And  old  Time  comes  along,  and  knowing  that  the  man  in  that  new
house  will  never  get  through  bringing  things  up  to  it,  helps  him  out,
and  comes  around  and  brings  things,  too.  Brings  a  gray  hair  now  and
then,  to  stick  in  Tom's  mustache,  which  has  grown  too  big  to  be  orna-
mental, and  too  wayward  and  unmanageable  to  be  comfortable.  He
brings  little  cares  and  little  troubles,  and  little  trials  and  little  butcher
bills,  and  little  grocery  bills,  and  little  tailor  bills,  and  nice,  large  milli-
nery bills,  that  pluck  at  Tom's  mustache  and  stroke  it  the  wrong  way  and
make  it  look  more  and  more  as  pa's  did  the  first  time  Tom  saw  it.  He
brings,  by  and  by,  the  prints  of  baby  fingers,  and  pats  them  around  on
the  dainty  wall  paper.  Brings,  some  times,  a  voiceless  messenger  that
lays  its  icy  fingers  on  the  baby  lips,  and  hushes  their  dainty  prattle,  and
in  the  baptism  of  its  first  sorrow,  the  darkened  little  home  has  its
dearest  and  tenderest  tie  to  the  upper  fold.  Brings,  by  and  by,  the
tracks  of  a  boy's  muddy  boots,  and  scatters  them  all  up  and  down  the
clean  porch.  Brings  a  messenger,  one  day,  to  take  the  younger  Tom
away  to  college.  And  the  quiet  the  boy  leaves  behind  him,  is  so  much
harder  to  endure  than  his  racket,  that  old  Tom  is  tempted  to  keep  a
brass  band  in  the  house  until  the  boy  comes  back.  But  old  Time  brings
him  home  at  last,  and  it  does  make  life  seem  terribly  real  and  earnest  to
Tom,  and  how  the  old  laugh  rings  out  and  ripples  all  over  Laura's
face,  when  they  see  old  Tom's  first  mustache,  budding  and  struggling
into  second  life,  on  young  Tom's  face.
