nd of duties that to you
are the be all and end all of existence, to whom morning means a
jostling ride to the bank, the store or the office, and with whom night
is but the name for a worse unrest because of its unfulfilled promises
of slumber, what soul amongst you all is so callous to the holy memories
of childhood, as not to thrill with something of the old time feeling of
love and longing as the memory of that tender face with its watchful eye
and ready smiles, comes back to you from the midst of weary years! Your
mother!

But Edward Sylvester with that black line across his life cutting past
from present, what makes him think of his mother to-night; and the
cottage door upon the hillside where she used to stand with eager eyes
looking up and down the road as he came trudging home from school,
swinging his satchel and shouting at every squirrel that started across
the road or peeped from the branches of the grand old maples overhead!
And the garret-chamber under the roof, the scene of many a romp with
Elsie and Sonsie and Jack, neighbors' children to whom the man of to-day
would be an awe and a mystery! And the little room where he slept with
Tom his own blue-eyed brother so soon to die of a wasting disease, but
full of warm blood then and all alive with boyish pranks. He could
almost hear the wild clear laugh with which the mischievous fellow
started upon its travels, the rooster whose legs he had tied a short
space apart with one of Sonsie's faded ribbons, a laugh that became
unrestrained when the poor creature in attempting to run down hill,
rolled over and over, cutting such a figure before his late admirers,
the hens, that even Elsie smiled in the midst of her gentle entreaties.
And Jocko the crow, whom taming had made one of the boys! poor Jocko! is
it nearly thirty years since you used to stalk in majesty through the
village streets, with your neat raven coat closely buttoned across your
breast and your genteel caw, caw, and condescending nod for old
acquaintances? The day seems but as yesterday when you marred the stolen
picnic up in the woods by flying off with a flock of your fellow
black-coats, nor is it easy to realize that the circle of tow-headed
fellows who hailed with shouts your ignominious return after a day or
so's experience of the vaunted pleasures of freedom, are now sharp
featured men without a smile for youth or a thought beyond the hard cold
dollar buried deep in their pockets.

And the ch