Evening star., 1916-07-29

And you think of your barefoot days;
When you ort to work and you want to not,
And you and yonr wife agrees
| Its time to spade up the garden lot.
When the green gifts back in the trees
Well, work is the least O. my ideas
When the green gifts back in the trees!
When the whole tail feathers O. winter time
Is all pulled ont and gone!
And the sap it thaws and begins to climb.
| And the sweat 1t starts out on
fellers forred a gittin' down
At the old spring his knees
kin do like jest loaferin' roun'
When the green gifts back in the trees
Jest a potterin' roun' as I durn please
When the green gifts back in the trees.
Riley's 'swortermelon Time" brings to
many men the recollection of things that
happened in their boyhood. that they
would gladly live over again.
He says:
Fer never taste a melon but my thoughts flies
To the summertime of youth, and again see
the dawn,
And the fadin' afternoon of the long summer
And the dusk and dew a-fallin' and the night
A-comin',
And there's the corn around us and the lispin'
And the stars a peekin' down on us as stin
silver mice
And us boys in the watermelons on our hands
And the new moon hangin' US like yellow
cored slice.
M,
And they amt man alvin tickleder'n me.
For the way banker after watermelons is a
Which is the why and wherefore, as you can
plainly see
Those Of US whose youthful eyes were
familiar with the fields of corn and
pumpkins must confess that these eyes
now sometimes grow red when we
read:
When the frost is on the pumpkin and the fod-
ders' in the shock,
And you hear the kyorick and sobble of the
struttn turkey cock,
And the csckin' ia, Of the guineys and the cluekin'
OF the hens.
0, it's then's the times a feller is a feelin' at
With a risin. sun to greet him from a night
Of peaceful rest.
As he leaves the house, bare-headed. and goes
out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fod-
der's in the shock.
There's something kinda hearty-like about the
When the heat Of summers over and the coolin'
OF course we miss the flowers and the blossoms
And the rumble of the hummin' birds and bug
Zin' Of the bees;
But the airs appetizin.' and the landscape
through the haze
of crisp and sunny morning Of the airly
Is pictur that no painter has the colortn' to
When the frost is on the punkin and the fod-
der's in the shock.
The poet probably wrote nothing that
touches our hearts and takes us back
to country scenes and the happy. care
free days Of our childhood more than
THE Old Swimmin' Hole"
But the merry days of youth is beyond our con-
And it's hard to part forever with the old
swimmin' hole.
Oh! the old swimmin' hole! In the happy days
When used to lean above it on the sycamore.
Oh, 1t showed me face in its warm, sunny
That T. gazed back at me so gay and Elorined.
Ny shadder smilin' up at me with such tender
But them days is past and gone. and old Times
From the old man come back to the old swim
min hole.
God pity the man whose memory does
not take. him back to the "old swimmin'
hole" 1 do not know how he has
managed to live all these years in the
of life without cooling himself off now
and then in the recollection. at least, of
the "old swimmin' hole"
James Whitcomb Riley has blessed
the world with a striking picture Of
childhoods home. He says:
we must get nOme-lOr we nave Deeu 4W3y
So long it seems forever and a day!
And SO very homesck have grown
The laughter Of the world is like a moan.
In our tired hearing, and its songs vain.
We must get home-we must get home againi
We must get home; and, unremembering there
All gain of all ambitions otherwhere,
Rest-from the feverish victory, and the crown
OF conquest whose waste glory weighs down;
Fame's fairest gifts toss back with disdain.
We must get home-we must get home again!
Such words not only make us think.
but prompt US: to visit the home Of
our childhood. We make no mistake
when we go home. Old scenes and old
faces give US new life for the worlds
conquest.
Riley's words have made many a
man think, and not only think. but
pack his grip and buy his ticket for
the first train home. A few days there
does him a world Of good. The old
farmhouse. with its family associa-
tions the winding road and river, the
shop. the orchard. and flower garden.
with its little grave, the hills and
pasture where. a barefooted boy. he
drove the cattle; the brook where he
fished for trout. the medows still
fragrant with the odor Of the hay. the
barns where he played on the hay
NOW with other boys and lay up close
under the roof when 1t rained, the lit
tie schoolhouse by the roadside and
the old country church not SO far away
are scenes that bring back his lost youth.
1t all makes him hapDy hut II alan