Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1885-06-18

I Tue Two SiNCS VI VIC tdOlc, OF 50 ultl~
ancholy in their crippled number of
/ eleven.
Several years had elapsed, and our
eleven friends kept up their double
anniversaries, as they might be called,
with scarcely any perceptable change
/ But, alasl there came one dinner
which was Garkened by calamity
! they never expected to witness; for
on that day, their friend, ompanion,
4 brother almost, was hanged Yes,
/ Stephen Rowland. the wit, the oracle,
the life of their circle, had, on the
morning of that day forfeited his life
upon a public scafold, for having
made one single stroke of his pen in a
! wrong place. In other words, a bill
of exchange which passed into his
hand for s700 passed out Of it for FL, ;
/ 700.
/ It would be unjust TO the ten to say
{ that even wine, friendship and a mer-
ry season, could dispel the gloom
which pervaded this dinner. 1t was
agreed before hand that they should
not allude TO the distressing and mel
ancholy theme; and having thus in-
terdictod the only things which really
occupied all their thoughts, the nat
ural consequence was, that silent con
temptation took the place of dismal
discourse: and they separated long
before midnight
Some fifteen years had now glided
away since the fate of Rowland, and
the ten remained but the stealing
hand OF time mad written sundry
changes in most legible characters.
Raven locks had been grzzled, two or
three heads had not as many locks al
together as may be reckoned in a wall,
of half a mile along the Regents
Canal-one was actually covered with
a brown wig, the crows feet were
visible in the corner of the eye-good
old port aud warm madeira carried it
against hook, claret and red bur
gundy, and champagne, stews, hashes,
and ragouts grew into favor-crusts
were rarely called for to relish the
cheese, after dinner conversation grew
less b0isterous, and it turned chiefly
on politics and the state of the funds,
or the value of landed property
apologies were made for coming in
thick shoes and warm stockings
doors and windows were most care
fully provided with list and sand
bags-the fire more in request-and
a quiet game of whist filled up the
hours that were wont to be devoted
to drinking, singing and rlotOus mer-
riment. The rubbers, a cup of coffee,
and at home by eleven o'clock, was
the usual cry, when tho fifth or sixth
glass had gone round after the re-
moval of the cloth. At parting, too,
there was long ceremony in the hall,
buttoning up great coats, tying on
wooden comforters, fixing silk hand
kerchiefs over the mouth and up to
the ears, grasplng sturdy walking
canes to support unsteady feet.
Their fiftieth anniversary came, and
death had indeed been busy.
-Four little old men of witnered APP
pearance and decrepit walk with
cracked voices and dim, rayless eyes,
sat down by the mercy of heaven (as
they themselves TREMENDOUSLY ceclared)
to celebrate, for the fiftietb time, the
first day of the year; 10 observe the
frollc compact which, half a century
before, they mad entered into at the
Star and Garter at Richmond. Eight
were in their graves The four that
remained stood upon its confines. Yet
they chirped cheerily over their glass,
though they could scarcely carry it
TO their lips if more than half full
and cracked their jokes, though they
articulated their words with difficulty
and heard each other with still great
er difficulty. They mumbled, thew
chartered, they laughed if a soft or
strangled wheezIng might be called a
laugh, and when the wine sent their
icy blood in warmer pulses through
their veins, they talked of the past as
if 1t Were but yesterday that had
slipped by them-and of the future as
if it were a busy century that lay be-
fore them.
They were just the number for a
quiet rubber of Whist; and for three
successive years they sat down to one.
The fourth came, and then their rub
Der was played with an open dummy;
q fifth, and whist was no longer prac
ticable; two could play only at crib
bage, and cribbage was thegame. But
it was little more than the mockerv
OF plav. Their palsied hands could
hardly hold, or their faded sight dis.
tinguish the cards, while their torpid
faculties made them dozs between
each deal.
AT length came the last dinner; and
the survivor of the twelve, upon
whose head four score and ten WIN
ters had showered their snow, ate his
solitary meal. 1t so CHANGED that it
was in his house and at his table they
had celebrated the first. In his cellar,
too, had remained, for eight and fifty
years, the bottle they had uncorked,
recorked and which be was that day
to uncork again. 1t stood beside him;
with feeble and reluctant grasp he
took the frail memorial of youthful
vow, and for a moment memory was
faithful TO her office. She threw open
her long vista of buried years: and
his heart travelled through them all.
Their lusty and blithes0me spring.
their bright and fervid summer, their
rina and tnmnarete Autumn fbai,.