The elements were turned loose,and they rattled and banged and blazed away in the most blind and frantic manner.All heart and hope went out of me,and the dismal thought kept floating through my brain,'If a boy who knows three thousand verses by heart is not satisfactory,what chance is there for anybody else?'
Of course I never questioned for a moment that the storm was on Dutchy's account,or that he or any other inconsequential animal was worthy of such a majestic demonstration from on high;the lesson of it was the only thing that troubled me;for it convinced me that if Dutchy,with all his perfections,was not a delight,it would be vain for me to turn over a new leaf,for I must infallibly fall hopelessly short of that boy,no matter how hard I might try.Nevertheless I did turn it over--a highly educated fear compelled me to do that--but succeeding days of cheerfulness and sunshine came bothering around,and within a month I had so drifted backward that again Iwas as lost and comfortable as ever.
Breakfast time approached while I mused these musings and called these ancient happenings back to mind;so I got me back into the present and went down the hill.
On my way through town to the hotel,I saw the house which was my home when I was a boy.At present rates,the people who now occupy it are of no more value than I am;but in my time they would have been worth not less than five hundred dollars apiece.
They are colored folk.
After breakfast,I went out alone again,intending to hunt up some of the Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils might compare with their progenitors who had sat with me in those places and had probably taken me as a model--though I do not remember as to that now.By the public square there had been in my day a shabby little brick church called the 'Old Ship of Zion,'which I had attended as a Sunday-school scholar;and I found the locality easily enough,but not the old church;it was gone,and a trig and rather hilarious new edifice was in its place.
The pupils were better dressed and better looking than were those of my time;consequently they did not resemble their ancestors;and consequently there was nothing familiar to me in their faces.
Still,I contemplated them with a deep interest and a yearning wistfulness,and if I had been a girl I would have cried;for they were the offspring,and represented,and occupied the places,of boys and girls some of whom I had loved to love,and some of whom I had loved to hate,but all of whom were dear to me for the one reason or the other,so many years gone by--and,Lord,where be they now!
I was mightily stirred,and would have been grateful to be allowed to remain unmolested and look my fill;but a bald-summited superintendent who had been a tow-headed Sunday-school mate of mine on that spot in the early ages,recognized me,and I talked a flutter of wild nonsense to those children to hide the thoughts which were in me,and which could not have been spoken without a betrayal of feeling that would have been recognized as out of character with me.
Making speeches without preparation is no gift of mine;and I was resolved to shirk any new opportunity,but in the next and larger Sunday-school I found myself in the rear of the assemblage;so I was very willing to go on the platform a moment for the sake of getting a good look at the scholars.
On the spur of the moment I could not recall any of the old idiotic talks which visitors used to insult me with when I was a pupil there;and I was sorry for this,since it would have given me time and excuse to dawdle there and take a long and satisfying look at what I feel at liberty to say was an array of fresh young comeliness not matchable in another Sunday-school of the same size.
As I talked merely to get a chance to inspect;and as I strung out the random rubbish solely to prolong the inspection,I judged it but decent to confess these low motives,and I did so.
If the Model Boy was in either of these Sunday-schools,I did not see him.
The Model Boy of my time--we never had but the one--was perfect:
perfect in manners,perfect in dress,perfect in conduct,perfect in filial piety,perfect in exterior godliness;but at bottom he was a prig;and as for the contents of his skull,they could have changed place with the contents of a pie and nobody would have been the worse off for it but the pie.This fellow's reproachlessness was a standing reproach to every lad in the village.He was the admiration of all the mothers,and the detestation of all their sons.I was told what became of him,but as it was a disappointment to me,I will not enter into details.He succeeded in life.
