Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-04-13
TAKING UP THE PEN.
An Old and Popular Dispatch Writer
Heard From Once More.
MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD'S DAYS.
Chicago Has Slim Prospects Of Profit From
the Worlds Fair.
NEW YORK WILL GET MORE BENEFIT

| CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DIsPATcH.1
NEW YORK, April Ibid you ever re-
visit the scenes of your boyhood after long
absence stretching over years of busy life?
If SO, didn't you come away feeling you
had made a mistake? Don't you think it
would have been better to have left things
as they were-the old and the new unmin-
gled, the sweet memories undisturbed?
The mistake has just been mine. have
but recently returned from trip which
promised and did yield much pleasure, but
now that it is over and resume the thread
of my life where 1 dropped it some two
| years ago would in my heart that I had
let the past alone. 1t is disappointing. 1t
is unsatisfactory. 1t is saddening.
And why?
Because time leaves the scenes and incl
| dents OF youth engraved upon the memory
in idealized lines that becomes softened by
| sentiment as we grow away from them and
practically toned by natural love in the in
| tervening years. They are fixed and
! strengthened in us as is the lace and figure
of the girl we loved in boyhood. Return
and dig her up, living or dead, % or 30
years later and what becomes Of your senti-
mental picture? Is this the woman-with
blooming daughters and dirty grandchil-
dren-with a few old snags instead of the
lovely teeth you once delighted to compare
to the early corn-with the sallow, wilted
face and shriyeled lips instead of the bloom
ing cheeks and rosy mouth yon once pressed
to yours during the romantic days of husk-
ing-bees and spelling schools? Would you
now long for the red ear that gave you the
excuse for kissing her, or welcome the over
turning sleigh that LETT you scrambling In
the snow bank together? Hardly.
THE PICTURE DIsFIGURED.
While you enjoy the hasty talk with her
about the old times and crack jokes with
her big daughters concerning the days when
their ina" was young you come away un-
consciously sorry that you ever saw her
again. The picture on your memory is
worse than destroyed-it is disfgured, and
you will carry it thus with you always.
Had she been dead you mi ght as well have
gone out to the old graveyard on the hill
and dug her remains up and come away ex-
pecting to retain only the recollection of her
youth and beauty.
And here is the one particular friend and
chum OF your childhood, boyhood, youth
and early manhood; one of all the other
boys you once knew and loved as brother
in that earlier time. He was handsome of
person, generous OF nature and altogether
lovable. He was closer to you than a
brother. He started in life when you did
some 45 years ago, your neighbor and play
mate, and ran away from home with
you in your teens to see the world. He
fought by your side 27 years ago through the
Civil War and returned to the old home at
the close OF that strife to finally fade out of
your life. But you have carried him in
your memory OF all your early days, because
he was part and parcel of you then. You
are introduced to a broken-down old man,
thin, cadaverous and querulous-with
heavily bearded face, half dozen teeth,
one eve and chronic rheumatism. There is
actually nothing about him you can recog-
nze but his voice. (Why is it that the hu-
man voice outlasts everything else? 1 re-
Gently met men after 35 years separation
whose voices were so nearly the same as in
youth that was startled. They had grown
stout, most of them and had scarcely re-
semblance of boyhood about them, yet the
voice at once recalled the boy to me.)
When you sit down to chat with him about
old times you find his memory has been
largely replaced by obstinacy. and he open
ly accuses you of the same failing.
ITS DANGEROUS GROUND.
So you find it with all of the early per-
sonal connections. You meet one suddenly
and call him by his boy nickname; natu-
rally, because you know him only as boy
Even those about him for years have for
gotten it. I saw one to whom was intro
duced, and instantly the old nickname
"Whiskv" Bill popped into my mind, and
so I called him. He blushed to the roots of
his hair under the laugh that followed. He
has long been pillar in his church, and
the sobriquet gained in youth by his ability
to punish old rye had been forgotten. I
shall never forget his glance Of indignation.
The poison of the SHAFT was better under
stood when was informed that he was still
believed to absorb abnormal quanti-
ties of rum ''on the sly" 1t Is
unsafe to revive old associations
unless you know what you are about. Every
now and then you will stab some sore heart
by lnquiring in matter of course way of
some one recently laid beneath the sod. The
one reply you will oftenest hear is: "Oh,
he's dead years ago." There is something
personal in this. You feel that few years
hence some of these fellows will meet some
other returning wanderer:
"What's become of that fellow that used
to live over the Run long time ago, one of
the NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. man?" one will
ask.
"Murray-old C. L. Murray died years
ago-the boys"
81 mean one of his boys. the newspaper
man." Consults his watch.
"They we're all more or less in the news
paper business, iather and sons
81 mean the one that went East after the
war;"
"Challey Murray?" taking a fresh chew.
"Yes, Charley-the Washington corre-
spondent."
"Oh. he's dead long ago."
swell, well!'' musingly. "What time
have you?'
Halt past.-Yes, Charley's dead. long
time ago-orget the year."
81 hadn't heard. Or else I'd forgotten
which-don't let's go in here
"Mose does keep bad whisky, for a
fact"
They will then go to a place around the
corner and chuck dice with the assistant
barkeeper for the drinks-if they lose take
beer, winning take milk punches on the
house.
PLACES CHANGE. TOO.
What is true of boyhood friends in this |
case is also true and much worse when we
come to boyhood scenes and incidents. You |
have grown away from places quite as COM
pletely as you have grown away from per- |
sons. The pictures you have unconsciously |
treasured up do not fit the scenes. You ex- |
pected to find everything changed, and yet |
the very changes annoy you. They cannot |
be anticipated in their relation to |
what is let of the old. For instance, |
as you approach your native town the mind |
teens more actively with the incidents of
early life, and you cast about on either !
side OF the train for all the old landmarks. |
Pretty soon you will come to an old mill on !
the bank Of the river. just at the end OF the
railway bridge, where you used to go to mill |
a bare looted boy astride OF a farm horse and |
sack. There should be cluster of houses
across the road from the mill, and big
stretch of smooth wa ter abovp roarip no d.u,