BUBBLES

AS TOLD BY JOEL STACY

Tr is so long since it happened, my dears, that whenever
I think about it, the youngest of my acquaintances fade
quite out of sight; dear middle-aged faces grow rosy and
youthful; Mary, my grave little wife, suddenly goes dan-
cing down the garden path with a skipping-rope ; our worn-
out old Dobbin becomes a frisky colt; the tumbled-down
affair yonder, behind the pile of brush, straightens it-
self into a trim, freshly-painted woodshed ; and — well, the
long and short of it is this: the memory of that day always
carries me back to the time when I was a little boy.

You see, I sat on the porch blowing soap-bubbles. I re-
member it just as if it were yesterday. The roses were out
and the wheelbarrow had a broken leg; the water in the
well was low, and if you tried to climb up on the curb to
look down into it you ’d have some one calling for you
to “come away from there.” But you could do what you
pleased on the porch. It was so warm and sunny that
Mother let me leave off my shoes as a matter of course. It
seems to me that I can remember just how the hot boards
felt to the soles of my tiny bare feet. Certainly I can re-

20* 309