The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1898-10-01
BILL ARP'S WEEKLY LETTER.
THE SORE DISAPPOINTMENT OF
AN OLD VETERAN
ON VISITING HIS CHILDHOOD HOME.
Life Runs In Cycles-Touching Incident
In the Life Of the Late Chief
Justice Warner.

A veteran called to see me yester-
day. He was not SO very old, but was
gray and bent and tired. He had been
to the great reunion and was on his
way back to Mississippi. CT stopped
over day to see you" he said, 'sand
| to revisit the place where was born,
| but / couIdent find it and am very
( tired, for 1 have been tramping over
| the hills and valleys above here nearly
| all day." The old man famed himself
| with his hat and looked sad and dis
appointed. / 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 a spring not far from their
humble home. 81 thought" said he,
that could find the spring and the
branch and the walnut tree and black
berry patch, but I walked and
walked and nothing looked natural.
| Seemed to me that everything has
changed and shrunk 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 was
lad, and there is a new set OF peo-
pie, but thought I would find some
body or something that remembered. D."
The old man looked away off and
sighed. Of course, we we're sorry for
him, and tried to cheer him up. l
asked him about the Hoopers and
Trips and Akin and Underwood and
Latimers and Arthur Haire, but he
didn't 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 and the scenes of
! their youth After fifty years alb
) sence 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. "My
5 relatives were all dead or gone away, !"
4 he said. ST found but one man who
remembered me, and he was blind and
t in the Apoorhouse. The hills where L
Y used ~ pick blackberries had been
: cleared and were not so large or SO
q high THE little branches where I
+ fshed for minnows had all been ditch
d ed and we're bridged where they CROSS
IS ed the highways. Everything was
s strange and / took no comfort and
a have come back to good old Georgia,
a nv adopted mother, and here will
b stay until die and wish to be buried
II in her friendly bosom"
q Life seems to be but circle, and we
e would all go back to the starting point
1t if we could. The startled hare when
q pursued by the hounds speeds straight
5, forward for time. but after mile OF
d two begins to bend its course, ano
re keeps on curving until it comes pant
!, ing on the home stretch to its familiar
I nesting place. And the pioneers tel
10 MS that when hunter gets lost in thu
Il forest on q cloudy day and tries t.
make a bee line for home, he makes {
~. 81 curve unconsciously and gets back t.
~ his starting point. Shakespeare say
re that old age is but second childhood
-, ~ and so the older we grow the more at
q lection we have for children and thei
10 innocent sports and pleasures. HOY
" fondly our minds and memories hv
over again the little plays of blin
"a mans buff, miIybright, hide and seek
w trimble-toe, club-fst, hide the switch
h. craney crow and many others. Ho'
CO we admire their happy laughs an
glowing faces as we draw near to thel
now. No wonder that George Franci
Train in his gloomy moods wandere
al to the park and drew as many childre
he to him as he could and played wit
We them on the lawn.
ell But time shrinks more than natur,
et The world is not so big nor the tret
Ia so high as when we were children
as but year is not half SO long-not
~ tenth part 80 long-as it used to b.
re The days were never too long then, Il
ne they were happy; but it SCENE
he like lifetime from Christmas
ed Christmas. Children are the sweete
he part of this great big world. Not Ion
ne ago a cynical friend who has none sal
est thew were an expensive luxury;
i'm thew are-expensive not only IN none
or and labor and toll, but in anxio'
res care; but they repay it in love tho
ro- sand fold. They are the life and COZ
'he fort of every good family VIZ
es- would the world be without then
m. Suppose they were all grown up 81
put there were no more to come-no di
IN. schools nor Sunday schools-no pla
ith houses or toys or picture books
vas babies learning to talk and say mai
ure ma or grandpa-no little chaps to Il
the low you about and love you, and,
'iio saddest of all, no more mothers
ISL, fondle and caress and hug them
Inc their bosoms. What cold and d
arly NAL world this would be-no mothe
pea no fathers, no grandmas, no nothi
NY but grown-up people who never pis
ed horse or sang lullaby song.
NV cynical friend says that childr
oon make no return except in filisl d.
the and no recompense but affection. W
i be that is enough. Parents do not
nty- any more. The love and obedience
the a good child is beyond price. !
disobedience and ingratitude OF !
one is the most intense of all miseri
nen, There is not greater contrast nj
be, earth than in the Joy or the sorr