SCHOOL 'S OUT
Attention all—the old school's end is near.
Behold the sum of all its lessons here:
If e'er by loss of friends your heart is bowed!
Straightway go find ye others in the crowd.
Let Love's discoveries console its pain
And each year's loss be smaller than its gain.
God's love is in them—count the friends ye
get
The only wealth, and foes the only debt.
In life and Nature read the simple plan:
Be kind, be just, and fear not God or man.
School's out.
I passed through the door—not eagerly, as when I had been a boy, but with feet paced by sober thought—and I felt like one who had “improved his time,” as they used to say.
We rode in silence on our way to Hillsborough, as the dusk fell.
“The end o' good things is better'n the beginning,” said Uncle Eb, as we got out of the carriage.