those past events. We used to go to "big meeting" in a two-horse
sled, with the wagon-body half filled with hay and heaped high with
blankets and robes. The mercury might be low in the tube, but we
recked not of that. Our indifference to climatic conditions was not
due alone to the wealth of robes and blankets, but the proximity of
another member of the human family may have had something to do with
it. If we could reconstruct the emotional life of those good old
times, the physical conditions would take their rightful place as a
background.

If we could only bring back the appetite of former years we might
find this pie better than the pies of old. The good brother who
seems to think the textbooks of his boyhood days were better than the
modern ones forgets that along with the old-time textbooks went
skating, rabbit-hunting, snowballing, coasting, fishing, sock-up,
bull-pen, two-old-cat, townball, and shinny-on-the-ice. He is
probably confusing those majors with the text-book minor. His
criticism of things and books modern is probably a voicing of his
regret that he has lost his zeal for the fun and frolic of youth. If
he could but drink a few copious drafts from the Fountain of Youth,
the books of the present might not seem so inferior after all. The
bread and apple-butter stage of our hero's career may seem to dim the
lustre of the later porterhouse steak, but with all the glory of the
halcyon days of yore it is to be noted that he rides in an automobile
and not in an ox-cart, and prefers electricity to the good old
oil-lamp.

I concede with enthusiasm the joys of bygone days, and would be glad
to repeat those experiences with sundry very specific reservations
and exceptions. That thick bread with its generous anointing of