Observations of a Retired Veteran | Page 5

I believe that many an old rooster will so beplume himself and take on such an extra strut, that he will at last succeed in forcing himself as a young bird between the teeth of our clerical visitors. This will be a sweet revenge. But with this I have nothing to do; what I have now to do with, is the fact that over every department of life I see the same announcement. In society where the sweet amenities of life are monopolized by the young, the aged beau is met by the flaming inscription, "Old roosters not wanted." In politics we hear the cry that the favorite candidate is a representative of the "Young Democracy" or "Young Republicans," as the case may be, and that, except at the ballot-box, "Old roosters are not wanted." If a congregation loses its pastor and commences looking around for a successor, the first thing it does is to print in large letters across the pulpit, "Old roosters not wanted." Across the door of every new enterprise is the same inscription. What, I desire to know, is to become of us old roosters? Not fit for broiling, too tough for roasting, too old for congressmen, for preachers--what are you going to do with us? Ah, the very question shows where we stand. It used to be a few years ago, what we were going to do with you, but the tables have been turned and now it seems to me that the cemetery gate is the only place not decorated with the legend, "Old roosters not wanted." There they are more than welcome; indeed, if it were not for their patronage that institution would do an amount of business very unsatisfactory to its stockholders. Having then this refuge, brethren, let us take courage! Let us take consolation in the thought that we have gotten over so much of the rough road over which those following us have yet to travel, and that having once passed that portal we shall have reached perfect peace. Let us find a spiteful satisfaction in the fact that long after we have entered the silent gates, the young roosters will still have to rise early and crow hungrily for corn, still will have to skirmish with other roosters for bread, and the highest pole in the roost, and that as they show up in the race of life, they will have to read, in their turn, the fatal sign-board along the track--"Old roosters not wanted."

OBSERVATIONS OF A RETIRED VETERAN III
I have often heard people lament ill-health because, they say, sickness loses to a man friends. On the contrary, I hold that it brings him many new and unexpected ones. Let me see--December 15,--July; seven months; that was long enough to make the experiment, wasn't it? Well, let me look over some of the new friends I have made lying all this time in bed. The first new friend that I made, and one who had evidently seen better days, was a Tomato Can, that ever present denizen of the back-yard. On his head he jauntily flew a cocked hat bearing a damaged new picture of himself evidently taken in youth, and across his red waistcoat, in blue letters, was the word "Trophy." There he stood, day after day, leaning jauntily against the doubtful company of a whiskey barrel hoop, telling me the time of day, as if that was his only business in life. If the sun's light lay across his red stomach it was 9 o'clock, if it glistened on his cocked hat it was noon, and if it soberly lighted up the cherry red tomato on his side, it was 6 o'clock. "Sir," he seemed to say, "I have not been always as you see me. I have seen the day when I roosted on the highest shelf in the family grocery, and when I was dusted daily by well dressed clerks--if the employer was around. I was for many years the tenant of a French plate glass window and I have been carried by the soft hand of Beauty, sir, and laid gently in the market-basket. I do not boast, but Beauty itself has carried me through the streets in its arm. I have seen great larks, sir. I have travelled that Main Street at the rate of a mile a minute at the tail of valuable dogs, and at the midnight hour I have bounced into the midst of cat caucuses with great sport. I have been the friend of Man, sir, but what has Man done for me. He has left me here in this miserable back-yard, company of barrel-hoops and brick-bats and bottles. He has--" But here the next door neighbor's servant threw a bucket of slop-water on my friend and cut off