Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1852-12-01
A BEAUTIFUL SKETCH.

carcaSllc peOple arc "ohI W o''f '""s FoS''
Dwell in garrets, and simple people believe it,
And Others, neither sarcastic nor simple, send
them up aloft, among the rubbish, just because
they do not know what to do with them down
stairs, and "among folks" and so class them
under the head of rubbish, and so consign them
to the grand receptacle of dapidated Z" has
beens," and despised T" used-to-be's," in the
old garrett
The garret is to the other apartments of the
homestead, what the adverb is to the pedagogue
in parsing everything they do not know how
to dispose of, is consigned to the list of adverbs
And it is for this precise reason that we love
garrets; because they do contain the relics of
the old and the past souvenirs of other and hap
pier and simpler times.
They have come to build houses nowadays
without garrets. Impious innovation
You man of bronze, and " bearded like the
pard," who would make people believe, if you
could, that you never were "a toddn, wee
thing;" that you never wore ga rifle dress"
or iingled rattle box with infinite delight
that you never had mother, and that she new
er became an old women, and wore caps and
spectacles, and maybe took snuff-go home
once more, after all these years absence, and
booted and whskered, and six feet high as you
are, and let us 90 up the stairs together; in
that old-fashioned, spacious garret that extends
from gable to gable, with its narrow, oval win
dows, with spider-web of sash, through which
steals dim, religious light" upon museum of
things unnameable, that once figured below
stairs but were long since crowded out by the
vandal hands of these modern times.
The loose boards of the floor rattle some
what as they used to do-don't they when
beneath your little, pattering feet, they clatter-
ed aforetime, when, of rairy day smother"
wearied with many-tongued importantly, gran
ted the Let us go up garret, and play" And
play! Precious little of "play" have you had
since well warrant, with your looks of dignity
and your dreamings of ambition.
Here we are now in the midst Of the garret.
The old barrel, shall we rummage it ? Old files
of newspapers-dusty, yellow, a little tattered I!
IT'S the COLUMBIAN Register" How famil-
lar with the Letters or papers for father p
And these same Registers" just damp from
the press, were carried one by one from the
fireside, and perused and preserved as they
ought to be- Damp! All many q star has
set since then, and many a newly-turfed heap
grown dewy and damp with rain that fell not
from the clouds.
Dive deeper into the barrel! There A
bundle--up it comes, in a cloud Of dust. Old
almanacs, thin-leaved ledgers of time, going
back to--let us see when: 1884,, lS3-, 1872
children. And the day-book--how blotted and
blurred with many records and many tears
There, you have hit your head against that
beam. Time was, when you ran to and fro be.
meath it--but You are nearer to it now, by more
than I" the altitude of copine." That beam is
slrewn with forgotten papers of seed for next
years sowing--a distafi, with some few shreds
Of flax remaining, is thrust in crevice Of the
rafters overhead and tucked away, close under
the caves, is the little wheel that used to stand
by the fire in times long gone Its sweet, low
song has ceased and perhaps--perhaps she
drew those faxen threads--but never mind
you remember the line don't you?
Her wheels at rest
The matron charms no more"
Well let it pass. Do you see that little craft
careened in that dark corner! 1t was red once
it was the only caskct in the house once, and
contained mothers jewels, The old red era.
die for all the world And you occupied il
once--ay, great as you are, it was your world
once, and over it, the only horizon you behed
bent the heaven of mothers eyes, as you
rocked in that barque of love on the hither
shore of time--fast by mothers love to a
mothers heart.
And there, attached to two rafters, are the
fragments of an untwisted rope. Do you re.
member it and what it was for, and who fasten.
ed it there? Twas I" the children's swing
OH are here, indeed, but where are Nelly and
Charley? There hangs his little cap by that
window, and there the little red frock she used
to wear A crown is resting on his cherub
brow, and her robes are spotless in the better
land.
If you wish to sell moro goods this year than
I,f,. ,1, he,