," and of "Rolly-poley," and of the ball games--"Scrub,"
and "Town-ball," and "Anteover," each old game conjuring up spirits from
its own vasty deep until the room was full of phantoms and the watcher's
memory ached with the sweet sorrow of old joys.

George Kirwin says that long after midnight Joe awakened from a doze,
fumbling through the bedclothes, looking for something. Finally he
complained that he could not find his mouth-harp. They tried to make him
forget it, but when they failed, his mother went to the bureau and
pulling open the lower drawer found a little varnished box; under the
shaded lamp she brought out a sack of marbles, a broken bean-shooter,
with whittled prongs, a Barlow knife, a tintype picture of a boy, and
the mouth-organ. This she gave to the hands that fluttered about the
face on the pillow. He began to play "The Mocking Bird," opening and
shutting his bony hands to let the music rise and fall. When he closed
that tune he played "O the Mistletoe Bough," and after that over and
over again he played "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground." When he dropped
the mouth-harp, he lay very still for a time, though his lips moved
incessantly. The morning was coming, and he was growing weak. But when
his voice came back they knew that he was far afield again; for he said,
"Come on, fellers, let's set down here under the hill and rest. It's a
long ways back." When he had rested he spoke up again, "Say, fellers,
what'll we sing?" George tried him with a gospel hymn, but Joe would
have none of it, and reviled the song and the singer after the fashion
of boys. In a moment he exclaimed: "Here--listen to me. Let's sing
this," and his alto voice came out uncertainly and faintly: "Wrap Me up
in My Tarpaulin Jacket."

George Kirwin's rough voice joined the song and the mother listened and
wept. Other old songs followed, but Joe Nevison, the man, never woke up.
It was the little boy full of the poetry and sweetness of a child at
play, the boy who had turned the poetry of his boyish soul into a life
of adventure unchecked by moral restraint, whose eyes they closed that
morning.

And George Kirwin explained to us when he came down to work that
afternoon, that maybe the bad part of Joe Nevison's soul had shrivelled
away during his sickness, instead of waiting for death. George told us
that what made him sad was that a soul in which there was so much that
might have been good had been stunted by life and was entering eternit