Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1876-11-29
The Footprints Of Time.

Time is relentless. The pendulum
swings back and forth marking the
steady flight of the moments. The
ticking OF the clock is the blended
music about the cradle and the dlrge
about the grave. Birth-death, is the
language of the time piece on the man
tel. Amidst the laughing glow of the
mornings bushes and the soft shad-
ows of the evening twilight, amidst
the bloom and fragrance of spring
time, and the solemn slumber of the
winter, over the altar and the bier,
the pendulum vibrates with the same
solemn steadiness--th clock ticks off
the life of the seconds time moves
swiftly into the past and we move
swiftly toward the future. The clock
will not always tick--the pendulum
will not always swing; its constant
friction against the past and present
will wear it out. By-and-by we will
listen for its salutation to the coming
moments, but it will speak not.
Dumb and motionless as death! Like
the heart of the dead the pendulum
sleeps sleeps in wakeless slumber like
the tomb, the old clock is speechless
and the abode of amending silence;
like the stringless harp upon the wall,
its ,labors are ended-its music is
hustled flushed forever.
But the flight of time goes on the
same. 1t comes with its gray hairs,
and scatters them through the raven
locks of youth-with its yawning
graves and open caskets-with its fu-
neral trains and tear-iloods-i.s disap-
pointments and heart-aches. 1t leaves
its footprints ON the hearthstone, the
garden, the homestead, the heart, the
cheek. Mother looks into the cradle,
but baby is not there; she listens for
its merry prattle- she hears it-smiles
then weeps-she hears only the echo
of the darling's voice-the echo which
never dies in a mothers heart. Time
laid the little bud in the crade-time
bore it to the little grave among the
flowers; time thrust a polgnard into
the mothers heart, and the wound will
never heal. In the silence of the night
it aches and bleeds as the mother
dreams of her sleeping pet, and while
LDC IlloNC III OtttltIl vi WIG hbotilt
one, the lips part, and in sweet,
tender tones she signs: Ba-
by The old man goes back to the
home of his childhood. He left it but
yesterday, but oh, how changed. The
vine that crept oyef the trelis at the
door is dead; the trellis is gone. The
arbor in the garden is a shapeless, I'M
inviting mass of rubbish. There is
the spot where the village pastor and
the mother knelt forty years ago to ask
God to bless the innocent boy who was
going out into the world, from the
sunshine of mothers love into the
cold companionship of strangers,
from among the flowers INTO the
midst of brambles, from safety
into danger That boy comes
back to-day. With wrinkled cheek
and frosted brow he sits down upon
the crumbling door-sill, and weeps.
Mother is not there to greet him, she
is dead The old pastor is not there
to shake him by the hand; he is dead
Father voice is not heard among the
hills; he is dead. The old man rises,
and hall forgetting that he is old, goes
down to the banks of the stream that
murmurs at the foot Of the mountain,
to inject the boys" They are not
there; they are dead. He goes back to
the old house, reclines upon the we'll
worn cot to rest, the light begins TO
flicker in his hreast-bis eye grows
dim--his pulse grows weak-he goes
to inject the boys" to see mother,
father, and the old village pastor.
Time does it all. 1t touches our lives,
and they go out it touches the flowers,
and they wither; it kisses the granite,
and it crumbes it kisses beauty, and
it fades; it steals over Scepters, and
they rust; it flows over thrones, and
they tOtter.
The moments are faithful reapers-
reapers for God. They come with
messages from heaven with the de-
crees OF death; but not with these
alone. Time is not entirely dreary III
its fight. It fills the grave, but il
fills the cradle; it bllghts the rose. bui
it fringes the forest with golden
beauty: it crumbles thrones, but II
.riyes life TO republics; IL rUbs us OF
eartn, but it gives Us heaven; 1T raised
the cross, but 1t burst open Il locked
paradise; it separates loving hearts.
but IL again unites them: it covers H.
own frowning wrecks with loneliness
and bloom ana drstr"vs bat fa 4,rstu-
tify and ennoble. Western Rural.