Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1851-08-27
EARLY FRIENDS

FROM IKE MARvEL's s'REyERIEs OF BACHELOR. y
| Where are they?
] cannot sit now, as once upon the edge
Of the brook, hour after hour, flinging off
my line and hook TO the nibbling roach, and
reckon it grea, sport. There is no girl with
auburn rnglets to sit beside me and play
upon the bank. The hours are sharer than
they were then and the little joys that fur
nished boyhood till the heart was full can
Gil it no longer Poor Tray is dead long
ago and he cannot swim into the pools for
floating sticks, nor can ! sport with him
hour after hour and think i. happiness
The mound that covered his grave is sunk
en- and the trees that shaded it are broke
and mnssy.
Little Lilly is grown into woman and
is married: and she has another little Lilly,
with faxen hair, she says-looking as she
used to look | dare say The child IS pre,ts -,
but it is not Lilly. She has lille boy too
that she calls Paula chubby li,lc rogue
she writes, and as mischevous as ever was.
God bless the boy
Ben, who would have liked ride in the
coach that carried me away 10 school-has
had great many rides since then-rough
rides, and hard ones, over the road Of life.
He does not rake up the falling leaves for
bonfres as he did once he is grown to be
a man, and is fighting his way somewhere
in our western world, to the short lived
honors of time. He was married not long
ago; his wife remembered as one of my
pIayma,es at my frs. school; she was beau
tiful, but fragile as leaf. She died within
~f, Il, r.,
years my senior; bn. this grief has made
him ten years older He does not say it,,
but his eye and figure tell it.
The nurse who put the purse in my hand
that dismal morning, is grown feeble old
woman. She was over fifty then she may
well be seventy now. She did not know
my voice when went 10 her the other day,
nor did she know my face at all. She re-
peated the name when told it ber-Panl,
Paul, she did not remember any Paul, excep,
a ilIe boy long while ago--"To whom
you gave purse when he went away, and
told him TO say nolhIiISnn9LiIIy1c,r- =,
Ben" ?"-"Yes es ,ha, Paul -
man exulling "do you know H!
And when told her-"she would not
have believed i.n' But she did &; and took
hold of my band again (for she was blind
and then smoo,hed down the plais of her
apron, and logged her strings, TO look tidy
in the presence of a gentleman. And she
told me long stories about the old house
and how the people came in afterwards; and
she called me "sir" sometimes, and some
times paul" Blu, asked her only to say
Paul she seemed glad for this and talk ed
easier and went on 10 tell of my old play
mates and how we gathered nuls-such
heaping piles; and how we used to play
fox and geese through the long Winter even
ing and how my poor mother would smile
but here asked her 10 stop. She could
not have gone on much longer, for believe
she loved our house and people better than
she loved her own.
As for uncle, the cold, silent man, who
lived with his books in the house on the hill,
and who used to frighlen me sometimes with
his look, he grew very feeble after left,
and almost crazed. The country people
said that lie was mad and Isabel with her
sweet heart clung 10 him. and would lead
out when his step tottered, TO the seat in
the garden, and read TO him out of the book 8
he loved to hear And sometimes. they told
me, she would read to him some letter that
| had written to Lilly or to Ben, and asked
him if he remembered Paul who saved her
from drowning under the tree in the meadow?
Bnt he could only shake his head and NUT
ter something abou, how old and feeble be
had grown.
They wrote me afterwards tha, he died,
and was buried in a far away place, where
| L r. Il H. H. Il
beside her. Isabel was struck with grief,
and came to live for time with Lilly; but
when they wrote me last, she had gone back
to her old home-where Tray was buried
where we had played together SO often,
through the long days Of Summer.
was glad should find her there when
] came back. Lilly and Ben were both Iiv-
ing nearer to the city when | landed from
my long journey over the seas but still
went to Isabel first. Perhaps ! had heard
SD much ollener from the others that felt
less eager to sec them or perhaps-I did
no. think il-perhaps loved Isabel better
F than them all.
So went into the country, thinking all
the way how she must have changed since
left. She must now be nineteen or twenty;
and then her grief must have saddened her
face somewhat; bu. thought should like
her all the better for that. Then perhaps
she would not laugh and tease me, bu, would
be quieter, and wear q smie--so calm and
, beautiful, thought Her figure too mus,
have grown more elegant, and she would
have more dignity in her air.
! shuddered a little al this, for ] thought
she will hardly think SO much OF me then
perhaps she will have seen those whom she
, likes a grca. deal better Perhaps she will
no, like me at all; yei knew very well Iha
] should like her.