The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-12

the retreating sun, and visit for the first time in 10! these many years-yss, since was boy-the little town in the West in which spent that same boy hood. There shall dream away a full month revelling in reveries of thase halcyon years"
 He went.
 Now that he has returned he is sorry that he went.
 He did not pass a month in the town of his boyhood.
 He spent three days there.
 Then he returned to the East, where the dawn begins, and passed the re- tnalnd:r of his vacation listening to the murmur of the great waters and eating sea food.
 It is a sad thing. disillusionment. Life is not sufficiently filled with com pensations to make disillusionment of any sort bearable. But
 The man found the little town of his oayhood-he had left it when he was eleven years old-squaIid, dingy; com- eonplace, prosaic to the last degree. He remembered the frame house where in he had dwelt with more or less un- ity with his father and mother and sisters and brothers, as ap lace, made up of huge rooms and halls, and filled with long vistas.
 He found it a hut.
 He called up the Polish family now occupying it. They regarded him with suspicion, and he remained only a very short time.
 The apple trees in the yard-he had dreamt of their fragrant white blos- soms-looked scared, undersized. poor,
 The well in the old yeard-he had long remembered creaking chains-he had found out of business and boarded over, with big rock on top of the boards. It had become contaminated. ] He looked into the old barn-still Isuspiciously regarded by the entire Polish family-foolishly hoping, and even half expecting, after the lapse of a quarter of 8 century to see his little one-eyed mongrsl straining at his rope in the corner.
 Nope, the dog wasn't there, curious ly enough--and the dogs absence brought a renewed sadness upon the man.
 He looked for the hollyhocks beside the tumbling barn. They had all been cut down. Jimson weeds grew in their place.
 He looked across the street for the house where had lived the boy witk whom. he had been at eternal warfare. AS he looked a huge man in the | dress and grime of worker in a coa mine, and with a coal mine workers lamp in his hat, entered the diuapidat- ed house.
 The huge coal miner was the boy Of that militant time. The visitor al the home of his boyhood knocked at the door, hoping that the boy with whom he had so often fought would recognize him.
 [, No recognition. "Wot dye want the?' That was all. Remember him ? Nav. Had to work too hard for a lfy Ing to be rtmemberedberin' people vol had bin kids wit him.
 The visitor at the home of his boy, hood found the church in which he had been an alter boy. He had re- remembered it as gigantic edffice, 6 veritabie St. Peters. He found it oj about the proportions of a chapel. But surely anyhow, the organ music there would be sonorous, noble, inspiring. He found it to be squeaky, droning, wheezy. He 'gazed at the yellow, swift flow ing river, filled with reptile-resen1bl. ing snags and quicksand bars, and wondered how he could ever have found such delirous joy in swimine therein when a lad.
 He found the cave in the river bank wherein he had learned, with the other boys of his age. to smoke drfftwood and cornshuch cigareets. Bats by the score flew at him when he entered the cave, and he heard hissing of rattlesnakes. He retreated. He remembered the names of a few of his boy friends. He inquired about the mdowntown. Few of them were re- membered at all. Those that were re- membered-well, it was just as we'll not to mention those feilows-this one had been lynched for hoss-tealing. that One-Oh fhev'yJ oil noon nuasa..