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A Few Years Hence

A Few Years Hence image
Parent Issue
Day
18
Month
March
Year
1891
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

He was sitting before a great fire at the club, with eyes half closed, when a friend roused him. "Dreaming, old man?" asked the friend. "Half dreaming, half musing," was the reply as the fellow stretched himself. "My grandfather has been of the hardships of early days, and I was wondering what I'd teil my grandchildren in that line." "Couldn't think of much, could you?" "Well, I don't know. Hardship is hardship only by comparison with luxury. The luxury of one age is the hardship of the next. Now I conjured up pioture of my grandchild sitting on my knee asking me for a story." Several men had gathered around the annchair and one asked: "Did you teil a story?" "O, yes," replied the dreamer. I remember I told him that about 1890 I had a brother in New York. One day I received a dispatch that he was dying. I took the limited, and for twenty-six hours I was in an agony of doubt, fearful lest he should die before I arrived. I dilated a little on the terrible suspense and told how my appetite seemed to have left me." "And what did the boy say?" asked one of the party. "The boy? O, he wouldn't believe it at first; wanted to know if it was possible that there was an accident that delayed me, and if there was, why it delayed me so long. He fignred it out, too. He said: "' Regular time f rom here to New York, two hours. O, they couldn't have delayed you twenty-four hours, gTandpa.' "And when I told him that twentybíx hours was the regTilar time he looked sorry for me and said: " 'Poor grandpa. You must have had an awful hard time. And how slow you were in those davs. Ate on a train, too! Dear me, I can go from here to San Francisco without getting hungTy! Didn't the pneumatic tube work well?" "And then?"' was the query as the dreamer paused. "Then I explained that the pneumatic tube route wasn't in operation at that time, and drew out a little more sympathy by him about an exorbitant gas bilí that I had received and had to pay, beeause if I didn't the company would cut off the supply. O, but he was surprised! ' 'Gas!' he exclaimed. 'What did you want of g-as?' "I explained that we used to light our houses with gas, and the boy couldn't pity me enough; said it must have been awful to have to depend on gas for light. "But it was when I told him about going home one nig-ht when the electric lights on Clark street went out that his heart bled for me. " 'You must have had a terrible time, grandpa, ' he said. 'I wouldn't have Hved in those day s for anything. ' " 'My boy,' I said, 'we didn't have the comforts then that we have now, but those hardships are what made us the hardy race that we are.' " Then the dreamer asked the crowd to leave him while he figured out another hard-luck tale for his

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Courier