The Durham recorder. [volume] (Durham, N.C.) 1879-19??, 1889-09-11

thc oiu pdeh HluCn uoeu III my IVY
hood between our farm and our
neighbor's. This field by the brook
was "the bottom" in my day, and
the path would round the hill and
over the bottom, and crossed the foot
log with its low rail on one side
only, and continued on over to our
neighbor's house.
Did it ever strike you, my learned
friend, how many memories still
clingaround an old footpath through
your childhood's home? Sometime
about the clay and gravel of its bed,
dld YOU say, that sticks in you yet?
Yes; and about the grass that grew
chuck up to the sides of it, and
specially if it led through a field Of
clover, or from the spring house to
the kitchen.
And ii refreshes you, did you say,
to draw the old picture over again?
can understand that. But did you
ever stop to inquire, my learned
friend. why il is so attractive to you
now, in your later years? ! have a
strong suspicion, pardon me, that
your case is much like my own, as
TO that old path aud, indeed, as to
all the old farm you left behind you.
You have a sueaking feeling that in
leaving the farm you did just what
| did-left behind you every vestige
Of childish innocence and guileless-
ness you ever had, and became
thenceforth a hard, grasping man
of the world. Am | not right, SIR?
Presisely. That's the only painful
memory the old path ever brought
Iup.
The path itself always would have
been dear to us all-myself included
--eyen if | had not often watched a
fair form trip along it upon fairer
feet to carry my mother the first
ripe grapes, or some of the famous
cake and preserves, during her long
illness; or if | had not offer walked
between its velvety banks and over
the foOtlog at dusk, just to get the
scent Of the clover, you understand.
But you left one thing behind
you which | brought with me to
the city-a pair Of eyes brighter
than the violets on the bank there
at sunrise. They came from our
neighb0r's farm at the other end of
the path, and they are with me yet,
and still bright, but the dear form
containing them is smartly faded
from the drudgery We have under
gone here. In fact, we are both get
ting a trihe more like the old apple
trees than | like-but let that pass.
| have often wondered il she feels
like do about leaving everything
good behind her at the old farm. /
never had the nerve to ask her-but
let that go, too. But about that
old path again:
| would not forget my feeling if
| could when my father announced
that The bottom" was to be plowed
up for the next wheat crop. Would
they spare the path? was power
less to preserve il, but concluded to
try. So | suggested to my paternal
ancestor that thehill pasture needed
a new setting in timothy, along with
a new wheat crop, and hadn't we
better plow that instead? II was
Of no use. The bottom" was
plowed up and away went the path
and up came the wheat. But in a
few days faint line Of new path
showed itself on the old line. My
father thought our neighbor Har-
rlson and family might come around
by the road-at least while the
wheat was growing-but my gentle
mother treated the subject differen-
tly. She looked straight out the
window when she said to me, james,
the wheat don't seem to grow much
on the path"
We laid mother in the hill pasture
the year after that, and the next
spring | brought back over that
/ Al Al R-s.l p. III -