The Van Buren press. [volume] (Van Buren, Ark.) 1859-1914, 1897-03-27
"How many miles to Mllybright?"


Is like climbing the Alps; you reach n
snow-crowned summit and see behind
you the deep valley stretching miles
and miles away, and before you other
SUBMITS, higher and whittier, which you
may have strength to climb or you may
not. Then you sit down and mediate,
and wonder which it will be. This is
the whole story"
DR.. Holmes saw so much fun in every
thing that he couldn't help making
funny rhymes about an old man:
And now his nose Is thin
And 1t rests upon his chin
Like staff;
And crook is In his back.
And q melancholy crack
Is In his laugh"
Then he was sorry that he wrote 1t,
for he says:
Il know 1t Ia a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here"
The doctor didn't expect to live to be
IS, for long ago he said: "Our brains
are 70-year clocks; the angel of life
winds them up once for all, then closes
the case and gives the key TO the angel
of the resurrection"
But an old man is not obliged to have
crook in his back nor a crack in his
laugh. We see many aged men who are
straight as an Indian and have not lost
the musical tone of their voice. Habit
and pride of person have much to do
with this. i know an aged matron, a
peighbor of ours, who when she is sit
ting hardly touches the back of q chair,
aud yet she is not stiff or awkward-
always graceful, always beautiful. She
is kind and gentle in her age, and has a
warm welcome wherever she visits. Ii
she cannot hear all that is said she is
not embarrassed, for she says what she
lacks in hearing she makes up in seeing
and reading and is thankful for the fac
ulties that are still left her. l never
saw her with n troubled look, though
know she has had trouble and deep
grief Now, contrast such woman with
one who is always complaining of her
hard lot, or saying something disparag-
ing about her neighbors!
But the old-time mothers had some
excuse for bent shoulders, for 1t was the
fashion to sleep on pillow and bolster,
Cnd it was the fashion to lean to the
child while it was nursing. Habits be-
gun in childhood and continued in
motherhood win never be broken in the
decline of life. l believe that the habits
OF the girls of this generation are an
improvement on those of the past. They
do not lace like they used TO, and they
carry themselves more gracefully. They
have better fitting shoes and corsets.
They have more comfortable seats at
school and are not allowed to lean for
ward to their books or slate or writing
pad. The life insurance companies have
ut last discovered that women live as
long as men If not longer, and policies
are issued to them on equal terms. The
longevity of both sexes is increasing,
slowly but surely, and the only draw
back is intemperance-whisky and
opium. Were it not for these, the three
score-and-ten limit would soon be adj
vanced to four score and give us a
stronger and handsomer race OF people.
Shakespeare gave us some types of
old age that seem to have fitted the
times in which he lived, but they are
very rare in ours. Prince Hal said to
Falstoff: "Have you not all the char
acters of age-a moist eye, a dry hand, a
yellow check, white beard, a decreas-
ing leg, an increasing corporosity? Is
not your voice broken, your wind short,
your chin double, your wit single ard
every part about yGu bloated with an
tiquity?"
deny the cture. As somebody said,
deny the allegation and defy the alli-
gator. There is some of it that does not
fit me, I know. These poets are too fond
Of poking fun at old men. The she bears
ought to come along. The Scripture
says that old age is honorable and that
the young men shall rise up when the
old men come in at the gate. The old
men are the balance wheels of all the
machinery OF government. If il were
not for them the boys would run away
with the wagon. There must be wheel
horses with breeding on TO hold back
when going down hill. What are we
] JeTe fog? We can't climb tree OF