OLD GAMES REPEATED.
We tarried longer in the dining-room this evening than usual, and the
children, losing their interest in what we were saying got to playing all
about us in a very boisterous way, but we said nothing, for it is the
evening hour, and I think it keeps one fresh to have these things going on
around us. Indeed, we never get over being boys and girls. The good,
healthy man sixty years of age is only a boy with added experience. A woman
is only an old girl. Summer is but an older spring. August is May in its
teens. We shall be useful in proportion as we keep young in our feelings.
There is no use for fossils except in museums and on the shelf. I like
young old folks.
Indeed, we all keep doing over what we did in childhood. You thought that
long ago you got through with "blind-man's-buff," and "hide-and-seek," and
"puss in the corner," and "tick-tack-to," and "leap-frog," but all our
lives are passed in playing those old games over again.
You say, "What a racket those children make in the other room! When Squire
Jones' boys come over to spend the evening with our children, it seems as
if they would tear the house down." "Father, be patient!" the wife says;
"we once played 'blind-man's-buff' ourselves." Sure enough, father is
playing it now, if he only knew it. Much of our time in life we go about
blindfolded, stumbling over mistakes, trying to catch things that we miss,
while people stand round the ring and titter, and break out with
half-suppressed laughter, and push us ahead, and twitch the corner of our
eye-bandage. After a while we vehemently clutch something with both hands,
and announce to the world our capture; the blindfold is taken from our
eyes, and, amid the shouts of the surrounding spectators, we find we have,
after all, caught the wrong thing. What is that but "blind-man's buff" over
again?
You say, "Jenny and Harry, go to bed. It seems so silly for you to sit
there making two parallel lines perpendicular, and two parallel lines
horizontal, and filling up the blanks with crosses and o's, and then crying
out 'tick-tack-to.'" My dear man, you are doing every day in business just
what your children are doing in the nursery. You find it hard to get things
into a line. You have started out for worldly success. You get one or two
things fixed but that is not what you want. After a while you have had two
fine successes. You say, "If I can have a third success, I will come out
ahead." But somebody is busy on the same slate, trying to hinder you
getting the game. You mark; he marks. I think you will win. To the first
and second success which you have already gained you add the third, for
which you have long been seeking. The game is yours, and you clap your
hands, and hunch your opponent in the side, and shout,
"Tick-tack-to,
Three in a row."
The funniest play that I ever joined in at school, and one that sets me
a-laughing now as I think of it so I can hardly write, is "leap-frog." It
is unartistic and homely. It is so humiliating to the boy who bends himself
over and puts his hands down on his knees, and it is so perilous to the boy
who, placing his hands on the stooped shoulders, attempts to fly over. But
I always preferred the risk of the one who attempted the leap rather than
the humiliation of the one who consented to be vaulted over. It was often
the case that we both failed in our part and we went down together. For
this Jack Snyder carried a grudge against me and would not speak, because
he said I pushed him down a-purpose. But I hope he has forgiven me by this
time, for he has been out as a missionary. Indeed, if Jack will come this
way, I will right the wrong of olden time by stooping down in my study and
letting him spring over me as my children do.
Almost every autumn I see that old-time schoolboy feat repeated. Mr.
So-and-so says, "You make me governor and I will see that you get to be
senator. Make me mayor and I will see that you become assessor. Get me the
office of street-sweeper and you shall have one of the brooms. You stoop
down and let me jump over you, and then I will stoop down and let you jump
over me. Elect me deacon and you shall be trustee. You write a good thing
about me and I will write a good thing about you." The day of election in
Church or State arrives. A man once very upright in his principles and
policy begins to bend. You cannot understand it. He goes down lower and
lower, until he gets his hands away down on his knees. Then a spry
politician or ecclesiastic comes up behind him, puts his hand on the bowed
strategist and springs clear over into some great position. Good thing to
have so good a man in a prominent place. But after a while he himself
begins to bend. Everybody says, "What is the matter now? It cannot be
possible that he is going down too." Oh yes! Turn-about is fair play. Jack
Snyder holds it against me to this day, because, after he had stooped down
to let me leap over him, I would not stoop down to let him leap over me.
One half the strange things in Church and State may be accounted for by the
fact that, ever since Adam bowed down so low as to let the race, putting
its hands on him, fly over into ruin, there has been a universal and
perpetual tendency to political and ecclesiastical "leap-frog." In one
sense, life is a great "game of ball." We all choose sides and gather into
denominational and political parties. We take our places on the ball
ground. Some are to pitch; they are the radicals. Some are to catch; they
are the conservatives. Some are to strike; they are those fond of polemics
and battle. Some are to run; they are the candidates. There are four
hunks--youth, manhood, old age and death. Some one takes the bat, lifts it
and strikes for the prize and misses it, while the man who was behind
catches it and goes in. This man takes his turn at the bat, sees the flying
ball of success, takes good aim and strikes it high, amid the clapping of
all the spectators. We all have a chance at the ball. Some of us run to all
the four hunks, from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age, from old
age to death. At the first hunk we bound with uncontrollable mirth; coming
to the second, we run with a slower but stronger tread; coming to the
third, our step is feeble; coming to the fourth, our breath entirely gives
out. We throw down the bat on the black hunk of death, and in the evening
catchers and pitchers go home to find the family gathered and the food
prepared. So may we all find the candles lighted, and the table set, and
the old folks at home.