The Autograph Album of Old, p.3

The Autograph Album of Old, p.3

"Among other things that have been now laid away among the dust and ribbons, is the old “autograph album” of post bellum days. It was a fad of our mothers and fathers, and it numbered many of us among its devotees in our salad days. But it is an outgrown fad, and one that deserves an early demise, for the tended sentiments that clung to its finger marked pages were hothouse flowers of a very forced growth. But one does not forget the snub nosed, freckled faced boy, with copper toed shoes, who wrote: “May your life have clouds enough to make a glorious sunset,” and daubed the page with ink and molasses candy- a sort of impressionist view of the sunset, The snub nosed boy is now an attorney in Kansas City, and was married the other day. I remember once he put a chew of gum down the back of my neck, and one Fourth of July night he blew up the Widow Nasons’s hitching post with gunpowder. Then there was the boy whose father cut his hair by putting a bowl over the top of his head, following the edges with shears. He wrote: In memories’ casket drop one purl for me. I find the “purl” is there. In my very, very youthful days I could “lick” this square headed boy, and often did so. But he took a sudden sprout, and one day, when I tried it, he gave me an unmerciful thrashing and dragged my plumes in the dust. It was not so much the hurt, for I didn't care for that, but the humiliation of it. I went out behind Mrs. Dole’s barn and wept for the departed glories of Israel.
Then there was the dear little girl with curls. She wrote: Forget me not, forget me never, until the sun shall set forever. A feat in [ill.] that I fear is too much to ask. I kissed her once on the doorsteps of her papa’s house, and I remember the “wild thrill” Steadman speaks of. But she married somebody is Soapville, and their progeny is whittling the public school desks this very day. I doubt not.
I would like to be a boy again for a few days, wouldn’t you?"- Minneapolis Journal

Minneapolis Jornal

Washington Bee

1891-10-31