Mineral Point Tribune

The Shadows of Childhood.—God bless the little children! We like their bright eyes, their happy faces, their winning ways, their rosy dreams! Nothing seems to weigh down their buoyant spirits long; misfortune may fall to their lot, but the shadows it casts upon their life-path are fleeting as the clouds that come and go in an April sky. Their future may, perchance, appear dark to others, but to their fearless gaze it looms up brilliant and beautiful as the walls of a fairy palace. There is no tear which a mother's gentle hand cannot heal, no anguish which the sweet murmuring of her soft, low voice cannot soothe. The warm, generous impulses of their nature have not been fettered and cramped by the cold formalities of the world; they have not yet learned to veil a hollow heart with false smiles, or hide the basest purposes beneath honeyed words. Neither are they constantly on the alert to search out our faults and foibles with Argus eyes; on the contrary, they exercise that blessed charity which "thinketh no evil."