The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1875-09-09
The Old Folks at Home.

July and August have been this year, as
always, the young people, season. Youth
and beauty, laughter and love- making have
showed business and old age quite into the
background. 1t is young men, irreproach-
able as to gloves and linen, who throng the
hotel parlors at Newport, Saratoga, or the
Branch; young men in equally effective
mountaineer's costume, who have fished
for trout,or humDly camped out for night
under the command of guide, or scaled
the heights of Mount Desert or the Water
gap with young ladies habited as mountain
nymphs according to the latest fashion, and
who sit with them at eventide now under
murmuring oaks, recalling their perils and
cutting their names on enormous Alpen
stocks. Beardless youths it is who, in pic
turesque sailor rig have deserted Office and
shop and assault the coast this month from
Maine to Carolina, who roll in their gate
and cock nautical eye on the clouds, and
whose whole talk and bearing have an an
Gent and fsh-like flavor. 1t is young
men, too, who in the inland towns make
up parties for q weeks outbreak, which
may be jaunt TO the east" or hunting
expedition to theHills. or a beast!ly drunk
holiday is taken according to individual
lhuCy,UuJ IuO nOluhJ 10 IdhCu 10 q udIlCA
of course by the younger men. 1t has
come to seem natural and right that the
fun, the relaxing of the bow the adven-
ture into unknown ways, should belong to
those who have least weight in life to car
ny, and that those who carry the weight
should not lay it down. The gray-haired
old fellow who likes to lead the German
with his daughters, or who will stand up
to the waist in water trout fishing all day.
is wondered at and liked as an oddity, a
rare specimen of genial manhood in its
prime, which it were unreasonable to ex.
pect to find duplicated in ordinary middle
age. Jack and Tom, therefore, fresh from
college or the Office, make the most of the
holiday at the fashionable resort which
their mother and the girls affect, while
THE governor" comes down on the late
Saturday train, talks business oyer Sun
day to other old men like himself, and il
off again on Monday before they have fin
ished their morning nap. The "old man
on the farm watches Bob come down il
his Sunday fnery and set off across thu
fields in the late sunset to the frolic, or Il
take Dolly to singing school, and is content
to smoke his pipe aud 60 off to bed before
the sun is fairly down. When the smar
young women in the quiet back streets O.
inland towns put on their evening muslin
and tie pink ribbons in their hair, and 81
down to play waltzes on the rafting new
piano until the beaux" come, their fathe
and mother hurry out Of the parlor, ant
stihe in the stufy little dining room unit
bed time. 1t never occurs to them or +
their daughters that the best room ant
the cheerfulness and light and gayet
should not belong to the young people a
amatter Of course. They 'have had thei
turn" is the argument which settles tn,
whole matter. 1
What was it they had their turn of
Love, pleasure, some daily Frightening o
the dull mechanic round of duty? Is tn
old man dead now to all these2 Did hi
heart harden and grow callous as his hal
whitened and his eyesight failed? Is no
his feeling more tender, the sense of lone
illness more profound, the yearning TO
companionship stronger with every yea
that passes? Try him with little sym
pathy the experiment is curious one
and rarer than you think. Take him int,
your confidence some day, instead of til,
dashing young fellow whom you met las
week and recognized as a congenial soul
Share the fun with him some time, tn,
joke, the little scheme which you think 81
important. Test the question whethe
this queer work-a-day old gentleman whom
you are ashamed to remember you know
best by his oddities and differences from
yourself, although he gave you life anC
all that has sustained life anC
made you the Admirable Crichton tina
you are, has really any human nature akin
to your own in the finer and sweeter sense
1t really seems as if there might be some
vein OF sympathy between the young maj
and the old. even on such matters a
amusement and love making, provided on,
knew what witch-hazel rod to use to fint
it. Old StorrS, who comes back to III,
shop every Monday and leaves Phil to dane
and flirt with the girls, or who sends tn
young fellow TO Europe for year, is re
garded by that gallant youth simply as
banker. Indeed, he talks of him some
times rs my exchequer," When Phi
was baby Storrs began that system O
strict personal economy and rigid devotion
to business, for which the younger MAJ
now brands him as of lower nature thai
his own. 1t was all done for Phil. Fl
had the money laid by for that journe
to France and Rome which he and his wifi
had planned SO long ; it went into a hf
insurance for Pills benefit the old coupl
will die without seeing the countries O
which the boy talks so glibly-talks in fac
to others, for he has the notion that i
would be throwing pearls before very in
ferior sort of animal to speak of art t
them. SO the old man stands in the door
way and looks 10 at this man-child he ha
given to the world, and feels that he ha
no part in him, except one akin to that O