Lynchburg daily Virginian. [volume] (Lynchburg [Va.]) 1852-1861, 1858-09-06
Growing Old,

If one has young heart in his left breast
pocket. and everything has gone right with him.
ever since he can remember. and he sits still in
his arm chair he may easily fancy himself young
indeed quite young-in inrt aJmrenilr, but it
will not all do-he IN old in spite Of his heart and
his arm chair. and his inncics.
| 1t is painful process, that beginning to find
| out what all the world has known for ever 80 long
| that one is growing old How it shocks him
some day, Us he is walking in the garden. to hcar
! the gardener talk to the cook about 1.-The old
man" and the old man nolo " in life but his owl,
ndolescent self Old man! And he steps us spry
rs n cat. and discharges the unfortunate gardener
and is too much in IA passion to give him "a cha
racter"
Thep, again. "the grasshopper is burden"
for little things trouble him as they never did
years ago, but then he thinks little things have
got their growth since those old times. But this
doesn't quite satisfy him. and he muses. over itas
he wonders why his shadow extends 50 far to the
Eastward.
Some day he meets stranger in the street. he
is booted like a trooper and bearded like pard;
he looks him square in the eye. He is glad to
him: declares he is little Bill Stokes that was.
that he made brnsswood whistles for when he kept
in the old red schoolhousc. at Boggs' Corners;
and there he is right before him. man TO man.
| There is no use denying it, he cannot prove au
"libi. and he falls into brown study rs he thinks
| Of
Tehn. again, there's something the matter with
| his back, but he always call ed it a 'crck," when
all the while it is the river time that is playing
the mischief. He knows it will nut do for him to
sit by an open window rs he used to do but it has
lattcrly been a favoritc idea with him that tho
summers grow brefer, and the winters colder
And what work they make with the baking;
such crust of granite to them. Not such did his
old mother bring out from the old oven on the
longhandled shOvel.on those long gone saturday 8
when he fancies gingerbread the dainty fare of the
angel.
BY and BY he begins to experience some diff
Guilty in reading his old newspaper-somcthins
with an L. or an Tx. Vol. in the corner, that he
never remembers he has taken since it was a two
KS and an l.. but then he charges it upon the
type, and pronounces it an annthema upon nonpa-
riel and minion, when it is nothing but BREWER.
He fancies too, that the girls have changed,
when the change is nearer home, for the man is
growing old, and those same maidens are wonder
ing the while. ifhe ever had sweetheart, or could
possibly. at any tinc have been young enough to
love.
So this painful process Of discovery progresses,
until prisoner, be keeps the old arm chair, and
| the old clock dial grows dim, and the old clock
bell sounds great way of, and he dozes in the
open door, and loves 70 look Mt the setting sun,
and shares the childrcns toys and talks himself to
sleep. 1t is q summer evening, yellow light falls
upon the threshold, and along the floor. and in
vests the old mans form with an old glory lie
sits in the dwelling Of his sons son; bis head re-