The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1898-08-17
Atlanta Constitution.

Atlanta Constitution.
A Veteran called to see me yester-
dsy. He was not so very old, but
was gray and bent and tired. He
had been tothe great reunion and
was on his way back to Mississippi.
ST stopped over day to see you,
he said, s.and to revisit the place
where I was born, but l couldn't
find it and am very tired, for l have
been tramping over the hills and
valleys above here nearly all day. ;"
The old man tanned himself with his
hat and looked sad and disappointed.
learned from him that he was
born somewhere between here and
old Cassville and his mother boarded
some of the hands who were at work
building the State railroad and there
was spring not far from their hum
bic home. II thought" said he,
ssthat I could find the spring and
the branch and the walnut tree and
blackberry patch, but I walked and
walked and nothing looked natural.
Seemed to me that everything has
changed and shruuk up. The hills
have washed down and the branches
nearly dried up and nobody could
tell me anything. You see, we left
here away back in the forties, when
I was lad, and there is new set of
people. but thought I would find
somebody or something that I re-
membered." The old man looked
away off and sighed. Of course we
were sorry for him, and tried to
cheer him up. I asked him about
Hoopers and Trips and Akin and
Underwood and Latimers and Arthur
Haire, but he dident remember them.
He was poor boy and mixed with
poor boys and they had grown up
and gone west, too. How the old
people do yearn for the friends aud
the scenes of their youth! After fifty
years absence from his native State,
Judge Warner, our honored Chief
Justice, had this yearning to come
over him and he, too, revisited his
boyhood's home in Massachusetts.
He went with fond expectation and
came back sad and disappointed.
sMy relatives were all dead or gone
away" he said. II found but one
man who remembered me, and he
was blind and in the poor house.
The hills where I used to pick blue
berries had been cleared and were
not so large or so high. The little
branches where I fshed for minrows
had all been ditched and were
bridged where they crossed the high
ways. Everything was strange and
I took no comfort and have come
back to good old Georgia, my adopt
ed mother, and here I will stay, until
T die and I wish to be buried in her
friendly bosom"
Life seems to be but circle, and
we would all go back to the starting
point if we could. The startled hare
when pursued by the hounds speeds
straight forward for time, but after
a mile or two begins to bend its
course, and keeps on curving until 1t
comes painting on the home stretch
to it's familiar nesting place. And
the pioneers tell US that when a
hunter gets lost in the forest on a
cloudy day and tries to make bee
line for home, he makes curve un-
consciously and gets back to his
starting point. Shakespeare says
that old age is but second childhood,
and so the older We grow the more
affection We have for children and
their innocent sports and pleasures.
How fondly our minds and memories
live over again the little plays OF
blind mans buff, mily bright, hide
and seek, trimble-toe, club-fss, hide
the switch, craney crow and many
others. How we admire their happy
laughs and growing faces as we
draw near to them now. No wonder
that George Francis Train in his
gloomy moods wandered to the park
and drew as many children to him as
he could and played with them on
the lawn.
But time shrinks more than nature.
The world is not so big nor the trees
so high as when we were children,
but year is not half so long-not a
tenth part SO long-as it used to be.
The days were never too long then,
for they were happy; but it seemed
like a lifetime from Christmas to
Christmas. Children are the sweet
est part of this great big world. Not
long ago cynical friend who has