Part 4

I saw a blue-eyed child, with sunny curls, toddling on the lawn before the door of a happy home. He toddled under the trees, prattling to the birds and playing with the ripening apples that fell upon the ground. He toddled among the roses and plucked their leaves as he would have plucked an angel's wing, strewing their glory upon the green grass at his feet. He chased the butterflies from flower to flower, and shouted with glee as they eluded his grasp and sailed away on the summer air. Here I thought his childish fancy had built a paradise and peopled it with dainty seraphim and made himself its Adam. He saw the sunshine of Eden glint on every leaf and beam in every petal. The flitting honey-bee, the wheeling June-bug, the fluttering breeze, the silvery pulse-beat of the dashing brook sounded in his ear notes of its swelling music. The iris-winged humming-bird, darting like a sunbeam, to kiss the pouting lips of the upturned flowers was, to him, the impersonation of its beauty. And I said: Truly, this is the nearest approach in this world, to the paradise of long ago. Then I saw him skulking like a cupid, in the shrubbery, his skirts bedraggled and soiled, his face downcast with guilt. He had stirred up the Mediterranean Sea in the slop bucket, and waded the Atlantic Ocean in a mud puddle. He had capsized the goslings, and shipwrecked the young ducks, and drowned the kitten which he imagined a whale, and I said: _There_ is the original Adam coming to the surface.

"Lo'd bless my soul! Jist look at dat chile!" shouted his dusky old nurse, as she lifted him, dripping, from the reeking pond. "What's you bin doin' in dat mud puddle? Look at dat face, an' dem hands an' close, all kivvered wid mud an' mulberry juice! You bettah not let yo' mammy see you while you's in dat fix. You's gwine to ketch it sho'. You's jist zackly like yo' fader--allers git'n into some scrape or nuddah, allers breakin' into some kind uv devilment--gwine to break into congrus some uv dese days sho'. Come along wid me dis instinct to de baff tub. I's a-gwine to dispurgate dem close an' 'lucidate some uv dat dirt off'n dat face uv yone, you triflin' rascal you!" And so saying, she carried him away, kicking and screaming like a young savage in open rebellion, and I said: _There_ is some more of the original Adam. Then I saw him come forth again, washed and combed, and dressed in spotless white, like a young butterfly fresh from its chrysalis. And when he got a chance, I saw him slip on his tip-toes, into the pantry;

I heard the clink of glassware, As if a mouse were playing there,

among the jam pots and preserves. There two little dimpled hands made trip after trip to a rose-colored mouth, bearing burdens of mingling sweets that dripped from cheek, and chin, and waist, and skirt, and shoes, subduing the snowy white with the amber of the peach, and the purple of the raspberry, as he ate the forbidden fruit. Then I watched him glide into the drawing room. There was a crash and a thud in there, which quickly brought his frightened mother to the scene, only to find the young rascal standing there catching his breath, while streams of cold ink trickled down his drenched bosom. And as he wiped his inky face, which grew blacker with every wipe, the remainder of the ink was pouring from the bottle down on the carpet, and making a map of darkest Africa. Then the rear of a small skirt went up over a curly head and the avenging slipper, in lightning strokes, kept time to the music in the air. And I said: _There_ is "_Paradise Lost_." The sympathizing, half angry old nurse bore her weeping, sobbing charge to the nursery and there bound up his broken heart and soothed him to sleep with her old time lullaby:

"Oh, don't you cry little baby, Oh, don't you cry no mo', For it hurts ol' mammy's feelin's fo' to heah you weepin' so. Why don't da keep temptation frum de little han's an' feet? What makes 'em 'buse de baby kaze de jam an' zarves am sweet?

Oh, de sorrow, tribulations, dat de joys of mortals break, Oh, it's heb'n when we slumber, it's trouble when we wake.

Oh, go to sleep my darlin', now close dem little eyes, An' dream uv de shinin' angels, an' de blessed paradise; Oh, dream uv de blood-red roses, an' de birds on snowy wing; Oh, dream uv de fallin' watahs an' de never endin' spring.

Oh, de roses, Oh, de rainbows, Oh, de music's gentle swell, In de dreamland uv little childun, whar de blessed sperrits dwell."

"Dar now, dar now, he's gone. Bless its little heart, da treats it like a dog." And then she tucked him away in the paradise of his childish slumber.

The day will come when the South will build a monument to the good old black mammy of the past for the lullabies she has sung.

I sometimes wish that childhood might last forever. That sweet fairy land on the frontier of life, whose skies are first lighted with the sunrise of the soul, and in whose bright-tinted jungles the lions, and leopards, and tigers of passion still peacefully sleep. The world is disarmed by its innocence, the drawn bow is relaxed, and the arrow is returned to its quiver; the Ægis of Heaven is above it, the outstretched wings of mercy, pity, and measureless love!

THE PARADISE OF THE BAREFOOTED BOY.

I would rather be a barefooted boy with cheeks of tan and heart of joy than to be a millionaire and president of a National bank. The financial panic that falls like a thunderbolt, wrecks the bank, crushes the banker, and swamps thousands in an hour. But the bank which holds the treasures of the barefooted boy never breaks. With his satchel and his books he hies away to school in the morning, but his truant feet carry him the other way, to the mill pond "a-fishin'." And there he sits the livelong day under the shade of the tree, with sapling pole and pin hook, and fishes, and fishes, and fishes, and waits for a nibble of the drowsy sucker that sleeps on his oozy bed, oblivious of the baitless hook from which he has long since stolen the worm. There he sits, and fishes, and fishes, and fishes, and like Micawber, waits for something to "turn-up." But nothing turns up until the shadows of evening fall and warn the truant home, where he is welcomed with a dogwood sprout. Then "sump'n" _does_ turn up. He obeys the call of the Sunday school bell, and goes with solemn face, but e'er the "sweet bye and bye" has died away on the summer air, he is in the wood shed playing Sullivan and Corbett with some plucky comrade, with the inevitable casualties of _one_ closed eye, _one_ crippled nose, _one_ pair of torn breeches and _one_ bloody toe. He takes a back seat at church, and in the midst of the sermon steals away and hides in the barn to smoke cigarettes and read the story of "One-eyed Pete, the Hero of the _wild_ and _woolly_ West." There is eternal war between the barefooted boy and the whole civilized world. He shoots the cook with a blow-gun; he cuts the strings of the hammock and lets his dozing grandmother fall to the ground; he loads his grandfather's pipe with powder; he instigates a fight between the cat and dog during family prayers, and explodes with laughter when pussy seeks refuge on the old man's back. He hides in the alley and turns the hose on uncle Ephraim's standing collar as he passes on his way to church, he cracks chestnut burrs with his naked heel; he robs birds' nests, and murders bullfrogs, and plays "knucks" and "base-ball." He puts asafetida in the soup, and conceals lizzards in his father's hat. He overwhelms the family circle with his magnificent literary attainments when he reads from the Bible in what he calls the "pasalms of David"--"praise ye the Lord with the pizeltry and the harp."

His father took him to town one day and said to him: "Now John, I want you to stay here on the corner with the wagon and watch these potatoes while I go round the square and see if I can sell them. Don't open your mouth sir, while I am gone; I'm afraid people will think you're a fool." While the old man was gone the merchant came out and said to John: "What are those potatoes worth, my son?" John looked at him and grinned. "What are those potatoes worth, I say?" asked the merchant. John still looked at him and grinned. The merchant turned on his heel and said: "You're a fool," and went back into his store. When the old man returned John shouted: "Pap, they found it out and I never said a word."

His life is an endless chain of pranks and pleasures. Look how the brawling brook pours down the steep declivities of the mountain gorge! Here it breaks into pearls and silvery foam, there it dashes in rapids, among brown bowlders, and yonder it tumbles from the gray crest of a precipice. Thus, forever laughing, singing, rollicking, romping, till it is checked in its mad rush and spreads into a still, smooth mirror, reflecting the inverted images of rock, and fern, and flower, and tree, and sky. It is the symbol of the life of a barefooted boy. His quips, and cranks, his whims, and jollities, and jocund mischief, are but the effervescences of exuberant young life, the wild music of the mountain stream.

If I were a sculptor, I would chisel from the marble my ideal of the monumental fool. I would make it the figure of a man, with knitted brow and clinched teeth, beating and bruising his barefooted boy, in the cruel endeavor to drive him from the paradise of his childish fun and folly. If your boy _will_ be a boy, let him be a boy still. And remember that he is following the paths which your feet have trodden, and will soon look back upon its precious memories, as you now do, with the aching heart of a care-worn man.

(Sung to the air of Down on the Farm.)

Oh, I love the dear old farm, and my heart grows young and warm, When I wander back to spend a single day; There to hear the robins sing in the trees around the spring, Where I used to watch the happy children play. Oh, I hear their voices yet and I never shall forget How their faces beamed with childish mirth and glee. But my heart grows old again and I leave the spot in pain, When I call them and no answer comes to me.

THE PARADISE OF YOUTH.

If childhood is the sunrise of life, youth is the heyday of life's ruddy June. It is the sweet solstice in life's early summer, which puts forth the fragrant bud and blossom of sin e'er its bitter fruits ripen and turn to ashes on the lips of age. It is the happy transition period, when long legs, and loose joints, and verdant awkwardness, first stumble on the vestibule of manhood. Did you never observe him shaving and scraping his pimpled face till it resembled a featherless goose, reaping nothing but lather, and dirt, and a little intangible fuzz? That is the first symptom of love. Did you never observe him wrestling with a pair of boots two numbers too small, as Jacob wrestled with the angel? That is another symptom of love. His callous heel slowly and painfully yields to the pressure of his perspiring paroxysms until his feet are folded like fans and driven home in the pinching leather; and as he sits at church with them hid under the bench, his uneasy squirms are symptoms of the tortures of the infernal regions, and the worm that dieth not; but that is only the penalty of loving. When he begins to wander through the fragrant meadows and talk to himself among the buttercups and clover blossoms, it is a sure sign that the golden shaft of the winged god has sped from its bended bow. Love's archer has shot a poisoned arrow which wounds but never kills. The sweet venom has done its work. The fever of the amorous wound drives the red current bounding through his veins, and his brain now reels with the delirium of the tender passion. His soul is wrapped in visions of dreamy black eyes peeping out from under raven curls, and cheeks like gardens of roses. To him the world is transformed into a blooming Eden, and _she_ is its only Eve. He hears her voice in the sound of the laughing waters, the fluttering of her heart in the summer evening's last sigh that shuts the rose; and he sits on the bank of the river all day long and writes poetry to her. Thus he writes:

"As I sit by this river's crystal wave, Whose flow'ry banks its waters lave, Me-thinks I see in its glassy mirror, A face which to me, than life is dearer. Oh, 'tis the face of my Gwendolin, As pure as an angel, free from sin. It looks into mine with one sweet eye, While the other is turned to the starry sky. Could I the ocean's bulk contain, Could I but drink the watery main, I'd scarce be half as full of the sea, As my heart is full of love for thee!"

Thus he lives and loves, and writes poetry by day, and tosses on his bed at night, like the restless sea, and dreams, and dreams, and dreams, until, in the ecstacy of his dream, he grabs a pillow.

One bright summer day, a rural youth took his sweetheart to a Baptist baptizing; and, in addition to his verdancy and his awkwardness, he stuttered most distressingly. The singing began on the bank of the stream; and he left his sweetheart in the buggy, in the shade of a tree near by, and wandered alone in the crowd. Standing unconsciously among those who were to be baptized, the old parson mistook him for one of the converts, and seized him by the arm and marched him into the water. He began to protest: "ho-ho-hold on p-p-p-parson, y-y-y-you're ma-ma-makin' a mi-mi-mistake!!!" "Don't be alarmed my son, come right in," said the parson. And he led him to the middle of the stream. The poor fellow made one final desperate effort to explain--"p-p-p-p-parson, l-l-l-l-let me explain!" But the parson coldly said: "Close your mouth and eyes, my son!" And he soused him under the water. After he was thoroughly baptized the old parson led him to the bank, the muddy water trickling down his face. He was "diked" in his new seersucker suit, and when the sun struck it, it began to draw up. The legs of his pants drew up to his knees; his sleeves drew up to his elbows; his little sack coat yanked up under his arms. And as he stood there trembling and shivering, a good old sister approached him, and taking him by the hand said: "God bless you, my son, how do you feel?" Looking, in his agony, at his blushing sweetheart behind her fan, he replied in his anguish: "I fe-fe-fe-feel l-l-l-l-like a d-d-d-d-durned f-f-f-f-fool!"

If I were called upon to drink a toast to life's happiest period, I would hold up the sparkling wine, and say: "Here is to youth, that sweet, Seidlitz powder period, when two souls with scarcely a single thought, meet and blend in one; when a voice, half gosling, half calliope, rasps the first sickly confession of puppy love into the ear of a blue-sashed maiden at the picnic in the grove!" But when she returns his little greasy photograph, accompanied by a little perfumed note, expressing the hope that he will think of her only as a sister, his paradise is wrecked, and his puppy love is swept into the limbo of things that were, the school boy's tale, the wonder of an hour.

But wait till the shadows have a little longer grown. Wait till the young lawyer comes home from college, spouting Blackstone, and Kent, and Ram on facts. Wait till the young doctor returns from the university, with his whiskers and his diploma, to tread the paths of glory, "that lead but to the grave." Wait till society gives welcome in the brilliant ball, and the swallow-tail coat, and the patent leather pumps whirl with the decollette and white slippers till the stars are drowning in the light of morning. Wait till the graduate staggers from the giddy hall, in full evening dress, singing as he staggers:

"After the ball is over, after the break of morn, After the dancer's leavin', after the stars are gone; Many a heart is aching, if we could read them all-- Many the hopes that are vanished, after the ball."

It is then that "somebody's darling" has reached the full tide of his glory as a fool.

THE PARADISE OF HOME.

How rich would be the feast of happiness in this beautiful world of ours, could folly end with youth. But youth is only the first act in the "Comedy of Errors." It is the pearly gate that opens to the real paradise of fools.

"It's pleasures are like poppies spread-- You seize the flower, its bloom is shed, Or like the snowfall on the river-- A moment white then melts forever."

Whether it be the child at its mother's knee or the man of mature years, whether it be the banker or the beggar, the prince in his palace or the peasant in his hut, there is in every heart the dream of a happier lot in life.

I heard the sound of revelry at the gilded club, where a hundred hearts beat happily. There were flushed cheeks and thick tongues and jests and anecdotes around the banquet spread. There were songs and poems and speeches. I saw an orator rise to respond to a toast to "Home, sweet home," and thus he responded:

"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: John Howard Payne touched millions of hearts when he sang:

'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

But as for me, gentlemen, give me the pleasures an' the palaces--give me liberty, or give me death. No less beautifully expressed are the tender sentiments expressed in the tender verse of Lord Byron:

"'Tis sweet to hear the watchdog's honest bark Bay deep mouthed welcome as we draw near home; 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, And look brighter when we come."

But as for me, gentlemen, I would rather hear the barkin' of a gatlin' gun than to hear the watch dog's honest bark this minute. I would rather look into the mouth of a cannon than to look into the eyes that are now waitin' to mark my comin' at this delightful hour of three o'clock in the morning."

Then he launched out on the ocean of thought like a magnificent ship going to sea. And when the night was far spent, and the orgies were over, and the lights were blown out at the club, I saw him enter his own sweet home in his glory--entered it, like a thief, with his boots in his hands,--entered it singing softly to himself:

"I'm called little gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup, Though I could never tell why--(hic), Yet still I'm called gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup, Poor little gutter pup--I--(hic)."

He was unconscious of the presence of the white figure that stood at the head of the stairs holding up a lamp, like liberty enlightening the world, and as a tremulous voice called him to the judgment bar, the door closed behind him on the paradise of a fool, and he sneaked up the steps, muttering to himself, "What shadows we are--(hic)--what shadows we pursue." Then I saw him again in the morning, reaping temptation's bitter reward in the agonies of his drunk-sick; and like Mark Twain's boat in a storm,

"He heaved and sot, and sot and heaved, And high his rudder flung, And every time he heaved and sot, A mighty leak he sprung."

If I were a woman with a husband like "that," I would fill him so full of Keely's chloride of gold that he would jingle as he walks and tinkle as he talks and have a fit at every mention of the silver bill.

The biggest fool that walks on God's footstool is the man who destroys the joy and peace of his own sweet home; for, if paradise is ever regained in this world, it must be in the home. If its dead flowers ever bloom again, they must bloom in the happy hearts of home. If its sunshine ever breaks through the clouds, it must break forth in the smiling faces of home. If heaven ever descends to earth and angels tread its soil, it must be in the sacred precincts of home. That which heaven most approves is the pure and virtuous home. For around it linger all the sweetest memories and dearest associations of mankind; upon it hang the hopes and happiness of the nations of the earth, and above it shines the ever blessed star that lights the way back to the paradise that was lost.

BACHELOR AND WIDOWER.

I saw a poor old bachelor live all the days of his life in sight of paradise, too cowardly to put his arm around it and press it to his bosom. He shaved and primped and resolved to marry every day in the year for forty years. But when the hour for love's duel arrived, when he stood trembling in the presence of rosy cheeks and glancing eyes, and beauty shook her curls and gave the challenge, his courage always oozed out, and he fled ingloriously from the field of honor.

Far happier than the bachelor is old Uncle Rastus in his cabin, when he holds Aunt Dina's hand in his and asks: "Who's sweet?" And Dina drops her head over on his shoulder and answers, "Boaf uv us."

A thousand times happier is the frisky old widower with his pink bald head, his wrinkles and his rheumatism, who

Wires in and wires out, And leaves the ladies all in doubt, As to what is his age and what he is worth, And whether or not he owns the earth.

He "toils not, neither does he spin," yet Solomon, in all his glory was not more popular with the ladies. He is as light-hearted as "Mary's little lamb." He is acquainted with every hog path in the matrimonial paradise and knows all the nearest cuts to the "sanctum sanctorum" of woman's heart. But his jealousy is as cruel as the grave. Woe unto the bachelor who dares to cross his path.

An old bachelor in my native mountains once rose in church to give his experience, in the presence of his old rival who was a widower, and with whom he was at daggers' points in the race to win the affections of one of the sisters in Zion. Thus the pious old bachelor spake: "Brethren, this is a beautiful world. I love to live in it just as well to-day as I ever did in my life. And the saddest thought that ever crossed this old brain of mine is, that in a few short days at best, these old eyes will be glazed in death and I'll never get to see my loved ones in this world any more." And his old rival shouted from the "amen corner," "_thank God!_"

PHANTOMS.

In every brain there is a bright phantom realm, where fancied pleasures beckon from distant shores; but when we launch our barks to reach them, they vanish, and beckon again from still more distant shores. And so, poor fallen man pursues the ghosts of paradise as the deluded dog chases the shadows of flying birds in the meadow.

The painter only paints the shadows of beauty on his canvas; the sculptor only chisels its lines and curves from the marble; the sweetest melody is but the faint echo of the wooing voice of music.

We stumble over the golden nuggets of contentment in pursuit of the phantoms of wealth, and what is wealth? It can not purchase a moment of happiness. Marble halls may open wide their doors and offer her shelter, but happiness will flee from a palace to dwell in a cottage. We crush under our feet the roses of peace and love in our eagerness to reach the illuminated heights of glory; and what is earthly glory?

"He who ascends to mountain tops shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 'Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head."