Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-08-26
THE OLD FOLKS,
How They Can Benefit Children and How
They Are Benefited by Them.

They Are Benefited by Them.
Almost every home has some old per-
son in it to sit in some loved nook and
be kindly cared for. How faithfully the
little folks should be trained to care 70
them, and with kindly deeds and words
make their lot pleasant. Whenever we
find home with old people and chill
dren both in it, we find strong tie be-
tween them. Old folks naturally turn
to the little ones for society. They
seem to have travelled up the hill, and
in going down the other side meet the
little ones, and feel upon a level with
them. and gain most of their happiness
from their society. Wherever this is
the case we see children wise beyond
their years, from the knowledge some
old grandpa or grandma has impaired
to them, and We invariably see happy
old people with minds stored with odd
little tricks and speeches to laugh over
and tell the little ones of as they grow
larger. Both are benefited by coming
in contact with the other.
But occasionally we see an old man
or woman that is dreaded by the whole
family; they have become soured bv
contact with life. 1t seems as though
every thing had gone wrong they had
come in contact with. If you Try to
talk with them they are unpleasant.
They will show up to you the extrava-
gance of the day, how you are living too
fast, and the mistake you made in lay
inc aside the good old WAYS of doing
that our fathers and mothers observed.
They are always fretting and finding
fault. The very children are afraid of
them. If they want to get out of tho
house to play. and pass through the
room where the old folks are, they will
tip-toe along, dreading a scolding If
their shoes should squeak, afraid to speak
to grandpa or grandma for fear they will
be chided for spending time to play.
Children don't do now as they did
when we were young-work and not
fritter away the time in play" you will
hear them say to the little on2s. At the
same time. if some friend of the long
ago could come and sit with them a few
hours, and draw them, step at a time,
back over the lives now drawing SO near
a close. you would find that as they low
ingly walk back over that path of LIE
they have tasted of ali pleasures as we
do now. They played their games in
childhood rs joyfully as the children do
now.
In school they played their tricks and
received their punishment for it, just as
the children OF to-day do. They had
their lovers at school, to whom they
wrote missives of love. and stealthily
slipped to them their largest apple or
browneSt doughnut, and later on in life
they sought the society of the one they
loved the best, just as the youths of to-
day do. Some maiden dearer than all
Others was selected to pass through life
by their side, and when they began life
in earnest in their own homes. many of
fathers and mothers ways were laid
aside for newer ones. just as their sons
and daughters have done.
And as their children grew up, how
anxious they were that they should be
thought to be wiser than other young
folks around! And as they, with
friends help that travelled through the
years that they did, realize all this, they
see for the time that they have been
foolish. unreasonable, querulous old
folks, not realizing that people had to
come. step at me, up to the place in
life where they stand, to look upon it as
they do They had been trying in their
way to put an old head on young
a thing that has often been
tried but never accomplished. -'St0cG-
man and Farmer