CHILDHOOD. 'OH gentle bud, that bloomest in the morn, The stem which beareth thee!' LAY OF THE Moss ROSE. If you have ever visited the good old village of Hampden, you cannot but have noticed the number and beauty of the children who throng its streets, building castles, not of air but of mud, or trooping in noisy procession down its lanes and alleys. The village itself is one of those sweet-faced remnants of antiquity, which are to be seen here and there, (alas! that they are so few!) scattered over the early settled portions of our country. One long winding street, flanked by rows of stately poplar and button-wood trees, with a sprinkling of sycamores and Chinas, and bearing the somewhat invidious appellation of Main-street-for what reason it would be hard to say, inasmuch as it is the only thing that presents the slightest claim to the name of street-is well garnished with a double row of queer-looking, old-fashioned houses, whose one storied brick fronts, and moss-grown, broken-backed roofs, give a delightful image of the comfort and simplicity of the olden time in Virginia. If you pass through in the summer, the doors and windows are all open. Hall and parlor, dining-room and chamber, are equally free to the view of every lounger. A venerable old lady, surrounded by females in regular gradation of age, from fifteen years and upward, may be seen cozily seated in the wide, breezy hall, sewing and chatting, and not without an eye to any new face that may chance to pass along the street. A female servant, perhaps, may be detected in adjusting her cape, or ogling her ebony charms, in the mirror of the now deserted parlor. Ducks standing on one foot, young cocks practising their first lessons in crowing-a very nervous kind of noise, by the way, and generally accompanied with a drawing up of one leg, not unlike those twitchings at his pantaloons which usually accompany the tyro's first efforts at declamation-and old cocks, strutting in a slow, aristocratic manner, with their lady-hens and their jealously-guarded brood; may be seen in the sunny court-yard behind while an equally numerous brood of small ladies and gentlemen-from the chubby-faced school-boy to the little 'squab,' who has just acquired experience enough in this world's ways to work himself along on the soft grass, by dint of wriggling and kicking with hands and heels, or to scream with a new burst of laughter at every odd face, which Bill, the curly-headed rogue! is making for his amusement-are rolling and tumbling on the shady grass-plat in front. Few men are to be seen. It is morning, and they are all off on business or pleasure, or, what is more likely, are snoozing away in some quiet apartment up stairs. A few negroes, of both sexes, may be seen laughing and talking at the lower end of the town, near the wharf, or leaning, with a happy forgetfulness of this world's cares, against the sunny side of an oldfashioned ware-house. But every thing has the same staid, respectable appearance. There are no signs of confusion or bustle. The grass grows green and tempting, between the bricks which pave the side-walks, leaving, however, a narrow path for the accommodation of pedestrians. The farmer's team, destined, God willing, to accomplish its ten miles in as many hours, trudges slowly onward, picking the way with as much certainty as if the driver, who is comfortably snoring within the covered wagon, were awake to direct it. A few weather-beaten old schooners disembark their monthly cargo of rats at the wharf. And though one suspicious movement has been going on by which a dashing new draw-bridge has taken the place of the firm beams and boards, which once said to vessels, 'Thus far shall ye come and no farther,' the town is evidently far behind this generation of railroads and racket, in every thing that goes under the name of 'improvement.' Time and your patience, reader, would fail me, were I to go on describing all the beauties of my native place. Reclined on yon grassy knoll, in the shade of those consecrated elms, it has been the solace of thirty years to drink in the sweet sounds of life and enjoyment, as they floated up amid the still |