The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1872-02-06
For the REGisTE
The Dear Old Days at Home.

me Deur OIu DuyS nj fIOmc.
What u swift tide of recollection some.
times rushes over the soul when we pause
in our every day cares and allow the
mind to wander back over our past lives,
away back to the happy hours we used
to spend at home, where we strayed away
through the clover scented meadows, over
the broad pastures and down through the
green aislcs of the cool dark woods on
the old homestead Sometimes too we
sigh for the old days again they were
so glad, so free from care. Some of us
remember playing hide-and-seek among
the apple trees with their fragrant bios.
SONS falling softly around US, and how
We chased each other back and forth a.
mong the hay tumbles, in the soft twi-
light Of the warm summer evening. How
bright the skies were The free wild
birds Of the air caroled their sveotcs,
lays for us, and even the flowers seemed
to bloom brighter then, than now. We
used to take OFT our shoes and stockings
and wade over the smooth pebbles in the
merry brook that danced and sparkled
away over the green fields until it was
lost from our sight What sights of
wild flowers VIC brought from its banks
to decorate the walls and nantes of the
well remembered old farm. house. When
the cattle came lowing up from the pas
ture we could call them all by name.
How often we roamed the woods in the
autumn over natures bright, many hued
carpet for wild berries and beech nuts,
chasing the nimblc squirrels to their hid
ing places, and making of the bright au-
tumn leaves wreaths for our brows, and
fostoons for our play houses. BY and
by when the SHOWS came how we peltcd
each other with snow balls, and coasted
over the snow banks with our seds, and
in the long evenings We drew our chairs
around the blazing fire to listen to grand
mothers stories Of the long ago when she,
too, was a child. How we turned our
careful mothers neatly arranged rooms
into ''play house," when the neighbour
boys and girls came over to "spend the
evening" o, dear old days Who
shall say that you were not the most hap
Ply ones of our whole lives that your
memories are not pleasant ones, making
us young again, as we 60 over in thought
the we'll remembered scenes of our child
hood ? Home How sweet the word
How tender and sacred the associations
connected with it. The once unbroken
circle is broken now, and its members
are scattered, never to be united on earth.
Grandmother's dear voice is hushed in
the stiffness Of the grave, and up beside
her in the old churchyaid, repose the
loved forms Of both father and mother
A dear brother sleeps meath the coral
waves of the blue Atlantic, whose great
restless pillows roll on in careless flow
above his unconscious head. \ sister has
married and gone to distant state, and
another has been laid to rest in the viii
lage churchyard beside the others. We
shall find the bones of schoolmate
bleaching on southern battle field, and
one roams meath the sunny skies Of balmy
Italy, while still another tolls in quest OF
wealth in the mines of the far west. We
are scattered, but do we not look forward
to time when the earth and sea give
up their dead Shall we not be again
united to 90 no more out forever; and
shall we not "know each other then ~
Often as We muse in the soft twilight
while the the itful shadows of depart.
ing day are playing around us, the past
comes back and We see again the dear
faces Of 1.-THE old time friends" We
hear in fancy the loved voices of many
who have slept in the dust long years, and
the memories are sweet, for we shall mee
them again. n. F.