The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1862-07-24
Growing Old

IF one have a young heart in his
left breast-pocket, and everything has
gone right with him ever since he can
remember, and lie sits in his arm chair,
he may easily fancy himself young
indeed, quite young-iI fact, II jucenile,
but it will not do; he is old in spite
Of his heart, and his arm chair, and
his fancies.
Tits a painful process, that beginning
to find out what all the world has
known ever so long-that one is grow
ing old. How it shocks him some
day, as he is walking in the garden, to
hear the gardener talk to the cook
about ''the oIdma1a," and the old man,
nobody in life but his own adolescent
sell, Old man And Le steps as spry
as cat, and discharges the unfoltun-
ate gardener, and is too much in a pas
sion to give him ga character"
y Then, again, "the grasshopper is a
burden" for little things trouble him,
as they never did years ago, bnt he
thinks, little things have got their
growth since those old times. But
this doesD't quite satisfy him, and he
muses. over it, and he wonders why his
shadow extends SO far to the east
ward.
Some day he meets stranger in the
street; he is booted like trooper, and
bearded like pard he looks him
"square" in the eye. He is glad to see
him; wonders if he don't remember
him; declares that he is little Bill
Stokes that was, that he made bass.
wood whistles for when he. "kept" in
the old red school house at Bogg's
Corners; and there he is right before
him, man to man. There is no use de-
nying it he cannot prove an alibi, and
he fails into q brown study as he thinks
of it.
Then again, there's something the
matter with his back, but he always
calls il a "crick," when all the day it
is the River Time that is playing the
mischief He knows it will not do for
him to sit near an open window rs he
used TO do, but it has latterly been n
favorite idea with him that the sum-
mers grow briefer, and winters colder.
And what work they make now with
the baking such crusts of granite to
them. Not such did his old mother
bring cut from the old oven on the long
handled shovel, on those long gone
Saturdays, when he fancied ginger.
bread the daily fare of the angels.
By-and-by he begins to experience
some difficulty in reading his old news
paper-something with an l. or an Tx
vol. in the corner of it, that he has tax
en- since it was two KS and an | but
then he chargesit upon the type, and
pronounces an anathema upon nonpa
reil and ninion, 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 wondering the
while, if he ever had a sweetheart, or
could possibly, at any time, have been
young enough to love.
So this painful process of discovery
progresses, until, prisoner, he keeps
the old armchair, and the old clock
dial grows dim, and the old clock bell
sounds great way off, and he dozes in
the open door, and loves To look at the
setting sun, and shares the children's
toys and talks himself to sleep. 1t is
o summer evening: yellow light falls
upon the threshold, and along the floor,
and invests the old mans form with All
glory. lie sits in the dwelling Of his
sons son; his head reclines upon his
breast. Light steps steal softly around
him, but he hears them not. a set of
little fingers are playing with his thin,
white hair, but he does not heed il.
Two generations call to him; the
second is strong and manly; it is
'sfather" they utter; the third is child
like aud gentle; it is grandfather F"
they say, but he returns no answer to
either.
'The sun has set" somebody says;
s'the clock has just run down." cries
another; "lhe old man is asleep"
whispers third; and sure enough he
j., for the old man is dead.