Arizona citizen., 1872-04-27
"HOME AGAIN"

Sentimental Reflections about Ones
 Old Home--ss So Long,"
 WOOSTER (O.), March 27.-After leaving Washington, to complete the swing round the little circle, there was something of interest to me in coming over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. I don't expect to interest the readers of THE CITIZEN, however, by & mere mention of such & trip. That we'll known highway is tangible substi- tute for the old Mason-Dixon line; on the one side, the shabby settlements incident-to slave labor contrasted with the strong and growing civilization that ensues where every man earns his living by the sweat of his brow. The scenery is mostly mountainous, and frequently very picturesque; specially about Harper's Ferry. The old ferry swung loose along with John Brown, and every other artificial im- provement is of the new regime. The fire and flood of war swept all away except old man Harper himself, who is said to still live in the flesh there abouts. Until Zanesville, Ohio, is reached, there are ear-marks of the old put-of- -tlll-to-morrow sort of i'm provement. There we skip over the Muskingum, Sciota and Miami sec tions of superior settlements, to drop again among the log-cabin heroes of content and poverty, incident to the western part of this State and most of Indiana. I had sweet-scented time of it foundering round for about ten days west of here about 150 miles. GabrieIs brass band will never sere- made that region, and the people may thus be favored over all other parts of the world. The devil, too, will never go there after fire wood, for the water never gets off the ground below the first limbs of the trees.
 It is relief to get round to the stamping-ground of my boyhood, in time to witness the cross-road school "exhibitions,' and experience once more the pleasures of " stirring off maple sugar. l say in time, for the Winter continues to sit in the lap of Spring, and prevents the water from running worth cent. As an Idaho chap used to say of the long -winded snow banks, perhaps July will give them h." This Winter has ex- hausted the patience of the oldest in habitant. It set in before last years corn was husked, and only yesterday has there been the semblance of real Spring day. The coldest day here was twenty-two degrees below zero in January-ten below in this month I don't want you to tamper with these figures as you did before, notwith- standing everything goes by the rule of contraries in Arizona.
 The school exhibition of to-day diff fers but little from the bed-quilt scenery of twenty years ago; and of the forty boys and girls, only one is found to "speak its peace" in man. her natural-the same old mechan- ically monotonous effects of all new beginners everywhere. But how all hands do seem to enjoy 1t! The rep resentative ages of seven, seventeen and seventy-ere there in all their gig gling state of good feeling. And God bless 'em all! May they never get further from home than to mill or to meeting, and never realize the bliss full realities of baggage-smashing, etc., attendant upon the unsatisfactory farce called "seeing the world" Still, I can't say that would care to live over the scenes of my youth, unless could reconstruct some of the machinery whereby children are trained up in the way they generally don't go. Youth has its little drawbacks, too; in fact, in many ways, as an Arizonan might say, {" it is hard game" But "you know how it is yourself" The most interesting deviltry that I can recall, was going to a neighbor's sugar camp in the middle of the night and " stir ring off" at his expense. Next to this, came the besieging of water melon patch, etc., in the Fall of the year, and when you had plenty of