DIFFERENT WAYS TO THE SAME END.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 10508, 11 February 1928, Page 2

DIFFERENT WAYS TO THE SAME END.

(To tlie Editor.) Sir,—ln ' the far back days two barefooted boys met at a stream bent on fishing for mountain trout, as there were no imported trout in those early days. Each had a piece of tring tied on to a small sapling, with a bent clothes pin for a hook. Those boys made each other s acquaintance quickly. They talked of their prospects in the brilliant coming days. One said, “My father is next month sending me to England to attend college and I will corny back a gentleman with all the knowledge of the world. And what are you going to be?’’ The other made answer, ‘T am sorry, my father can’t send me to college, but be is sending me next year to the bush. There are so many of us young ones that we have to go to work early in life to help to keep the younger ones.” Some years passed and they met again at the stream and they talked over their prospects in life. The college days were past for the richer hoy and he could translate Greek and Latin and talk of Plato and Cicero, and was now going in for the greatest and grandest knowledge on earth—the history of the English aristocracy. “1 am beginning ’Burke's Peerage,’ this week.”, he said, “and will continually study henceforth the aristocratically written novels. And what have you learned while I was away in England?” Said the other, “I have learned to use the axe, saw and file, to do fencing and the like and my future literary knowledge will be confined to history.” The college lad good-nat-uredly expressed his pity for his more ignorant companion. As the years rolled on, one turned out a philosopher and the other a fool, and both arrived at the snine destination. They recognised each other as they sat on the verandah of the Memorial Home Hv tiie outstanding accent each possessed. There was nothing else left of the past.

Ah, such is the fate of our life's early promise, When passing the suntide of life wo have known; The waves that we danced on at morning ebb from us And leave us at eve on the bleak shore alone. 1 am,, yours etc., J. SMITH.