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Roaldus Richmond
DATE: _ S_FP 1 _ 4 in 'In
ARTIST OLD SCHOOL
Fe was an old man of medium size with a face carved in
lines of dignity and strength. The brow was broad and calm,
the eyes still held a light in their blue depths. He looked
like a man who had found and used the right key to life, con-
trolled his spirit and conquered his trade. A man who had
lived and was not afraid to die.
The wife of Donegal looked older, but in her faded eyes
was the same courage and faith. She sat rocking and watching
her husband with quiet pride. Donegal smoked his pipe slowly
and spoke with a Scottish burr.
"We are believers in God," he said. "We were brought up
so in Scotland, and with us it has lasted. Today many people
believe in nothing. I feel sorry for them."
Their home was a clapboard cottage with a steep shingled
roof, set near the slope of a hill. Vines draped the porch
and a little flower garden colored the front yard. At the side
of the cottage was a vegetable garden, and on the hillside
were a few apple trees.
"We came from near Aberdeen in Scotland," he said. "Lord
but it was a long time ago, Vary. We were married there.
Vary was part Irish and her family had no wish to see her married
to such as me. But we did it just the same and we sailed for
this country. I had no craving for a split skull from an Irish
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shillalegh."
"ith, yes!" laughed the little woman. "You was awful a-
fraid, you was. You fair trembled till safe on the ship and
out to sea." Then: "In them days he would've welcomed a bit
of a brawl, Donegal would"
"I'm a peace -loving man," he protested. "I have always
been, and will so till the end. You know that, women."
She hissed some soft exclamation of denial: "I know,"
she said. "When you was courting me you was forever boasting
and breezing on how many you had belted in the pub on Saturday
nights.°
"That was to impress the Irish in you," said Donegal.
"Knowine how the Irish love fighting so well."
you was a wild one all right, maybe in your efirly
youth, But I must admit that you settled down, and young too,
when I converted you to a sober and Godly life. All from the
influence of me."
"Be still, woman, said Donegal with a smile. "i-nough
of your Irish fairy tales. would talk man's talk here, and
only the truth.
"I learned the stone cutting trade in Scotland when I was
in my 'teens. but Mary and I was both of a mind to got away
to a new country, though love of the old we have never lost.
There were the menfolks of her family aching to lay me by the
heels, and I knew it. And from America came letters telling
of this Croat country with all its jobs. They said a carver
like myself would make a fortune in no time over here. Well,
whether I believed it or not, over we came and poor little
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Mary was sick on the trip across,
"We had cousins whose forefathers bad settled Caledonia
County hers in Vermont, You know of the Scottish settlements
in Ryegato, 44arnet„ St. Johnsbury on the east side of the
state by the Connecticut Fiver. So from itontroal we went there
and stayed a time, but it was not what we wanted. There was
granite quarrying in Ryegate, but it was a disappointment to
me. I kept Leering tales of the big sheds in Concord, New
Hampshire; in 4,uincy, Massachusetts, and in Barre. The people
of Ryegato were more for farming the land, dairying and such.
I was no farmer, altholie, since I left off work I have taken
to this small garden of ours.
"Ms wont on to ‘uincy and that was not to our liking either,
being like the other extreme of tyeat.. lo were lonely there
in some way. Then we tried Concord and I worked there until
a le* ter cams from a good friend of mine working in Barre, toll-
ing of the cominii, of the Zoottish cutters there; saying the stone
was by way of being the beat ever, and just the stone for a
carver like myself to work on. Fins stone with a fins train,
hard but not brittle* So it was to Barre we came, and we have
been here since that time. At the turn of the century it was,
as I rexember. Barre was filled and swarming with stonecutters
from Italy, Spain, Scotland, and Ireland. There was never
trouble of getting a job, and if you would leave one plaoe for
some reason or other, more jobs were waiting.
"It was a wild unsettled time, and there were many rough
wild men *ems to work on the granite. Some sent bask home for
their families and settled down here, steady and good. Others
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had no thought of settling down, but came only for the big
money, the drinking, the good times. Then they would go away
to cut stone some other place, leaving behind a bad name and
maybe some girl a -sweeping. There were fights, there were dark
deeds and stormy times. The people born here blamed us all
for w:71c:t the bad ones did. There were many solemn and dour
ones among the natives here, just as there are among the Lcettish
countryfolks. They couldn't understand the noisy fun and loud-
ness of the Italians and Spaniards or the brawling of the Irish.
it was all new to them. They did not like it. Their peace-
ful little country village become a madhouse. But it brcuLht
money, business, prosperity, wealth, the granite did, ind no
man can go about denying it. ili profited alike ss- farmers,
landowners, storekeepers, business men, every one. still the'
did not like at first, the native folks for the most. They
looked upon us like an army of inwAders. But we hic1 our trade
to work at, our steady money coming in, our own countryman and
friends, and our own pride of self and country. o we did not
mind it so much. "nd it changed as time went on. People mingled
more and became friends.
"I was a fair enough carver, se they say. Ltut i was never
with the best of them. The bet ones cam. from Italy. 'i-k)
better workmen maybe, but with more of the artist in them, more
of the inspiration. Like the old time sculptors, they were.
One of the finest, a slim fair 'Italian, a statue -cutter he
died at thirty, or younger. 1. had beauty in himself, he could
put it into the stone. All of the bent ones are gone now. The
last real one, the best one left, had to stop working a time
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ago. They do everything by machines now. It still needs work-
men of skills but not the artists. They are gone, once and
for all.
"It's the way things changes that is all. Everything
changes the same waj. Machines take the place of men* and
men &o without work, and hungry...
."That is the curse of the world today the madhiness
and everywhere men out of work. That makes for unhappiness
and misery and trouble. 'lake away a man's job and you kill
the man. Maybe the dust killed thews but being without work
kills them inside a worse way.
"And the young people are hurt too. They finish with
school and what is there for them? If they do find work the
pay Is smalls too small. They can save no money. They can
put no money in the bank, Ihey cannot get ahead. They cannot
afford to get married.
know...
What are they going to do? 1 don't
"I still look for hope and the best. Something will happen.
Something must happen.
God forbid it will have to be war again
for this country. We must have patience and faith. Sometimes
it's nct easy* for the young especially not. It is a lesson
that only the years can teach.
"I 1141 act sorry now to sit aside and watch the world go
by. It goes too fasts it has gone ahead too fast. That is
the great wrong. The minds of men have raced ahead more than
the Good Lord meant for them, and now men are paying for this.
44 have been happy enough bores Mary and I. We still
talk and think of Scotland, people do not forget the homeland.
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But now, it is too far, too late to go back. And we might be
like strangers there, and it would hurt to feel so in your own
land. So we'll stay on here, and all for the best, I think.
With the bombs falling like rain on the British Solon.
"There is a lot of talk about Barr* still being wild and
bad. I do not think it much different from any other place.
People are muoh the same everywhere. Uaybe there are more
nationalities here, more mixed-up. But still they are men
and women and children, and not so different one from another.
I read in a book once about this young man, a hunted man he was.
And he came to this peaceful village like a village in a dream.
There was a little white church over the town, and a graveyard
beside it. The boy had never seen such a quiet plats* of peace.
And all the people had pleasant faces. To read it would make
you want to go there. Well, he asked a woman if the folks
there were not kinder and happier and more lawful than in other
places. he answered him, 'No, I think they are muck like all
people everywhere. We have men who like too much drink; we
have girls who get babies without being married; we have people
who steal and chest and lie. Just like anywhere in the world.'
She accepted that as we all must accept it. There are still
the fine people too.
"That in how I feel about Barre and the people of Barre.
It does not look like that village in the book. Ay, it may
look like the opposite, as you know. But the people here ars
the same as there or anywhere you go. To worse or no better,
on the whole. That is another lesson it takes the years to
teach."