The Press., 1897-04-29

tha day-I know not whether it still ob- talns in country schools-the session was opened each day with chapter or chap ters of the New Testament, read ia verse about" by the pupils. Usually that was alls but the lady of whom I speak would tkneel and pray with us. Sweet lady Since then she has knelt and prayed with children not much wilder or more igno- rant than some of her little brood, in Syria, on the very ground where, 1900 years ago, walked the Saviour, to whose teachings her life has been devoted, in Constantinople, and know not in what other foreign olfmes, To-day her serene presence lightens the labors of her hus- band, a we'll loved minister in one of our larger New England towns. have never seen her since the days when she used to kneel and pray with us.
 One memorable day boy was repri- The cotton mill is afirel" he said, and in an instant, without permission, but without restraint, the pupils were pouring from doors and windows, the teacher in the van- That was glorious day. The session was not resumed till the big four or five story building was mass of ashes and embers. It did not take long, as it was old, dry and oil-soaked, and there was of course no protection. But the sight of the big breast-wheel, looking at the sunlight for the first time in its long history, and battling braveIy for its life among the crashing timbers was pathetic, even to the boys.
 The top of the hill, midway on which, as has been said, sat the school house, was crowned by sturdy granite shaft, sacred to the memory of one of the most famous of the martyrs of the American Revolution, and around it lay the bodies of those, who, for 200 or more years, had been part of the town. Around it to- day lie the bodies of many who gained their education at this little red school house, or at the little wooden ''academy'' on the hill, and of some handsome, brave yonng fellows, wild perhaps, but only with the natural ebullition of youth, and who laid down their lives that the nation might live.
 "Live in the present. Why talk so much of times and friends departed ?" hear some one say.
 And why not, good friend? Are not old comrades still remembered? Do they not still liver I love to talk to them and of them. ''Those who are gone, you have," said the great writer of English fiction. "Those who departed loving you love you still and you love them always They are not really gone, these dear hearts and true they are only gone into the next room; and you will presently get uE and follow them, and wonder door vii lclese upon you, and you will be no more seen."
 The first place toward which my foot steps tend, when I revisit the old home love SO we'll, and when the first greetings of those still in the flesh are over, is III among my other friends. To renew acquaintance with those who have long peopled the place, to note who of thos' who swan or skated on the bosom of th' pretty lake on one side, who coasted o1 the hills at the other, and who walked and played over every inch of the ground has come back to sleep in the loved olc spot.
 That dark-haired, stalwart, able young fellow, who as schoolmaster taught m' much and thrashed me unmercifully, an( against whom I held never a grudge partly because I deserved the thrashins and partly because it was the fashion O the time, was not more alive to me thel than today. I can still hear his laugh still see the big white teeth and the lon. black hair as he tossed it from his ample brow. I have children as old as he wa when a quinsey laid him low generation ago, and yet he still seems to me m. senior.
 Only 22 years old, so I read on tn gladly cast away his books when the reb els fired the first gun at Sumpter am
 hastened to the field of battle. Poor boy
 he fought and fought well, but was mad
 a prisoner, and for six months he 1otte' until he routed to death in one of tn southern slaughter pens. A few trinke t given to the comrade in the face of tn
 death he saw inevitable were all tha
 came north to the stricken mother. On can weep today for the poor boy, bor
 and nurtured but a stone's throw fror
 this "little red school house," and ami
 the scent of the lilacs of which we hay
 written. What must have been the agon
 and longing? Such histories are historic
 of almost every northern hamlet, bu
 when one recalls the face, and the voice
 it strikes much closer home.
 There was a blond young Hercule , who sat at school at the same desk 8 the one of whom we have just spokeI
 He left school at the same time and o | the same errand. A stone in the yard , sacIed to his memory, but none kno l where his bones lie5-He passed safel through his first battla Ken yellow feve ' claimed him.
 } In the seldom used parlor of the ol : farm house I loved to visit when 1 was child were many old-time dagerreotype and ''ambroytypes. Among them vel , some of the various "hired men," wh uiiet the issiIiola ss: s.Is and cME
 were during their period of servitude, , art of the family. Two martyrs wei among them. One of them, handsom , young fellow, who had got little wil ! after leaving my grandfather's emplo. o,~+c ~rorortxy tO