Slike strani
PDF
ePub

the stock exchanges of two hemispheres; he has bought and seld almost interminable acres of real estate; he has helped to build and control hundreds of miles of railroads and exerted a dominant influence on lines of ocean steamers; but through all the mad rush for wealth and power, his possessions have shifted and varied, have passed from hand to hand, have multiplied and diminished, have ebbed and flowed with the fluctuating tide of human lifeall except one, the few square yards of earth within the low wall, kept in perpetual care.

The history is typical; the lesson is forcible. There are many of us in humbler spheres who can look to a quiet secluded spot in the church yard, or the town cemetery, or the family burying ground, as the only thing that is emphatically ours—ours by right of birth and of destiny-as the only thing worthy of perpetual care.

That possession is not subject to the vicissitudes of fortune. No remorseless creditor will claim it, no grasping trust can affect its price, no financial disaster can sweep it away.

And yet what a frail tenure we have on this possession! And what fond deception we practice upon ourselves when we think so lovingly of it as an object of perpetual care! After a few swift years at most we shall come into our inheritance without the power to possess or enjoy, insensible to care and irresponsive to all the tender emotions of human love;

"When all we can hold in our cold dead hands Will be what we have given away."

care.

Then it may be the cherished spot will become a care to others, who in their turn one by one, will come into the same inheritance under the same conditions, until at last the lot will be filled and there will be none left to make it an object of perpetual Yet the years and the centuries will come and go, the forms deposited there in sorrow will become incorporated with the soil, the little mounds so often bedewed with the tears of love will be leveled with the surrounding surface and covered with the common mould, and even the marble shafts and granite blocks which we fondly trusted would endure for all time, will disintegrate and crumble into dust, all in silent mockery of human pride and of man's fond dreams of leaving behind him a name and memory that shall live forever.

"JAKE."

The editorial "we" has no place in this article because it is in no wise associated with the subject, which is only a picture of memory. I know not why the picture now comes before my mind, for it has been absent for years and years, and I should have thought that it had faded forever from my memory. But suddenly by some strange power of association it looms up from the depths of the past

and stands out in sharp outlines before vision.

my mental

How strange is this power of association! It unites things between which we can see no possible connection. Things the most insignificant in sound or appearance often stir deep feelings or awake fond memories of scenes long forgotten, of forms and faces long vanished from mortal sight. The fluttering of a dry leaf near my window to-night, the sighing of the wind through the old cedars, the pallid stars that greet me so silently from the immeasurable depths of space-these, or some sight or sound as familiar as these, must have called up the picture now before he and endowed it with form and color and living power.

name.

We all called him Jake, though that was not his But no other name would fit him as he appears in memory tonight, so I will call him Jake still. He was of a family of culture and high social position, though owing to his frai! bodily powers his education had not been pushed, and at seventeen he was a boy of ordinary intelligence, with odd manners and queer looks, and with little apparent ambition for social or intellectual distinction. He looked more like an old man of seventy than a boy of seventeen. He was short in stature, his form was bent as if with age, his face was pallid and wrinkled, his steps were tottering, his hands trembled, and he would have weighed probably not more than seventy-five pounds. Yet when you looked

Jake squarely in the face, you saw a pair of small grey eyes sparkling with mischief behind a pair of shaggy eyebrows, and peering out with the steady light of daring courage.

It was certainly not in the plans of those who had Jake's advancement in life at heart, that he should adopt the profession of arms, but when one of the companies left Laurens in August, 1861, for the war, Jake was in ranks, and if he ever asked for or obtained a furlough, I don't remember it. He was a soldier after his own model. He was watchful and provident. He had a bigger knapsack and more things in it than any of his comrades, or perhaps his own smallness of size made every thing he carried appear larger by contrast. Indeed, he did appear to the observer to wear the biggest cartridge box and the broadest belt, and to carry the longest, heaviest rifle of any man in the company.

He was not fond of the routine duties of camp, but he never shirked or pleaded sickness in order to avoid them. Indeed though he always looked like he was too feeble to be out of bed, yet I don't remember that he was ever reported sick. But he seemed to realize by instinct that his vital forces. must be husbanded for emergences, and not wasted on things of doubtful importance.

Jake had a knack of writing verses. They were not polished and measured after any standard of prosody, and, being free from all rules and restric

tions, they took a wide range and covered a great variety of subjects, humorous, pathetic, historical, patriotic, lyric, and amatory; and as Jake had no favors to ask of editors and publishers, and had no ambition to shine as a poet beyond the limits of the camp, like Lucilius, Horace, Homer, and all the great poets of antiquity he read his own verses whenever and wherever occasion had brought together a group of appreciative listeners. Often by the blazing camp fire at night, or out on the lonely picket post by day, Jake would enliven the hour with his readings, while his rough companions lay on the ground around him with knapsacks for pillows, and applauded or condemned, laughed or jeered, as the spirit seemed to move them. It was when Jake came to touch on the tender passion and to formulate tributes to the girl he had left behind him, that he was at his best and wielded his greatest power over his hearers. From this fact it was inferred that he had a sweetheart before whose image his soul bowed in adoration, but he never told her name, holding it, perhaps, as too sacred to be repeated in the hearing of vulgar ears, and whatever assurances she may have given him of her tender regard were never known. I should love to think, now after the flight of thirty-five years, that there were loving eyes beaming on Jake from afar and a loving heart cherishing his image and praying for his safety and speedy return.

When the long roll sounded for battle Jake seem

« PrejšnjaNaprej »