THE WHITE-LAKE

CREEK: Α SKETCH.

BY REV. 0. HUNTINGTON.

Here flow

How lone and beautiful this place!
The White-Lake's waters, forcing 'midst the rocks
Their foamy pathway. High o'erhead, the trees
Of this wild forest-track branch wide around,
Forming vast, vaulted chambers, wrapt in shade
Cool and delicious. Down the varying stream,
Tempting the trout from his cold haunts,
We pass; but not with eye unmindful now,
Nature, of thy wild beauty, we renew
Our wanderings along this lonely creek.
The laurels tangled on the banks forbid
The sportsman's steps upon the shore; nor, now
That June's rejoicing sun is reigning high,
Need he regret his steps must be along
The pebbly channels of the cooling stream.
Or if we rest upon some open bank,
Still cooling visions shall delight us: rocks
Dripping with foam, and beautiful with moss;
The shadowy haunt, above, of orioles;

The glassy cave of yon old trout, who scorns
Our fly and squirming bait, but darts like thought
At every luckless miller fluttering by,

With startling and exciting splash.
These shall our thoughts beguile.

And we will dream

Of icy drinks that float the fragrand rind
Of the golden lemon; visions shall delight
Of water-falls by sun-bows canopied,
The fine spray flying in the restless breeze;
Of couches spread in small craft on the lake,
The air around with music sweet-with breath
Of distant hay-fields and the fragrant meads:
We'll dream of caverns in the lonely wild,

The dim light glistening from the crystalled walls;
And o'er the Stygian waters, cold as snow,
That wash the statues rude, in rock, of men
Whose battle-axes, of the flint-stone cut,
Clashed in the conflict centuries ago.

Such cooling dreams shall charm us, till again

We tempt the timid dwellers in the stream;

And the day grows rich as night steals on, like hopes More brightly blooming 'neath Death's sable hour.

O lonely, wild, romantic stream! with thee,
And with the regions where thy waters gleam,
There are blithe memories woven: of fair youths,
Sunny and glad and winning; as with rocks
And lonely cliffs upon the ocean shore,
Majestical and rude, in Memory's glass
Are blent the images of lovely vines,
And soft, young blossoms, and the tinted moss.

Not thus, like thine, O lonely stream!
Be my life's destinies-through gloomy scenes
Perplexed and in deep solitude.

Let the soft light of true romance, indeed,
Be flowing 'round my course; but freer beams
Of heavenly sunshine be my constant lot,
With faith and hope and joy enkindling me.
Then with the free and beautiful Mongaup
Will blend thy waters, lonely White-Lake Creek,'
As though some pensive genius, lone and strange,
Were wedded to some maid of open face,
And fresh, fair beauty, after sorrowing years.

REMINISCENCES OF CHILDHOOD.

FROM THE LIFE OF RALPH ROANOKE.'

WITH A PREFACE TO THE EDITOR,

It would do your heart good, Mr. Editor, to hear the triumphant shout which has gone forth from the glad hearts of the rising generation, on finding in your valuable number for June, that 'Old Knick.' has declared in favor of the Rights of Children.' That able and interesting article, from the author of 'Schediasms,' has done good service to the cause of education in its broadest sense. It has aroused those 'slow coaches,' the present generation of conservative fathers and mothers, and set them to thinking; and may the light so shine upon their benighted minds that, seeing their evil ways, they may straightway abandon them.

I very much doubt whether there is any greater phenomenon in nature than the subtle instinct and early appreciation of justice to be found in children. When we remember how lasting are their early impressions, and how craving are their young minds for the why and wherefore of every thing, we should not wonder at the apparently sudden perversity of their natures, at the moment when we begin to elevate them to the standard of intelligent and responsible beings. The truth is, they have long before had heart-aches almost to bursting, at the various snubbings' which their infantile curiosity has brought down upon them from inconsiderate parents, who had not time, forsooth, to lend a helping idea in the early mysteries which their active brains were trying to solve; not to mention the thousand acts of injustice imposed by brute force. A fatal mistake is made in supposing their minds, wills, hearts, to be, as it were, mere blank sheets of paper, ready for conservative impressions, when, by the law of progression, they were born into the world with instincts, in very many cases, far ahead of our experiences, and are therefore almost perverted and estranged by being regarded as stocks and stones, at the very moment when we turn to them as ready for mental and moral culture. In the humble hope of awakening farther

thought, and eliciting other experiences on this most important subject, I send you a reminiscence from an early diary.

I commenced going to school at a very early age, and was doubtless sent for the very sage reason which operated upon the minds of most prudent parents in former days: to be kept out of mischief.' My first teacher was a young lady who bore the ominous name of Lynch, and I was the only male scholar in the school. The why and wherefore of this, when there were doubtless other schools in the village, I cannot attempt to explain; but I have a strong impression that my kind parents had no idea of subjecting their hopeful son to the strict discipline of the only boys' school, which was indelibly impressed upon my memory by the far-famed severity of its teacher. This worthy man went by the name of 'Old Flood;' and was so tenacious of primitive ideas, that he took his venerable name for his rule of action, so that whatever he did was not done in spots,' as the slang phrase of the day would have it, but in 'floods;' and if a boy got a scourging from Old Flood,' although it did not pour upon his devoted head for forty days and forty nights, yet, if he recovered from the effects of it in that time, he was esteemed a lucky urchin. I could not have learned mucn at Miss Lynch's school, not even to read, for I recollect my father's first attempt to teach me to read at a much later period. In fact, I brought away with me from that school only bitter reminiscences, one of which grew out of an early outbreak of gallantry, which I was egotistical enough to perpetuate in my veritable history.

The town of Liberty was built upon both sides of the main public road, which formed at that period the only street; and as each dwelling had its garden attached to it, the village partook of the long and thin form, rather than the broad and short, and extended over some two miles. The school-house stood exactly in the centre, on the democratic principle of equal rights; consequently the scholars residing on either end of the village had quite a long walk. It happened one morning that one of the girls forgot to bring her slate and pencil, and our strict disciplinarian was so enraged, that she ordered her to return home for them instantly. This unfortunate young girl was one of nature's tenderest flowers. Her father resided at the end of the village, and owing to the extreme cold weather and a heavy fall of snow, she had been sent to school in the family carriage, and the carriage had already been dismissed. At this command, some of the elder girls remonstrated, others declared it was enough to freeze the poor child to death, while the girl herself sobbed as if her heart would break at the harshness of the reprimand, without even realizing the task about to be imposed upon her. But in those days, no laws imposed by petticoat government could be disobeyed with impunity, on the retaliatory principle; for women were then so seldom entrusted with any brief authority, that it reminded one of the old adage of putting a beggar on horseback,' etc., to see one clothed with the baton of office. (I beg pardon, ladies, for this equivocal compliment; you will please remember that this is the age of progression, and women had n't ought to be' now what they used to was.') The novelty of my position, being the only young lord of creation in the school, called loudly for a display of my gallantry, and my indignation was with great

difficulty kept in respectful subjection. How gladly would I have stepped forward her champion 'to the death,' and put my veto upon the barbarous order, had I been a few years older! But the instinct of selfpreservation whispered in my ear, that a box on the side of my head would send me rolling over the floor, to the evident amusement of all the school; for what child can check an impulse to laugh at any thing ludicrous? In this dilemma, I nerved myself for a middle course, and proposed a compromise, by suggesting that any other slate would do quite as well until to-morrow, to the no small admiration of the girls, who loudly seconded the motion with offers of slates all round the room. But alas! poor me; far better had I never been born than to have dared to interfere with Miss Lynch's brief authority. Alas! that I had not learned to reason from analogy, to comprehend cause and effect. Then, indeed, I might have suspected the temerity of the act. I might have known that the age of Lynch' law was only one degree removed from the 'Flood. With the activity of an hyena she transferred her rage to me, and fairly screeched out, I'll teach you to mind your own business, you impudent puppy you! Put on your cap, and be off with you, and if you do n't have that slate and pencil here in double-quick time, I'll make you remember me the longest day you live!' Now, by my troth, I feel it my solemn duty to record my testimony to the truth of her remark. The recollection of her ugly face and the hardships of the adventure are far more fresh and green in my memory than any remembrances of the laurels won and worn on that trying occasion. The cheerfulness with which I undertook the task had well-nigh commuted my punishment from banishment on a cold morning's walk to something more direful. I watched with anxious eye the struggle, the doubt, and finally the triumph of first resolves, as they passed rapidly through the mind of Miss Lynch, while, with door-latch in hand, I stood awaiting her final commands. Off I bounded at a round pace, singing merrily, with heart as light as the fresh air that was whistling around me. What a glorious train of high hopes and aspirations took possession of me, and kept me warm! I hugged myself with honest pride. I made speeches to myself, such as my imagination pictured would be made to me by the astonished and delighted father. I grew hungry in my enthusiasm, and debated my chances whether the grateful mother would offer me a quarter-section of pie, or only bread and butter. Of one thing I was morally certain: I was acting nobly, and would receive an appropriate reward. Under this train of thought and delightful dream, I reached the house warm and buoyant. A rap at the ponderous lionheaded knocker on the outer door brought the sable usher to his post, and his kindly smile and bland manner gave renewed assurances of a hearty welcome if the servant was a faithful prototype of his master. To my inquiry, Is Mr. Grumpy at home?' he answered, 'Yes, young Massa; walk in. Ain't you 'most froze? It am a berry cold mornin', and if I mout be so bold as to 'spress my 'pinion, I should kinder 'clude it must be 'portant business bro't you out dis raw day.' I told him my errand as quickly as possible, and was ushered into the presence of the father. Almost buried in an old arm-chair, lined with sheep-skin, sat,

the lord of this castle, warming his gouty shins at a dashing hickory fire, which would make one's heart laugh to gaze upon now-a-days, and reading some musty old book that must have awakened but little sympathy in his old gizzard-for he was destitute of a heart.

Our entrance into the room had no visible effect upon him, and he went on reading, and would probably have read on until Gabriel's trumpet sounded his réveille, if it had not been for a stream of cold air that played Paul Pry,' as we opened the door. But how shall I describe my indignation, when the first word he uttered to me was a reprimand! What do you want here? What did you come in at that door for?' instead of knowing at a glance that I was the noble boy that had risked being frozen to death to serve his daughter, and taking me in his arms to express his approbation of my conduct. Even when told my errand, instead of making the 'amende honorable,' instead of expressing his gratitude, to say to his servant: Get him the slate and pencil quickly, and let him be off with himself;' and to me: 'Boy, mind you shut the door after you, or I'll teach you better manners.'

Oh, the agony of that moment! Oh, the chilling sensation awakened by such ingratitude! Never could it be forgotten; never could it be forgiven. The old brute! did he suppose it was my business to shut the door? What was his porter there for? The mortified look of the wellbred colored gentleman was some consolation, any how; and while my indignation lasted, I exulted in the ecstasy of an imaginary retaliation of leaving the door open, and breaking sundry panes of glass, to let the winds of retributive justice in upon his gouty old carcass.

With heart bursting with rage and mortification, every step I took back toward the school-house plunged the icicle of ingratitude deeper and deeper into my indignant breast; and the same winds that had whistled those buoyant melodies, and awakened those bright images as I went along, came back upon me on my return, freighted with dark and dreary thoughts, chasing away from my young imagination all the poetry of life, all the incentives to noble deeds. Long before I reached the school-house, instead of feeling the proud, high-souled, warm-hearted boy I started, I went moping along, a poor, half-frozen, weeping child. Thus in one moment, all those finer aud nobler qualities of my nature that were just budding in the spring-time of life were outraged by a ruthless, unfeeling abortion of GOD's image, and sent back to curdle around and ossify my youthful heart. I have said that the memory of that adventure had no contrast in the form of laurels won and worn. This was literally true. I returned to the school-house, delivered the slate and pencil, taking my seat, with a charge to be sure and have my lessons, if I did not want to catch it.'

I was left to philosophize on my sad disappointment, and to profit by my little experience.

But, Mr. Editor, with your assistance, who are a host in your own divine right, and with the aid of your long list of able contributors, I trust the reminiscences of the present generation may portray the lights without the shadows of by gone days.