Henderson gold leaf., 1911-07-13

INDUSTRY ana prosperity ana culture
about in spots; but nothing to be
compared with what there would be
ii we had ten times as many people
as We have and were three times as
busy as we are.
| wish to live to see the day when
two-thirds of the land in Vance
county will not lie idle; when we will
cease to cut and sell our little pine
trees; when We will cease to pay a
hundred thousand dollars per year
for commercial fertilizers, and will
have cattle sufficient to fertilize all
the land we till. The satisfactory
prices of farm products in recent
Years have to some extent stimulated
The study and cultivation of corn and
cotton. Our country is improving
greatly, but SO many Others are
doing so much better. | want to
live to see the day when trolley lines
and public parks and lakes, macad-
amized roads and the other cOnven-
fences and comforts OF modern civili-
zation shall abound in this good
land where my ancestors and | have
lived so long
/ should not write all this if |
thought "anybody but u.s. wonld
see it. One can affard to scold his
own folks a little. These reflections
have been aroused again by little
ride took last week. | boarded a
street car in Boston. While waiting
for it to start, my eye alighted on a
large placard, viz: "It is a misde-
meanor and will subject you to a
fine of 500 to spit in this city except
into a receptacle provided for the
purpose.
| rode 10 miles into the country,
through the "Middlesex villages and
farms" that Paul Revere reused on
"the 10Th of April, rs" The ride
cost me 23 cents going and the same
returning The road was macadam-
lied the entire distance, and oiled,
and 50 smooth and firm that dust
was impossible. Alfalong the road
were great stone troughs to water
horses and cattle, great farm houses,
immense elms, public school houses,
libraries, power houses, factories,
parks, market and flower gardens,
monuments and tablets, churches
Methodist Baptist, Presbyterian,
Episcopal, Catholic, Unitarian, Swe-
denborgian, Christian Science
LongfeIlow' home, Harvard College,
with it's nearly hundred buildings,
libraries, museums; the Washington
Elm.
Concord excited and interested me
to the limit. | saw the home and
the grave of r. W. Emerson and the
fields and the woods where he COM
muned with nature and with God
and saw and revealed SO much of
Him to us. Here is what is inscribed
on a bronse tablet inserted in
large flint boulder at his grave:
"The passive Master lent His hand
To the vast soul that DER him planned"
Hard by are the graves of Haw-
thornn, and Of Louisa NJ. Alcott, and
of Miss Peabody, who invented kin
dergarten. And there is the bridge
where the first blood Of the Reyolu-
tionary war was shed. Two soldiers
killed on each side Over the British
boys | read:
"They come three thousand miles and
died,
To keep the past upon it's throne;
Unheard beyond the ocean tide,
Their English mother made her moan"
On the side of the bridge where the
American soldiers-the Minute Men
stood, the inscription is:
"By the rude bridge that arched the
food,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here the embattled farmers stood
And fred the shot heard round the
world
Nearby was Walden and Thore aus
Cairn, where he meditated upon the
meaning of life There was the old
manse ia which Emerson and Haw-
thorne spent their early married life
and Hawthorne plucked t h
"Mosses." >" The entire atmosphere
was luminous with history and liter
ature. 1t was mount" to me
worthy of "three tabernacles" at
least, and it had them. | wish that
everyone who wishes to appreciate
the blessings he has and to obtain
other and greater, could go to Con-
cord and Lexington and the Wash
ingtOn Elm, and Longfellow's home,
and Harvard College, and Fanueil
Hall, and the old South Meeting
House, and the old State house, and
"the old three cornered hat and the
breeches and all that" immortalized
by Dr. Holmes. and the picture of
the man who wrote the hymn "Coro-
nation," and the organ on which he
first played it, and the thousand and
one other relics of the olden time on
which our new time is builded; and
that each and all might come away
resolved to do nothing more to keep
the past upon its throne;;" but deter
mined to make new efforts to fire
shots that will better and bless the
y