Only Yesterday

...yet somehow he found ample time for reading, study, and writing for the magazines...

...In those days, the studies in the little country school included Latin and Greek, algebra, geometry, astronomy, and botany...

...The boys were informed, not so much by their parents as by mature associates among out- door men...

...RODERICK GILL...

...At that time, there was a wide-spread belief that the marshaling of words could be governed and restricted within the limits of a parcel of fixed laws, made by man for man's convenience...

...When, in later years, I read in a book by one of the finest writers of our time his reference to the "unimportant matter of spelling," I felt that I had met a kindred spirit...

...In my boyhood we had no running water in the house...

...The very shyness which made the boys uncouth was an added merit in the school-girls---one which today we sometimes miss with keen regret...

...I see no other plausible ex- planation of its reduced capacity of accomplishment...

...the forenoon he occupied in shoe, making when the farm work did not call...

...Time has shrunken in length, breadth, and thickness...

...Feeling as I did in my in- most heart of hearts, that there was a divine and universal law of sound, to whose rhythm the ocean waves, the wind in the trees, and the creaking of crickets on a summer evening all timed themselves, and to whose perfect movement men could only blindly grope their way, thankful for the guidance of an unseen helping hand, either in writing, music, or any of the arts, I was inclined to treat the lessons in grammar as some- thing of a joke--much to the exasperation of my teachers...

...Though I have read something of such matters since then, and held conversation with wise and ex-perienced doctors, I have learned very little that my asso-ciates and I did not know at the age of fifteen...

...And now what singing memories throng-What sympathies and comfortings long due, What green oasis comes in view...

...q conci]iation Friend--you call me so--how long I have withheld that sacred name from you...

...All the water was brought up by bucket and windlass from the depths of the well...

...Farmers changed work one with another, and when there happened to be a surplus of sons in a family, one or more of the boys worked as hired men on other farms...

...Farmers and lumbermen, deep-sea fishers, horse-traders, cattle-dealers, and blacksmiths, then (as now, I sup- pose) made a practice of talking before growing boys of just such matters, in terms such as we now find in print only in Chaucer and Shakespeare--and I firmly believe for the pur-pose of warning them...

...My studies in the schoolroom interested me but little, and I was always glad when the farm work kept me out in my open air study...

...While I was listening to the music and the reading: I occupied my time drawing with pen and pencil, sketches ~.t the wild birds and animals that I had seen in the course of the day's farm work or on fishing and hunting excursions...

...He never took a vacation in his life, for during the season when the schools and his church were dosed, planting, hay-mak- ing and harvesting kept him at work...

...On summer evenings I foregathered at the swimming-hole with farmers and their sons and hired men...

...My grandfather was farmer and shoemaker...

...The school-boys of those days, as memory recalls them, were on the whole not quite the equal of the boys of today, either in good looks or good manners...

...then my sister played the piano for half an hour, and after that my mother read to us of English, Scotch, and Irish life, from Shakespeare, Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Blackmore, Meredith, Hardy, and Steven- son--or from such American writers as Thoreau, Emerson, and Howells...

...In the days when slow-paced oxen were the chief means of trans-portation-the single mould-board plow, the spiked toothed harrow, the hoe and the scythe, the hand-rake and the pitch- fork, the most important, and almost the only agricultural im- plements--there was, if my memory serves me right, more work accomplished, and with less hurry and more leisure flours than at present...

...Winter and summer he arose at four--just as most of my neighbors do now--and did his share of the chores at the barn...

...Monday morning it fell to my lot to help with the washing, and on Tuesdays and Fridays with the churning...

...The rules of grammar, instead of being looked upon as merely a help or stepping-stone for beginners, were too often regarded as final...

...After that my father and I read scientific and philo- sophical works until bedtime...

...My father was minister, school superintendent, shoemaker and farmer...

...They were either shy, boor- ish and awkward, or else too much inclined to mannish bravado and the putting on of airs--but they were, I think, more praiseworthy in not demanding too much o]~ life...

...Many an observation coneerning natural history that they told me, and which I had not found in my books and doubted at the time, I have since verified by my own research or by reference to that of others...

...Geography --especially physical geography--and algebra were about the only studies" that I found attractive there...

...This form of entertainment gave place a few years later to the superior attractions of lawn tennis and bicycle excursions...

...However it may be with the youth of today I know not-- but at that time there certainly was no call for instruction regarding the danger of vice...

...After dinner he usually studied and wrote, until my mother, with my sister's help, had finished the household duties, when he read to her while she sewed...

...Neither could I see why everyone should be expected to spell words in exactly the same way, so long as the arrangement of letters approximately conveyed the sound and meaning of the words...

...February 16, 1927 T H E C O M M O N W E AL 409 ONLY YESTERDAY By WILLIAM EVERETT CRAM ~)r HEN I look back to the life of fifty years ago, I see YV quite clearly that not only the times have changed, but time itself is not the thing it used to be...

...breakfast was at six...

...This routine was more or less frequently interrupted by dances and parties and amateur theatricals with the young folk of this and the neighboring towns...

...There seems to have been no more outside hired help on the farm then than now...

...During the school term, my woodland studies were much curtailed, and on those days I made a practice--after hurrying through my share of the barn work and my breakfast---of starting off for a long tramp in the woods, planning to get back in time to finish the washing or churning before the hour for starting off for school...

...After the night's work at the barn was done and supper was over, we gathered in the siRing-room...

...I early felt the desire to express my thoughts in writing, so that composition, as taught in the schools, went decidedly against the grain...

...Of course, the fact that young people finished their education earlier counts for something, but not for all...

...Hunting, fishing, and trapping for fur were our combined recreation and source of pocket-money, and formed the principal topic of our conversation...