And travel over seas;
And mothers remain at home through years,
While the early memories die,
And I bathe those curls once more in tears,
And go to bed with a sigh.
And on the day we found those curls, and read these lines aloud, we could look through the window and see our boy coming home from school. “In a little while,” I said, “the boy will disappear with the baby, and the man will grow out of the ashes. Oh, this is a strange world, and were it not for our memories, life would be short indeed! How sad, how sweet, how full of sentiment, how inspiring to live over the past.”
THE AUCTION BLOCK
The old negro was past seventy years, hostler at a country hotel. Some of the young men were drinking, and they persuaded “Uncle Andy” to sing us a song. He willingly sang several of his jolliest negro songs, and then wound up with Nellie Gray. When he came to that part which concluded the song, I saw tears stealing down his old wrinkled cheeks. I asked him to sing the chorus over again, and when he looked into my eyes and saw the sympathy I knew was welling up from my heart, he began again in that peculiar cadence which belongs to the negro race alone: