Of it?Certainly.Isn't that enough? That was the
only distinctly popular platform effort I ever made.I am proud
of it now.I was proud of it then.But the news of my triumph
was coldly received at home.
I don't know whether it has since gone out of date, but in my day
and time a very telling feature of school exhibitions was reading
in concert.The room was packed as full of everybody's ma as it
could be, and yet not mash the ren out of shape, and a whole
lot of young ones would read a piece together.Fine? Finest
thing you ever heard.I remember one time teacher must have
calculated a leetle mite too close, or else one girl more was in
the class than she had reckoned on; but on the day, the two end
girls just managed to stand upon the platform and that was all.
They recited together:
"There was a sound of revelry by night
And Belgium's capital . . . . "
I forget the rest of it.Well, anyhow, they were supposed to make
gestures all together.Teacher had rehearsed the gestures, and they
all did it simultaneously, just as if they had been wound up with a
spring.But, as I said, the two end girls had all they could do to
keep on the platform, and it takes elbow room for: "'T is but the car
rattling over the stony street," and one girl - well, she said she
stepped off on purpose, but I didn't believe her then and I don't
now.We had our laugh about it, whichever way it was.
We had our laugh . . . . Ah, life was all laughter then.That was
before care came to be the shadow at our heel.That was before
black Sorrow met us in the way, and would not let us pass unless
we gave to her our dearest treasure.That was before we learned
that what we covet most is, when we get it, but a poor thing after
all, that whatsoever chalice Fortune presses to our lips, a tear is
in the bottom of the cup.In those happy days gone by if the rain
fell, 't was only for a little while, and presently the sky was
bright again, and the birds whistled merrily among the wet and
shining leaves.Now "the clouds return after the rain."
It can never be with us again as once it was.For us the bell upon
the Old Red School-house calls in vain.We heed it not, we that
hearkened for it years ago.The living tide of youth flows toward
the school-house, and we are not of it.Never again shall we sit
at those old desks, whittled and carved with rude initials, and snap
our fingers, eager to tell the answer.Never again shall we
experience the thrill of pride when teacher praised us openly.
Never again shall we sit trembling while the principal, reads the
note, and then scowls at us fiercely with: "Take off your coat,
sir!"Ah, me!Never again, never again.
Well, who wants it to be that way again?We're men and women now.
We've duties and responsibilities.Who wants to be a again?
Not I.Let me stick just at my present age for about a hundred
years, and I'll never utter a word of complaint.
THE SABBATH-SCHOOL
"We-a love the Sunday-school.
We-a love the Sunday-school.
(Girls) - So do I.
(Boys)-So do I.
(School) - We all love the Sunday-school."
SPARKLING DEWDROPS."
Some people believe that when General Conference assigned them to
the Committee on Hymn-Book Revision, power and authority were given
unto them to put a half-sole and a new heel on any and all poetry
that might look to them to be a little run over on one side.If
they felt as I do about the lines that head this article they would
have "Sunday" scratched out and "Sabbath" written in before you
could bat an eye.The mere substitution of one word for another
may seem a light matter to a man that has never composed anything
more literary than an obituary for the Western Advocate of Sister
Jane Malinda Sprague, who was born in Westmoreland County,
Pennsylvania, in 1816, removed with her parents at a tender age to
New Sardis, Washington County, Ohio, where, etc., etc.If he
wanted to extract a word he would do it, and never even offer to
give the author gas.But I know just how it hurts.I know or can
imagine how the gifted poet that penned the deathless lines I have
quoted must have walked the floor in an agony until every word and
syllable was just to suit him, and so, though I feel sure he meant
to write "Sabbath-school," I don't dare change it.
To most persons one word seems about as good as another, Sunday or
Sabbath, but when there are young people about the house you learn
to be careful how you talk before them.Now, I would not go so far
as to say that "Sunday" is what you might call exactly rowdy, but
er . . . but . . . er . . . Let me illustrate.If a man says, "It's
a beautiful Sunday morning," like enough he has on red-and-green
stockings, baggy knickerbockers, a violet-and-purple sweater, a cap
shaped like a milk-roll, and is smoking a pipe.He very likely
carries a bagful of golf-sticks, or is pumping up his bicycle.
But if a man says, "This beautiful Sabbath morn," you know for a
certainty that he wears a long-tailed black coat, a boiled shirt,
and a white tie.He is bald from his forehead upward, his upper
lip is shaven, and his views and those of the late Robert Reed on
the disgusting habit of using tobacco are absolutely at one.
Not alone a regard for respectability, but the hankering to be
historically accurate, urges me to make the change I s.