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.”
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
