The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-03-28
An Argonaut's Return.

1ou came 20 Cal1forn1a in 1852. You
return home, for the first time, in 1872
Your home, in an Eastern State, il
Dozeville.
For the last twenty years you have
persisted in regarding Dozeville as still
possessed of all the attractiveness il
had for you in youth. Reelection told
you il must have changed. People
who had visited Dozeville and returned
bore back gloomy stories of its dullness
and monOtony. But you have not seen
this. You could not realize il. There
vas for you but one Dozeville-young
Dozeville-always young, because you
saw it last in youth.
In da, DIR, ans in river and bank
claims. picking and shovelling up TO
the middle in mud, slum, and water
| by your cabin-door, smoking the even
ng pipe /; on the ster lie ridges of Ne
SiIda, prospecting for ledge" you
have in imagination many times visited
| DJzeville. You have shaken hands
With all its old citizens you have been
or time the newly-rcturned lion Of
he place No matter that letter after
etter told you how sires and grandsircs
md matrons and blooming, bIight-eyed
'choolmAtes had dropped of, you would
zee yourself, ON the first Sunday home
It Dozeville, standing in the village
hnrch and with what congregation
'ould You fill it save the one you had
left?
The dream is realized the continent
crossed you stand bodily in Doze-
Hlle. None knows of your coming It
night the train has stopped at the
lepot. The railroad has been extended
o Dozeville since you left; Dozevillians
we're talking of building this road when
gou were a boy. The "branch" is
hirty miles in length. They were
hirty years talking it over. Old Doze-
yilliars had lived and died talking of il.
VI last brisk New York speculator
sime along, and in a few months the
Dad was built.
There is a feeble effervescence about
he Dozeville depot when the train
tops. Compared with the roaring,
uEtling, crowding hustle of a wide
wake town, is is as the languid pop Of
I, stale champagne bottle TO the roar of
forty-two FOUNDER. You get in
,Oach, and are driven towards the fam
ly residence. 1t is a cold, clear win
4 er's night. You look out the wind is
caring through the leailess sycamoros;
very street has its old curve every
house is in its old place. You recog-
Iize them all, as though you had left
but yesterday yet a gloom seems TO
1ang about them. for you seem 30 real
re now that you are not 20 meet this
n that old nelghbor whose daily coming
md going from those gates seemed ns
Inchang able as the rising and setting
If yonder moon. You have met your
mother and sisters; you have almost
beCn obliged TO prove to them your
IDENTITY. IL was surprise, but not
exactly of the quality you had hoped
ior. They were hardly prepared TO see
. middle-aged man, worn by toll and
exposure. The last photograph You
'ent home, ten years ago, implied still
'ome appearance of youth. And alter
= few days, sometimes after few hours,
You make discovery; you are not nc
luainted with your own mother and
listers. Twenty years is too long an
tbsence there is a great gap, n whole
lifetime of incident aud event, between
rou and them. You are bound 20
housand California sympathies and as
OciatiOns of which they know nothing.
lou betray them every hour. You are
proving, now that you are
back at the old home, seated in the old
and on the very carpet over
which you tumbled in your babyhood,
hat three-fouiths of you heart is back
n the land OF geysers, grizzlies and
rold. The mother involuntarily siRhs
This is not the boys heart which left
Ter twenty years ago; il is q strange
mans heart, full of hopes fears, plans,
md remembrances unknown 10 her. IL
8 a neart recast, remOulded. IL was
boy who left her-from the
radle to that last parting she had
nown his whole life but this is n
,earded man who has returned, with
ashes of grey in his hair. with a diff
erent manner and n different voice.
lie brings with him the volume Of
wenty years of life, hut she cannot
ear it all at once. He shows carelessly
page here and there, but it is broken
nd fragmentary to her. Her eye
,righteDs when he speaks concerning
ONE event of his childhood there she
) upon familiar grOund-that seems
iece Of her own son. Hers during
our entire absence has been the quiet
ife Of Dozeville, not making half
Oxen new acquaiHtances you have
lade hundreds in the same time, and
ou bring them all home with you
~ ridnd Non'hiU