 
 He wields the net and the snare. 
 For the winged, the finned and the furry tribe 
 
 There's no peace if he is there. 
 
VARIETY 63 
 
 52 THE DOG 
 
 When God creation's work laid out, 
 While yet the world was new, 
 
 He had a purpose fair, no doubt, 
 For all he brought to view. 
 
 But while He rested Satan fell, 
 
 With all his nasty crowd, 
 " Without " into the depths of hell, 
 
 W^ith howling long and loud. 
 
 And there, amid the cast-off throng, 
 The good book names them o'er, 
 
 The dog is first pronounced and strong 
 And shall be evermore ! 
 
 " Without are dogs and sorcerers " 
 
 And imps of low degree, 
 God never made the dog, I think. 
 
 The devil's own is he! 
 
 And when I reach St. Peter's gate, 
 
 If Peter lets me in, 
 I'll find no dogs in that fair land. 
 
 There are no dogs "within." 
 
 53 THE KNIFE AND THE SPEAR 
 
 Fingers were made before forks, they say. 
 
 As they daintily pick at the bone. 
 And our forebears ate soup with a crotched stick 
 
 From a chaldron of hollowed stone. 
 
 But man has advanced from that savage state. 
 
 Through many a fateful year. 
 And he now takes food in a way sedate 
 
 With a wonderful four-tined spear. 
 
64 
 
 VARIETY 
 
 And now with a four-tined spear eats he, 
 
 Be it beans or mush or pie, 
 And he scorns the knife that his fathers used. 
 
 Though he never can tell you why. 
 
 I'd as live's be stabbed with a knife, my son. 
 As empalled on a four-tined spear, 
 
 It isn't the tools, but the grub, my son, 
 That's worried me forty year. 
 
 54 THE MUSKRAT ANDTHE WOODCHUCK 
 AS WEATHER PROPHETS 
 
 Mr. Muskrat built his nest 
 
 Close by the water's brim. 
 And every weather sharp in town 
 
 They took their tips from him ! 
 
 Because they said the muskrat knows 
 How high the floods will rise, 
 
 Before the springtime comes again. 
 You bet, the muskrat's wise! 
 
 But he may know and he may not, 
 
 My son, you hear to me. 
 And pattern from the woodchuck 
 
 Or coon up in the tree ! 
 
 Then when the soft wind brings the rain, 
 
 And every brook runs high. 
 You'll laugh! You haven't built in vain, 
 
 Your house stands snug and dry! 
 
^^-^.'.In^^^.. 
 
 A BRICK-BUILT CITY LYING 'NEATH THE SUN." 
 (See page 111.) 
 
VARIETY 65 
 
 55 LITTLE PITCHERS' NOTES, No. i 
 
 Car Fares and Other Affairs. A Dun-Colored 
 Nag. A Philanthropist Who Finally Died. More 
 Pleasant Themes. 
 
 On my way to Sanbornville, Monday morning, October 
 25, as I sank into the only vacant seat in the car, and curi- 
 ously enough, found for my neighbor the same man who 
 rode up to Rochester beside me a year ago on a similar trip. 
 I could tell by the standing-room-only appearance that it 
 was bargain day with the railroad and it occured to me that 
 I would like to know just how much per mile my fellow 
 travellers were paying, not for publication of course, but 
 only just have a modest little blackboard at the end of the 
 car and as Thomas Smith, wood chopper, at seventy-five 
 cents per cord, paid his three or four cents per mile on a 
 "plebe" ticket, have his name, occupation and price flashed 
 before the passengers. Next, the Rev. Fiddle, D. D., on 
 his half fare or dead head rate. Then, as Judge Dough 
 Head squirms uneasily beside a horny fisted farmer bearing 
 an excursion or bargain ticket, pulled out his yellow colored 
 •'for advertising" mileage, have that, too, flashed on the 
 blackboard, together with the hard worked ''reporter," who 
 may be a pencil-pusher or a fifth cousin of an up-country 
 editor, whose paper is embelished with a last summer's 
 time table, which hasn't been changed for so long that it 
 might as well refer to travel in South Africa, bearing a trip 
 pass with special conditions as to baggage and accidents on 
 the back. This little diversion would relieve the tedium 
 while the conductor was siezing up his crowd and divert at- 
 tention from the sleepy gentleman who is trying manfully 
 to cut that functionary direct and when this ungentlemanly 
 
66 VARIETY 
 
 conduct fails, makes an effort to convince him that he paid 
 the train boy by mistake. Such people never make that 
 mistake, and "de boss of de train" knows it right well. The 
 people who were trying to patronize the road by standing 
 in the alley and out on the cinder-swept platform while they 
 mopped the soot from their faces and looked happy, remin- 
 ded me of the grand rush of prosperous purchasers to a de- 
 partment store when a sale of two-cent cotton handker- 
 chiefs, damaged corsets and rubberless suspenders was go- 
 ing on, fifth floor to the right, take the elevator, and I re- 
 marked to my last year's acquaintance that it was a pity 
 that public business couldn't be conducted according to 
 modern business methods more than it is. For in- 
 stance, there is known to be a deficit of eight or ten million 
 dollars a year in the post office department. Now, if just 
 before the fiscal year closes, the government would inaugu- 
 rate a bargain sale of postage stamps at say thirteen cents 
 a dozen, and throw in one where the purchaser is an old 
 friend, with a yellow kind for persons of influence or 
 those who have promoted the sale of them, to be 
 given free. Postal cards could be put up at this 
 bargain sale at five cents a dozen, ten for twenty- 
 five, and so on, and still leave a magin of profit. Wealthy 
 people and dead heads could stock up and the year would 
 close with no deficit and our statesmen could take comfort 
 in knowing that they were able financieers and the public 
 business was at last being conducted just like private 
 business. 
 
 On an unfenced space near the Dover depot, in front 
 of a Chicago beef house that furnishes Dover with its meat, 
 I saw a dun-colored, lank-geared, old plug with a stubby 
 tail, attached to a delivery wagon, leave his moorings and 
 veer around into the center of the grass patch. A chappie 
 with a white crushed hat, a coffin nail clinched in his firm 
 set lips, and an air of determination, made a break from the 
 sidewalk, cantered over to the poor old horse that was 
 
VARIETY 67 
 
 quietly feeding and minding his own business, grabbed him 
 by the bits and after yanking his poor old head around 
 quite heroically, leaped on the seat and belabored him back 
 to the beef warehouse, and as he disappeared inside to get 
 the reward, the old horse with sundry eloquent switches 
 of his stubby tail, plodded back again, and the passengers 
 smiled. 
 
 As I whirled toward Rochester, I passed the old ladies' 
 home now building at a cost of ten thousand dollars, the 
 gift of a Mr. Wentworth of Boston, who, I am told, be- 
 lieves in using his money to build his monuments while he 
 lives, personally selecting his beneficiaries and expending 
 his money. This is the correct way and when I get 
 through canvassing for the Pioneer and other papers I 
 shall do that way myself. It is such a comfort to know 
 that one's millions go to deserving parties who are poor, 
 but too honest to be rich. My friend told me a story of a 
 very rich man who had been thrifty and prudent and kept 
 an old farm of his father's, first, because he couldn't sell it, 
 and afterward, owing to the proximity of some mills, be- 
 cause a lot of folks seemed to want it, and finally sold small 
 chunks of it for large chunks of wealth and became rich, 
 and lived to enjoy the sensation till his relatives thought 
 he never would die. He bragged so much about being a 
 self-made man, it was feared that he had made himself in 
 such a way that he would outlast everybody else. But he 
 didn't, and when sympathizing friends asked his oldest boy 
 how much the old man left, he replied, with evident satis- 
 faction, that he left "every devilish cent." 
 
 Turning from the above to more pleasant themes, I ar- 
 rived at Sanbornville with two grips and a well-defined ap- 
 petite, left one of the grips and evidence of the appetite 
 at the Sanborn House (free) and went up through 
 Brookfield, stopping over night at John C. Pike's, the 
 same as last year. Mr. Pike reports that he has 
 taken two crops off a part of his land this year in 
 
68 VARIETY 
 
 spite of the partial failure. His potatoes were light; 
 if I remember right he ''sewed" 14 bushels and got eight, 
 but the second crop was better ; he had already taken off 
 nine two horse-loads and the land produces like that out in 
 Illinois, which a returning deponent averred yielded so 
 much wheat that they had to take off a crop of corn every 
 third year to reduce the richness. 
 
 The nicest house building this year in Wolfeboro is 
 that of Frank Hutchins at the Falls. It is very much like 
 the house spoken of in St. Mathew in one respect, as it is 
 founded on a rock, which it cost Frank a lot of large fifty- 
 two-cent dollars to blast out. When I quoted scripture to 
 him, he thought it was more like a blasted ledge than any- 
 thing else. It reminded me of BerUn, where the city auth- 
 orities had to go two miles up the gulch to find soil enough 
 for a grave yard. 
 
 "We didn't always live here," said a silver haired old 
 mother in South Wolfeboro. ''We owned a nice set of 
 farm buildmgs on a farm in Alton, but were burned out." 
 "Insurance.?" "No, and that is a peculiar part of it. 
 Husband was going away to be gone some time and I asked 
 him if he hadn't better get the insurance, which had just 
 lapsed, renewed. 'I am never afraid with you at home, ' he 
 said and went away. While he was gone, one evening, the 
 hired boy came in and set down by the stove; a moment 
 later an unaccountable roaring filled my ears, and I looked up 
 to see the face of the boy as white as a ghost. 'The barn 
 is all afire, ' he shouted, and rushed from the house. The 
 house, barn, sheds, all went. The accumulations of years, 
 and here we are, but that loss was as nothing," said the 
 poor woman almost sobbing. "When poor Mamie died, 
 twenty, our idol, it seemed as though I couldn't have it so, 
 but God took her ; with never an unkind word, gentle and 
 pleasant to everyone." I don't know why it is, but I hear 
 these little life stories every day and all impotent to help, 
 but it teaches me that human sorrows and human joys are 
 largely the same, and "one touch of nature makes the 
 whole world kin." 
 
VARIETY 69 
 
 56 THE VANDAL'S HAND 
 
 Among the sun-kissed summits, 
 
 Of the mountains that I love, 
 
 The vandal's hand its dastard work has done. 
 
 The same are all the sky tints. 
 
 In cloud-land just above, 
 
 But the forests as they used to be are gone ! 
 
 Like a moth-eaten garment 
 
 Seem the breasts that once were green, 
 
 Those broad shoulders that pressed against the sky! 
 
 Where ax and fire has bared them, 
 
 Their nakedness is seen ! 
 
 In brokeness and ashes there they he! 
 
 Oh ! Years of rain and sunshine. 
 
 Come, hide these ghastly stones 
 
 Beneath another covering of green. 
 
 The poet, yea, and nature, 
 
 A'nd all creation groans 
 
 Until Time's softer hand shall intervene. 
 
 57 LITTLE PITCHERS' NOTES, No. 2 
 
 A Flood of IVlemories, Anent H. W. Blair. 
 Around the Ossipees. Prof Allard and Sleepy 
 Hollow. Adams' Ornamented Stone Wall in 
 Sandwich. A Hole in the Mountain. 
 
 As I take up the pencil, I inadvertently swiped from 
 the new postmaster at Center Ossipee,a flood of memories, 
 and so forth, comes over me. If this meets the eye of the 
 above-mentioned postmaster, I would say: "In the future 
 tie a string on your lead pencil and fasten it to some sta- 
 tionary object — a block of paper wouldn't do." 
 
70 VARIETY 
 
 Up in Pleasant Valley I stopped over night with a 
 gentleman who served on a jury at Ossipee Corner the year 
 that C. A. Sulloway was running for congress the first 
 time, and Brother Blair was looking over his fences under 
 the impression that he was running for the United States 
 senate. Ossipee Corner, with the session of the court and 
 half a dozen politicians on its hands, was one grand whirl 
 of excitement, and as my friend was gazing on the madden- 
 ing crowds, a tall, fine-looking gentleman, who might have 
 been improved by a hair cut, placed his arm fauiiliarly around 
 his shoulder and begged of him to overlook such rudeness 
 in a stranger and take a walk. 
 
 ''The fact is," said the big man, "I'm lonesome and 
 want some one to talk to." 
 
 Think of it ; lonesome at Ossipee Corner in court time. 
 
 "Well," said my friend, 'Sve walked out to the sub- 
 urbs, and the tall stranger was true to his word — he talked. 
 I mistrusted he could in the first place. He seemed to re- 
 gard me asa encyclopoedia of information in reference to Car- 
 roll county politics, and as we neared the hotel, on our re- 
 turn, he asked me candidly if I knew Henry W. Blair per- 
 sonally. 'No, stranger,' says I, I don't know Blair person- 
 ally, but my opinion is, that, as to the senate, he doesn't 
 stand any more chance than a louse in purgatory. The 
 tall man wrung my hand warmly. 'Thank you, my friend, 
 thank you ; ' and with that he whipped out a card case and 
 presented me one. After he had gone in search of further 
 information, I looked at the card. It read: 'Henry W. 
 Blair.' I am keeping it among my souvenirs." 
 
 The moral is this : When talking with strangers and 
 chance acquaintances, be honest and frank and cheerful, 
 and they will respect you for it. 
 
 The past week I have been around the Ossipee moun- 
 tains again. My kind friend, Lon Moody, rendered me 
 considerable assistance with his little gray mare in ascending 
 and descending the mountains of Tuftonboro and nearly to 
 
VARIETY 71 
 
 Smoky Hollow on the road to Melvin Village. There is an 
 elderly gentleman living here, named Allard, who was a 
 professor in several prominent educational institutions, in 
 Massachusetts, I believe, until his failing eyesight com- 
 pelled him to relinquish it. I became eyes for him one 
 evening, at my host Allard's, in wading through the mur- 
 derous sensations of the daily press. 
 
 We sometimes say, as we see the papers loaded with 
 this sort of matter day after day, that the world is growing 
 worse. We do not stop to consider the millions of good, 
 well-behaved people — like your folks and my folks — who 
 never figure in such notorious cases, and we do not consid- 
 er the great advance in methods of collecting and dissemi- 
 nating news. Practically the whole world lays open before 
 us at our breakfast table, up to midnight of the night be- 
 fore. And once a week the Pioneer comes home from the 
 postoffice freighted with the weal and woe of Carroll coun- 
 ty. No one need blame anybody but themselves if they are 
 not well informed. 
 
 What I started to say was, that Prof. Allard has named 
 this delightful little suburb of Melvin Village ''Sleepy Hol- 
 low," and as it is only smoky part of the time, while I 
 should judge it was sleepy all the time, I think Brother Al- 
 lard's name will stick. 
 
 Did you ever see the massive stone wall, wide enough 
 for a coach and four to traverse the top, built of split gran- 
 ite by the late Isaac Adams, at Sandwich Lower Corner.? 
 It is one of the sights of Carroll county, as prominent as 
 Ordination Rock or the Washington Boulder. Mr. Adams 
 built it mainlv to employ people out of work. He also 
 planted hundreds of acres of pine trees in this neighbor- 
 hood and set out several fine orchards. At the upper end 
 of his great wall he erected statuary representing two dis- 
 tressful females, who seem to be in some sort of a predica- 
 ment, one of them evidently right from the bath tub, with- 
 out a rag of clothing on, while her metallic hair is hanging 
 
72 VARIETY 
 
 down her back. Her head is modestly jammed in the folds 
 of the other lady's clothing, and on the whole I think she 
 appears better than that horrid bacchante creature that the 
 daily press exposed so nobly some time since. 
 
 Friday morning the ground was white with snow for 
 the first time this year, and when the clouds bioke 
 away in the afternoon and all day Saturday as I journeyed 
 down the valley of the Bearcamp river toward Ossipee Val- 
 ley, the sight of the Sandwich range of mountains was 
 grand beyond description, and it almost made me long to 
 linger longer, even if I did not make a cent. 
 
 But the spirit of commercialism was upon me to bring 
 a knowledge of the Pioneer to the heathen who sit in 
 darkness, and so I turned my back on the grand sight and 
 *'clim" up into the pocket of the Ossipee mountains, so to 
 speak. That is, I went out towards Roberts' mills 
 two or three miles in company, part of the way, with the Rev. 
 Charles W. Helme. Mr. Helme is laboring in a very stony 
 field, and Little Pitchers might make it still stonier by flippant 
 and sarcastic remarks, but God knows, the poor people who 
 live in this hole in the mountains have a hard enough time 
 of it, and I am glad a minister is found who will try and 
 ameliorate their condition and rough it with them. 
 
 58 CORiN ON THE COB 
 
 Many users of corn now prefer to have it " canned on the cob " In gallon cans, and if they 
 want to pay for the cobs, lor the sake ot gnawing it off, I'm willing, but " 'tain't for me," as 
 the Frenchman remarked. 
 
 By gar ! P'raps you tink I wants ma corn 
 
 Jus' same one big fat coon, 
 Dat sly fellah 'at comes 'round 'bout night, 
 
 Wen de field's all light by de moon. 
 
VARIETY 73 
 
 You tink ah'm hedge hog, by gar! 
 
 Well I guess dat ain't me, 
 Ah likes ma corn bile jus' same pea soup 
 
 An' eat with a beg-beg spoon ! See ? 
 
 Dem fellahs dey got de money to burn, 
 
 P'raps dey ken pay for de cobs, 
 But w'en I buy corn, by gar! I want corn, 
 
 De res' I give to my hogs ! 
 
 59 LITTLE PITCHERS' NOTES, No. 3 
 
 An Acquaintance who wanted to pull my boots 
 off with his teeth. Redstone Granite. Fryeburg's 
 Ennui. A gentleman who has visited Heaven 
 and HelL "Seven to Eight " Miles to Porter. 
 The Country Parson of Parsonsfield, " Middle 
 Road." 
 
 The past week has given us a complete gamut of New 
 England weather, leaving nothing to be desired, in fact, I 
 should never have thought of asking for most of the 
 samples we have had, illustrating the fact, that the boss of 
 the weatl;ier bureau is willing to provide us more than we 
 ask or think. 
 
 I renewed many acquaintances in Conway while mak- 
 ing a cursory trip through the different parts of the town, 
 and found some new ones. Out near the Moat Mountain 
 House I was heartily greated by the representative of a 
 well-known summer boarding house, who endeavored to 
 pull my boots off with teeth as I was leaving the grounds. 
 
74 VARIETY 
 
 probably because he desired me to remain a while. The 
 house would perhaps be better known but for the aforesaid 
 representatives, as the reporters of the mouncain journals 
 seemed distinctly averse to his attentions and wouldn't en- 
 ter the grounds. As for me, I always go in where they 
 keep a dog, so that the dear people who take this way to 
 show their courtesy to strangers need labor under no mis- 
 apprehension as to the value of a dog for defensive pur- 
 poses. The dog I refer to, doesn't even know the difference 
 between neighbors and strangers, and bites them indiscrim- 
 inately. Still it is a fine thing to keep a dog — except when 
 the tax assessor comes around. It is a pity that the amia- 
 ble creatures, with their concilitory ways and sweet and 
 courteous salutations, should be taxed at all. 
 
 I visited the Redstone quarry and there learned that 
 orders have been received which will keep the works run- 
 ning all winter, which will be good news to Conway people 
 who have been expecting a complete shut-down. This 
 granite is one of the finest for monumental work and pre- 
 sents a fine appearance when polished, though the grain is 
 not so compact and durable as the black granite. Thous- 
 ands of tons are annually ground up for the building of 
 streets, and thousands of paving blocks are also shipped 
 from this quarry. 
 
 I made a brief visit to Fryeburg with Mr. P. H. Potter, 
 friends S. W. Fife, Esq , and John Weston. Fryeburg 
 wears that air of aristocratic ennui which makes it a typical 
 New England academy town. 
 
 I also met a gentleman who told me he had visited 
 heaven and hell, and described them in the conventional 
 way, but when I pinned him for information regarding rel- 
 atives and others who are at present supposed to be stop- 
 ping in one or the other of these famous resorts, he could 
 give me no practical information. He said he prayed for 
 the privilege of going there, and I presume he made such a 
 piece of work about it that the petition had to be granted 
 
VARIETY 75 
 
 to keep peace in the family. As he is one of a thousand I 
 will send his address to any one who may wish further in- 
 formation, on receipt of two cents for return postage. 
 
 Some one told me that it was seven or eight miles from 
 Fryeburg to Porter, and I struck out in that direction with 
 a vague, indefinable feeling that I must hold myself in or I 
 should get there too soon, but after I had travelled seven 
 miles through Brownfield, up hill and down dale, and found 
 three occupied houses and a school house, and arrived at a 
 lone guideboard which informed me that Porter was still 
 ten miles away, I decided that Brownfield was a great 
 country. My plan being to take in Porter, Parsonsfield, Ac- 
 ton and Newfield, I guess the hills wont give out to any 
 alarming extent yet. Many of the people have a 
 habit of planting their domicils at the end of lanes, in from 
 the roads some 25 or 50 rods, which while not open to the 
 objection of a civilized christian keeping a half domesti- 
 cated wolf on his premises, is still a source of anoyance to 
 peddlers and newspaper men, and I presume the next time 
 I come around the matter will be attended to. I just 
 thought I would speak about it. 
 
 Today, Sunday, is a beautiful sunshiny day, such a one 
 as my host, the weather prophet, says is a promise of 
 a howling snow storm for tomorrow — charming prosepct. 
 I have attended the old box-pewed church at Parsonsfield 
 (Middle Road) today and listened to a Thanksgiving ser- 
 mon by Rev. Mr. Smith of Freedom. I have heard the re- 
 cipients of $4000 salaries in some of our large cities who 
 could not improve on this back country sermon, and I was 
 sorry when I learned that this was to be his farewell ser- 
 mon at Parsonsfield, as there seems to be a people there 
 who appreciate good preaching. 
 
76 VARIETY 
 
 60 FOUR GUV'NERS 
 
 They're a boomin' big in Freedom town, 
 
 With style enough for ten, 
 They've corralled four guv'ners of renown. 
 
 Four great and doughty men. 
 
 That's what the elder said they was, 
 
 An' faith, I guess he knew, 
 " They stand as pillers of our laws, 
 
 An' push our mandates through." 
 
 But when I seen them fellers there. 
 
 It took me by surprise ; 
 They want no bigget'n other folks, 
 
 An' didn't look as wise 
 
 As some folks I've seen prancin' around 
 
 An' blowin' out hot air. 
 Whatever made them guv'ners 
 Just beats me, I declare. 
 
 I rather guess the real big men, 
 
 That's runnin' our machine, 
 Keeps out of sight, but pulls the ropes 
 
 That shifts the changin' scene. 
 
 But it must be quite comfortin' 
 
 To prance around in style. 
 An' show the folks their guv'ners, 
 
 While the big bosses smile. 
 
 I wish the horney fisted men, 
 
 Whose toil in every field 
 Brings harmony out of chaos 
 
 An' makes earth's problems yield. 
 I wish them men had holt the ropes, 
 
 An' run 'em for a while ; 
 We'd keep our guv'ners for biz, 
 
 An' not so much for style. 
 
VARIETY ^"J 
 
 61 LITTLE PITCHERS' NOTES, No. 4 
 
 The Beautiful Snow. . Places I Have Visited. 
 Pine River Poetry. Dr. Dearborn and Dr. Bill 
 Parsons. 
 
 In the Drift, January 4, 1905. 
 
 The beautiful snow is two feet deep and still falling in 
 this neck of the woods and for once Little Pitchers has 
 crawled into his hole and pulled the hole in after him, and 
 as I can't exist without doing something, I herewith drop 
 you a few lines to let you know, etc. 
 
 I have visited ''Pork Hill," ''Middle Road," "Drake's 
 Corner," "Taylor City," "Pine River" and vari- 
 ous other well-known and populous centers hereabouts. 
 Passing on the road by Province Pond and the foot of Get- 
 chell mountain, upon whose summit hangs the clothes-line 
 that seperates New Hampshire from Maine, the birthplace 
 of Brother Dorr of the Pioneer. The house is orone to de- 
 cay somewhat, and the place is, I presume,like a good many 
 others in this section, held merely for speculative purposes 
 by lumbermen or parties looking for prospective sum- 
 mer residences. I know a place of this kind, near Taylor 
 City, that sold recently for four hundred dollars with fifty 
 acres of land and a house and barn in fair condition, with 
 plenty of fruit and good water. Luther Neal was the pur- 
 chaser, and it would make some one a very pleasant sum- 
 mer home, as from its door-yard is an elegant view of Mount 
 Washington towering in the north-western sky forty miles 
 away. 
 
 Speaking of Pine river, reminds me of the hundreds of 
 giant hard pines that stood on the Pine river plains between 
 
yS VARIETY 
 
 Duncan lake and the foot of Green mountain. Until the heavy 
 snow fall in November last, that worked such havoc with the 
 telephone and telegraph wires all through this section, when 
 in great numbers they were borne to the earth, throwing 
 up great mounds of earth as they fell. In the following 
 blank verse I have treated the subject with great freedom 
 and poetic license. I can write blanker verse than this, 
 but I won't, for fear Governor McLane might try to cap- 
 ture me for New Hampshire's poet lauriate and chuck me 
 on his staff as a colonel, and my limited income won't per- 
 mit me to squander the amount necessary to buy epauletes 
 and sword and the necessary regalia. I could stand the 
 feed all right, but no hand for dress parade. Here are the 
 verses : 
 
 The Monarch of Pine River Plains 
 
 I've stood here on this sandy soil 
 
 Where the uneven grindings of a glacial age 
 
 Invite no tiller's plow. Where here and there 
 
 A wandering boulder from the mountain slopes 
 
 Has strayed and stayed upon these barren plains. 
 
 The fierce winds from Chocorua have battled me. 
 
 I've shook defiance in their roaring face 
 
 With limbs like fists. 
 
 I've stood here when a seething flame, 
 
 Like furnace fires, has swirled and roared around me. 
 
 I have not flinched. 
 
 For men have come and lived and died and gone. 
 
 The years have sped on, one by one. 
 
 And winter's cold and summer's heat 
 
 Have left their impress in the heart of me. 
 
 But when the east wind with its laden breath 
 
 Of moist but freezing snow erst-wile came on, 
 
 I fought a losing battle and my last. 
 
 Idid not fear the north wind or the west, 
 
 I did not fear the seasons or the flame; 
 
 I faced each foe undaunted 'till the last. 
 
VARIETY 7c 
 
 But when the east wind came with white winged masses 
 
 Catching at my needly mane 
 
 And hanging, hanging 'till they bore me down at last. 
 
 Then lost I heart, and as to earth I fell, 
 
 My feet, buried deep in the gravel beds, 
 
 Heaved up my monument among the rustling scrub oaks 
 
 And withe-like birches, that grow up in a day 
 
 And perish in a night. 
 
 I've had my day and it has been a long one, 
 
 But my time to fall has come. 
 
 What wind and fire and storm could not do, 
 
 Snow, clinging tenaciously and bound by frost, has done ! 
 
 The monarch bows at last ! 
 
 There is something sad and pathetic in the passing of 
 the giant forest trees, as there is in the passing of the fa- 
 miliar personahties of our one-time friends. John M. 
 Drake of Pine River, Postmaster Whitaker of North Con- 
 way and Dr. Dearborn of Maplewood are among those that 
 we readily call to mind in this connection. 
 
 Of Dr. Dearborn it was said, that when he found an ac- 
 count on his books for medical services against some one 
 whom to press payment would cause hardship, he would 
 draw his pencil through the account with the remark: 
 "There, that pays that." 
 
 This reminds me of a well-known Manchester physi- 
 cian. Dr. "Bill" Parsons. Some one asked him what his 
 rates were, and he replied: ''Well, if you are poor, give me 
 a dollar a visit." "But, if I am not poor," persisted his ques- 
 tioner. ''Why then, my rate," says Dr. Bill, "will be one 
 dollar and fifty cents." Like most doctors, he tempered 
 the wind to the shorn lamb, and very properly charged ac- 
 cording to means. 
 
 Speaking of this, reminds me of old pedler Cooper of 
 Colebrook, N. H,, who used to have a string of dogs tied 
 to his cart and as he went along the road, would inquire of 
 
80 VARIETY 
 
 good housewife, who didn't seem to be possessed of the 
 luxury of a dog : *' Be ye poor ? If ye are cut ye off a dog, 
 
 and if ye are d n poor, cut ye off two." A dog is a 
 
 great solace in poverty. If worse comes to worse, you can 
 make a chowder of him. 
 
 62 A NAME SO SMALL 
 
 I was at North Conway one day and, while passing along by and below the towering cliffs 
 on the west side that cast their long shadows atjiwart the valley in the westward sinking sun, 
 I had one of my spasnis, and the following was the melancholy result. 
 
 A thousand feet in the air 
 The great wall stands, 
 
 And I bow down before it 
 With helpless hands. 
 
 In a million years 'twas made, 
 
 And then one day, 
 'Twas given the name of a man, 
 
 Now turned to clay ! 
 
 Better to never have named 
 
 Yon towering wall. 
 Than hang to its noble crown 
 
 A name so small ! 
 
VARIETY 8l 
 
 63 ANOTHER OF CLAFLIN'S RAMBLES 
 
 The Northwood Turnpike and how it was Sur- 
 veyed. One of the Pinkham Family. The Hin- 
 doo Machine Regulates the Weather. 
 
 In going up the valley of the Lamprey river from Ray- 
 mond, about half a mile beyond J. Albert Whittier's, one 
 turns to the left and crosses a bridge which was carried away 
 by the flood of two years ago and begins the long ascent,which, 
 passing through South Deerfield on a high and ascending 
 ridge, terminates in Leavitt's Hill, and still further in 
 Mount Delight, near the line of Allenstown. I say one 
 begins the ascent, having done so, I turned abruptly to the 
 right and went down into one of the side valleys of the 
 Lamprey, parallel with the aforesaid ridge. There is a 
 road running through this valley which nobody seems to 
 know the name of, at least, I asked a number, and they 
 could not tell me. For the information of those who do 
 not know, I will say that it is not Deerfield Avenue, or But- 
 ternut Park. I have it on unimpeachable authority, that 
 the real, old, original name is Pig street. 
 
 Speaking of the Lamprey river, I have been told that 
 it had its source in the Pawtuckaway ponds, but this is a 
 mistake. It rises among the hilltops back of Blake's hill, 
 in Northwood, and flows down by Coffee town, James city, 
 where is a fine water power, by the Newmarket mills into 
 Great Bay. 
 
 At Deerfield Centre I made the acquaintance of Rev. 
 C. W. Nelson, a whole-souled Methodist preacher, who al- 
 ways has an extra plate on his table for the unexpected 
 newspaper man or other guest. Mr. Nelson was born in 
 Hebron, N. H., near the beautiful Newfound lake, and 
 
82 VARIETY 
 
 neighbor to War-Governor Nathaniel S. Berry, whom he 
 said " he remembered ever since he could remember any- 
 thing, and," he added, *'a nobler man never lived." There 
 are quite a number of Swedeslocated on farms in Deerfield, 
 but still, there are many farms, with or without buildings, 
 awaiting steady and industrious workers. One road con- 
 tained no less than six farms, only two of which are occu- 
 pied. The writer and journalist, G.Waldo Browne of Man- 
 chester, owns one of these farms, where I believe he was 
 born, and rumor has it, that he proposes this summer to 
 come here and try farming. I think I will call around 
 about haying time and see how he gets on. A friend of Mr. 
 ' Browne, Martin W. Hoyt, lives out near Deerfield moun- 
 tain, in a beautiful country home with his pleasant family 
 in quiet seclusion. An omniverious reader. ( I sold him 
 six papers for a year and he had many others.) He is col- 
 lege bred and has something of a reputation as a writer, 
 and he is a pleasant man to meet, even if one does have to 
 talk to him through a dinner horn. 
 
 I called at the country boarding house and wayside inn, 
 where *'ye editor" of the Gazette first became interested 
 in his future efficient helpmate, on the old tnrnpike road 
 through Northwood, at the time the telephone line was be- 
 ing built through the town.. He was superintending the 
 work and she was spending a few weeks there recovering 
 from a serious illness. Speaking of this turnpike road, re- 
 minds me of what my friend, Chas. L. Pinkham near the 
 ''Ridge" pole of the county, told me about its construc- 
 tion. It seems that in the early days there was a consid- 
 erable rivalry between Deerfield and "Nottingham's 
 Northwoods" for the location of the turnpike between 
 Portsmouth and Concord. The surveyors who came 
 through Northwood had instructions to put the mile stones 
 a mile and twenty rods apart, which made the apparent dis- 
 tance a little less than through Deerfield, so Northwood 
 g ot the turnpike. 
 
VARIETY »3 
 
 Mr. Pinkham lives in hearty country style in a sub- 
 stantial set of buildings, built exclusively by himself, and I 
 violate no confidence when I say that he is one of those, 
 all too few people who believe that farming pays in New 
 Hampshire. He makes it pay, and his secret is very sim- 
 ple. He takes good papers, keeps posted, raises cattle, 
 sheep, berries, butter, eggs, etc., does not keep unnecessary 
 horses, and stays at home about his business. Winter 
 storms and dull days find him in his hoop shop, and he be- 
 lieves in juniper husks in the pastures, if burned about 
 once in eight or ten years, keeps the pasture in good con- 
 dition for sweet feed. One of Mr. Pinkham's ewes presen- 
 ted him with three lambs a while ago, that will bring him 
 five dollars apiece the latter part of April, right at the barn, 
 if I remember his statement correctly. I have almost de- 
 cided to hunt up an abandoned farm and move my interest- 
 ing family onto it, instead of going to the Klondike. 
 
 Speaking of the Pinkhams. There were three brothers 
 came over from England and settled in Massachusetts, I^ew 
 Hampshire and Maine. Others may have come over, but 
 these are all I have heard about. And I think Lydia E. 
 Pinkham of Lynn, Mass., belongs to this family. 
 
 The morning I called on Dr. D. E. Dudley of North- 
 wood Ridge, the heavy clouds were drifting over that 
 tableland in a very threatening manner, and when I spoke 
 my fears to the venerable doctor, he smiled and told me he 
 would start up his curions Hindoo praying machine and 
 see if we could not get fair weather. I presume he did, 
 for in a few hours it came off bright and clear and the 
 north winds drove the clouds away. I did not see the ma- 
 chine, which he says is used extensively by the Hindoos 
 to regulate the weather, and other curious mementos of the 
 doctor's extensive travels in India and the far East. I urged 
 him to place the machine on exhibition for the information 
 of the public, but he is disincUned to do so owing to the 
 sensitiveness of some who might feel hurt by the introduc- 
 tion of anything which might in the least savor of rivalry. 
 
84 VARIETY 
 
 I had just left the gentleman headed for Mt. De- 
 light with a wagon-load of milk cans from the Leavitt's hill 
 creamery, when I came across the crookedest mortal I ever 
 met, with the crookedest stick I ever saw to walk with. 
 No camera fiend would ever dare to aim a Kodak at that 
 man, and I did not wonder that he was once pulled in as 
 being teetotally paralyzed. He looked it every inch, and 
 was apparently trying to fall down and could not. I en- 
 gaged him in conversation and tried to sell him a few news- 
 papers, but he shook me off, and was still shaking as I 
 tripped lightly through the mud towards Highlands postof- 
 fice. If his eye should meet this little essay, I hope he will 
 not feel offended if I suggest to him a course of treatment 
 from the Christian scientist class over at Manchester, not 
 mentioning any name of course, as I have no personal 
 grudge against them. 
 
 At the home of Mrs. F. J. White, in South Deerfield, 
 I saw a picture representing a nice looking young lady of 
 one hundred, who was born January 28, 1798, and celebrat- 
 ed her birthday with friends from far and near at Merri- 
 mack, Mass., last January. Beside her were numberless 
 and varied presents. Her name is Mrs. Sally Weed. 
 
 Over at Candia Island I struck up the acquaintance 
 about three years ago of a gentleman who came co 
 this country from Canada many years ago, by the name of 
 John C. Smith. Misfortune was his lot, and upon his de- 
 cease, about a year ago, he left nothing behind but his rela- 
 tives and a pair of number ten boots of doubtful value. I 
 referred feelingly to this in one of my business letters to 
 the Gazette about that time, and supposed the matter had 
 been suitably attended to, but, not withstanding several ob- 
 ituary notices sent by the postmaster at East Candia, his 
 papers still come regularly to his former address at that 
 place,and as the postmaster does not know just where to for- 
 ward them, I will say, that Mr. Smith is still very dead, 
 and they might as well be discontinued. 
 
VARIETY 85 
 
 64 AN EASTER HAT 
 
 The Writer has an Interesting Time of it, and 
 Cuts Quite a Figure. 
 
 I was quietly eating my supper at the boarding house 
 on the Farr Hill road in this village last Saturday night 
 when a casual remark by one of the boarders arrested my 
 attention and as this is the first time my attention was ever 
 arrested I trust I may be excused for telling about it. The 
 remark was commonplace enough. The young man who 
 sells albumns and has a pair of traingular side whiskers 
 spoke up in a tone that carried a deal of meaning to every- 
 one in the dining room, although he was critically eying the 
 plate of large flat beans immediately in front of him at the 
 time, and announced that tomorrow was Easter. This, in 
 and of itself, would not have caused any uneasiness on my 
 part, but when Grubbins, who sits at the end of the table 
 and has to do most of the ''thank you" business, chipped 
 in the information that he saw Cadaver, the drug clerk, 
 sneaking up the back stairs to his room with a large hat box 
 the day before, and that worthy colored up and turned the 
 subject to Spanish affairs, the horrible truth flashed over 
 my mind that I was still wearing my last winter's bonnet — 
 and tomorrow was Easter. Now I don't know much about 
 the technical significance of this blessed day I have never 
 raised the question any more than I would the other ques- 
 tion why it falls just when it does, but whether it is raised 
 or not, it usually becomes a question of rising. Millinery 
 rises. Spring hats, bonnets and feathers rise, and hard 
 working and poorly paid masculinity also is forced to rise to 
 the occasion, for this is the time of year when, in this 
 latitude, people are expected to bloom out in all the hues of 
 
S6 VARIETY 
 
 the rainbow. This is partly owing to reHgious custom and 
 largely to the exuberant and hopeful scheming of the fair 
 sex, who take advantage of the "rise," so to speak, to 
 stock up for the summer — and we bow to the decree, rev- 
 erently and prayerfully bow, for we never know what will 
 be to pay if we don't, and we can only guess at the damage 
 anyway. 
 
 Immediately after supper, or as soon as I could without 
 attracting attention, I slid out and went down street, and 
 after dodging along the opposite side, and casting glances 
 at the busy scenes in the emporiums of trade across the 
 way, I made a decisive move and brought up in one of the 
 best gent's millinery establishments in the city (of Little- 
 ton). Such heavenly scenes ! Such ravishing visions of 
 loveliness ! Here was a wide-brimmed, soft felt somberero, 
 poised on a projecting limb, with its broad, colored band and 
 its daring crumpled crown. Beside it an airy, jaunty derby, 
 with round top and lovely curling sides, and a ribbon end 
 sticking out, that looked as though it might actually flutter 
 off into the clouds like a bird. In fact, I've seen hats play 
 meaner tricks than that during mud time. Then there was 
 the elegant tall stove-pipe, that is always in order and a de- 
 corous state of uprightness, except when its owner unexpec- 
 tedly falls over the iron dog on the lawn in his midnight ef- 
 forts to coUidewith a key hole at number 'steen ninety- 
 eight, three sails in the wind and another flapping. When 
 one of these sanctimonious tiles does fall from grace, the re- 
 sult is positively shocking. The square-crowned masher, 
 the wide visored scorcher cap, the light and flimsey, cute 
 little round-top neglige theatre hat, that one can cram in 
 his pocket and avoid the crush of the fat lady who sits next 
 to him, or does not have to hold in his hand as he gracefully 
 cUmbes over the obstructing human organisms and chairs to 
 get out and take the fresh air and a clove between the acts. 
 But the darlingest little love of a chapeau in all the aggrega- 
 tion of bewildbring and heavenly creations lies before me as 
 
VARIETY 87 
 
 I write. Did I get it? Well I should blush! I saw a bald- 
 headed gentleman with a wart on the side of his nose look- 
 ing anxiously at me as I fondled this black-visored beauty. 
 There was a dude with a single English eyeglass clutched 
 by his treatening brow regarding me from the other side 
 of the pant counter, and I feel sure that the muscnlar base 
 ball crank who was jostling before the long mirror with 
 a fore-in-hand tie that looked like an odd piece of webbing 
 on a potato sack, was just dying with envy. (He had to dye 
 anyway to get much of a color on that stubby moustache of 
 his). But what cared V I was buying a cap just then and 
 I wouldn't have given up my chance at the hat counter 
 for a twenty-eighth interest in a sixty foot claim in the 
 Klondike. I took my time. I placed it square, and tipped 
 it just the teeniest bit back, and regarded the one hundred 
 and ninety pound hayseed blond, sandy-whiskered gent in 
 the glass quite lovingly. I have regarded him quite highly 
 for a long time, but I must say that with that light brown 
 checkered-topped cap, with its black corded band and its 
 scintillating visor, with its two small figured buttons placed 
 coquettishly at the sides, and the eight-inch piece of patent 
 leather strap that encircled the front of it, all his own, my 
 humble "opinion i s that he took the cake as he marched 
 into the Unitarian church the following morning, with noth- 
 ing to mar the Sabbath sweetness of tke occasion, only that 
 he had to take his hat off and carry it in his hand. That's 
 where the fair sex gets an unfair advantage over other folks 
 in this glowing, palpitating Eastertide. 
 
88 VARIETY 
 
 65 THE LUMBERMAN OF SiX MILE POND 
 
 Hedge Hog mountain is not very famous in song and story, and yet it was the scene of a 
 remarkable occurance some years ago, according to Mr. Samuel Drew, the ix>et of the 
 Ossipees, who used to peddle harness oil, etc., around here before, and I don't know but since, 
 I first discovered Carroll county. Here is the song and story alluded to, which has never 
 been set to music : 
 
 Old Geehaw was a lumberman, 
 Who lived at Six Mile Pon', 
 
 Old Geehaw had three yoke of steers 
 With which his logs were drawn. 
 
 An' he could draw such strapping loads 
 
 You never saw before, 
 From thirty-five to forty logs, 
 
 An' gracious, how he swore! 
 
 He piled them high, both fore an' aft, 
 He spared no sapling spruce, 
 
 For sled stakes and a goad stick 
 As logs he put to use. 
 
 So when one day the poet Drew 
 
 •Looked out of his back "winder," 
 You may imagine his surprise 
 To see old Geehaw's timber ! 
 
 The pesky crows were toteing it 
 
 Away from Six Mile Pon' 
 To build a nest on Hedge Hog Mount'in, 
 
 An' most of it was gone ! 
 
 P. S.— Now, gentle reader, you may not believe the above and really, I don't care if you 
 don't. If Sam Drew was alive, things might be different. 
 
VARIETY 89 
 
 66 A REMINISCENCE 
 
 Bill Sawyeo Zachariah Roode Gardner and 
 Styles McMillan. 
 
 As I climbed up the bank at the flag station across the 
 road from the Grafton county farm, a young man with a 
 razzle-dazzled look and slouchy gait got up from his perch 
 near the window and ambled to the door. ''How do? Nice 
 day ! How do?" he said so rapidly that I didn't have time 
 to discuss the subject consecutively with him, and then he 
 shut up just as quickly and peremptorally as he had begun. 
 I concluded not to disagree with him, because I knew that 
 he was the representative of a public institution, and it 
 might not be safe. I knew a man myself who came up 
 here from Lyme a while ago, by the name of Bill Sawyer; 
 Now he is Colonel William Sawyer, and holds the posi- 
 tion of cowdriver and superintendent of the milk transpor- 
 tation department, and he and another man run the farm. 
 
 When I was at North Haverhill a few days ago I met 
 Zachariah Roode Gardner and another gentleman who is 
 boarding at present at this famous hotel, and interested in 
 promoting schemes and developing inventions. His latest 
 is a double-breasted, self-acting tin cat -hole, and he told me, 
 by the way, that the company was now being organized to 
 place the same on the market. There is a great field for 
 something of this sort, but I think Zachariah got his idea 
 from the one now in operation at Sleeper's grist mill. I 
 suggested that some of his corps of assistants might devel- 
 ope a patent bark trimmer, a sort of curtailor of dog music, 
 of which I have heard so much in the last three years that 
 it no longer charms me as of yore. 
 
90 VARIETY 
 
 Prof. Gardner is also a native of Lyme and (says) he 
 owns a two hundred acre farm down there near the boule- 
 vard in Squint Town. Col. Sawyer is also a landed proprie- 
 tor in Lyme, or was until he landed in this institution. A 
 Lyme association is now being talked of, the archives of 
 which will be likewise preserved in Lyme. Col. Sawyer's 
 estate consists of three-quarters of an acre of fine gravel for 
 hen feed, some ancient pine stumps, that were there before 
 the revolution, and a one story mansion, thirteen by nine- 
 teen, with a lean-to. The house leans too, but it don't lean 
 towards Sawyer's any more. Any one wishing to part com- 
 pany with twenty-five dollars, will be rewarded by applying 
 to Cal Cilley, who, I understand, has the sale of the place. 
 The above advertising is cheerfully done because I once 
 lived in Lyme myself, and anything in reason I can do to 
 help a citizen of the old town shall be done. 
 
 And now I hasten on to my reminiscence. In less time 
 than it has taken me to tell it, after I left the railroad train, 
 I was ushered into his presence. A veritable reminscence 
 he was — a little stoop-shouldered, but lithe and brisk as a 
 man of seventy-five, he stood before me and his genial, smil- 
 ing host introduced him as Styles McMillan, born in 1796 
 at St. Albans, Vt. When I saw him a little later, trot out 
 to the pump and pump and bring in a large bucket of water, 
 I was half inclined to conclude that Styles had had some- 
 thing happen to his memory which made him about a quarter 
 of a century older than he really was, but when he acknow- 
 ledged to me that he shook hands with George Washington 
 when he was three years old, and that Mrs. Washington 
 gave him some candy that he didn't eat 'till he was six years 
 old, that he had seen every one of the presidents, took care 
 of Hayes when he was a baby, and a few years ago spent 
 eighty days in the White House, that he had fought in all 
 the wars since 1812, has been around the world three times, 
 scalped and left for dead in the Black Hawk war, traveled 
 with Lafayette, shook hands with Napoleon Bonaparte, that 
 
VARIETY 91 
 
 if there is anything I have not mentioned he didn't do, he 
 would have done it gladly, he is such an obliging old man. 
 He has a pipe made by an Indian chief sixty years ago, but 
 that looks like an ordinary ten or fifteen cent hand-me-on, 
 but Mr. McMillan prizes it higly and smokes it every day. 
 
 It is pleasant now and then to meet a personal acquain- 
 tance of the father of his countfy and have him bear wit- 
 ness to the greatness and truthfulness of that good man. 
 Mr McMillan is a good talker, and an enterprising inter- 
 viewer might acquire some important details in regard to our 
 early history as a nation, as he has been an eye witness of 
 its progress from almost the first. 
 
 I don't know whether it's my looks, or ar sort of a 
 frank open manner I have, that brings all these curios 
 my way, but I sort of feel it a duty to tell you of them. I 
 met rather more of them near the county farm than I have 
 any where else this spring. 
 
 67 AN ODD INVENTOR 
 
 He made machines but they wouldn't always go. 
 
 I ran across a curious genius the other day, and I dare 
 not locate him for fear the full light of pubUcity might scare 
 him back into the woods, where the spartan band from 
 Haverhill held the fort during the civil war. Suffice it to 
 say, that he don't live in Wildwood nor Bungy, but it's not 
 far from there, and right in plain sight of old Moosilauke 
 mountain. Now, isn't that close } And his name was Ab- 
 solom Brown, before he was married and became an inven- 
 tor. As he told Joshua Studley, of Hardscrabble Corner, 
 " I been lots er things, Josh, I have. I been a mason, I 
 
92 VARIETY 
 
 been er bricklayer, I been er blacksmith, I ben er tin tinker, 
 'n I been er dum jackass, " and Josh never said a word. 
 
 Absolom informed the writer in a fine outburst of confi- 
 dence, probably induced by contact with a large, brown 
 cider jug earlier in the day, that he was a "dumned ingeni- 
 ous critter," and then he took me around and showed me 
 his "inventions." It don't take a very sharp fellow, nor a 
 very sober one, to tell that what I don't know about ma- 
 chinists' tools would fill several large cyclopedias, and 
 so Absolm felt entirely safe. He showed me a tenon 
 cutter for wagon spokes that he said he invented. He 
 certainly did invent the thing, which had a quarter-inch 
 cut and would twist the spoke clean off, it was so powerful. 
 Then he fetched up a rigging that looked like a piece of 
 a railroad wreck, and he said he invented that to cut down 
 worn wagon axles. Josh Studley's hired man told me all 
 about that. Uucle Ab' would come over and hang around 
 the blacksmith shop at Hardscrabble corner and look at the 
 tools there closely and long. Then he would hie himself 
 home, and oft in the early morning hours his busy hammer 
 and forge would be heard as he fashioned his ''inventions." 
 This wire cutter for axels was one of them, and when busi- 
 iness was dull and Uncle Ab got restless he would get out 
 his axel machine, hitch up his old horse, and drive out 
 among the farmers to operate it on their wagons. In this 
 way he got a little money, considerable experience and 
 plenty of cider, and came home more or less under the 
 influence of the latter, covered with wheel grease and glory. 
 
 The bolt cHpper that he next took down to show me 
 was also home made, but it wouldn't come together quite. 
 This he regarded as a masterpiece, and gave me to under- 
 stand, that if he should launch it out among men of science 
 it would create a f urror ; and since looking into the matter 
 a Uttle more, I am inclined to think it would. The principal 
 point of difference between Mr. Brown's cutter and those 
 in general use is, that the jaws in his lack about a quarter 
 
VARIETY ' 93 
 
 of an inch from meeting, which makes it possible to finish 
 the job with a hammer, or crowbar, or any old thing that 
 comes handy. 
 
 I advised the inventor not to be too free with these 
 remarkable inventions 'till he got them patented/' Now, I 
 am safe enough," said I, ''but others might not be." 
 
 The great inventor only smiled, and a far-away look 
 came into his eyes as he pointed to a pile of debris on the 
 other side of a big grindsone and turning lathe. "See 
 that .?" he asked. 
 
 Yes, I saw it. I had been casting furtive glances at it 
 for some time. It looked like a rude attempt at a mer 
 ry-go-round. 
 
 "Well," explained Absolom, "that air is a sort of a 
 speeder. All ye got to do is just get onto it and walk, an 
 it turns the lathe an' grindstun, an' blows the bellows for 
 the forge. Oh, it's great. I'm sorry it's broke." 
 
 So, was I. It looked as easy to run as an ox cart, and 
 as picturesque as a pine stump fence in winter time ; but 
 I didn't pass any remarks, and Absolom went on in a low 
 and awe-stricken voice : "I tell ye what, I got er machine 
 in the house, boxed up, that runs itself. It'll never stop 
 'till it wears out, an' ye can run it with sand or shot, either 
 one." 
 
 After making this startling disclosure, I felt like a vis- 
 itor welcomed by some ancient priest into the holy of 
 hoHes. Absolom abruptly strode to the other side of the 
 the shop. "You come 'eer, young feller," he said. "See 
 that.?" Yes, I did, and it looked like the windlass to a 
 well with four cranks and several . cog wheels that had for- 
 merly ^done duty in a saw mill. "What d'er ye think er that .?" 
 he inquired, triumphantly. I hadn't the remotest idea what 
 he wanted me to think of it, and so I discreetly kept silent. 
 
 "Well, you've heard tell how they can't overcome a 
 dead center, haint ye..? There's a place where if an engine 
 gets stuck it won't go neither way, that is." 
 
94 VARIETY 
 
 I told him I had, as that seemed to be expected of me, 
 and he continued: "Well, there's a machine that haint got 
 no dead center;" and then the great man posed, while I 
 gazed upon him with admiration suffusing every lineament 
 of my phiz. There was only one thing needed to complete 
 the beatification' at that time, and that was supplied by Josh 
 Studley's hired man. *'Yes," said he, good naturedly,' 
 *'he told ye all about them things 'at he invented, an' half 
 on 'em he got over here ter the shop ter work by, an' the 
 rest didn't work. I sh'd thought he'd told ye about his 
 water motor that ye could take an ounce of water an' make 
 it lift twelve pounds. He worked on that machine more'n 
 five straight years, and then he come over here one day an' 
 said he guessed the only trouble with it was that it wouldn't 
 go. Oh, Ab's a good feller, all right enough, an' 'e means 
 well; yer give him about er gallon er cider ter sort er stim- 
 ulate his idees, an' then 'e's ready fer business, an' if one er 
 you newspaper fellers happens round, he'll fill you up." 
 
 There it goes again ! There is something about my 
 personal appearence that points me out for a shining mark. 
 There's one advantage in being kind of fresh and spring- 
 like in appearance — one gets acquainted with all the best 
 articles of the most enterprising and versatile liars in the 
 community, and that's worth something; and it's barely 
 possible Uncle Absolom really believes in his own inven- 
 tions. Every man is a hero in his own mind, you know. 
 
 68 INDUSTRIOUS MRS. BLACKEY 
 
 There is an old lady 
 Lives under a hill, 
 
 Rug making, quilt piecing. 
 As old ladies will. 
 
VARIETY 95 
 
 Since Christmas she built 'em, 
 
 Half dozen, or more, 
 From reefers and trousers. 
 
 To cover her floor. 
 
 With worn-out print dresses, 
 
 Of every known shade, 
 Thirty-eight hundred pieces. 
 
 Two quilts she has made. 
 
 She's made a fine garden. 
 
 Milked daily two cows. 
 And is raising a couple 
 
 Of fine handsome sows. 
 
 She "lugs" all her water 
 And does her house work, 
 \ While tending post office 
 
 I-own-her no shirk ! 
 
 Her age is past eighty. 
 
 Her home postal stamp, 
 Official and weighty's, 
 
 lona, New Hamp. 
 
 P. S.— Mrs. Blackey milked those cows twice daily. Also the pigs may have been bar- 
 rows — Nobody knows the trials of a poet. 
 
 69 CLAFLIN'S RAMBLE, No. 3 
 
 Passing events. Some moralizing and a dead 
 secret. Miss Clara Blossom and her beau. 
 
 Another year is on the wane, and an eventful year it 
 is to be. Already its record of historic events forms a long 
 and lengthening roll. Men, whom the nation scarcely knew 
 last January, are now famous through the fortunes of war 
 or trade, which is only commercial war. Dewey, Shafter, 
 
96 VARIETY 
 
 Sampson, Schley and Hobson are a few names written in to 
 the war history of the nation indellibly. 
 
 In commerce, Leiter has collapsed in the largest wheat 
 deal the world ever saw, not excepting the memorable one 
 in which Joseph of old cornered the wheat and corn of 
 Egypt for seven years, and his pocket book, as well as that 
 of his devoted sire, is "Leiter," whereat there is general 
 rejoicing. 
 
 Your humble servant, the Rambler, not believing in 
 war as a general principle, did not order any in his'n, but 
 pursued that even tenor of his ways. I am an optimist, 
 however, and believe most sincerely that immediate and 
 continued good will result from the emancipation of Cuba 
 and Porto Rico from the blight of Spanish misrule. 
 
 I would point to such of my readers as fear that Cuba 
 will not become Americanized under our regime that Cali- 
 fornia, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Florida 
 were less than lOO years ago, some of them less than 60 
 years ago, owned and peopled almost wholly by the Latin 
 race. Twenty-five years under the American flag would 
 make Cuba as cosmopolitan and American as Louisiana is 
 todav, in my opinion. 
 
 Now, brethren, Lm going to let you into a secret. 
 With all this war hurrah going on around me, and everybody 
 getting famous, it would not have been strange if " dis 
 chile" had been swept off his remarkably large feet and en- 
 listed for the war, that is, to people who don't know me. 
 When Spain first demanded war, I didn't know what I 
 should have to give up hunting the gay and festive sub- 
 scriber and chasing the nimble dollar among the luxurient 
 sand hills and mosquito-infected bogs of the Granite and 
 Pudding stone state, and go out and lick them, but having 
 given my prayerful attention to the subject, those sweet 
 and inspiring words, so often quoted, came to me: 'T had 
 rather be a live lion than a dead jackass," and they fitted 
 my case so perfectly, that I decided not to go. It was a 
 
VARIETY 97 
 
 great sacrifice, but I made it. I didn't even enlist in a pow- 
 der mill. Hence, I am spared. 
 
 I make the above explaination so as to render it clear 
 that I did not, under any circumstances, apply to any re- 
 cruiting station, and was not thrown down on account of 
 
 being a drunkard or the fortunate possessor of a 
 
 dependent family. 
 
 It occurs to me, that war should never be declared un- 
 til the men who are liable to be called upon to do the fight- 
 ing are given a chance to vote upon the question. This 
 method is peculiarly appropriate for a republic, and perhaps, 
 if this method was adopted, arbitration would become more 
 popular than heretofore. 
 
 To speak seriously, as I do occasionally, the time is 
 ripe for the use of reason instead of brute force in the set- 
 tlement of international affairs. 
 
 I have been rambling over Rockingham county now 
 for three weeks, and have accumulated quite a number of 
 notes, including promissory and foot notes — the latter 
 taken on foot, of course— that I might spread before the 
 readers of the Gazette if space permitted, but I have al- 
 ready used up so much room in explaining why I did not 
 enlist, that I shall have space for little else. It was a 
 mighty interesting subject. 
 
 Up near the "Geebig" school house in Newfields lives 
 Uncle Dick Abbott, and he told me a little yarn about a 
 certain Miss Clara Blossom, who had, unfortunately for 
 her, remained too long unplucked. The frosts and suns of 
 fifty years had toyed with her style of beauty and mellowed 
 and ripened it until she had almost given up the customary 
 twilight pastime of looking under the bed for a hypothet- 
 ical man, when Cap'n Joe Downer began to call on her 
 "reg'lar." 
 
 Cap'n Joe called all one winter and along into the suc- 
 ceeding fall, and Miss Blossom began to have hopes that 
 she could have a triumphant ''Mrs." on her tombstone, 
 
98 VARIETY 
 
 when suddenly Cap'n Joe, in the course of a protracted 
 spree, kicked the bucket. Heart faikire, the accommodat- 
 ing physician called it, and Miss Blossom saw her last hope 
 vanish. But, "anyway," she declared, ''Cap'n Downer 
 might have had his faults, but he was a good hearted man, 
 and whenever he called on me, he always came drunk, like 
 a perfect gentleman, I don't care what folks say." And so 
 Ions: as Miss Clara was satisfied that he carried the attri- 
 butes of a gentleman, I don't know as anything further 
 need be said. 
 
 70 WINTER 
 
 Nature in all her fastnesses lies dreaming, 
 
 Among the hills the deep green woods stand dumb, 
 
 The crystal ice has covered lake and river, 
 
 Plant life seems dead— its wakening yet to come. 
 
 But here and there some hardy woodland creature 
 Still breaks a trail athwart the deepening snows, 
 
 Along the brooks, which gurgle in their casements, 
 From pool to pool where the sly trout repose. 
 
 Anon, the wild wind springs from far north mountains. 
 Where sits enthroned the monarch of them all, 
 
 And sweeps the ridges, where late beech leaves rustle, 
 Driving fierce storms, when whirling snow-clouds^ fall, 
 
 Gone are the fences, ghostly stand the walls. 
 Loaded, the roof-tree groans with ice and snow. 
 
 The patient cattle, in their stuffy stalls, 
 Endure the winter willing it should go. 
 
 But heaped up larders mitigate our sentence, 
 The fresh pork sizzles with a savory smell, 
 
 Wild deer and coon meat, turkey with the fixings. 
 Make life worth living — when we're living well. 
 
 Moonlight and sleighride 'neath the cold stars glittering, 
 Warm robes, a maiden and an amorous swain, 
 
 Music of sleighbells, all the world is pleasant 
 W^hen winter holds us in its rough domain. 
 
VARIETY 99 
 
 CLAFLIN'S RAMBLE, No. 4 
 
 Jacob's Well. Gee Big School House. Sally 
 Ann and the Feather Bed Hobbs of Wolfeboro. 
 J. B. Collins and the Firemen's Muster. 
 
 There many things in old Rockingham county that are 
 worthy of mention in these unworthy "rambles." Things 
 which I can do scant justice to in my meteoric flights. 
 There is a dehghtful locaUty up in back of Gee Big school 
 house in Newmarket, where the winding road curves over 
 a little hill-top in front of an ancient farm dwelling; ''now 
 Jacob's well is there," and it stands close by the road-side 
 with an inviting cup and a cool oaken bucket that dscends 
 into the deep waters, where one's face looks back at him in 
 the strong light of a hot summer noon-tide, ''and Jacob 
 (Burley) drank thereof and his children," so I am told. 
 
 Speaking of Gee Big school house, reminds me that 
 there are several such in this county, being so named by 
 drivers on the roads who make a "big gee" at these points' 
 or a sharp curve gee-ward — hence the name. 
 
 I met a pleasant middle-aged lady near North Salem, 
 who told me a little reminiscence about a maiden aunt of 
 hers, who lived far enough up the state so as not to see the 
 Gazette too often, named Sally Ann or something,and she 
 had a great longing for a certain feather bed belonging to 
 the deponent, when she lived in the same quiet village. 
 "Fred and I had just got married," said she, "and gone to 
 keeping house, and I had that feather bed lying in state in 
 the best room, and one day I took a notion to go up home 
 to Vermont and see my mother. Fred was away at work. 
 I had scarcely closed up the house and got out of town, 
 when Sally Ann came over, hunted up the key, where I 
 
100 VARIETY 
 
 had left it and went in. Bime-by out she comes with 
 my identical feather bed slung over her crooked back, and 
 hobbles off home with it, and the neighbors a lookin' 
 through the blinds, took it all in, you bet. Fred never 
 missed a thing, and I was gone a week, but the first thing, 
 when I stepped foot in the house I knew something 
 was wrong, and I wasn't long in finding out what. Over 
 I goes to Mrs. Smith's, and says I, 'was there anyone 'round 
 while I was gone.?' and says she, 'only your Aunt Sallie 
 Ann,' says she, ' but don't you say a word about my telling of 
 you,' says she, and says I, 'she took that best feather bed 
 of mine,' says I, 'and she'll fetch it back again or I'll know 
 the reason why,' and v/ith that I put on my bonnet, and 
 down to Squire Abbott's I went, and I told him all about it 
 and he set and chewed a toothpick and looked over towards 
 the horse sheds 'till I got through, and then he looked up 
 and said he, ' Abagail, Sally Ann will have the job o' lug- 
 gin' that bed right back and puttin' it where she got it, I'm 
 thinkin',' and, by gracious, she had to, but wasn't she mad, 
 though' And she didn't speak to me for more than a year 
 after that." 
 
 I sometimes get hold of an agricultural item of value 
 to my readers, and hence mention the fact that Smith A. 
 Rowell of Sandown finds it profitable to use hard wood 
 ashes as dressing for grass land. He received a quantity 
 from Canada in '96 at $11 a ton of a firm that makes a bus- 
 iness of dealing in it. He put it on after disposing of a con- 
 siderable part of the lot to neighbors, at the rate of 
 three tons to the acre. Deducting the amount of hay the 
 land previously was yielding, he has already received six 
 tons extra hay and will get some second crop this season 
 from the use of the ashes, and the effects will continue to be 
 felt for years to come. Mr. Rowell naturally recommends 
 wood ashes to others who have not tried them. 
 
 Among my acquaintances at Wolfeboro is Frank P. 
 Hobbs, for years postmaster there, and a hustling business 
 
VARIETY lOI 
 
 man. Down at Kingston Plains is a drummer for carriages 
 built there, named Frank Tucker, and somewhat of a hust- 
 ler himself. One day an order was received from Hobbs of 
 Wolfeboro for a bill of goods, and as he was a new customer, 
 the telephone was called into requisition, and the Wolfe- 
 boro postmaster (Hobbs) was inquired of as to the reputa- 
 tion of Hobbs, the stable keeper. Hobbs, the postmaster, 
 modestly replied that as Hobbs the stable keeper were one 
 and the same, perhaps they had better ring up the local 
 bank for further information — and then apologies were in 
 order, but Hobbs would not hear of any. "Business is 
 business," said he, ''and every man must look out for his 
 own," which is verily so. 
 
 I called on my genial friend, rather our genial friend, 
 for I know he is genial to every one — J. B. Collins of Brent- 
 wood Corner, not long since, and found him active and 
 hearty as ever, in spite of more than sixty years — sixty-five 
 years, I think, of active life. One morning in September 
 last, there w^as to be a gathering of the veteran firemen of 
 Haverhill, Mass., eighteen miles away, at eight o'clock, and 
 Joe, finding the transportation arrangements unhandy, got 
 up at three o'clock and walked the entire distance, training 
 with the boys in the exhibition of the day. At five p. m., 
 the exhibition being over, Joe bid his companions good-bye 
 and proceeded to return to Brentwood the same way he 
 came, ariving about ten o'clock — Tired! Well, Joe does 
 not say for publication just when he got up the next morn- 
 ing, but I doubt if another sixty-five-year-old in Rocking- 
 ham county could have done it any more gracefully than 
 he did. 
 
102 VARIETY 
 
 72 LITTLE PITCHERS' NOTES, No. ^ 
 
 What the Election did. Mr. Pike's Flint Lock. 
 A Day at Cotton Valley. My "Greek" Room- 
 mate. 
 
 The year has rolled around again, as it has a habit of 
 doing, and Little Pitchers, Esq., is on deck again. A lot of 
 things have happened to the said Pitchers since last we 
 met, and yet, so far as can be seen, he is but little the 
 worse for wear. It is astonishing how much some people 
 can go through and not show it. A friend of mine had 
 fifty thousand dollars left to him; he went through the 
 whole of it and now he hasn't a cent to show for it, but he 
 has salted a large mess of experience, 
 
 The elections, which occurred last week, are generally 
 satisfactory. The republicans are satisfied, because the 
 predicted slump didn't begin to decently bury them, as a 
 well-regulated political landslide would have done. The Dem- 
 ocrats are crowing over gains in unexpected places; while 
 Little Pitchers' party put a couple of representatives into the 
 Massachusetts state legislature from the city of Haverhill. 
 Perhaps some one inquires : What in creation is your party, 
 any way ? Oh, it is a little party of the workingmen who 
 don't vote for capitalists and capitalists' tools to represent 
 them. They are odd chickens, but they have got some 
 representatives into the legislature of Massachusetts now, 
 and I expect things will begin to hum soon. 
 
 When I stopped at John C.Pike's last week the subject 
 of the recent distressful war came 'up, and John and I ag- 
 greed that Uncle Sam would make a mistake if he takes 
 Spain's ''Phillipene." I'm afraid Uncle Sam is getting 
 reckless of late, but I hope for the best. Mr. Pike showed 
 
VARIETY 103 
 
 me a little gun, about six feet long, with the old regulation 
 flint lock and primer, brought to Brookfield by his great- 
 great-grandfather — beg pardon, this is a better one than that 
 because the one that the original Pike brought, he swapped 
 with an Indian down in Maine, and of course the Indian 
 got the worst of it, for no Yankee was ever known to let an 
 Indian get the best end of a trade. This gun, in the hands 
 of successive generations of Pikes, attended most of the tur- 
 key-shoots for miles around, 'till its reputation for destruc- 
 tiveness became so great, that it was ruled out. It is still 
 destructive, but has become too much of a kicker to suit the 
 modern sportsman. Mr. Pike also showed me an ancient 
 surveyor's compass, made and used by Judge Whitehouse 
 of Farmington, who laid out the railroad through this sec- 
 tion of the country. It was a remarkably accurate instru- 
 ment, as were all those made by Judge Whitehouse. 
 
 My day at Cotton Valley was enlivened by the first 
 snow storm of the season. The day previous had been one 
 of those elegant autumnal days whose tomorrow is so de- 
 lightfully uncertain. In company with ex-representative 
 W. A. Bixby, I started out to make the round in a fine 
 snow fall, which increased in violence until our last call, away 
 upon Cotton mountain, were the wind blew a hurricane laden 
 with loads of cutting snow. It was a distinct relief when 
 the train took us in for the six miles to Wolfeboro. At 
 South Wolfeboro, the day I was there, was solemnized 
 by the burial of an aged widow in Israel, named Deland, 
 nearly ninety-one years old. The service was conducted by 
 Elder Wiggin of Mirror Lake, who preached here many 
 years during his active ministry. He is in his seventy-third 
 year now, I believe. The thing of most importance at 
 South Wolfeboro is the starting up of the Springfield wool- 
 en mill, that has been shut down for months owing to the 
 wave of prosperity that has been gladdening the land. 
 The scoffer can't say now that the only mill we've started 
 is the ''mill" with Spain. No, siree ! 
 
t04 
 
 VARIETY 
 
 In the hotel where I stopped recently in the back bay- 
 district, I was informed, on retiring, that another guest 
 would occupy the room with me — a Greek from ancient 
 Athens, or somewhere in that neighborhood, who vv^as attrac- 
 ted by the high wages paid in running a ten-men's-labor-sav- 
 ing machine by that magnanimous firm of philanthropists, 
 Spaulding & Swett, and had come over here to make a liv- 
 ing. At first I thought I wouldn't sleep with the pesky for- 
 eigner, that was skinning American labor, in spite of all 
 Spaulding & Swett could do, but then I thought better of 
 it, and when, later on, a guest came into the room and 
 poked around for the light, I concluded it was he, and ex- 
 plained my presence in the room, but it proved to be a 
 Yankee from Drake's Corner, who, by way of explaination 
 told me, that the Indian I had seen in the kitchen with his 
 little, black-eyed dusky-hued boy was waiting for him to 
 come down and pay him for sawing a cord of wood, and he 
 was waiting for the Indian to get tired of waiting and go off, 
 hence the intrusion. This gave rise to a flood of reflec- 
 tions, the subject of which was, that the Indian was entire- 
 ly out of character in sawing up that wood, and the white 
 man was living up to his traditions in withholding pay for 
 same. Indians, Spaniards and niggers are entitled to what 
 they can get in a free countrv. 
 
VARIETY 105 
 
 73 FUR-WEARERS' CONVENTION 
 
 They had a big meet 
 
 Of the fur-wearing tribe, 
 
 It occurred near the " Bear Camp " 
 
 A little this side. 
 
 Old bruin presided 
 
 And stated the aim 
 
 Of the fur wearers' union 
 
 Was protection of game. 
 
 He averred 'twas a crime 
 
 That ought to be stopped 
 
 To badger poor rabbits 
 
 Wherever they hopped. 
 
 That dogs were a nuisance 
 
 (To that I agree) 
 
 Guns, traps and the like 
 
 All abolished should be. 
 
 There's the mink and the muskrat, 
 
 The fox and the deer, 
 
 All dodging rude hunters, 
 
 All hiding in fear. 
 
 Then up spoke .the hedgehog. 
 
 All bristUng like sin. 
 
 His quills standing straight 
 
 As a fish's back fin, 
 
 " I wish you'd explain 
 
 Why a harmless four-legger, 
 
 Like me should be hunted 
 
 And chased like a begger ? 
 
 Time was when I nibbled 
 
 The old apple tree, 
 
 In peace and contentment, 
 
 Fearless and care free. 
 
 They don't want my * hair ' 
 
 And they don't want my hide, 
 
 I've nothing that's useful 
 
 Either in or outside. 
 
 But they dog me by day, 
 
 And they trap me by night, 
 
 They hang on my trail 
 
io6 
 
 VARIETY 
 
 And they shoot me on sight. 
 
 Whatever their object 
 
 I leave it to you, 
 
 Now what is a poor 
 
 Harmless hedgehog to do ? " 
 
 Up spoke the fleet deer 
 
 That lives by the sea, 
 
 Where a law all the year 
 
 Protects, him, you see : 
 
 " What you want, brother hodgehog, 
 
 Is friends of some note 
 
 Who will stand ty your interests 
 
 By voice and by vote. 
 
 Get a law passed at Concord 
 
 And rivited strong 
 
 That quills on 'game' hedgehogs 
 
 Must be ten inches long. 
 
 Whoever shoots hedgehogs 
 
 Under thirteen years old 
 
 Must pay to the warden 
 
 Ten dollars in gold. 
 
 That in towns of one thousand 
 
 Less than seventeen miles square 
 
 One hog may be shot 
 
 For each ten that are there. 
 
 No mistake can be made 
 
 Between hedgehog and coon, 
 
 And the game must be bagged 
 
 On the full of the moon. 
 
 Whoever the law does break or crack. 
 
 Should be fined fifty dollars 
 
 And put on the rack. 
 
 If you think such a law 
 
 Our wise Solons won't pass 
 
 You never have studied 
 
 The curves of their class. 
 
 If the whip swing with vigor 
 
 They all fall in line 
 
 A few set the measure, 
 
 The others keep time. 
 
 Asleep at their benches, 
 
 They all could be 'strung' 
 
 To vote for a law 
 
 That would have them all hung! " 
 
VARIETY 
 
 The fur-wearers' union, 
 Im' sorry to state, 
 Has gone and disbanded, 
 They're left to their fate. 
 Like others I know of 
 Who just let her whiz, 
 They leave politics to others, 
 In " minding their biz." 
 And I wouldn't feel sorry 
 If the time should arrive, 
 When the hunters of quarry 
 Should skin them alive. 
 
 07 
 
 A FUR WEARER 
 
 LITTLE PITCHERS' NOTES, No. 6 
 
 The Silent Majority and the Spiel of the Dreamy 
 Boarder. Goods marked too high to steal. 
 
 Well, brethren, Little Pitchers has been trudging up 
 and down the country-side from Dan to Beersheba, and from 
 Wolfeboro Falls to Ossipee Pocket, during the past week, 
 and as usual, his big ears have heard much — more than I 
 can remember. 
 
 At Dimond's corner I became aware that my old friend 
 Langley was no more, while one or two more, v/hom I met 
 last year, had passed to the silent majority. How that ma- 
 
I08 VARIETY 
 
 jority is growing ! We got to speaking about this subject 
 over to the boarding house the other day, and the dreamy 
 looking boarder from Boston remarked that we were con- 
 tinually passing from life to death, and from death to life 
 again. 
 
 ''Huh," said Mr. Meacham interogatively, ''you mean 
 to say that dead folks come back again ? " 
 
 "I certainly do, Mr. Meacham," said the dreamy one 
 with great emphasis for him. "Now, I have known men 
 who have been on this earth no less than from eighty to one 
 hundred times, and also on other planets, such as Jupiter, 
 Saturn, Mars and others that our scientists have not yet 
 discovered. Of course, they cannot always remember just 
 who they were during their former incarnations, but they 
 remember enough to prove the genuineness of their asser- 
 tions. 
 
 Dreamy stopped and Mr. Meacham remarked that he 
 "didn't doubt that their assertions were genuine enough, 
 as that was all their was to 'em, any way." 
 
 Dreamy, without appearing to notice the interniption, 
 went on. "Now I, myself, was living here away back in 
 the days of Pharo' Necho, and I was one of the attendants 
 at court when that Hebrew, Moses, came before the king 
 and demanded of him to let the Israelites go. It was a 
 wonderful scene, and calculated to cause one's hair to stand 
 on end, when Moses threw down his staff and it became a 
 squirming serpent. I tell you the old king couldn't stand 
 everything, and when the plagues of flies, frogs and 
 grasshoppers, snakes and death, ten of them, I think, had 
 come, and Moses still held the whiphand high ready to 
 strike again, Pharo' was glad to give in. Yes, I was drown- 
 ed in the Red sea that time chnging to Pharo's chariot 
 wheel. Another time I was private secretary to Ghangis 
 Kahn when he broke into Europe and carried everything 
 before hirn. Those were horrible times, suice enough. I 
 have been incarnated as a female seven times in all. Once 
 
VARIETY 109 
 
 I was a Greek slave girl, and that time I was killed because 
 I refused to yield to the lust of an Athenian despot. The 
 last time I remember very distinctly of being on earth, was 
 during the Salem witch persecutions about two hundred 
 years ago. I had unfortunately lived a maiden life, and be- 
 comming old and bent, and somewhat broken in mind and 
 health, the town authorities, who feared that I might cost 
 them something, preferred charges against me as a witch, 
 and Cotton Mather and his precious flock of guardian angels 
 swore they had seen me soaring over Salem hill on a broom- 
 stick and wearing a peeked bonnet night after night. Farm- 
 ers were positive that their cows gave bloody milk because 
 of my nightly incantations, and Mistress Dunnington, the 
 doctor's wife, swore against me that she knew I was re- 
 sponsible for an epidemic of the mumps, and another of 
 canker rash that had gone through the community. I re- 
 member now how I felt when they tied me to a stake in the 
 yard of execution, and the people gathered around us as near 
 as the beadle would let them, with awe-stricken faces, 
 while old Cotton Mather very cheerfully commended me to 
 the devil. It was quite a roast I got that time. Will you 
 please pass the turnips, Mrs. Meacham.?" 
 
 Mr. Jordan, who is working on the ice house over at 
 Dundee, had been staring at Dreamy with eyes and mouth 
 wide open, forgetting to fill the latter and go on chewing as 
 a christian should, and now he nudged Mr. Meacham and 
 whispered audibly, ''D'ye beUeve that is all so that he's 
 givin' us.? "But before Mr. Meacham could reply. Dreamy 
 broke out again. 
 
 **Now there are many folks who are unaware that these 
 things are true. You will be surprised when I tell you that 
 our benign landlady, Mrs. Meacham, i.^ none other than the 
 famous Queen of Sheba, who visited King Solomon wkh a 
 vast retinue and a million dollars worth of presents. I rec- 
 ognized her as soon as I set eyes on her. You see I w%s 
 there as a representative of the school of the prophets loca- 
 ted up near Mount Ephraim, and " 
 
no VARIETY 
 
 "Taint no sech thing," put in Mrs. Meacham, "my folks 
 is good respectable people from Nova Scotia, an' they al- 
 ways lived there to a place called Milhken's Bend, and if I 
 aint mightily mistaken, Mr. Philosopist, or whatever you 
 call yourself, you're that good-for-nothing Jim Smead that 
 went off to Boston to learn dentistry 'cause you and hard 
 work never could agree. Greek girl, indeed ! Don't I re- 
 member when you tried to elope with Jim Davis' wife, 
 and the men folks formed a posse for to run ye out of 
 town.?" 
 
 At this point Smead (if that was his name) arose with 
 an air of great dignity and got out of the circle surrounding 
 the board, while Mr. Meacham closed the incident by saying 
 that in his opinion "It is better not to know so darned 
 much, than to know so much that aint so." 
 
 I like to see a man who frankly admits that, so far as he 
 has any pcsitive knowledge, this is his first and only appear- 
 ance upon the globe on which we live. 
 
 At East Wakefield Depot I met an- old gentleman well 
 known to many of your readers, James W. Hill, who refer- 
 ed to an item in Little Pitchers' notes of two years ago, re- 
 lating to an ancient document posted in E, P. Allen's hotel 
 at Ossipee, being a reward offered for the arrest of one 
 Paul, who broke into a store at Ossipee and stole sundry 
 and certain goods and made of with them. At the time I 
 asked if any one knew the sequel, and Mr. Hill informed me 
 that he was present at the trial of the thief at Wakefield 
 Corner, as he was speedily captured and convicted. Mr. 
 Paul threw himself on the mercy of the court, and explained 
 that the reason he didn't take any more goods was, they 
 were marked so high he didn't believe he could sell them ! 
 
 But there are new traders at Ossipee Corner now. 
 
VARIETY III 
 
 FROM BOW HILLS 
 
 Looking down the Merrimack Valley upon a hazy August day, in 1890, 
 
 I saw, but yesterday, in the misty distance, 
 
 A brick-built city lymg 'neath the sun, 
 So still, no sound against the air's resistance 
 
 Was flung to me from out its ceaseles hum. 
 
 Weird clouds were drifting in the air of August 
 Athwart the valley from far Francestown; 
 
 And in the north, beyond the ''smiling water," 
 
 The white hills loomed like ghosts, my vision's bound. 
 
 This piece of earth, this vale in fair New Hampshire, 
 
 Lay like a picture in a sky-girt frame; 
 I thanked my God for the sweet gift of seeing 
 
 A vale so beautiful of all His grand domain. 
 
 I thanked Him ; then, from higher hills of Beulah 
 
 God raised my vision to a city fair. 
 A heavenly city, but filmy clouds were drifting ; 
 
 I only glimpsed the glories waiting there. 
 
112 VARIETY 
 
 76 LITTLE PITCHERS' NOTES, No. 7 
 
 The young man and the squirrel. Steve Jen- 
 ness, the wrestler. Roland Park. Friend Thurs- 
 ton and his yarns on how to gain credit. Uncle 
 Joe and his cheap house. 
 
 After a nice warm breakfast at the hospitable private 
 boarding house at Sanbornville, where I spent Sunday, I 
 walked down the track a quarter of a mile and climbed into 
 the freight buggy. I found there, among others, an elderly 
 gent from Rochester who owns a large apple orchard and 
 hay farm up among the Ossipee mountains, and he proved 
 to be quite a prize to destroy the tediousness of a passage 
 by freight. Among the stories he told was one of a young 
 man who was up in Tamworth visiting his uncle, and one 
 day got a gray squirrel treed out back of the barn and had 
 tried twice to knock the animal out with his uncle's old 
 queen's arm, but without success. Just then the old gent 
 himself appeared and said *' Let yerold uncle show ye how to 
 dft it." And he proceeded deliberately and with shaky hands 
 to load and prime the gun and then raised it slowly and with 
 with many tremulous jerks to a level with his eye. The 
 muzzle wabbled fearfully, but some how or other, the squir- 
 rel was blown plumb out of the tree. "Thar," said the old 
 man exultingly, "didn't I tell ye, I'd show ye how to do it?" 
 "Oh, well, uncle," said the young man disgustedly, "you 
 couldn't help doing it, you shot all over the tree." 
 
 Among the others in the buggy was Stephen Jenness, 
 who thirty years ago lived in Tamworth and enjoyed a rep- 
 utation as a wrestler (which hangs to him still), but there 
 was one, Rosco Greene, who thought his reputation was un- 
 deserved, and one town meeting day he and his friends, who 
 
VARIETY 113 
 
 had put up some money on the result, proceeded to nag- 
 Steve to wrestle. Steve wasn't feeling like wresthng and 
 held off for some time, but nothing would satisfy Greene 
 but atrial of strength. *' We took back holt," said Mr. Jen- 
 ness, "and a minute or two afterwards Greene came down 
 heavily on his neck and shoulders on the ice and snow, and 
 when they picked him up his shoulder was broken. The 
 worst of it was, the fellows who were backing him up left 
 him to get out of it the best way he could, and I went and 
 got a doctor for him. He was well satisfied that he had got 
 enough, and no one blamed me in the least." Such bouts 
 were more common at town meetings then than now. 
 
 Our Rochester friend told about two fellows out fishing on 
 Dan Hole pond, or some other old hole, when the boat 
 capsized and the two fellows went in. Parties on the shore 
 started to the rescue, when a wild-eyed man came running 
 down the hill shouting, " Save the red headed man ! Save 
 the red headed man ! " After both had been duly saved 
 some one with a bump of curiosity inquired of the anxious 
 man why he specially wanted the red headed man saved. 
 '/ Oh, nothing special." ''Yes, but you must have had some 
 reason," it was pressed. ''Well, you see, the red headed 
 man owed me a dollar and eighty cents." 
 
 From Moultonville I went out to Roland Park, estab- 
 lished about three years ago, overlooking the Dan Hole 
 ponds, the vale of Canaan, and just at the foot of the grand 
 old Ossipee mountains, around which I made my way dur- 
 ing the week. Considerable improvements have already 
 been made and more are under way here. 
 
 Thankgiving day found me at Bearcamp pond, where 
 Edmund Vitum accommodates fishing parties during the 
 summer. Mr. Vitum took me over to Tamworth and about 
 noon I happened in on B. F. Abbott near the foot of Choco- 
 rua and found a fine Thanksgiving dinner waiting for me, 
 part of which — the cranberries — came from the top of Cho- 
 corua, where they grow small but of a dehcious flavor. 
 
114 VARIETY 
 
 « 
 
 My friend Thurston, who sells the Waterville, Me., 
 make of stoves, and has put out ten thousand dollars' worth 
 in this vicinity in two years, told me of an old gentleman 
 named John Reed, who lived on a farm a few miles out from 
 Damariscotta, Me., whose credit was not any better than the 
 law allows, where he was best known. The old chap went 
 into a harness shop in Damariscotta one day and insisted 
 that he had bought a halter there two years before, for 
 which he got trusted, and he had now come in to pay for it. 
 A diligent search of the books failed to bring the item to 
 light. "Well, I certainly had it," insisted the old man, 
 "and it was a good one, too, and I want to pay for it. I do, 
 indeed." "Very well, sir," said the man, "if you insist 
 that you had it, you may pay 'me for it, of course, but this is 
 unusual, sir, I must confefes." The very honest Mr. Reed 
 paid and departed, but in about two weeks he showed up 
 again. 
 
 "I want a pair of your best harnesses," he said, "and 
 I will pay for them in about thirty days, as I havein't the 
 money to pay down. I want to introduce your work up my 
 way, you see, I'm the man that paid ye for that halter, you 
 remember." The harness maker was highly flattered and 
 sat up night and day to make that set of harnesses that was 
 to introduce his work "up the river." John was delighted 
 with the harnesses and took them away with many protes- 
 tations of the work they would bring the maker. But he 
 naver came back to pay for them, although several years 
 have elapsed since the thirty days expired. 
 
 When our Rochester friend lived up in the mountains 
 on his farm, there was a certain denizen of the valley west 
 of Bearcamp, named Uncle Joe, who was constantly telling 
 how cheap he built his house. " I went out to see his 
 place," said our friend, "partly out of curiosity, and partly 
 to bud some apple trees. It was a kind of a dug-out with 
 posts drove into the ground, boarded along each side and 
 the spaces between filled with boughs, straw and wild grass, 
 
VARIETY 1 1 5 
 
 covered over the top with spUt shingles. It was indeed a 
 cheap house, but Uncle Joe was evidently very well satisfied 
 with it. He told me, however, that he would like to swap 
 wives with me. He said, 'I know my old woman ain't quite 
 equal to yours, squire, but perhaps we can trade some way.' 
 'Name your figures. Uncle Joe,' said I, in a brisk, business 
 way. *Wal, squire, I'll gin ye twenty dollars and a pig to 
 boot.' ' I'll do it. Uncle Joe, on this condition, you must 
 make the change.' 'That's the devil on't,' remarked Uncle 
 Joe doubtfully, and the change was never made." 
 
 77 LITTLE PITCHERS' NOTES, No. 8 
 
 Deer Stories and Bear Yarns. The Missing 
 Road Agent. Pork Barrels and Pig Stories. 
 
 While sitting in the pleasant office of E. D. White- 
 house's comfortable hostlery at West Ossipee one evening 
 late in November, and Ustening to the howling of old Boreas 
 who seems to have a special grudge against this section of 
 the Bearcamp valley, deer stories and bear yarns were in 
 order. Doc. Lord had one about three city young men, 
 college chums, I presume, and three or four young men of 
 this vicinity. The company struck into the mountains, and 
 before separating agreed that a certain number of whistles 
 should indicate various specified things, while a continuous 
 and constant whistling meant extreme danger. '' We sep- 
 arated," said the doctor, '' and had scattered through the 
 woods along the mountains, with the city boys well together 
 working up a ravine to the left of the rest of us, when sud- 
 denly we heard a most terrific whistling and uproar in their 
 direction. We soon joined and started in a body to the res- 
 
Il6 VARIETY 
 
 cue. Coming up the hollow we found the three valiant 
 sportsmen up three separate trees, with their guns scat- 
 tered on the ground below. One fellow, in his haste to 
 reach a tree he could climb, dove between two large trees 
 and broke his gun-stock short off by getting caught be- 
 tween the trees. We learned from the excited sportsmen 
 that an immense bear was lurking in the neighborhood, and 
 upon investigation, we found where bruin had been hunt- 
 ing ants in an old stump, and following the track left in his 
 precipitous retreat, we discovered a very scared and very 
 harmless fifty-pound cub. 
 
 Over at Madison Corner deer are so thick that one was 
 shot there on the morning of December third by Lester 
 Ambrose from his bedroom window. Its live weight was 
 one hundred and sixty-five pounds. Over the telephone at 
 Centerville it was learned that three fine buck deer were 
 shot at Huntress' Bridge, East Freedom, last Saturday, and 
 one was also brought in from Ossipee mountains the same 
 day. The heavy snow has made fine sport for the deer 
 hunters. 
 
 Speaking about snow, reminds me that the day I toiled 
 over through the woods from Duncan Lake to Pineriver 
 ahead of the road breakers was something tedious. I came 
 into a clearing and made inquiries as to the prospect of the 
 road agent being out with his merry men. ''Road agent's 
 dead," replied the citizen, and my horrible suspicion was 
 confirmed. No one else felt called upon to move in the 
 matter, and so I had to. Thirty hours after the great snow 
 storm the snow lay on Pine river plains unvexed by ^ ought 
 save Little Pitchers' irregular trail. But when we reached 
 Effingham, it was different. Effingham has laid in a stuck 
 of road snow rollers, five of them, which will cover all the 
 roads in the town and insure as good roads as any town in 
 the state can boast of. They were built by Charles Par- 
 sons of Effingham Falls. 
 
 Every one has heard of the cider barrel that had been 
 in the family for over a hundred years, of which the bung 
 
VARIETY 117 
 
 hole was the entire relic of the original barrel. Well, M.C. 
 Allard of East Madison has a pork barrel that was made 
 not less than one hundred and four years ago, and has been 
 in use ever since, the only change being new hoops, and the 
 ends of the staves smoothed down after depredations by a 
 lawless rodent a few years ago. 
 
 Speaking of pork barrels, reminds me that some 
 one gave me a pig story last week, but whether the pig 
 dressed seven hundred pounds at four months old, or was 
 undressed at four hundred pounds when seven months old, 
 I'm blamed if I can just tell. Any way, I think the figures 
 are right, and our readers can arrange them to suit them- 
 selves. It was a man named Smith that owned the pig, 
 and I owe him an apology for not having attended to the 
 matter before. 
 
 I attended the assassination of a quiet, gentle piglet one 
 day last week, and had prepared an appropriate obituary 
 notice, containing the salient facts regarding his age, pedi- 
 gree and weight in society, but the gentleman who conduc- 
 ted the ceremony was so pronounced in his opposition to 
 any sort of publicity, that we desist. Hereafter, if that 
 man paints his hen house, shingles his barn, or adds three 
 much needed lights of glass to his upper left hand shed 
 window, we shall pass it by with supreme indifference. A 
 man that has so little appreciation of the herculean la- 
 bors of the rural press can't get any free advertising from 
 us when he wants to run for road agent, or casts an aspir- 
 ing eye towards a seat in the legislature. I tell ye ! 
 
il8" VARJETY 
 
 78 SONG OF SERVICE 
 
 There is a hyrrtn! my lips have never sung, 
 I know not whence it came or how it come ; 
 But through my being like a harp's soft ringing 
 Its music steals, my soul is ever singing! 
 
 It has a measure sweet, beyond comparing, 
 Its rythme my soul is alvways up^ward bearing, 
 This hymn v^as born when love at first possessed me^ 
 Rising with love's calm ^de, it hourly blessed me. 
 
 Its theme is Jesus, humane, just and holy^ 
 A son of God, yet son of man as truly, 
 A perfect song because a perfect theme, 
 Real benediction, peace is ndt a dream I 
 
 Gold canftot buy this melody of song,- 
 'Tis gii'eu to all to whom it may belong* 
 P'orce cannot take it, nor can the crafty steal 
 The peace of God — the joy that angels feel 1 
 
 It comes of service, daily gladly given. 
 Of duties done, as they are done in heaven ', 
 Each, in his place, performing well his part, 
 This love song swells in every willing heart. 
 
 79 LITTLE PITCHERS' NOTES, No. 9 
 
 The Nomadic Yankee. Abram Sanborn of Dan 
 Hole Pond. 
 
 As usual, or at least following the program of one year 
 ago, I passed through Maplewood and West Newfield in a 
 snow storm, and arrived at W. H. Parks' on Acton Ridge 
 very glad to find a comfortable shelter for the night. Some 
 
VARIETY 
 
 m 
 
 steam saw mills have been put into the woods in the latter 
 named vicinity, and I found two of three families here 
 whom I have met before down in Rockingham county. 
 Like the foreign pauper laborer, they follow their job, and 
 when through in one locality, they pull up stakes and go to 
 another. Or, to use another illustration, they much re- 
 semble a Methodist minister's family, who have no steady 
 abiding place. Indeed, Yankees are almost nomadic in 
 their habit of moving. 
 
 I decided; on account of the storm, to take Horn*s 
 Mills by a flank movement, and proceeding to Union by the 
 Shapleigh stage and rail, I met most of the Pioneer's old 
 friends and secured many new ones, and also at Milton Mills 
 which I next visited. 
 
 The industries at Union were all running, and there 
 appeared to be a better feeling both here and at Milton 
 Mills than one year ago, though at the latter place the 
 Waumbeck mills have been burned in the meantime, and 
 the resources for employment probably permanently re- 
 duced by so much. I called upon our mutual friend, Abram 
 Sanborn, at Milton Mills. A fisherman bold is he, as ever 
 stood in his fishing smack, out on the billowy sea. His 
 stamping ground in ,the Qssipees, of which he is alwas fond, 
 with a boat and crew of fishermen true, is over at Dan 
 Hole pond. And what he forgets about these trout, is more 
 than some men ever find out, really isn't really worth talk- 
 ing about. Mr. Sanborn discanted at length on the beau- 
 ties of the square-tailed denizens of the Dan Holes, and 
 gave me a graphic description of the exciting chase and cap- 
 ture of a "great fish" weighing over seven pounds, which 
 he and a greenhorn captured there, the pattern of which, 
 squaBe tail'and all^he triumphantly showed me to clinch tbe 
 argument. No magnifying fish lens photographs for 
 your Uncle Abram. A pattern is a pattern with the victim's 
 li#e blood dried upon it, and what more do you want. I 
 don't belie\^e that Joiiah swallowed the whale — I never 
 did — but I do believe that Mr. Sanborn caught that great 
 
120 VARIETY 
 
 fish, because I saw the pattern of it. It was over 25 inches 
 long and 14 inches around it. 
 
 Mr. Sanborn also showed me a ballot which he secured 
 in the Virginia campaign when Grant was crushing the re- 
 bellion, along in the latter part of the Civil war, the top of 
 which I will quote to refresh the minds of the class in his- 
 tory: ''Confederate States Ticket. Election Wednesday, 
 November 6, 1861. For President, Jefferson Davis of 
 Mississippi. For Vice-President, Alexander H. Stevens 
 of Georgia. For Congress, Thomas S. Brock." Probably 
 not another one of these mementoes is in existence in New 
 Hampshire, and Mr. Sanborn prizes it accordingly. 
 
 Passing down chrough Milton three ponds I found the 
 ice covered with busy workmen with more than a score of 
 teams, I should say, and as many scrapers, clearing off the 
 snow preparatory to the cutting of the winter's stock of 
 ice. The ice at the time was about six inches thick. This 
 industry will provide employment for hundreds of men 
 many weeks this winter. The industries of Milton are all 
 in motion, I believe, and the same at Rochester, where the 
 displays of holiday goods are a prominent feature at this 
 season of the year. 
 
 And now, wishing you all a merry Christmas and a 
 happy and prosperous New Year, I remain, 
 
 The same old chip. 
 
 Little Pitchers. 
 
 80 TO MATHEW HARVEY OF 
 
 EPPING, N. H. 
 
 I sat beside his winter fire 
 
 And listened to the old man's lyre, 
 
 (He played on many strings ; ) 
 And wished that when my life has found 
 Its near or far off sunset bound, 
 
 I could say as graceful things. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Memo 3 
 
 1. My Native Heath (Illustrated) 5 
 
 2. As Glide the Vessels of Time 7 
 
 3. Cursed; A Story of Rock Rimmon (Illustrated) 8 
 
 4. Thoughts 9 
 
 5. Firstly 10 
 
 6. The Spring Poet Heard From 10 
 
 7. Up the Mag allow ay 11 
 
 8. To THE Raw Recruits 14 
 
 9. " Remember the Maine " 14 
 
 10. One of Claflin's Rambles 16 
 
 11. The Young Man of the Mountains (Illustrated) 19 
 
 12. City of the Silver Streams 19 
 
 13. Limericks 20 
 
 14. Drew's Poetry 21 
 
 15. Winter on the Saco 22 
 
 16. A Tale of Ba rtlett 23 
 
 17. The Murder of Ezra Dodge 26 
 
 18. Only a Picture (Illustrated) 27 
 
 19. Autumn 28 
 
 20. The Dance of the Leaves 29 
 
 21. An Occasional Occurrence 29 
 
 22. Why I Love You 30 
 
 23. Queen Carrie (Illustrated) 31 
 
 24. In the Vastness 32 
 
 25. The Meetin' at South Road School House 33 
 
 26. One of Alfred Austin's 35 
 
 27. The Next Roll Call (Illustrated) 36 
 
 28. A Tragedy in Jericho 37 
 
 29. Back to my Native Heath 39 
 
124 VARIETY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 30. These Here Electrics 41 
 
 31. A Seabrook Mystery 42 
 
 32. Ossipee Pocket 43 
 
 33. The County Press 44 
 
 34. When Uncle Joe Taught Schooi 46 
 
 35. Woman's Suffrage 48 
 
 36. Hampton River Bridge 49 
 
 37. The New Year 49 
 
 38. As to Water 50 
 
 39. The New Man 51 
 
 40. The Advent of the Wheel (Illustrated) 52 
 
 41. Auburn 53 
 
 42. Monadnock 54 
 
 43. Man 54 
 
 44. Tastes Differ 55 
 
 45. The Passing of the Year 56 
 
 46. The Lay of The Unemployed 57 
 
 47. Free Silver 58 
 
 48. Just Above the Collar Bone 59 
 
 49. A Call on Dame Cricket 60 
 
 50. To the Capitalist 61 
 
 51. The Hunters 62 
 
 52. The Dog 63 
 
 53. The Knife AND the Spear 63 
 
 54. The Muskrat and the Woodchuck as Weather 
 
 Prophets 64 
 
 55. Little Pitchers' Notes, No. 1. — Car Fares and Other Af- 
 
 fairs. A Dun-Colored Nag. A Philanthropist Who Finally 
 
 Died. More Pleasant Themes 65 
 
 50. The Vandal's Hand 69 
 
 57. Little Pitchers' Notes, No. 2. — A Flood of Memories. 
 
 Anent H. W. Blair. Around the Ossipees. Prof. Allard 
 and Sleepy Hollow. Adams' Ornamented Stone Wall in 
 
 Sandwich. A Hole in the Mountain 69 
 
 58. Corn on the Cob 72 
 
 59. Little Pitchers' Notes, No. 3. — An Acquaintance who 
 
 wanted to pull my boots off with his teeth. Redstone Gran- 
 ite. Fryeburg's Ennui. A Gentleman who has Visited 
 Heaven and 'Hell. "Seven to Eight" Miles to Porter. The 
 
 Country Parson of Parsonsfield. '' Middle Road." 73 
 
VARIETY 125 
 
 PAGE 
 
 60. Four Guv'ners ^76 
 
 61. Little Pitchers' Notes, No. 4. — The Beautiful Snow. 
 
 Places I have Visited. Pine River Poetry. Dr. Dearborn 
 
 and Dr. Pill Parsons ^'^ 
 
 The Monarch of Pine River Plains 78 
 
 62. A Name So Small 80 
 
 63. Another of Claflin's Rambles. — The Northwood Turn- 
 
 pike and how it was Surveyed. One of the Pinkham Fam- 
 ily. The Hindoo Machine that Regulates the Weather ... 81 
 
 64. An Easter Hat 85 
 
 65. The Lumberman of Six Mile Pond 88 
 
 66. A Reminiscence ' 89 
 
 67 An Odd Inventor 91 
 
 Industrious Mrs. Blackey 94 
 
 Claflin's Ramble, No. 3. — Passing Events. Some Moral- 
 izing and a Dead Secret. Miss Clara Blossom and her 
 Beau 95 
 
 70. Winter 98 
 
 71. Claflin's Ramble, No. 4.— Jacob's Well. Gee Big School 
 
 House. Sally Ann and the Feather Bed. Hobbs of Wolfe- 
 
 boro. J. B. Collins and the Firemen's Muster 99 
 
 72. Little Pitchers' Notes, No. 5.— What the Election Did. 
 
 Mr. Pike's Flint Lock. A Day at Cotton Valley. My 
 
 " Greek " Room-Mate 102 
 
 73. Fur-Wearers' Convention (Illustrated) 105 
 
 74. Little Pitchers' Notes, No. 6.— The Silent Majority and 
 
 the Spiel of the Dreamy Boarder. Goods marked too high 
 
 to steal 107 
 
 7.5. From Bow Hills (Illustrated) Ill 
 
 76. Little Pitchers' Notes, No. 7. — The Young Man and the 
 
 Squirrel. Steve Jenness, the Wrestler. Roland Park. 
 Friend Thurston and his yarns on how to gain credit. 
 Uncle Joe and his cheap house 112 
 
 77. Little Pitchers' Notes, No. 8.— Deer Stories and Bear 
 
 Yarns. The Missing Road Agent. Pork Barrels and Pig 
 Stories Ii5 
 
 78. Song of Service 118 
 
 79. Little Pitchers' Notes, No. 9.— The Nomadic Yankee. 
 
 Abram Sanborn of Dan Hole Pond 118 
 
 80. To Mathew Harvey of Epping, N. H 120 
 
126 
 
 VARIETY 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Sumner F. Claflin, the Author Frontispiece 
 
 The Old Man of the Mountain Page 6 
 
 " On Rimmon's bald crest " Opposite page 8 
 
 " A swart-faced savage " 
 
 " The nice young man " 
 
 " And a drum to make a noise " 
 
 Carrie Emma Carr Claflin 
 
 " And over the graves they are marching " 
 
 '* Now I race along the center of the solid turnpike road " 
 " A brick-built city lying 'neath the sun " 
 
 16 
 24 
 32 
 40 
 48 
 56 
 64 
 
 A Fur Wearer Page 107 
 
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