THE OLD COLUMN.

 

            AT TIMES, as I recall some old names and the characteristics of the men assume distinctive forms before me, it is a joy to make a hasty record of them. But today they come in companies, come with the old elastic steps, the old joyous faces, until the air around me is filled with echoes of their voices, and the old-time joyous laughter, and the air is warmer because of their smiles. For the smiles were lighted from the fires of youth, which fires have perfect combustion, leaving no dross upon the earth, making no taint upon the air. Somehow, in life they seemed to be borne up with a belief that while it was true that other generations of men have lived out their span and gone into the silence; it was going to be different with them ; that they had found the long--looked-for Ponce de Leon spring, the waters of which were to restore the waste of nature, the attritions of old age, the assaults of disease ; that each night was to bring them undisturbed rest, and that each succeeding morning would find them perfectly restored to hail the day as joyously as the lark and with no more apprehensions of evil.

            At least they lived that way. There was no work that could abash them ; no risk they were not ready to assume ; no danger that appeared in their path that could daunt them or turn them aside, and when a call came upon their charities the thought was, "Why should we not respond generously, for have we not unabated strength to create more?'  

            When some one, overborne, fell out of the ranks and grew still, that mattered not. The explanation was that he always had been delicate, or that he never had taken any care of himself, or if all the usual explanations failed, it was said that "he was out of luck," and then some primitive philosopher of the company would deliver an address and prove to a demonstration that luck was a force in the world which could no more be fought back than measles or whooping-cough. And some near friend would explain that the ancient belief that the Fates

358 AS I REMEMBER THEM.

watched which thread of life to sever with their scissors was true, and what they did when a man became so much better than his fellows that their reckless ways gave him pain, was to mercifully bring peace to him, and so the death of such a man was not an event to weep over, but rather to chant a farewell joy strophe above him to be a lullaby for the long sleep.

            When from the outside world learned and accomplished gentlemen came among the band, and meaning to be genial and pleasing to hosts talked down to them, it always seemed to me a pity that no voice from the subconscious intellects of those guests could whisper to them to go slow ; that they did not know their audiences ; for who among the learned in books and those who have worn soft raiment all their days, can comprehended what it is for thoughtful men to take their post- graduate courses in that great university, the faculty of which is made up of the ocean waves that break at the mountains' feet; the winds that, coming up from the sea, make all the mighty pines on the mountain tops the harps on which to set their anthems to music ; the desert with its cold and heat, and when it sleeps under its pall of silence -- that dreadful silence which is so profound and all encompassing, as though all nature had died -- that the nerves of dumb animals break down under it, and they are stampeded; when to those hunger, and cold and thirst and hardships are added as assistants ; when these earnest, generous natures feel the pangs as one hope after another dies in their souls, can the mere book scholar give such men any instruction to much interest them?

            When a great calm for a long time spreads its winding-sheet about a portion of the earth, when the sun beats down until the world and the air become fetid; then suddenly the elements arouse themselves and call up a cyclone or a hurricane to clear the air, which in its track leaves a trail covered with the wreck of forests and homes and sometimes dead men and animals. But the air is purified. Men who live close to nature take on some of its moods.

            What wonder, then, if sometimes sections of this old band would suddenly arouse themselves and paint things crimson,

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giving up to excesses and perpetrating episodes not to be approved of by any Sunday School society in the world?

            It was a way they had to clear the atmosphere.

            But let no one wonder if some of the native sons of California and Nevada are a little spoiled. It was the old band that did it.

            And do not blame the old band. They felt one hope after another die in their souls, and bore it without plaint. They knew that their youth was about to fall off the trail and if the knowledge brought any sorrow to them they hid it in their own hearts ; but every morning as they rose from their rude couches they felt the little fingers that were not to be tugging  at their garments, and what wonder that when they came upon children they spoiled them ?

            What deeds of valor they performed ! What noiseless charities they bestowed ! What self-abnegation attended their lives ! What splendid industrial triumphs they wrought when they were obliged to adjust ends to means, and from the impossible to wring victory !

            There was no place in their ranks for braggarts or pretenders ; they had to be shown ; with a swift intuition they separated gold from dross and the seal of their approval was equivalent to a certified check.

            They were not all angels, but in their hospitality they assumed every time that they were entertaining angels, and had a real angel come he, at least, would have known that he was getting the best that his host could provide.

            For me that procession began its march three score years ago.

            I watched it changing year by year, watched it as ever and oftener one and another fell from the ranks, watched it until the radiant column shrunk to a straggling band, and of late have only at long intervals heard a footfall.

            But today, looking down the long aisles of memory, the mists are all cleared away from above the trail, and that procession is again in view -- the splendor of the beginning, the flags, the trumpets, the joyous songs, the springy, exultant steps, their paths bathed in sunlight and ablaze with hope ; the

360 AS I REMEMBER THEM.

march through the hot noonday, no wearying, no rest ; the long afternoon march, and the bivouac under the stars -- all the music grown still and the night wind sweeping up from the depths of the desert becomes a requiem.

            But through the silence there come whispers of a land in the Beyond; another land of golden mountains, clear streams, flowers and sunlit fields, filled with the love songs of bright plumaged birds, where the dawns, the sunsets, and the light of the stars are all merged in the greater splendor of the Eternal Day.

 

THE END.