Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1898-01-16
In NATURES QUIET.
THERE THE COUNTRY LAD BEGINS
HIS LIFE OF THOUGHT.
LONELINESS TEACHES HIM TO LOVE.
He Has Little to Love, But Loves
Tint Little Morc--Tbought, Love,
and Ambition Born to Him I'm the
Peaceful Country Home.

Peaceful Country Home.
The country lad though by nature q
happy, rolllcking sort of a body, deals
more and more deeply in sober thought
than his city cousin, and more, too, than
his home folks and his day-school teacher
give him credit for. His urban relative
In knckerbockers may know the capitals
and largest cities OF every State on Uncle
Sans plantation; he may be able TO speak
Of fire engines and "hooks and ladders"
with an ease which causes his young
friend t. regard him as a chap whose
father and mother must know, even
somewhere in the nelghborhood Of as
much as his own infallible parents He
may be able to tell thrilling stories Of
how the splendid horses run, as IL Wild
to get to the fire before even the boys
do, and how the hremen themselves, I'm
their rubber coats and rubber hats, even
climb about on the houses, and are not
bit afraid. He will lend him his own
| private opinion Of a policeman as n big
| anything not flesh and blood fitted
into suit of blue with rows OF brass
buttons, who has no heart and no little
boys Of his own, and whose supreme de-
light is TO grab folks smaller than he is
and carry them off. TO the dingy, old
statiOn-hOuse 1t IS true that he did not
come by this impression right, for he
never had a policeman TO speak to him
any other way than kindly in his life.
The nurse tells him when he is bad that
a policeman viii get him and lock him
In fgp oil nj l...rr col Ia
that he heard another boy say once that
a policeman actually ran after him and
would have caught him If he hadn't
stumped his toe and fell. He may do al
this, and more, with an easy grace which
makes the country child ashame and
dissatisfied with himself, but after It ALL |
in those deep solitudes Of the country |
life over which a sacred stiffness nestles |
always like a coverlet. the little son Of |
rural soil begins the life Of thought first. |
HIS LONELINESS AND THEN
THOUGHT.
Your only companion IS a little sister,
perhaps a tiny, delicate little thing,
whom you love very dearly. But she is
devoted to dolls and lighthouses and tea
sets, and they don't interest manly boy
like you You ask her to let you play
housekeeping with her sometimes. She
is kind, but she knows and you know,
how it always ends the same way. You
didn't mean to do It, and are dreadfully
sorry about putting one Of your big.
clumsy feet right down on the head of
her best doll. The poor things head is
ground TO powder. and the little house
keepers heart is broken, too, with grief
and veXation. You can't help your feet
being so large and in the way always,
for you didn't make them, and can't ex-
change them for a smaller pair, or you
would. Your school-fellows
have invited attention to them too often
for you not TO be well acquainted with
he magnitudinOus condition of the pres
INT pair. The next best thing you can
10 is to take them away. Then comes
me of those long, quiet walks, which the
country boy alone can take. Leaving the
laths and beaten roads, he wanders
mOng the oaks and pines, diving
Deneath the underground, or tired now, l
esting upon a fallen tree; or else
lis aimless steps have led him across the T
pen fields, sweet scented with growing Y
lowers. He reaches some spot higher
han the rest, and looks out before and
ehnd him. He can see on the left the
orests; deep and igpenetrable they SEEM
way over yondeT the very clouds ap-
ear TO rest upon the giant oak tops
'ut before roll the yerdant fields dotted
mt before roll the verdant fields, ~
Gifted here and there with the u
edar, undulating on till they join
10 river. Leftward. through the
'inged border of the forest, the
ream's pure waters flash in the sun
ght many miles away. Trees and the al
IGN banks hide it from view, till his fe
yes look out before him. There IS the pc
liver thread again, creeping along till 81
10 eye can see no further. 1t Is In these -
oments when the boys eyes behold ma
res grandeur and natures beauty that
s soul stirs within him in unaffected
spouse; and thoughts of the world and nc
mself. what he is and what he is TO be, W
e awakened. OF
The greatness Of the things about, the
ep forests, the Understanding fields, 10
ID the stream, which seems to be car y
ing its waters so far away, brings on Ct
N the consciousness Of his own small VII
re. But 1t broadens his mind. He \
inks about these things, and his mind o09
0adens and deepens. nurtured by such M
I'd. With the feeling Of his insight :
ince i'm the presence Of the magnitude 70,
d the realization of what he is now, /
mes the thought and hope Of what he Pa
al be. No
WERE ONCE LIKE HIM. NJ.
lie remembers that once the trees Of to
great forest were little saplings, which =
IN a mite Of boy like himself might No,
We stopped over and pulled up Py
the roots. 1t comes to him Ire
L even the beautiful field =
! clear and white with the ripening mo
in, was once unsightly with bush and 10
bible and studded with blackened r
mps. The river itself, over there so pc,
y and broad and rushing with resist 1su
tide 10 join the ocean began under A.
ch tree up the country yonder, and 60 Co.,
)se little stream one of his big feet,
which he was ashamed, could have "
Dped. 2l1
ut what will he be? His father wants sat
TO make a lawyer of himself; his Dr.
her had rather her boy be a preacher, SD
sometimes tells him she hopes one n,
to see him standing in the pulpit or her,
old country church. But he would
'ich and have a fine house in the city.
I fine horses to drive, and that power
which every boy Graves more than BY
thing else, Of doing as he pleases-ot CLA
x anywhere he wants to without pest
ng to ask somebody first. vote
Id yet that same loneliness and abb was
e Of companionship which turns the ne