“Yes, my dear, I am for everybody. I am a man of the past. Everything I ever cared for and ever loved, excepting you, belongs to the years that have gone, and my affections belong to those years. I liked the people of the old time better than I do those of the new. I loved their simpler ways, the ways that I knew in my boyhood, threescore and more years ago. I am sure the world is not so good as it was then. It is smarter, perhaps; it knows more, but its wisdom vexes and disgusts me. I am not certain, my dear, that, if I had my way, I would not sweep away, at one stroke, all the so-called ‘modern conveniences,’ and return to the ancient methods.”
“They were very slow, grandpa.”
“Yes, slow; and for that I liked them. We go too fast now; but our speed, I am afraid, is hurrying us in the wrong direction. We were satisfied in the old time with what we had. It was good enough. Are men contented now? No; they are still improving and improving; still reaching out for something that will be quicker, or easier, or cheaper than the things that are. We appear to have gained much; but really we have gained nothing. We are not a bit better off now than we were; not so well off, in my opinion.”
“But, grandpa, you must remember that you were young then, and perhaps looked at the world in a more hopeful way than you do now.”
“Yes, I allow for that, Nelly, I allow for that; I don’t deceive myself. My youth does not seem so very far off that I cannot remember it distinctly. I judge the time fairly, now in my old age, as I judge the present time, and my assured opinion is that it was superior in its ways, its life, and its people. Its people! Ah, Nelly, my dear, there were three persons in that past who alone would consecrate it to me. I am afraid there are not many women now like your mother and mine, and like my dear wife, whom you never saw. It seems to me, my child, that I would willingly live all my life over again, with its strifes and sorrows, if I could clasp again the hand of one of those angelic women, and hear a word from her sweet lips.”
As the old man wiped the gathering moisture from his eyes, Nelly remained silent, choosing not to disturb the reverie into which he had fallen. Presently Ephraim rose abruptly, and said, with a smile,—
“Come, Nelly dear, I guess it is time to go to bed. I must be up very early to-morrow morning.”
“At what hour do you want breakfast, grandpa?”
“Why, too soon for you, you sleepy puss. I shall breakfast by myself before you are up, or else I shall breakfast down town. I have a huge cargo of wheat in from Chicago, and I must arrange to have it shipped for Liverpool. There is one thing that remains to me from the old time, and that is some of the hard work of my youth; but even that seems a little harder than it used to. So, come now; to bed! to bed!”
While he was undressing, and long after he had crept beneath the blankets, Ephraim’s thoughts wandered back and back through the spent years; and, as the happiness he had known came freshly and strongly into his mind, he felt drawn more and more towards it; until the new and old mingled together in strange but placid confusion in his brain, and he fell asleep.