WOULD I WERE A BOY AGAIN.
"We have played the boy again, yesterday and to-day, pretty well,"
remarked Smith, as we sat in front of oar tents in the evening,
smoking our pipes. "And I am half inclined to think we have started
for home too soon, after all. Spalding's moralizing for the last two
or three days deceived me. I thought, as he was becoming so serious,
he must be getting tired of the woods; but his proposition yesterday
to escort that deer to the shore, and frighten him almost to death,
his jolly humor with our young friends over the way, and the trick he
played on as in regard to the raccoon this evening, satisfies me that
he's got a good deal of the boy in him yet. We shall have to retreat
from the woods slower than I thought, to exhaust it."
"If the cares of business or the duties of life did not call us back
to civilization" said the Doctor, "I could almost spend the summer
among these lakes, only for the luxury of feeling like a boy again.
When I listen to the glad voices of the wild things around as, I can
almost wish myself one of them."
"That coon, for instance," interrupted Smith, "that came so near
getting shot by his chattering."
"I call the gentleman to order," said I; "the Doctor has the floor."
"I sometimes think that it is no great thing after all to be human;"
the Doctor continued, bowing his acknowledgments for my protecting his
right to the floor. "Mind is a great thing, but there is more of
sorrow, anxiety, and care clustering about it, than these wild things
we hear and see around us suffer through their instincts. Reason,
knowledge, wisdom, are great things. To stand at the head of created
matter, to be the noblest of all the works of God, the only created
thing wearing the image, and stamped with the patent of Diety, are
proud things to boast of. But great and glorious and proud as they
are, they have their balances of evil. They bring with them no
contentment, no repose, while they heap upon us boundless necessities
and limitless wants. We are hurried through life too rapidly for the
enjoyment of the present, and the good we see in prospect is never
attained. When we were boys we longed to be men, with the strength and
intellect of men; and now that we are men, with matured powers of body
and mind, true to our organic restlessness and discontent, we look
back with longing for the feelings and emotions of our boyhood. What a
glorious thing it would be if we could always be young--not boys
exactly, but at that stage of life when the physical powers are most
active, and the heart most buoyant. That, to my thinking, would be a
better arrangement than to grow old, even if we live on until we
stumble at last from mere infirmity into the grave, looking forward in
discontent one half of our lives, and backward in equal discontent
the other."
"You remind me," said Spalding, "of a little incident, simple in
itself, but which, at the time, made a deep impression upon my mind,
and which occurred but a few weeks ago. Returning from my usual walk,
one morning, my way lay through the Capitol Park. The trees, covered
with their young and fresh foliage, intertwined their arms lovingly
above the gravelled walks, forming a beautiful arch above, through
which the sun could scarcely look even in the splendor of his noon.
The birds sang merrily among the branches, and the odor of the leaves
and grass as the dews exhaled, gave a freshness almost of the forest
to the morning air. On the walk before me were two beautiful children,
a boy of six and a little girl of four. They were merry and happy as
the birds were, and with an arm of each around the waist of the other,
they went hopping and skipping up and down the walks, stopping now and
then to waltz, to swing round and round, and then darting away again
with their hop and skip, too full of hilarity, too instinct with
vitality, to be for a moment still. The flush of health was on their
cheeks, and the warm light of affection in their eyes. They were
confiding, affectionate, loving little children, and my heart warmed
towards them, as I saw them waltzing and dancing and skipping about
under the green foliage of the trees. "'Willy,' said the little girl,
as they sat down on the low railing of the grass plats, to breathe for
a moment, and listen to the chirrup and songs of the birds in the
boughs above them, 'Willy, wouldn't you like to be a little bird?'
"'A little bird, Lizzie,' replied her brother. 'Why should I like to
be a little bird?'
"'Oh, to fly around among the branches and the leaves upon the trees,'
said Lizzie, 'and among the blossoms when the morning is warm, and the
sun comes out bright and clear in the sky. Oh! they are so happy,'
"'But the mornings aint always warm, and the sun don't always come up
bright and clear in the sky, Lizzy,' said her brother, 'and the leaves
and blossoms aint always on the trees. The cold storms and the winter
come and kill the blossoms and scatter the leaves, and what would you
do then? I shouldn't like to be a bird, but I _should_ like to be a
big strong man like father.'
"'Please tell me what tune it is?' said the little boy, addressing me.
"I told him, and he turned to his little sister, saving, 'Come,
Lizzie, we must go; mother said we must be home by half-after seven,
and it's most that now;' and he put his arm lovingly around her neck,
and she put hers around his waist, and they walked away towards home,
talking about the leaves and the blossoms on the trees, the merry
little birds, the bright sunshine, and the pleasant time they had had
in the park that morning.
"It was a pleasant thing to see those two little children, so
confiding, so earnest and true in their young affections, clinging to
each other so closely, as if no shadow could ever come between them,
or tarn their hearts from each other. How natural was that simple
question put by that little girl to her brother, 'Wouldn't you like to
be a little bird?' It was the thought of a pure young mind, that sees
only the bright sunshine of to-day, whose life is in the present, and
to which there is no forebodings of darkness in the future. There was
philosophy, too, in the answer of her brother, a simple but suggestive
sermon, 'But the sun' said he, 'don't always come up bright and clear;
the mornings aint always warm; the leaves and blossoms aint always on
the trees. The cold storms, and the winter come and kill the blossoms
and scatter the leaves, and what would you do then?' To finite minds
like ours, it would seem to have been a more beautiful arrangement of
nature, could it have been, that we could always have the spring time
in its glory with us; if the leaves and the blossoms were always young
and fresh and fragrant; if the cold storms of winter could never come
to 'kill the blossoms and scatter the leaves;' if the sun would always
come up bright and clear; if the birds were always merry, and their
glad voices always on the air. This world would be a paradise then,
and one older and wiser in the learning of the schools, but not wiser
or better in the heart's affections, than that little girl, might well
wish to be a little bird, to fly around among the branches, the green
leaves, and the blossoms on the trees. And yet what presumption in
finite man to sit in judgment upon, or criticise the wisdom of the
Omnipotent God! How know we but that a single change, the slightest
alteration of a simple law, would go jarring through all the universe,
throwing everything into confusion, and bringing utter chaos, where
now all is order. The mother sees her little child die, she lays it in
its coffin, and surrenders it to the grave, and her heart rebels
against the Providence that snatched away her treasure. In her agony,
she appeals reproachfully to Heaven, and asks, 'Why am I thus
bereaved?' Foolish mother! impeach not the wisdom of your bereavement.
Mysterious as it may be, know this, that in the councils of eternity
your sorrows were considered, and the decree which took from you your
darling, was ordered in mercy. Pestilence sweeps over the land; a wail
is on the air. Peace, mourners, be still! The pestilence has a mission
of mercy, mysterious as it may be to us. The storm lashes the ocean
into fury; tall ships, freighted with human souls, go down into its
relentless depths; a shriek of agony comes gurgling up from the
devouring waters; a cry of woe is heard from a thousand homes over the
wrecked and the lost. Peace, again, mourners! The storm has a mission
of mercy. It may never be comprehended by us here, but when the veil
shall be lifted, as in God's good time it doubtless will be, we shall
see how the pestilence and the storm, that cost so many tears, were
essential to the harmony of a glorious system, a perfect plan, and
that seeming sorrow was at last the occasion of unspeakable joy. Let
no man say that this or that law, or operation of nature, were better
changed, until he can fathom the designs of God; till he can create a
planet, and send it on its everlasting round; till he can place a star
in the firmament; till he can breathe upon a statue, the workmanship
of his own hands, and be obeyed when he commands it to walk forth a
thing of life; till he can dip his hand into chaos and throw off
worlds. The 'cold storms of winter' are essential to the enjoyment of
the brightness and glory, the genial sunshine, the pleasant foliage,
the blossoms and the odors of spring. They have their uses, and chill
and dreary and desolate as they may be, they are parts of an
arrangement ordered by infinite goodness and omnipotent wisdom.
"'I should like to be a big strong man like father is!' How like a boy
was this? Thirsting for the strength, the might and power of manhood!
And this is the aspiration of the young heart always; to be mature,
strong to grapple with the cares, and wrestle with the stern
actualities of life. How little of these does childhood know! How
little does it calculate the chances, that when, in the long future,
it shall have attained the full strength and maturity of life, when
manhood shall be in the glory and strength of its prime, and it looks
forward into the dark cloud beyond, and backward into the bright
sunshine of the past, the aspiration, the hope will change into
regret, and the yearning of the heart, speaking from its silent
depths, will be, 'would I were a boy again!'"