Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1898-02-10
pleasure the mention ofthe name causes

pleasure the mention ofthe name causes
the soles ofour feet. We feel young
and are new settlers once more. Again
we travel the narrow roads through the
forests, hear the snort of the startled
deer and the cracking of the brush as
it fees through the underwood, and are
ourselves startled.in turn by the howl of
the wolfor boot of the owl. A little open
ing in the woods, log cabin and new
cut timber around, attract attention.
Future statesmen and school Misses,
with white heads, bare feet and dirty
faces, watch US through chinks and win
dow places as we approach. Madam,
with embarrassed look, yet pleased, at
the door welcomes us to the best the
cabin affords. The master soouappear-
ing, makes all things pleasing. We
chat of the next settler to come, the
saw mill to be built, where to locate the
school house, who will teach, hen and
where some one will preach; we met,
strangers, we part feeling the warm in
tiuence of a new friendship just begun,
which is to grow and last while memory
remains.
! An end view of the time from those
days to the present, makes it look very
short, but many changes have been
wrought. Forests have given place to
fields; the log cabins to snowy mansions;
the vigor of youth to old age; the boot
of the owl to the screech of the locomo-
tive; the hungry wolf to the modern
tramp, and the light of many lives has
gone out forever.
few of us are yet floating down
times uncertain river, trying to gather
as we go, enough of its pleasures TO
make life worth living. Some of the
| flowers of Ellen are yet left for Us, but
the odor of the serpent has furnished
them all. Like dilapidated old light
houses, standing on foundations nearly
washed away by the tides of time, we
are soon to tumble over into the ocean
of oblivion.
| Yet there is no occasion for repining.
1t has been our good fortune to exist
| during the most interesting century of
which there is a record. The closing
days of the eighteenth saw the begin
ming of our national existence; those of
the nineteenth see it grown to be the
greatest and most independent power
on this earth.
Free acres, free air and free govern
where and in every thing. Freedom Of
thought, ofspeech and of action, and
certainty of some reward, are the fertil-
izers that have nourshed to useful
degree of perfection, the discoveries
and inventions of the age; by the prac-
teal application of them, mainly, by the
genius of our people, have been the
means of elevating large masses of the
human race from the condition ofsavage
brutes to some degree of civilization; of
reducing the powers of kings and en-
perors; of making more kind and hui
name the privileged classes, and of NOV
ing the seat of empire from the old to
the new world.
1t has been the happy lot of all of us
to act some part in this great drama,
and although small that part may be,
we have the consolation ofknowing that,
small grains of sand fix the boundaries
of the seas.
Arrived at an age when we are inclined
to reflect much upon the past, and con-
jure up in mind what might have been,
we are yet buoyed up by ambition,
hope and anticipation, Chose MAIN
springs to all our activities and principal
source of all our pleasures,) and are
looking forward for those sweet hours
ofrest and days of peaceful happiness
which we have always allotted to old
age.
Do such hours and days ever come?
Have we any right to expect such a
time before we pass the dark veil?
If we act we'll our part through life,
more or less comfort and rest are ours
as time moves along. Perhaps this is
all that is allotted to us here; but be
this as it may, there is yet left to us the
pleasures to be drawn from looking for
ward, anticipating, picturing and dream
ing of the future.
Cheap and rapid transit has given
civilized men dominion over the whole
earth the twentieth century is to see
the English language become the COM
mercial language of the world; the En-
glish speaking people, dictators and rul-
ers of it, and the United States the great
center from which great good to the hui
man family will radiate. The colored
race will rapidly shrink away before
the onward march Of the more intelll-
gent white and disappear as fast as their
places are wanted by the more powerful,
selfish and cunning descendants of the
Anglo-Saxons.
The detail of all that is to transpire in
rounding out these and thousand other
great changes, furnish food enough for
thought and visionary dreams to amuse
all of US the remainder of our DAYS.
Let us, then, make the most we can
out Of the time left to us; nor worry too
much over the problem whether, after
the end comes, We are to return to the
condition we were in thousand years
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