as far as you could see on the other, fading away in the soft, rich
lights of the remote distance. I recognized then that I was seeing now
the most enchanting river view the planet could furnish. I never knew it
when I was a boy; it took an educated eye that had travelled over the
globe to know and appreciate it; and John said, “Can you point out the
place where Bear Creek used to be before the railroad came?” I said,
“Yes, it ran along yonder.” “And can you point out the swimming-hole?”
“Yes, out there.” And he said, “Can you point out the place where we
stole the skiff?” Well, I didn’t know which one he meant. Such a
wilderness of events had intervened since that day, more than fifty years
ago, it took me more than five minutes to call back that little incident,
and then I did call it back; it was a white skiff, and we painted it red
to allay suspicion. And the saddest, saddest man came along–a stranger
he was–and he looked that red skiff over so pathetically, and he said:
“Well, if it weren’t for the complexion I’d know whose skiff that was.”
He said it in that pleading way, you know, that appeals for sympathy and
suggestion; we were full of sympathy for him, but we weren’t in any
condition to offer suggestions. I can see him yet as he turned away with
that same sad look on his face and vanished out of history forever.
I wonder what became of that man. I know what became of the skiff.
Well, it was a beautiful life, a lovely life. There was no crime.
Merely little things like pillaging orchards and watermelon-patches and
breaking the Sabbath–we didn’t break the Sabbath often enough to
signify–once a week perhaps. But we were good boys, good Presbyterian
boys, all Presbyterian boys, and loyal and all that; anyway, we were good
Presbyterian boys when the weather was doubtful; when it was fair, we did
wander a little from the fold.
Look at John Hay and me. There we were in obscurity, and look where we
are now. Consider the ladder which he has climbed, the illustrious
vocations he has served–and vocations is the right word; he has in all
those vocations acquitted himself with high credit and honor to his
country and to the mother that bore him. Scholar, soldier, diplomat,
poet, historian–now, see where we are. He is Secretary of State and I
am a gentleman. It could not happen in any other country. Our
institutions give men the positions that of right belong to them through
merit; all you men have won your places, not by heredities, and not by
family influence or extraneous help, but only by the natural gifts God
gave you at your birth, made effective by your own energies; this is the
country to live in.
Now, there is one invisible guest here. A part of me is present; the
larger part, the better part, is yonder at her home; that is my wife,
and she has a good many personal friends here, and I think it won’t
distress any one of them to know that, although she is going to be
confined to that bed for many months to come from that nervous
prostration, there is not any danger and she is coming along very well–
and I think it quite appropriate that I should speak of her. I knew her
for the first time just in the same year that I first knew John Hay and
Tom Reed and Mr. Twichell–thirty-six years ago–and she has been the
best friend I have ever had, and that is saying a good deal; she has
reared me–she and Twichell together–and what I am I owe to them.
Twichell why, it is such a pleasure to look upon Twichell’s face!
For five-and-twenty years I was under the Rev. Mr. Twichell’s tuition,
I was in his pastorate, occupying a pew in his church, and held him in
due reverence. That man is full of all the graces that go to make a
person companionable and beloved; and wherever Twichell goes to start a