An Old Boy's Revery

From The Currpnt. Aholidayl Wliat au uproarous wclcome I shou!d have given it once; but to-day I sctlately followed the treadmill routine of my daily 1 i fe, and wandered into niy office, sat down at my desk, and wrote :i few letters, Uien idly studied the signa over the way, mul wondered about all tlie thlngs men about wheu they are unnccupied and lonesome and worried and pernnps much saddened by their everyday life. Gradually, out of the swift, sharp, Klaring present, IdrifteU into a grateful, misty way of rtflection and reininlscence, still accompanied by some wonderments and worrles, of course- veritable thlnga at the start, but merging into shades, and linally only shadows. And the way was lit by faces and presences, and was sweet with voices of the past, moi'e and inore, until I carne, suddenly and with a pleased recoguition, upon my fuuny okl patched trotisers of thirty years igo. They were boy s xrmiso, ttu I was a boy in tlieir time; and ratlier suspect, notwithstanding gray liair and wrinkles, that I have never fully grown up yet But anybody vvould havo kuown them for a boy's, for, tliough they were old enoagh for a man, and neatly repaired here and there with cotton thread, and bits of not entirely harmonious color, they were short In the lega, small in the walst, and spotted up and down and acrosa with siiiuls of boyish thoughtlessnesa and improvidence. Suspender buttons were mis3lng, in which last respect liowever, they are like Ey contemporaneous trousers, but, againvery unlike.for a frugal mother's patiënt, loving care shines In every gtrong stitch of the old patenas, big and little! Wliat a worlrl of woraan's wit and mother-love there is in a boy's patched trousers! Xo wonder bis fegs do not weary in thein. I tliiuk mine wou ld be new le3 if they could be squi'ezed into that old vesture agaln. Somehow, without agency of mine, but in :in entirely spontaneous way, all my fbrly odd yeais carne together, ín inquiring, sympatbetic concert about the little old garment. I was among them and of them all. They all knew Ule, and every year's face was a multitude. Each waa like that mountaiu over there to the west, that you watch from sunrise till after sunset on some warm vacation day. It is alvvays the same rnountain, you know, and its faithful hcart throbs to the tips of the summit pines, while the high heavens and low valleys creep dovvu and up its sides: - yes, and mingle sometimes like memories of now and long ago. I suppose all my years were there because I was. One's years are faithful. They never desert him when friends and fortune go, They run anead of him and lie In wait in every present day. The years of those trousers attend me, I find to this day, as Virgil says Iulus followed ïCneas "non passibus aquis." And, like Virgil's hero, I could not leave them if I would, and would not if I could. Indeed I surmise that I ara founded on those trousers. These late years huve brought me a deal of trouble and tribulation ; but tlirough it all I have feit a certain 6turdy independence which is full brother to the feelmg that I carne to have in those trousers and about them, at the last. They annoyed and humiliated my inexperienced heart a good deal when they had been considerably spotted in my play and torn in my fiirhts, and were much subjected to the frequent needie. But, long before I outgrew them I came to think trousers were not of much consequence, and had reached the conviction that not clothes but the tellow in them was what the other fellows must fight. I perceived that a boy al most devoid of 1-lotlieS COUlO gi-v wlat ei-emcd tome the finest trousers on earth odds, and whip their inmates. From that day to this I have never been able to think of useful people in connection with their clothes. I thiuk I have heard somebo.ly say that Gladstone's trousers are a sight to be seen; but, good heavens, the observer must have passed his life in the contemplation of fastíloil plates! Whoeverhalted to inquire about the cut and material of Cromwell's leg furniture? We know on good authority that Frederick the Great bad not a decent shirt to be Iaid out in; but till he was dead nobody thoughtof his shirt, and after his death even a deficiency in that respect was worthy of mention. Nelson's dothes at Trafalgar were probably not very shapely (orders and decorationsare not clothes) and were doubtless much the worse for wind and storm; but they were good enough for a hero to die in, ana England"s grief and glory have never inventoried his wardrobe. nistory is signally delicient in detailed accounts.of millinery; wheu it has a Btrong man or woman to teil about it forgets all that Indeed anybody who could teil much about clothes could not teil much about men and women, big or little. I am au obscure person, but I shoulü think I have known some men not famous, and some who are more or less famous, as great in their hearts as Nelson or Cromwell, whose trousers, for rents, stains and patehes, were worthy of any hero. There is a great deal of millinery in the workl, of many so.ts. It is not all on people-s backs, by any means. A great deal of it Is in their hearts. In fact, some of us are mere show wimlows anyhow. As I looked at the odd little breeches, I saw my father as he was in their day- a little beyo.nl middle-life.and showing wear and tear as they did, but ful! of pluck, utility and long endiirance. He is dead now, as he ougnt to be, for I am almost as oíd as he was then. I am ttie more inclined to think tbat I un still a boy when I rcmember liim, for he liad a b'y's enUiuaiusm, faith and vim to the lat. He used to swing liis cañe, and oke and sing and make verses, and defend his politieal views llke a Niágara, and advocate his religions opinions like a cyclone, tlll one inorning, full of parpose, but tnrned of eiglity, he laid down and was gone. I don't know why those tronsers reminded me so much of hini perhaps because one can neither go on nor o back without coming to one's father; perhaps because they told me, as never before, what faithful economy he must have practiced to clothe me at all; but I am inclined to think it was especially because they took me back to the long walks and drives with him, when he used to teil me stories and quote poetry, and talk against slavery, and iill me up with those ideas and impulses whicli carried me into the ariny when the time came, ten ycars later. And now I think of it, that war was fnurht out and won mostly by men whose tathers were poor, and whose trousers were patched when tli;y woru boys. White lingeiïng there with my years and so many of their people - some with whom l might speak to-day if I could meet them, and others with whom I can never talk again till they have taught me the langunge of the oldest but leastknown of countries- the signiticance of oíd clothes took a fresh hold upon me. What volumes of prose and poetrv, of expcrience, ad vonture, and even great history there is in them tor him who wore tlieni, and for those who knew the wearer! They go more surely and more swiftly to the heart and brain than any piinted books. For the righteyes they ars full of pictures, and rich with Uiiminations, like the fanious volumes of far ages. There are iong stories in the shining sétima and bright faces in tlie rayged rents. In spite of must y closets and dusty attics, there are sweet airs and happy lights, dark days and fresh tears, in all their woef! From the worn shes of the baby who never grew up, to the farieri uniform of the vetaran who seerns never to have been a baby, they are all trne to the old ditys and scènes and people, as the home-sick shell to the sea. It is not strange tliat many do not like to lose them, or give them away. A man who carried a inusket wlien the war begaii and wore the stars of a major-general at its close, and who bas served his state witli honor and renown in almost all its great offices, told me, a few years ago, that he could not bear to part with even the trousers he wore in the line, to say nothing of the coat he carne home in. I know a divine, now well on in years and fanie, who always objects to changing old for new clothing, and would rather buy a beggar a new suit than give him one of his old garments. And what would the bereaved mother'say about giving away the baby's shoes, do you think? What would the American people say to the proposition that Washington's old clothes be burned? At what prlce will France sell Napoleon's coat? Wliat embassy from another land would venture to ask England for Nelson's battered sword ? They might as well ask for his grave in St. I'aul's! I cannot teil all I thought about tliis mornhig when I came upon those habiliments of my boyhood. The truth is I could not teil much more without erying, and I am too old to cry now, at least in public. But I am not sure that I lost much by staying away from the church service to which I was invitcd, by that deep-voiced bell, in the midst of my revery. Those trousers have been preaching to me all da)r in a very touching, persuasivo, cheeiing way; and there is a certain homely eloquence and larger suggestion about them whicli I imagine will go over into the near weeks with me, and that is a great deal to say of any preachng.
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Ann Arbor Courier
Old News