Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1883 — The Returned Argonaut. [ARTICLE]

The Returned Argonaut.

Sometimes, on visiting my native village, I stand before one of those oldfashioned houses from whose front door, thirty-four years ago, there went forth, for the last time, the young Argonaut on his way to the ship. There is more than one suoh house in the village. The door is double, the knocker is still upon it, the window panes are small, the front gate is the same, and up to the door the same stones lie upon the walk. But within all are strangers. The father and mother are past anxious inquiry of their sons. The sisters are married and live or have died elsewhere. A new generation is all about. They never heard of him. The great event of that period—the sailing of that ship for California—is sometimes recalled bj a few—a few rapidly diminishing. Hu name is all but forgotten. Some of him have a dim remembrance. In his time he was an important young man in the village. He set the fashion in collars and the newest style of plugs. Oh, fame, how fleeting! What is a generation ? A puff. A few old maids recollect him. What a pity, what a shame that we do all fade as a leaf! What a sad place; what a living grave is this for him to return to! Where would he find the most familiar names? In the cemetery. Who would he feel most like? Like “Rip Van Winkle.* Who are these bright and blooming lasses passing by? They are her grownup children—she with whom he sat up that last Sunday night in the old-fash-ioned front parlor on the old-fashioned sofa. Where is she? That is she, that stout, middle-aged woman across the street. Is she thinking of him? No; she is thinking whether there shall be cabbage or turnips for dinner. Who is that codgery-looking man going up the street? That is the man she didn’t wait for and married. Should the Argonaut return home if he could ? No. Let him stay where he is and dream on of her as she was, blight, gay, lively, blooming and possibly romantic. The dream is solid happiness compared with the reality. Let him at twilight sit in his cabin-door, on Delirium Tremens bar, and dream on while the sun gilds the foothill summits. If he can not so dream soberly,- let him get a bottle of corn whisky and dream on that. Better even that than the hard, cold, damp, gray reality. What is the end of it all ? Bones! Bones!! Bones 11!— Prentice Mui ford,in San Francisco Chronicle.