AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
>aaf-§»#k 
‘A little humor now and then, 
Is relished by the best of men.” 
YOUNG AGAIN. 
An old man sits in a high-backed chair 
Before an open door, 
While the sun of a summer's afternoon 
Falls hot across the floor ; 
And the drowsy tick of an ancient clock 
Has notched the hour of four. 
A breeze blows in and a breeze blows out, 
From the scented summer air ; 
And it flutters notv on his wrinkled brow, 
And now it lifts his hair; 
And the leaden lid of his eye drops down, 
And he sleeps in his high-backed chair. 
The oldman sleeps, and the old man dreams, 
His head droops on his breast, 
His hands relax their feeble hold, 
And fall to his lap in rest; 
The old man sleeps, and in sleep he dreams, 
And in dreams again is blest. 
The years unroll their fearful scroll; 
He is a child again ; 
A mother’s tones are in his ear, 
And drift across his brain ; 
He chases gaudy butterflies 
Far down across the plane. 
He plucks the wild rose in the woods, 
And gathers eglantine, 
And holds the golden buttercups 
Beneath his sister’s chin ; 
And angles in the meadow brook 
With a bent and naked pin. 
He loiters down the grassy lane, 
And by the brimming pool, 
And a sigh escapes his parting lips, 
As he hears the bell for school; 
And he wishes it ne’er were nine o’clock, 
And the morning never full. 
A mother's hand pressed on his head, 
Her kiss is on his brow— 
A summer breeze blows in at the door, 
With the toss of a leafy bough ; 
And the boy is a white-haired man again, 
And his eyes are tear-filled now. 
Du. Chalmers in his Family. —In his do¬ 
mestic intercourse with his daughters there 
was much playful familiarity. Finding one 
of them sitting alone in a room, he said, 
“ Well, my dear little howlet, 
1 Hail, mildly pleasing solitude, 
Companion of the wise and good 
but I'm no for us growing perfectly uncog- 
nisant of one another, sitting in corners like 
sae mony cats.’'’’ After some of his public 
appearances, when he came home exhausted, 
his daughters would gather round him as he 
lay at ease in his arm chair. One would 
play Scotch music, another shampoo his feet 
(a very frequent, and to him always a very 
agreeable, operation), a third would talk 
nonsense and set him in fits of laughter. At 
such times, in a mock-heroic way, he would 
repeat Scott’s lines— 
“ O woman, in our hours of ease,” &c. 
A spirit of chivalry ran through all his inter¬ 
course with his daughters ; they not only 
administered to his comfort in the hours of 
relaxation, but he made them companions, 
as it were, of his public life, and sought their 
intellectual sympathy even with his highest 
exercise of thought.— Marl Lane Express. 
A Little too Polite. —As John Randolph 
was walking, one day, he met a man who 
walked straight on, remarking “ that he did 
not turn out for a rascal.” “ I do,” quickly 
rejoined Randolph; and immediately step¬ 
ping aside, he let the ruffian pass. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
‘HONOR TO WHOM HONOR.” 
[Wc cheerfully give place to the following, 
which explains itself.— Eds.] 
In a former number of the American Agri¬ 
culturist I notice a poem, headed “ Lines by 
Milton in his old age.” I have met with this 
same little poem in three or four different 
papers within a year or two past, represent¬ 
ed, in each instance, as the production of the 
immortal Milton himself. But, strange as it 
may seem, it was not written by the blind 
old Bard, but some hundred and seventy-five 
years after his time, by Elizabeth Lloyd, Jr., 
(now Howells,) an unassuming Quaker lady, 
of the city of Penn, and origiually published 
in the “ Friends’ Review,” under the title of 
“Milton’s Prayer of Patience.” 
In a short time after its first appearance 
it found its way into a London paper, with 
the remark that it was Milton’s own produc¬ 
tion, but had never been published except in 
the Oxford edition of his works. Where¬ 
upon, a discussion arose among the literati 
as to its authenticity, which was put at rest 
by the Editor of the paper in which it first 
appeared. 
I think it but an act of justice, both to the 
public and to the authoress, to make this 
correction, being well convinced that the fair 
authoress would never take the trouble to do 
so ; for though several of her productions 
are before the public, she has only in one 
instance allowed her name to reveal the au¬ 
thor, and that at an urgent request. As to 
her reputation as a poet, the simple history 
of this little production is all that need be 
told. It were certainly enough for the most 
aspiring to know that their poems were pass¬ 
ing through the literary world as the produc¬ 
tions of the author of “ Paradise Lost.” 
Richmond, Ind. R. T. REED. 
Beautiful. —It cannot be that earth is 
man’s abiding place. It can not be that our 
life is cast up by the ocean of eternity to 
float upon its waves and sink into nothing¬ 
ness. Else, why is it that the glorious as¬ 
pirations, which leap like angels from the 
temple of our hearts, are forever wandering 
about unsatisfied l Why is it, that the rain¬ 
bow and the clouds come over Avith a beauty 
that is not of earth, and pass oft’ to leave us 
to muse on their faded loveliness ? Why is 
it that the stars, who hold festival around the 
midnight throne, are set above the grasp of 
our limited faculties; forever mocking us with 
their unapproachable glory 1 And, finally, 
why is it that the bright forms of human 
beauty are presented to our view and then 
taken away from us, leaving the thousand 
streams of our affections to flow into Alpine 
torrents 1 We are born for a higher destiny 
than that of earth. 
There is a realm where rainbows never 
fade, where the stars will be out before us 
like islets that slumber on the ocean, and 
where the beings that pass before us like 
shadows will stay in our possession forever. 
“ You are from the country, are you not ?” 
said a know nothing clerk in a certain book 
store, to a plain dressed individual who had 
given him some trouble. 
“ Yes.” 
“ Well, here’s an essay on the rearing of 
calves.” 
“ That,” said the man, as he slowly turned 
to leave the store, “ you had better present 
to your mother.” 
“ Did you pull my nose in earnest, sir!” 
“ Certainly I did, sir.” 
“ It is well you did, for I do not allow per¬ 
sons to joke with me in that way.” 
395 
BATHING CHILDREN IN COLD WATER. 
The following extract we can almost fully 
endorse. The “ cold water” mania so pre¬ 
valent for a few years past, has already “fin¬ 
ished ” many a suffering victim, especially 
among the “ little ones-.” We advocate 
“ cleanliness ” and “ godliness,” but do not 
believe either of these graces are promoted 
by shivering in a morning bath of water and 
ice, finished off with a towel woven warp 
and woof of cordage made from half pre¬ 
pared flax or hemp. But to the extractfrom 
somebody’s speech which we find reported 
in the Water Cure Journal: 
If parents will use cold water on their 
own persons let. me entreat them to have 
mercy on their helpless children. Do heed 
their cries to warm it just a little ! Nothing 
is more heathenish and barbarous than to 
bathe children in cold, or nearly cold water. 
Those who do it will find they have rough 
and cracked skins. 
The suffering of children while being 
washed is but small compared with the evil 
effects which often follow the application of 
cold water to the head, viz: congestion of 
the head or lungs, especially the latter. The 
water so applied will make precocious child¬ 
ren, and will also fill the grave-yards with 
the opening buds of infancy. I think it will 
be found that more children die with head 
disease since the use of water than before ; 
and for the reason already given. 
The fact is, the brain requires and receives 
more blood than any other organ of the sys¬ 
tem. The application of cold water to the 
head increases the amount, and hence it is 
no uncommon thing that children, especially 
“ smart ones,” die as above stated, with head 
disease. Indeed, it has become a proverb, 
among our mothers at least, that “ such 
children are too smart to live,” and it is so. 
By such treatment the brain becomes too 
active and large for the body, and, like a 
powerful engine in a small boat, it soon shat¬ 
ters it to pieces, and sends it to the bottom. 
I can not close my remarks without entreat 
ing mothers in the name of humanity, not to 
attempt to toughen, as it is called, their 
children by half clothing them in cold weath¬ 
er. My heart has ached as I have seen them 
thus exposed to the piercing winds of a 
northern winter. Many a mother has thus 
sown the seeds of premature death in her 
offspring, for which she has solaced herself 
by calling it a “ mysterious Providence.” 
If you would have healthy, robust children, 
see that they are warmly clad, especially 
their extrimeties. 
In connection with cold bathing, I would 
utter my disclaimer against the prevailing 
practice of rubbing the skin with coarse, 
rough towels, or horse-brushes. No error 
in the water treatment is more injurious. A 
healthy skin is smooth, soft, and velvet-like; 
and anything that irritates it and makes it 
rough is injurious. But few people under¬ 
stand the functions of the skin, or the im¬ 
portance of a healthy skin to a healthy body. 
My limits will not allow of my discussing 
the matter here. At some future time I may 
take it up. 1 approve of gentle rubbing of 
the skin with soft clothes, or, better, with 
the bare hand. But it should not be rubbed 
any way to produce unpleasant sensations. 
If we credit the reports of patients who 
have undergone treatment at the water-cure 
establishments, the heroic, or cold treatment, 
is too much in vogue in them for their good. 
What was the difference between Noah’s' 
ark and of our river wood scows ! One was 
built of gopher wood, and the other, to go for 
wood ! 
