The Dickinson press., 1889-05-25
A SMEAF OF FANCIES.
A LOOK AT LIFE FROM THE STAND.
POINT OF A NoNcoNFoRMIsT.

"Amber' Wants to BE n Protoplasm, y
Barnaclc or a Bird-The Earth VIII he
a Paradise Some Day-Bettcrt to BE Il Bird
and Fly Than a Toad Under Water.
an tired of the ~ceaseless waltz of events.
! want to go back and be a protoplaslm. |
want to be q barnacle on u South Sea
island rock and let the full Pacific tides wash
over me and the southern suns steep me in
infinite Gains of lazineSs. van to forget
that there are such things as electric lights
n steam engines in the world. My brain
aches with the effort to keep up with the
stride of events. | nave felt the anne way
behind a runaway horse, and once upon the
cowcatcher of q fast train. | should expert
ence the same sensation, | believe, tied to the
tail of a comet sparkling through space.
Give ME the quiet that turks in the clover
blossom and shadow haunted woods, and you
arc welcome to my place in a crashing,
smashing, indiscriminative world; you may
fall into file with ''rich men, poor men, beg
gar men, and thieves" and take up your
march with them over Satan's grand boule-
ward to the trim and tris burying ground
wherc souls and bodies go into eclipse.
THIS PLANETS FASCINATION
wish | were a bird to spread my wings
and fly away to the top of n tall elm tree or q
mountain pine, leaving forever this crazy
world and steering my feathered sails straight
into the upper blue, dipping my plumy oars
in far Off seas of silence, I'd go to Oregon,
where the ghouliSh wood chopper had never
left his mark, and I'D find some forest SO vast
and deep that even the tlutter of a falling leaf
could he heard in the still air, and there I'd
build mea nest of silence, drink sunshine for
wine, and never grow old. And when death
came I'd turn into an angel without any more
fuss than it takes for Il bud to change to n
blossom. I'd have no funeral, nor Grape, nor
mourning friends, nor floral display. nor out
door parade of hearse IL followers. but I'd
simply die and be done with it. as morning
meltS into noon"
That fancy suggests another. Do you
know, | think it would be rather difficult for
n wide awake, public spirited mortal to be.
come, at once, an angclf He would always
be coming back and posing his wing like n
butterfly over u rose, to see how the world
was faring. He wouldn't feel half as much
interest i'll the hallelujals that he used to feel
in an election. 1t would take u long time for
him TO forget his old political war cry, or use
himself to u government where they didn't
change rulers every four years.
How would it seem, | wonder, to revisit
earth after the gives Of mortality had been
stricken from our faculties and the dust of
limitation brushed from our visions. to watch
the green globe, likca bubble in the sunshine,
floating on its way mid tho starsf Would
one care to linger or he quick to hio away
back to the heavenly country, glad that ones
race On earth was run %forevcrt Perhaps tho
shooting stars are only angel tears after all,
shed by homesick spirits grieving for the old
camping ground. Dimpled with dells and
carved with hills, starred with seas and
fringed with forests, | am inclined to think
this beautiful planet would seem, even to an
angels vision, u complete pocket edition of
Paradise itself, for never tell mo that Heaven
can be any fairer than earth shall be one day
when freed from sorrow and sin.
THE OTHER SIDE.
But, aside from %naturo's perfection, what
would a heavenly visitant SEQ todayf Tribes
and races boiling like al lrishman's stew.
men trcading one another down to chase a
mote of gold through the air, grown up boys
blowing bubbles and cursing when they
broke, n honeyconbel landscape of graves
over which forever broods the dark wing of
unalleviated sorrow. fair women at their
firing glass like painted dolls in satin gowns,
with sawdust in their hearts and cotton bat
ting in their brains. cherib babies coming
up from the border lands Of heaven into
the highways of sin, like doves locking from
green meadows and blossomy trees into the
smoke and dangers of the town, ships sailing
treaclierous seas, freighted with souls. ships
sucked down in yeasty waves while pale
hands toss for help, tempcsts, like packs of
hungry hounds loosed from the leash, track.
ing fruitful lands with dcsolation, lovers
walking hand in and together. friends and
comrades i'll goodly fellowship, until invisible
voices uminon one and another away as
from our May day fields the ghosts of dande.
lion flowers are called by unseen winds; tho
grand and unstayed march of progress; the
rush of steeds Of steam, the crash of con-
stant disaster, the myriad ways of taking
life. the shock of armies, the secret flash of
the assnssin's blade, the thud of suicidal
leaps, the Pickering out of love guarded lives
like wind blown lights, the sowing of tares
by evil hands, the patient garnering of scat
..n"cl larvcSts of golden deeds, the unequal
balaiice OF right with wrong, and all the in
science of might over right. but where and
what am l, prayf
started out with the desire to be a pro.
toplasln. and have evolved into a pictorial
staff angerI Suppose we drop the sheaf of
lUltlcS uiu tilk uUOuG commonplace IQlQgS,
for the only way to avoid the worlds ridi.
cule, my dear, is to DO commonplace. Like
soldiers in n trench, the way to save our
heads from the sharpsnooters is to 'lay low"
The signal for your scalp locks to fly is given
when you raise above the level. Be like other
folks and the world will let you alone, rise to
any individuality, or scorn to be a conformist,
and you ut once become the target for bull
lets. Did 1t ever occur to you, though, that
there is moro glory i'll losing ones head, pro-
yided one finds it again in glory, than i'll
keeping it on ones shoulders here, and hav
ing it counted OF about as much worth by the
Lords appraisers us a unit in a row of 10000
brass pinst I'D rather march into heaven
when my time comes without a head and
riddled all over with scars, than with a head
stuffed full OF feathers or a soul SO anne that
it had never dared lift itself above cover for
fear of getting hurt. The toad that stays
under water will never be shot, while the
bird that seeks to fly will now and then fall 6
prey to the huntslnan'sa aim, but who wouldn't
rather he born with a bird'sdaring than will
q toad's c~autionf
When ! hear mothers entreating their chill
dren not to do SO and SO because folks
will think them peculiar, or to be precise anc
prim and prudent, merely because that is til,
only way to escape criticism, | want to say
"lf the Lord had meant everybody to be alik,
he would have created them by the gross, u
men turn out paper boxes, instead of one u
a birth. If you want to carry out the divin
idea in the training of your child teach hin
to be an individual and true to his individu
atty. A conformist is the most uninterestin,
thing possible short of a tallow candle O
q patchwork quilt. "-"Amber" in Chicag
Tribune.
Shirt bosoms never blister if starched O
the right side, but if they are wrong side on
when starched they are apt to dc SO. Pou
mixed starch into boiling water, instead c
pouring boiling water OH the starch-in tn,
way never using more starch than is nece
sary, as the simple starch and water can t
saved