A Backward Look

As I sat smoking, alone, yesterday, And lazily leaning back in my chair, Enjoying myself in a general way-- Allowing my thoughts a holiday From weariness, toil and care, My fancies--doubtless, for ventilation-- Left ajar the gates of my mind,-- And Memory, seeing the situation Slipped out in the street of "Auld Lang Syne"--

Wandering ever with tireless feet Through scenes of silence, and jubilee Of long-hushed voices; and faces sweet Were thronging the shadowy side of the street As far as the eye could see; Dreaming again, in anticipation, The same old dreams of our boyhood's days That never come true, from the vague sensation Of walking asleep in the world's strange ways.

Away to the house where I was born! And there was the selfsame clock that ticked From the close of dusk to the burst of morn, When life-warm hands plucked the golden corn And helped when the apples were picked. And the "chany dog" on the mantel-shelf, With the gilded collar and yellow eyes, Looked just as at first, when I hugged myself Sound asleep with the dear surprise.

And down to the swing in the locust-tree, Where the grass was worn from the trampled ground, And where "Eck" Skinner, "Old" Carr, and three Or four such other boys used to be Doin' "sky-scrapers," or "whirlin' round": And again Bob climbed for the bluebird's nest, And again "had shows" in the buggy-shed Of Guymon's barn, where still, unguessed, The old ghosts romp through the best days dead!

And again I gazed from the old schoolroom With a wistful look, of a long June day, When on my cheek was the hectic bloom Caught of Mischief, as I presume-- He had such a "partial" way, It seemed, toward me.--And again I thought Of a probable likelihood to be Kept in after school--for a girl was caught Catching a note from me.

And down through the woods to the swimming-hole-- Where the big, white, hollow, old sycamore grows,-- And we never cared when the water was cold, And always "ducked" the boy that told On the fellow that tied the clothes.-- When life went so like a dreamy rhyme, That it seems to me now that then The world was having a jollier time Than it ever will have again.

The crude production is received, I am glad to note, with some expressions of favor from the company though Bob, of course, must heartlessly dissipate my weak delight by saying, "Well, it's certainly bad enough; though," he goes on with an air of deepest critical sagacity and fairness, "considered, as it should be, justly, as the production of a jour.-poet, why, it might be worse--that is, a little worse."

"Probably," I remember saying,--"probably I might redeem myself by reading you this little amateurish bit of verse, enclosed to me in a letter by mistake, not very long ago." I here fish an envelope from my pocket, the address of which all recognize as in Bob's almost printed writing. He smiles vacantly at it--then vividly colors.

"What date?" he stoically asks.

"The date," I suggestively answer, "of your last letter to our dear Doc, at boarding-school, two days exactly in advance of her coming home--this veritable visit now."

Both Bob and Doc rush at me--but too late. The letter and contents have wholly vanished. The youngest Miss Mills quiets us--urgently distracting us, in fact, by calling our attention to the immediate completion of our joint production; "For now," she says, "with our new reinforcement, we can, with becoming diligence, soon have it ready for both printer and engraver, and then we'll wake up the boy (who has been fortunately slumbering for the last quarter of an hour), and present to him, as designed and intended, this matchless creation of our united intellects." At the conclusion of this speech we all go good-humoredly to work, and at the close of half an hour the tedious, but most ridiculous, task is announced completed.

As I arrange and place in proper form here on the table the separate cards-twenty-seven in number-- I sigh to think that I am unable to transcribe for you the best part of the nonsensical work--the illustrations. All I can give is the written copy of--