Once more the whirligig of time has yanked an old year out, and a new
one in.
Glad on’t.
If there is anything lonesome and monotonous, it is last year. The old
year had a few charms, but the new one promises to give them half a
mile the start, and then go under the string first.
And yet one feels a trifle sad to part with the old year, when he
comes to think it over. As memory’s bob-tail car pulls us down
the long lane of the past, one looks out of the window at the
well-remembered objects of former days, and his heart saddens.
Where’s the fat girl who rested her head on your bosom when the
old year was new? Gone--yes, gone--slid out to take charge of the
snake-cage in a traveling museum of natural wonders, and your wounded
heart sorrowfully but vainly calls,--
“Come back, fat girl--come back?”
Where’s the alligator boots which sat around the festive board last
new year’s day? Where’s the silk umbrella you left on the doorstep
this morning?
Where’s the ton of coal and the jar of country butter you laid
in about that time? Where’s the plumber who agreed to “come right
up,” and thaw that water-pipe out? The sad wind sighing through the
treeless leaves, solemnly puckers its mouth, and sadly answers,--
“Gone up!”
One by one they have fallen beside the curbstone of life’s dreary
highway, have been swept over and almost forgotten, while you and
I have been spared to put up the stoves another time, and to have
the landlord raise the rent on us--drat him! It makes one feel sad,
especially the rent business.
Farewell, old year! If you go west to grow up with the country, or go
south to run a steamboat, we hope you’ll be honest, seek respectable
company, and make your daily life a striking example for, and a
terrible warning to, the man who goes around playing the string game
on unsuspecting people.
Welcome, new year! Howdy? If convenient, give us some new clothes, a
few thousand in cash, and a race-horse, and prove by your actions that
you mean to do the right thing by a fellow. Give us some strawberry
weather this month, wollop the pesky Indians into behaving themselves,
and make it uncomfortable for grasshoppers and potato-bugs. Be around
with some decent weather when a fellow wants to go fishing, and let
’er rain to kill when the women go out to exhibit their new bonnets.
Do the fair thing by all of us, including New Jersey, and we won’t
stand by and see you abused.