They played together, they lived together; together they tended deestrick school an' went huckleberryin'; there wuz huskin's an' spellin' bees an' choir meetin's an' skatin' an' slidin' down-hill—oh, the happy times uv youth! an' all those times our boy Cyrus an' their leetle Lizzie went lovin'ly together!
What made me start so—what made me ask of Bill one time: "Are we a-gettin' old, Bill?" that wuz the Thanksgivin' night when, as we set round the fire in Bill's front-room, Cyrus come to us, holdin' leetle Lizzie by the hand, an' they asked us could they get marr'd come next Thanksgivin' time? Why, it seemed only yesterday that they wuz chicks together! God! how swift the years go by when they are happy years!
"Reuben," sez Bill to me, "le's go down' cellar and draw a pitcher uv cider!"
You see that, bein' men, it wuz n't for us to make a show uv ourselves. Marty an' Lizzie just hugged each other an' laughed an' cried—they wuz so glad! Then they hugged Cyrus an' leetle Lizzie; and talk and laff? Well, it did beat all how them women folks did talk and laugh, all at one time! Cyrus laffed, too; an' then he said he reckoned he 'd go out an' throw some fodder in to the steers, and Bill an' I—well, we went down-cellar to draw that pitcher uv cider.
It ain't for me to tell now uv the meller sweetness uv their courtin' time; I could n't do it if I tried. Oh, how we loved 'em both! Yet, once in the early summer-time, our boy Cyrus he come to me an' said: "Father, I want you to let me go away for a spell."
"Cyrus, my boy! Go away?"
"Yes, father; President Linkern has called for soldiers; father, you have always taught me to obey the voice of Duty. That voice summons me now."
"God in heaven," I thought, "you have given us this child only to take him from us!"
But then came the second thought: "Steady, Reuben! You are a man; be a man! Steady, Reuben; be a man!"
"Yer mother," sez I, "yer mother—it will break her heart!"