Eastern times., 1855-05-10

who, referring the question 10 mamma. was
not as broken-hearted as we had expected, a.
the answer
All this, and more, came up from the 'dim
plains of long-ago,' and conjured our at.en-
tion, as il swept by. We went back twenty
years, and for the nonce, felt that we belonged
there, and had no part in things actual. We
wore roundabout again, and carried our din
ner. II was Spring in the little village, and
all through the by-streets, and out in the su-
burbs and by the fence-side, and in door-yards,
the grass was starting modestly The family
OF yellow-birds, that, for smany successive
years, had annually repairess faar homestead
in the trees that shaded ours, were twi,ierinr
and chirping in the branches of the old locusts.
Gardens were being made, and the fresh-turned
soil was redolent of odors. On grassy plain,
where 1t was our wont TO play, there had as
sembled all our boyish band, and were 'choos-
ing sides for game at ball. The little girls
were there-matrons now, dispersed in all the
quarters of the earth, some of them, some lin
gering still among the scenes of childhood,
some coming back al intervals TO visit them,
some dead, some-peace they were young
then, and innocent could they have looked
forward, how would their hearts have bed,
in anticipatory grief thank God, we may
not see the future The little girls were
there, romping and joyous, and the very little
b,,,,. L.. a. A II
patronized and permitted. Standing there,
too, and leaning on crntch, was the lad
whom disease had early stricken, and leaving
but wreck, had doomed to life of sorrow
ing. Poor boy how graceful and natural
was the pity all showed for the pale, anxious
sufferer, who looked on uncomplainingly, gaz-
ing out of his great, blue eyes, at his stronger
companions All but one, and he, in after
years, saw many an hour when one glance of
pity for the felon and the outcast, would have
broken his stony nature down and drawn tears,
such as his childhood never knew All were
assembled there, upon that soft turf and romp-
ing with the carelessness of the first ages Of
life, just as, twenty years before, on such
spring-day, they were gathered after school, in
our village home. There were the same clubs
and balls; the latter manufactured, of even
ings, by the freside at home, from the raw
elled threads of stockings that had finished
their duty as garments, and were saved for
the boys by kind mothers each has been
wound with care, about the nucleus of india
rubber, or cork, or the elastic cartilege from a
surgeons nose, and been covered Gf with
buckskin, so much the more valuable) by a
kind sister or some child-loving cordwainer.
The same boys were there, though score of
years had passed, and giant warehouses had
grown up on the playground; there were
crownless hats, with stones to hold them down;
then, and there, in picturesque decadence,
they had remained, through all that lapse of
time.
Once more we grasped the tough, hickory
club, and stood ready to receive the whizzing
ball once more the old rhyme
"a tick and ketch
Will always fetch T.
a rhyme handed down, perhaps, from re-
mote English origin, and which may have been
familiar TO the children, who aIIerwarus, uu
that bleak December day, more than two hun,
dred years ago, landed upon the coast of Mas
sachusetts once more the rude old rhyme was
on the tongue, and we smiled as we recalled
it. Then, memory, frolicsome and reEelling
among quaint thoughts and childish knowledge,
long unused, exhumed and arranged before us
such other snatshes and fragments ofyouthful
rhyme as we had learned OF yore, and we
caught ourselves repeating
"Apple-seeds and apple-thorns
Wire. briar, timber. lock.
Three geese in flock"
for the first time in-Heaven knows how
long
In those few moments, years of life, pass
ing as the crowding incidents of dream-ro-
ality. In that short period, were brought to-
gether, at the summons Of memory, all the
widely-separated members of the little circle,
whose childish shouts had made the air vocal,
and whose glancing feet had pressed the turf,
so many years agone! A new generation
had come upon the stage, with new faces, new
voices, more delicate and less hardy frames
but these were boys still and their game
was the same that we had played, with the
wanderers, the felon, and the dead, for our
companions How soon, to these merry play
ers, will come the time for retrospection and
how many Of them, twenty years hence, will
stand here and recall their youthful spring
time, and their joyous sports. their school
days and their games of ball, the while they
repeat, as we did. the other morning, with
one whose age is past, for he has taken on
Immortality
"All things loved are altered SO.
Nor does it ease my heart to know
That change resides In me-
The Soldiers Vow.
A TRUE TALE.
Oae beautiful Indian summer day, in the au-
e rod in The efr pfe