Show BASKETMAKING COMMUNITY Rude Romes In the MonntainsPov erty Intermarriage Theroad up the mountain has come to an end in atangled woodland Here half hidden by trees and rocks is a roughlybuilt log cabin It has one door hung at an opening too low for a man to enter without stooping The roof is partly shingled partly covered with a rude thatch and is so hurried in earth and snow that the whole thing appears to be a portion of natures handiwork It seems mossgrown and ancient enougli to have been built when the precipitous rocks above it came into existence The chimney is built of rough stones cem n ted in clay The door does not swing on hinges for it never had any it is lifted bodily from its place as it has been daily for perhaps fifty years past The room looks like a cave for one small opening with four panes lets in but little light A wan and haggard woman sits on the floor Her dress is torn and insufficient insuffi-cient to cover her form as glimpses of cuticle sadly show ns She is surrounded surroun-ded byan assortment of chlldrenragged unwashed unkempt The woman does not risewhen we see her poor garments gar-ments we can excuse herand scarcely looks at us she is at work weaving baskets One or two of the older children chil-dren are helping her Everything in the room betokens abject priverrv broken stove into which a small u y constantly pushing pieces of wood is nearly redhot On the apology for a chair the visitor scarcely trusts himself to sit A heap of rags u u m 1 = supposed to be thebed Thi nr chpl hovel is one of many aiutiar ijut wherein dwell and suffer the poor bas ketmakers of Rockland County The ancestors of some of these people are known to have come from Long Island in the last century Some are decendants of persons who for safety betook themselves to the mountains during the Revolutionary war The number of families originally small and through marriage and intermarriage in the second generation nearly all become related They did not always trouble themselves in their desolation with the1 forms of matrimony and it decame difficult sometimes to determine the degrees of consanguinity of young persons who sought to be united for better or worse hence the union was very often for the offspring the latter The means of support for human life in this region are but meager The men have found employment cuttin wood and some of them have worked in the iron and nickel mines or burning charcoal At present all these labors are at a stand Their only resources at present are the picking of berries in the summer and the making of baskets Cor Few York Tribune |