The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1892-06-30

for fnancieriug. Each of US got $40 and
nobody out of pocket cent. I'll try that
again next year. sixty.six years old
Just beginning to learn something-be.
ginning to think, to reflect, to ponder. II
is fact that when q man gets wise
enough to live he is about ready to die,
and that is right. When We wear out the
old clothes ne want new ones. Death has
no terror to those who live right. There
is beautiful sentiment from song
which says,
On pareit knees naked, newborn child,
Was weeping, while those around It smiled,
30 live that, sinking In thy last long sleep,
Calm, thou may'st smile while those around thee
weep.
a venerable friend of mine who died
in heavenly smiles used to say he wished
for no warning, but would like to 60 all
st once, like the one horse shay that we
read about. He loved to recite from Mrs.
Barbauld's verses
Life! We've been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather
Bay not "good night" but In some brighter cline,
Bid mo "good morning."
Won't that be delightful? For ones
own self to wake up in the spirit land
With new clothes on and the old ones
buried three feet in the ground-buried
with all the aches and pains and miseries
buried and cofined and sealed 80 that
they can't follow you. Poor old carcass
-couldent run nor jump, nor prance nor
dance around Poor old eyes, nearly
blind, and ears that couldent hear Poor
old bald head and toothless gums and
skinny fingers Liked to have lived here
too long, dident your What a glorious
relief to wake up with your mind and
soul and spiritual emotions unfettered
and free, and suddenly to know it and
feel it! Who wouldent say, "Good
morning." to his new self, new clothes
and new experience? Who wouldent
look with pity upon his mortal remains
and say, "Goodby, old, friend, goodby,
old torpid liver; farewell, old aching
kidneys; farewell, rheumatism and bile
and spleen and all internal connections ;
farewell, DR.. Kirk and DR.. Green, and
the drugstores goodby, Warner aud cod
liver oil and S. S. S. and B. B. B. and the
Royal Germeteur and TUFTS pills and all
your kinsfolks?"
But I'm not that far along yet. Sixty.
six is not 80 awful old. I don't compare
myself with the young, but with the old.
er men, like Gladstone, and with some of
the patriarchs, like Moses. We have a
grandson who has my name and my
birthday. He was twenty yesterday
Just out of his teens-and I'm not much
older than he is. Fifteen years ago I was
ten times as old, but now I'm only three
times and q fraction. I'm gaining on him,
or maybe he is gaining on me, but it is
certain we are coming nearer together as
the years roll on. His father has al
most caught up with me, and strangers
take him for my brother. No, I'm not 80
old. still love company and jokes and
candy aud chicken pie aud flowers and
pretty girls. still love to 60 fishing and
to sec circus professions, and climb to the
mountains top and look down upon the
distant prospect and thank my Maker for
this beautiful world. We have to climb
for everything worth having, and am
willing to climb little longer.
Only si1ty-si1-but the trouble is /
keep getting older every day. If one
could stop and call halt and rest
awhile under the shade it wouldn't be so
bad, but there is no rest for the wicked.
These birthdays are like milestones that
mark the journey of liie-vsry curious
miles, indeed, for they get shorter and
shorter as the journey goes on. Every
thing shrinks. When I was twenty it
seemed long way back to childhood, and
still longer ahead to old age, but the last
forty six years are less than those that
were before. 1 am not far away from the
children now. I can sit on my milestone,
and, like q telephone, hear my grandson
as he sits on his, Hello, my boy p'
"Hello, grandpa" hear him family,
but I hear him, and he is coming on
Poor fellow, no thinks he will find some.
thing great when be gets where am, aud
maybe before, but he won't. BE will find
lust what have fouDd-much care, much
trouble, much disappointment, and lit.
tie pleasure. 1t is mixed, badly mixed
but it won't do to brood over. If q man
broods over trouble he will hatch it sure
Burns tells us about the old woman whe
"nursed her wrath to keep it warm
Just 80 we eau brood over little things
until they swell up and burst, and gang
of little devils come out of them. Then
the good hook says, "Fret not thyself,'
which means that it is not somebody else
who does it, but it is ourself, and it mean,
that we can keep from it if we try. Fret
ting is bad business, and fret is a bat
word, for it means to eat away, to gnaw
and it does look like very foolish thin,
for man to do, to gnaw on himself
Good gracious, what hills and mountain
of trouble ne have all conjured w
and brooded over that never materializ-
ed.
But am sixty-six years old-too oil
to be fooled about some things, too old t,
be alarmed or pain stricken about poll.
tics, or to believe all that the newspaper
say, too old to fear that the nation vii
fall to pieces if a Democrat is not elected