Backward, turn backward, oh time, in thy flight, feed me on gruel again, just for tonight; I am so wearied of restaurant steaks, vitrified doughnuts and vulcanized cakes, oysters that sleep in a watery bath, butter as strong as Goliath of Gath; weary of paying for what I can't eat, chewing up rubber and calling it meat. Backward, turn backward, for weary I am! Give me a whack at my grandmother's jam; let me drink milk that has never been skimmed, let me eat butter whose hair has been trimmed; let me but once have an old-fashioned pie, then I'll be willing to curl up and die; I have been eating iron filings for years--is it a wonder I'm melting in tears? _The Passing Year_ The year's growing ashen, and weary and gray; full soon he will cash in, and mosey away. A while yet he'll totter along to his grave; he's marked for the slaughter, and nothing can save. The year that is leaving seems weighted with woe; and Nature is grieving because he must go. The forests are sighing and moaning all day; the night winds are crying, upon their sad way; the gray clouds are taking a threatening shape; the dead grass is shaking like billows of crape. Dame Nature is tender, and dirges she'll croon, regretting the splendor and glory of June; she knows that tomorrow the old year will sleep; she knows that the sorrow of parting is deep. In this world, O never can friends with us stay! Some loved one forever is going away! And that is the story of people and years; a morning of glory, an evening of tears; an hour of caressing, a call at the dawn, a prayer and a blessing, and then they are gone. UNCLE WALT FROM THE PRESSES _of_ THE CASLON PRESS _for_ GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS _Publisher_ ARRANGED AND DECORATED BY WILL BRADLEY FRONTISPIECE BY JOHN T. McCUTCHEON ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILLIAM STEVENS CHICAGO 1910