The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1857-10-14
OUR OLD
A BEAUTIFUL STORY.

al find the marks of shortest steps be-
side those of my beloved mother, which
were measured by my own" says Alex.
ander Dumas, and SO coDjures up one Of
the sweetest images in the world. He
was revisiting the home of his infancy;
he was r~etraoing the little paths around
IN (which he had once walked; and strange
flowers could not e%fface, and rank grass
could not conceal, and cruel plows could
not obliterate-his shortest footsteps
and his mothers beside them, measured
by his WI
And who needs to be told whose foot
steps they were that thus kept time with
the feeble patteriDg of %childhood's little
feet? It was no mother behind whom
Ascanius walked "with unequal steps,
In YirgA's line, but a strong, stern man,
who could have borne him, and not been
b~urdened; folded him in his arms from
all danger, and not been wearicd; every
thing, indeed, he could have done for
him, but just what he needed most-he
could not sympathize with him-he
could not be a child again. All, a rare
art is that-for, indeed, it is an art, to
set back the great old clock of time, and
be q boy once more! Mans magma
tion can easily see the child a man; but
how hard it is for it to see the man a
child; and he who had learned to glide
back into that rosy time when he did not
know that thorns were under the roses,
or hat clouds would ever return after
the rain; when he thought a tear could
stain a cheek no more than a flower.
when he fancied that life had no disguise
and hope no blight at all-has come as
near as anybody can to discovering the
northwest passage to Paradise.
And it is, perhaps, for this reason, that
IL is SO much easier for a mother to en-
ter the kingdom of Heaven than it is
for the rest of the world. She fancies
she is leading tho children when, after
all, the children are leading her, and
they keep her indeed where the river is
narrowest and air is the clearest; and
the reckoning of the radiant hand is so
plainly seen from the other side that it
is no wonder she so often let's go her
clasp upon the little finger she is hold
ing, and goes over to the neighbors, and
the children follow like lambs to the fold
for we think it ought somewhere TO be
written: "Where the mother is, there
will the children be Also"
But it was not of the mother we be-
gan to think, but of the dear, old fash
Toned grandmother, whose thread of love,
"by hand" on life's little wheel was
longer and stronger than they make it
now; Was wound around and about the
children she saw playing in the children's
arms, in q true love knot, that nothing
but the shears of Atrops could sever;
for do We not recognise the lambs some
times, when summer days are over, and
autumn winds are blowing, as they come
blesting from the yellow fields, by the
crimson thread we wound about their
hecks in April or May, and SO undo the
gate and let the wanderers in?
Blessed be the children who have an
old fashioned grandmother. AS they
hope for length of days, let them love
and honor her, for we can tell them they
will never find another.
There is a large old kitchen some
where in the past, and an old-fashioned
fireplace therein, with its smooth old
lambs of stone-smooth with many knives
that have been sharpened there-smooth
with many little fingers that have chung
there. There are andirons, too-the old
sndirons, with rings in the top, wherein
many temples of fame have been build
ed, with spires and turrets of crimson.
There is a broad worn hearth, by feet
that have been torn and bleeding by the
way, or been made "beatiful, " and walk.
ed upon floors of tesselated gold. There
re tongs in the corner, wherewith we
Tas1ed . coal, and blowing for q little