Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-04-02

LII WIhCn we CONSIDER the changes
Time Has Wrought in the Last
Twenty Years all1 for the Last
Time, Praise God, See Mary Purse
Bearing Nobly the Last Great Dis
appointment of Her Life.
According to Joseph Bardwcll, the
Joseph Bardwcll,- ID Paris man who
has gained fame with two novels and
interminable short stories so that his
name is often on the magazine covers
of Services News Room,
to Joseph Bardwell who is in Il place
to know, the most difficult part of
writing a book is to convey skillfully
and convincingly the passing of time
This is especially true if the mar
rativc covers the entire livk; of Il
group of people. There must be due
allowance made "for them periods
when nothin' didn't happen" as
Uncle Joe Fodder would put it. For
there are such times in the lives Of
all of us. Comedy and tragedy leave
such Il terrific effect upon us be-
cause they break in upon lives that
arc running the even tenor Of their
way, careers that on the whole arc
uniformly quiet and prosiac They
are the paragraph marks and chap
, ter-hcadings in the journal of cXis-
tcnce.
For some of us these "peliods when
nothin' didn't happen" are longer or
shorter than those in the lives Of
other folk, depending on the sphere
we fill and the manner of people we
have grown to become. For most of
us these periods ain between" mean
little or nothing; only the high lights
and the milestones count because of
the pleasant or the burning blister
ing memories they have left in our
heads and our hearts. But for all
of us there are days of resume and
summary; occasions when something
compels us to take stock of the years
and disclose to us that time has pass
ed and we are growing old.
We know, of course, that the old
man once was young. We know that
the old tree where the orioles nest
swings and sways in the pleasant
summer weather was once frail and
delicate sapling. We know that the
old house whose shingles are mouldy
and blinds falling off and plaster
coming down in hollow rooms was
once fresh and new and smelling of
pungent mortar and wet paint where
some man and woman who arc now
sleeping quietly under some forgot
ten cemetery headstone walked
through the new rooms in the cool of
the day after the worllmen had gone
and planned where the furniture
would fit and go. But of the time
which has wrought these changes
the weeks and the months and the
years,-how stealthily they slip away,
how short the span of human life is
after all.
And this is particularly brought
home to these in the newspaper bust
ness. Going about the days work we
meet the faces we have met so long
and so constantly that it is only when
we sit in the quiet and think of them
Is they were yesterday that we appre-
ciate the changes time has wrought,
how hair has grown gray and eyes
lim and faces lost their youth and
ire. Going through our streets we
see long stately rows of trees and
t seems but yesterday we were pre-
sent at the exercises wherein they ;
we're planted. The houses that were I
lew and modish yesteryear are wea- ;
her-b beaten and dilapidated and out {
If date; the business blocks in which {
pointed them out to strangers as evil {
lences of our civic prosperity are s
low squat and shabby and we feel a I
rifle ashrm med of them. These are s
he same people and yet they are not. 7
This is the same town as of old; t
ct stopping to think, we do not re- j
ognizc it. b
Coming down to concrete things a
nd following the lives of the particu- "
IL people with whom our story has
0 do, we may say without fear of Il
uccessful contradiction that the y
ears from 1896 to 1912 saw more i,
Ranges in American life than any s
Their period in the history of our peo- Il
lie or our nation. We can close the s
les here now and lay them back on G.
ID the green box safe. All too vi G
idly memory will serve US and as e.
u the rest, our story must come a,
own for it's close into modern times. c;
The first thing of which we have O.
ken note is the change in the life :
our nation. Spain and George