My last visit to the home of my childhood filled me with gloomy thoughts.
Nothing remained of the old home but the ruins of the cellar walls. The
house had been torn down and removed from the spot. I had expected to
wander through the deserted rooms and try to recall the old hopes and
memories that filled my soul when I lived in the old log cottage. These
memories came back but slowly, because the old landmarks had been removed
and there was nothing to suggest the old incidents that filled my life
when a boy.
The location of the house was in a deep, narrow valley, with hills on
three sides and a dense woods in front, with no other human habitation in
sight. It was in this secluded spot I dreamed the dreams of dissatisfied
youth. And yet these dreams are very dear to me now, as I dig them out of
memory, clothed in their old rags and hunger and famished ambition. The
memories of the pain I suffered in this dreamy spot came back to me like
old friends who suffered with me in those days.
It was here that I held my dear old father’s hand while he passed over
the bar and drifted out on the Sea of Death. How plainly the scene comes
back to me as I stand on the crumbling walls and recall every feature of
the room in which he passed away. He asked for me in the last hour and
requested me to stay with him. Perhaps he understood me better than the
older boys, or he may have believed that I understood him best of all the
family.
It was not his desire to go. He had hoped for ten more years of life, but
now he realized that the end was near at hand. He spoke not a word of
being prepared to go nor did he ask me to meet him in heaven. He belonged
to the class of thinkers who do not know, and, realizing that he knew
nothing of the future, did not speculate on possibilities. The last words
he said were: “You may look upon men when dying, but ah, my son, you will
never know what death is until you come to die yourself!”
These words have haunted me all through life, and I often think of the
dreaded experience he prophesied for me. At that hour I could have gone
away with him contentedly, and I really wished then, while I held his
hand, that we two could go out together, and I never, never return.
But I could not keep my mind on death even then; for I noted the droning
of a bumble bee that beats its head against the window and tried to
escape from the room. And while looking at the bee I noted the voice of a
catbird out in the orchard, singing his sweetest notes. I tried to locate
him, and did finally detect him sitting on the branch of an apple tree
father had planted for me when I was yet a child. Then a bluebird lit on
a tall weed just outside the window: the weed bent and the winds caused
the bird to dance and sway up and down, and from right to left.
And there was sobbing and crying in the outer room. My old mother was
heartbroken at the parting and my older brother was trying to console
her. When the catbird flew away, followed by the blue one—the bumble bee
found the raised window and flew away. Then I turned to the bed—father
had likewise gone away. Only the cold clay remained.
Standing on the ruins of the old home I recalled it all once more as
vividly as though it happened but yesterday.
How strangely we live, how strangely we die, how strangely we live on
after loved ones have gone from us. How strangely we recall the old
scenes when they are suggested to us by a chain of memories passing
through our mind. Ah, many of my old hopes and ambitions lie now in ruins
more complete than the old walls of my childhood’s home. Many of the
people I met in this old home were closely connected with those old hopes
that have crumbled into gloomy dreams. Still I live on and hope on—new
hopes and a new life.