Читать книгу Looking Back: An Autobiography - Merrick Abner Richardson - Страница 5

Table of Contents

With my interesting nieces, Joe and Lina Newell, one bright summer day, I visited the ancient homes of the Stafford Street, Conn., Richardsons.

E. Y. Fisk and his son now possess the historical property. The son from Springfield, who was haying there at the time, invited us and all the other Richardson tribe to come and camp on the homestead grounds, sit on the old walls, gaze over the western mountains and even coquet with the star Venus evenings, all of which look now the same as when our ancestors saw them 200 years ago.

That day, July 19, 1916, with those girls, viewing the scenes and taking pictures of the surroundings, imprinted on my mind an oasis of beauty ever awaiting recall as I journey over the trackless sands of time.

The present seemed to pass away as the past unfolded its charms while we were reminded of the long ago.

Sacredly we listened to the voice of Mother Mary calling Winnie from the kitchen door, saw the men in homespun shirts and trousers coming up from the meadow below. Heard the careless boy whistling while unyoking the lazy oxen. Saw old dog Towser sleeping in the shade. And in the pasture far away we seemed to hear the faint tinkling of the cow bell on the brindle steer.

Day dreams, says one.

Imagination, says another.

May it not be that when death removes this earthly garment, we will again realize that the past, present, and future are one.

If the image of the face before me now is the retention of the face I saw yesterday, may not all fiction, invention and imagination be retention of occurences we can only recall in parts?

The power of recall is mysterious. If we dream of the dead as living when we know that they are dead, but we cannot recall that which we know, may we not know of pre-existence but lack the power to recall?

Thus Lina, Joe and myself spent a happy summer day on the New England hills, which we will pleasantly recall when the cold winds of winter rattle the doors and windows and we are hugging the radiators.