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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Recitations for the Social Circle, by 
+James Clarence Harvey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Recitations for the Social Circle
+
+Author: James Clarence Harvey
+
+Release Date: January 15, 2012 [EBook #38579]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECITATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL CIRCLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Josephine Paolucci, Marilynda
+Fraser-Cunliffe and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RECITATIONS
+
+FOR THE SOCIAL CIRCLE.
+
+SELECTED AND ORIGINAL.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+BY
+
+JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+PUBLISHED BY
+THE CHRISTIAN HERALD.
+
+LOUIS KLOPSCH, Proprietor,
+BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK.
+
+
+Copyright, 1896.
+BY LOUIS KLOPSCH.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
+
+
+In reading and recitation, the general tendency is to overdo. The quiet
+reserve force, which can be made apparent in the voice, will reach the
+heart and stir the soul when gesture and ranting fail. "Be bold! Be not too
+bold" should be the watchwords of the reciter. Self-possession, with a
+nervousness arising from an earnest desire to please, is the keynote to
+success. Never gesticulate if you can help it. When a gesture asserts
+itself to such an extent that you have made it before you realize it, be
+sure it was effective and graceful.
+
+It is a noble ambition to wish to sway the hearts and minds of others by
+the subtle modulations of the voice, and only he who feels the force of
+what he utters can hope to accomplish his end. The thought of the author
+must be pursued and overtaken. The sentiments between the lines must be
+enlisted before the voice will lend itself, in all its glorious power, to
+the tones that thrill and the music that charms.
+
+It is not always necessary to search for something your audience has never
+heard. It is far better to reveal hidden thought and new life in selections
+which are familiar. The hackneyed recitation, if rendered better than ever
+before, will win more applause than a fresh bit carelessly studied.
+
+Above all, use judgment in selection. The stout lady of fifty-two should
+avoid "Marco Bozarris" and "The Elf Child," and the young lady just home
+from boarding-school should not attempt the ponderous utterances of a Roman
+gladiator.
+
+Care in selection; fidelity in study; wisdom in the choice of occasion;
+modesty in delivery; earnestness of manner and sincerity of feeling
+throughout, must win at last. If you make failures, trace them to a lack in
+some one or more of these requisites and, by experience, learn to avoid a
+recurrence. Orators, like poets, are "born not made," but even the born
+speaker will fail at times unless these laws are considered and observed.
+Always render an author's lines as he wrote them. The chances are ten to
+one that every word carries its burden of thought, even though you may not
+have discerned it. Err on the conservative side if in doubt.
+Over-enthusiasm is less easily pardoned.
+
+Never select dialect verses or stories unless you have the unusual gift
+necessary to give them the piquancy and zest which attends a good
+imitation. Ask a dozen friends for an honest opinion on the subject and
+draw an average from their criticisms to guide you in your choice of
+selections. Don't lose your temper over a severe criticism. Search
+carefully through your list of abilities and see if there is not, perhaps,
+some foundation for kindly suggestion. It is often a great assistance, in
+memorizing the work of another, to make a written copy, but attention
+should be given to the making of a perfect copy, properly punctuated.
+
+Use the eye in memorizing.
+
+Oftentimes a mental picture of a page will recall a line which for an
+instant seems about to escape you. Use the ear as well and study the effect
+of various modulations of voice as you rehearse in private.
+
+Above all, use the best of your intelligence, earnestly, in studying and
+applying the thousand little nothings that in the aggregate make the
+perfect reader.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                      PAGE.
+
+A Dream of the Universe. By Jean Paul Richter,                           95
+
+A Friend of the Fly,                                                    173
+
+After-Dinner Speech by a Frenchman,                                     287
+
+America for God. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                                   74
+
+An Affectionate Letter,                                                 198
+
+An Appeal for Liberty. By Joseph Story,                                 296
+
+An Hour of Horror,                                                      218
+
+Annie and Willie's Prayer. By Sophia P. Snow,                           275
+
+Answered Prayers, By Ella Wheeler Wilcox,                               175
+
+An Unaccountable Mystery. By Paul Denton,                                80
+
+A Rainy Day,                                                            260
+
+A Reasonable Request,                                                   194
+
+At the Stage Door. By James Clarence Harvey,                             16
+
+At the Stamp Window,                                                    110
+
+Becalmed. By Samuel K. Cowan,                                           182
+
+Banford's Burglar Alarm,                                                314
+
+Behind Time. By Freeman Hunt,                                            77
+
+Bessie Kendrick's Journey. By Mrs. Annie E. Preston,                    253
+
+Better Things,                                                          319
+
+Bicycle Ride. By James Clarence Harvey,                                 236
+
+By Special Request. By Frank Castles,                                    47
+
+Charity,                                                                308
+
+Cut Behind. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                                        14
+
+Daughter of the Desert. By James Clarence Harvey,                        65
+
+De Pint Wid Ole Pete,                                                   215
+
+Destiny of Our Country. By R. C. Winthrop,                              188
+
+Eloquence, the Study of. By Cicero,                                      11
+
+Emulation (Up to Date).  By James Clarence Harvey,                      187
+
+Extract from Blaine's Oration on James A. Garfield,                     208
+
+Fashionable,                                                            261
+
+Fast Mail and the Stage. By John H. Yates,                              230
+
+Frenchman and the Landlord. Anonymous,                                   18
+
+Gentle Alice Brown. By W. S. Gilbert,                                   149
+
+Get Acquainted With Yourself. By R. J. Burdette,                        119
+
+God in the Constitution. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                          176
+
+Good Old Way,                                                           207
+
+Good Reading. By John S. Hart, L.L.D.,                                   41
+
+Go Vay, Becky Miller, Go Vay,                                           220
+
+Guild's Signal. By Francis Bret Harte,                                   21
+
+His Last Court,                                                         104
+
+Hornets. By Bill Nye,                                                    70
+
+How "Old Mose" Counted Eggs,                                            272
+
+How Shall I Love You? By Will C. Ferril,                                212
+
+Imperfectus. By James Clarence Harvey,                                   83
+
+In Arabia. By James Berry Bensel,                                        37
+
+In the Bottom Drawer,                                                   185
+
+It is a Winter Night. By Richard Henry Stoddard,                        221
+
+I Wonder.  By James Clarence Harvey,                                    159
+
+Katrina's Visit to New York,                                            138
+
+Keenan's Charge. By George P. Lathrop,                                   97
+
+Kittens and Babies. By Lizzie M. Hadley,                                 80
+
+Land of Our Birth. By Lillie E. Barr,                                   239
+
+Legend of the Ivy. By James Clarence Harvey,                             34
+
+Let Us Give Thanks,                                                     258
+
+Literary Attractions of the Bible. By Dr. Hamilton,                      88
+
+Little Brown Curl,                                                      213
+
+Little Feet,                                                            259
+
+Little Jim. By George R. Sims,                                          118
+
+Little White Hearse. By J. W. Riley,                                    121
+
+Lullaby,                                                                114
+
+Maid of Orleans. By J. E. Sagebeer,                                     144
+
+Mark Twain and the Interviewer,                                          22
+
+Mother, Home and Heaven,                                                 56
+
+Mother's Doughnuts. By Charles F. Adams,                                 87
+
+Mother's Fool,                                                          217
+
+Mr. Winkle Puts on Skates. By Charles Dickens,                          281
+
+Mutation.  By James Clarence Harvey,                                    164
+
+My Mother's Bible. By George P. Morris,                                 286
+
+New Year Ledger. By Amelia E. Barr,                                      39
+
+No Objection to Children,                                               309
+
+Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,                                              51
+
+Old Uncle Jake,                                                         298
+
+Only a Song,                                                            235
+
+Our Own. By Margaret E. Sangster,                                        76
+
+Our Heroes Shall Live.  By Henry Ward Beecher,                          113
+
+Paul Revere's Ride. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,                       43
+
+Penning a Pig. By James A. Bailey,                                      115
+
+Praying for Papa,                                                       180
+
+Praying for Shoes. By Paul Hamilton Hayne,                               58
+
+Puzzled Dutchman,                                                       227
+
+Queen Vashti. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                                     131
+
+Rabbi and the Prince. By James Clarence Harvey,                         143
+
+Resignation. By Longfellow,                                             196
+
+Resurgam. By Eben E. Rexford,                                           262
+
+Roman Legend. By James Clarence Harvey,                                 170
+
+Rum's Devastation and Destiny. By William Sullivan,                      60
+
+Serenade. By Thomas Hood,                                               129
+
+She Cuts His Hair,                                                      294
+
+Shwate Kittie Kehoe.  By James Clarence Harvey,                         155
+
+Since She Went Home. By R. J. Burdette,                                  72
+
+Six Love Letters,                                                       165
+
+Speech of Patrick Henry,                                                160
+
+Story of the Little Rid Hin. By Mrs. Whitney,                           232
+
+Supporting the Guns,                                                     30
+
+The American Union. By Daniel Webster,                                   52
+
+The Black Horse and His Rider. By Charles Sheppard,                     290
+
+The Book Canvasser. By Max Adeler,                                      264
+
+The Children. By Charles Dickens,                                       306
+
+The Children We Keep,                                                    73
+
+The Christmas Baby.  By Will Carleton,                                   92
+
+The Country's Greatest Evil,                                            156
+
+The Crowded Street. By William Cullen Bryant,                           252
+
+The Dead Doll. By Margaret Vandegrift,                                  108
+
+The Doorstep. By E. C. Stedman,                                         270
+
+The Enchanted Shirt. By John Hay,                                       177
+
+The Fatal Glass. By Laura U. Case,                                      137
+
+The Fault of the Age. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox,                           263
+
+The Hot Axle. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                                     303
+
+The Minister's Grievances,                                              204
+
+The Misnomer. By Josie C. Malott,                                       269
+
+The Modern Belle,                                                       226
+
+The Nameless Guest. By James Clarence Harvey,                           112
+
+The Old Oaken Bucket. By Samuel Woodworth,                              279
+
+The Pilot. By John B. Gough,                                            135
+
+The Poppy Land Limited Express. By Edgar Wade Abbot,                     55
+
+The Prime of Life. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox,                               29
+
+There is a Tongue in Every Leaf,                                        257
+
+There'll Be Room in Heaven,                                             122
+
+The Retort Dis-courteous. By James Clarence Harvey,                     125
+
+The Teacher's Diadem,                                                   240
+
+The United States. By Daniel Webster,                                    35
+
+The Whirling Wheel. By Tudor Jenks,                                     288
+
+The Whistling Regiment. By James Clarence Harvey,                       199
+
+Tobe's Monument. By Elizabeth Kilham,                                   243
+
+Useful Precepts for Girls,                                              100
+
+W'en de Darky am A-whis'lin'.  By S. Q. Lapius,                         134
+
+We're Building Two a Day! By Rev. Alfred J. Hough,                      224
+
+What the Little Girl Said,                                              221
+
+Widder Budd,                                                            102
+
+Wind and Sea. By Bayard Taylor,                                          13
+
+Woman's Pocket. By James M. Bailey,                                      84
+
+Women of Mumbles Head. By Clement Scott,                                190
+
+Young America,                                                          153
+
+Zenobia's Defence. By William Ware,                                     126
+
+
+
+
+RECITATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL CIRCLE.
+
+
+
+
+THE STUDY OF ELOQUENCE.
+
+BY CICERO.
+
+
+I cannot conceive anything more excellent, than to be able, by language, to
+captivate the affections, to charm the understanding, and to impel or
+restrain the will of whole assemblies, at pleasure. Among every free
+people, especially in peaceful, settled governments, this single art has
+always eminently flourished, and always exercised the greatest sway. For
+what can be more surprising than that, amidst an infinite multitude, one
+man should appear, who shall be the only, or almost the only man capable of
+doing what Nature has put in every man's power? Or, can anything impart
+such exquisite pleasure to the ear and to the intellect, as a speech in
+which the wisdom and dignity of the sentiments are heightened by the utmost
+force and beauty of expression?
+
+Is there anything so commanding, so grand, as that the eloquence of one man
+should direct the inclinations of the people, the consciences of judges,
+and the majesty of senates? Nay, farther, can aught be esteemed so great,
+so generous, so public-spirited, as to assist the suppliant, to rear the
+prostrate, to communicate happiness, to avert danger, and to save a
+fellow-citizen from exile? Can anything be so necessary, as to keep those
+arms always in readiness, with which you may defend yourself, attack the
+profligate, and redress your own, or your country's wrongs?
+
+But let us consider this accomplishment as detached from public business,
+and from its wonderful efficacy in popular assemblies, at the bar, and in
+the senate; can anything be more agreeable, or more endearing in private
+life, than elegant language? For the great characteristic of our nature,
+and what eminently distinguishes us from brutes, is the faculty of social
+conversation, the power of expressing our thoughts and sentiments by words.
+To excel mankind, therefore, in the exercise of that very talent which
+gives them the preference to the brute creation, is what everybody must not
+only admire, but look upon as the just object of the most indefatigable
+pursuit.
+
+And now, to mention the chief point of all, what other power could have
+been of sufficient efficacy to bring together the vagrant individuals of
+the human race; to tame their savage manners, to reconcile them to social
+life; and, after cities were founded, to mark out laws, forms, and
+constitutions, for their government?--Let me, in a few words, sum up this
+almost boundless subject. I lay it down as a maxim, that upon the wisdom
+and abilities of an accomplished orator, not only his own dignity, but the
+welfare of vast numbers of individuals, and even of the whole state, must
+greatly depend.
+
+
+
+
+THE WIND AND THE SEA.
+
+BY BAYARD TAYLOR.
+
+
+    The Sea is a jovial comrade;
+      He laughs, wherever he goes,
+    And the merriment shines
+    In the dimpling lines
+      That wrinkle his hale repose.
+    He lays himself down at the feet of the sun
+      And shakes all over with glee,
+    And the broad-backed billows fall faint on the shore
+      In the mirth of the mighty sea.
+
+    But the wind is sad and restless,
+      And cursed with an inward pain;
+    You may hark as you will,
+    By valley or hill,
+      But you hear him still complain.
+    He wails on the barren mountain;
+      Shrieks on the wintry sea;
+    Sobs in the cedar and moans in the pine,
+      And shivers all over the aspen tree.
+
+    Welcome are both their voices,
+      And I know not which is best,
+    The laughter that slips
+    From the ocean's lips,
+      Or the comfortless wind's unrest.
+    There's a pang in all rejoicing,
+      A joy in the heart of pain,
+    And the wind that saddens, the sea that gladdens,
+      Are singing the self-same strain.
+
+
+
+
+CUT BEHIND.
+
+BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+The scene opens on a clear, crisp morning. Two boys are running to get on
+the back of a carriage, whose wheels are spinning along the road. One of
+the boys, with a quick spring, succeeds. The other leaps, but fails, and
+falls on the part of the body where it is most appropriate to fall. No
+sooner has he struck the ground than he shouts to the driver of the
+carriage, "Cut behind!"
+
+Human nature is the same in boy as in man--all running to gain the vehicle
+of success. Some are spry, and gain that for which they strive. Others are
+slow, and tumble down; they who fall crying out against those who mount,
+"Cut behind!"
+
+A political office rolls past. A multitude spring to their feet, and the
+race is on. Only one of all the number reaches that for which he runs. No
+sooner does he gain the prize, and begin to wipe the sweat from his brow,
+and think how grand a thing it is to ride in popular preferment, than the
+disappointed candidates cry out, "Incompetency! Stupidity! Fraud! Now let
+the newspapers of the other political party 'cut behind.'"
+
+There is a golden chariot of wealth rolling down the street. A thousand
+people are trying to catch it. They run, they jostle; they tread on each
+other. Push, and pull, and tug. Those talk most against riches who cannot
+get there. Clear the track for the racers! One of the thousand reaches the
+golden prize and mounts. Forthwith the air is full of cries, "Got it by
+fraud! Shoddy! Petroleum aristocracy! His father was a rag-picker! His
+mother was a washer-woman! I knew him when he blacked his own shoes! Pitch
+him off the back part of the golden chariot! Cut behind! cut behind!"
+
+In many eyes success is a crime. "I do not like you," said the snow-flake
+to the snow-bird. "Why?" said the snow-bird. "Because," said the
+snow-flake, "you are going _up_ and I am going _down_."
+
+We have to state that the man in the carriage, on the crisp morning, though
+he had a long lash-whip, with which he could have made the climbing boy
+yell most lustily, did not _cut behind_. He heard the shout in the rear,
+and said, "Good morning, my son. That is right; climb over and sit by me.
+Here are the reins; take hold and drive; was a boy myself once, and know
+what tickles youngsters."
+
+Thank God, there are so many in the world that never "cut behind," but are
+ready to give a fellow a ride whenever he wants it. There are hundreds of
+people whose chief joy it is to help others on. Now it is a smile, now a
+good word, now ten dollars. When such a kind man has ridden to the end of
+the earthly road, it will be pleasant to hang up the whip with which he
+drove the enterprises of a lifetime, and feel that with it he never "cut
+behind" at those who were struggling.
+
+
+
+
+AT THE STAGE DOOR.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    The curtain had fallen, the lights were dim,
+      The rain came down with a steady pour;
+    A white-haired man with a kindly face,
+      Peered through the panes of the old stage door.
+    "I'm getting too old to be drenched like that"
+      He muttered and turning met face to face,
+    The woman whose genius, an hour before,
+      Like a mighty power had filled the place.
+
+    "Yes, much too old," with a smile, she said,
+      And she laid her hand on his silver hair;
+    "You shall ride with me to your home to-night,
+      For that is my carriage standing there."
+    The old door-tender stood, doffing his hat
+      And holding the door, but she would not stir,
+    Though he said it was not for the "likes of him
+      To ride in a kerridge with such as her."
+
+    "Come, put out your lights," she said to him,
+      "I've something important I wish to say,
+    And I can't stand here in the draught you know--
+      I can tell you much better while on the way."
+    So into the carriage the old man crept,
+      Thanking her gratefully, o'er and o'er,
+    Till she bade him listen while she would tell
+      A story, concerning that old stage door.
+
+    "It was raining in torrents, ten years ago
+      This very night, and a friendless child
+    Stood, shivering there, by that old stage door,
+      Dreading her walk in a night so wild.
+    She was only one of the 'extra' girls,
+      But you gave her a nickle to take the car,
+    And said 'Heaven bless ye, my little one,
+      Ye can pay me back ef ye ever star.'
+
+    "So you cast your bread on the waters then,
+      And I pay you back, as my heart demands,
+    And we're even now--no! not quite," she said,
+      As she emptied her purse in his trembling hands.
+    "And if ever you're needy and want a friend,
+      You know where to come, for your little mite
+    Put hope in my heart and made me strive
+      To gain the success you have seen to-night."
+
+    Then the carriage stopped, at the old man's door,
+      And the gas-light shone on him, standing there:
+    And he stepped to the curb, as she rolled away,
+      While his thin lips murmured a fervent prayer.
+    He looked at the silver and bills and gold,
+      And he said: "She gives all this to me?
+    My bread has come back a thousandfold,
+      God bless her! God bless all such as she!"
+
+
+
+
+THE FRENCHMAN AND THE LANDLORD.
+
+ANONYMOUS.
+
+
+A shrewd and wealthy old landlord, away down in Maine, is noted for driving
+his "sharp bargains," by which he has amassed a large amount of property.
+He is the owner of a large number of dwelling-houses, and it is said of him
+that he is not over-scrupulous of his rental charges, whenever he can find
+a customer whom he knows to be responsible. His object is to lease his
+house for a term of years to the best tenants, and get the uttermost
+farthing in the shape of rent.
+
+A diminutive Frenchman called on him last winter, to hire a dwelling he
+owned in Portland, and which had long remained empty. References were
+given, and the landlord, ascertaining that the tenant was a man "after his
+own heart," immediately commenced to "Jew" him. He found that the tenement
+appeared to suit the Frenchman, and he placed an exorbitant price upon it;
+the leases were drawn and duly executed, and the tenant removed into his
+new quarters.
+
+Upon kindling fires in the house, it was found that the chimneys wouldn't
+"draw," and the building was filled with smoke. The window-sashes rattled
+in the wind at night, and the cold air rushed through a hundred crevices
+about the house until now unnoticed. The snow melted upon the roof, and the
+attics were drenched from the leakage. The rain pelted, and our Frenchman
+found a "natural" bathroom upon the second floor--but the lease was signed
+and the landlord chuckled.
+
+"I have been vat you sall call 'tuck in,' vis zis _maison_," muttered our
+victim to himself a week afterwards, "but _n'importe_, ve sal se vat ve
+_sal_ see."
+
+Next morning he arose bright and early, and passing down he encountered the
+landlord.
+
+"Ah ha!--_Bon jour, monsieur_," said he in his happiest manner.
+
+"Good day, sir. How do you like your house?"
+
+"Ah monsieur--elegant, beautiful, magnificent. _Eh bien_, monsieur, I have
+ze one regret!"
+
+"Ah! What is that?"
+
+"I sal live in zat house but tree little year."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I have find by vot you call ze lease, zat you have give me ze house but
+for tree year, and I ver mooch sorrow for zat."
+
+"But you can have it longer if you wish--"
+
+"Ah, monsieur, sal be ver mooch glad if I can have zat house _so long as I
+please_--eh--monsieur?"
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly, sir."
+
+"_Tres bien_, monsieur! I sal valk rite to your offees, and you sal give me
+vot you call ze lease for that _maison jes so long as I sal vant the
+house_. Eh, monsieur?"
+
+"Certainly, sir. You can stay there your lifetime, if you like."
+
+"Ah, monsieur--I have ver mooch tanks for zis accommodation."
+
+The old lease was destroyed and a new one was delivered in form to the
+French gentleman, giving him possession of the premises for "such a period
+as the lessee may desire the same, he paying the rent promptly, etc."
+
+The next morning our crafty landlord was passing the house just as the
+French-man's last load of furniture was being started from the door; an
+hour afterward, a messenger called on him with a legal tender, for the rent
+for eight days, accompanied with a note as follows:
+
+"Monsieur--I have been smoke--I have been drouned--I have been frees to
+death, in ze house vat I av hire of you for ze period as I may desire. I
+have stay in ze house _jes so long as I please_, and ze bearer of zis vill
+give you ze key! _Bon jour_, monsieur."
+
+It is needless to add that our landlord has never since been known to give
+up "a bird in the hand for one in the bush."
+
+
+
+
+GUILD'S SIGNAL.
+
+BY FRANCIS BRET HARTE, 1839.
+
+
+    Two low whistles, quaint and clear,
+    That was the signal the engineer--
+    That was the signal that Guild, 'tis said--
+    Gave to his wife at Providence,
+    As through the sleeping town, and thence
+        Out in the night,
+        On to the light,
+    Down past the farms, lying white, he sped!
+
+    As a husband's greeting, scant, no doubt,
+    Yet to the woman looking out,
+    Watching and waiting, no serenade,
+    Love-song, or midnight roundelay
+    Said what that whistle seemed to say;
+        "To my trust true,
+        So love to you!
+    Working or waiting.  Good night!" it said.
+
+    Brisk young bagmen, tourists fine,
+    Old commuters, along the line,
+    Brakesmen and porters, glanced ahead,
+    Smiled as the signal, sharp, intense,
+    Pierced through the shadows of Providence,--
+        "Nothing amiss--
+        Nothing!--it is
+    Only Guild calling his wife," they said.
+
+    Summer and winter, the old refrain
+    Rang o'er the billows of ripening grain,
+    Pierced through the budding boughs o'er head,
+    Flew down the track when the red leaves burned
+    Like living coals from the engine spurned!
+        Sang as it flew
+        "To our trust true.
+    First of all, duty! Good night!" it said.
+
+    And then, one night, it was heard no more
+    From Stonington over Rhode Island Shore,
+    And the folk in Providence smiled and said,
+    As they turned in their beds: "The engineer
+    Has once forgotten his midnight cheer."
+        _One_ only knew
+        To his trust true,
+    Guild lay under his engine, dead.
+
+
+
+
+MARK TWAIN AND THE INTERVIEWER.
+
+
+The nervous, dapper, "peart" young man took the chair I offered him, and
+said he was connected with "The Daily Thunderstorm," and added,--
+
+"Hoping it's no harm, I've come to interview you."
+
+"Come to what?"
+
+"_Interview_ you."
+
+"Ah! I see. Yes--yes. Um! Yes--yes."
+
+I was not feeling bright that morning. Indeed, my powers seemed a bit under
+a cloud. However, I went to the bookcase, and when I had been looking six
+or seven minutes, I found I was obliged to refer to the young man. I
+said,--
+
+"How do you spell it?"
+
+"Spell what?"
+
+"Interview."
+
+"Oh, my goodness? What do you want to spell it for?"
+
+"I don't want to spell it: I want to see what it means."
+
+"Well, this is astonishing, I must say. _I_ can tell you what it means, if
+you--if you"--
+
+"Oh, all right! That will answer, and much obliged to you, too."
+
+"In, _in_, ter, _ter_, _inter_"--
+
+"Then you spell it with an _I_?"
+
+"Why, certainly!"
+
+"Oh, that is what took me so long!"
+
+"Why, my _dear_ sir, what did _you_ propose to spell it with?"
+
+"Well, I--I--I hardly know. I had the Unabridged; and I was ciphering
+around in the back end, hoping I might tree her among the pictures. But
+it's a very old edition."
+
+"Why, my friend, they wouldn't have a _picture_ of it in even the latest
+e---- My dear sir, I beg your pardon, I mean no harm in the world; but you
+do not look as--as--intelligent as I had expected you would. No harm,--I
+mean no harm at all."
+
+"Oh, don't mention it! It has often been said, and by people who would not
+flatter, and who could have no inducement to flatter, that I am quite
+remarkable in that way. Yes--yes: they always speak of it with rapture."
+
+"I can easily imagine it. But about this interview. You know it is the
+custom, now, to interview any man who has become notorious."
+
+"Indeed! I had not heard of it before. It must be very interesting. What do
+you do it with?"
+
+"Ah, well--well--well--this is disheartening. It _ought_ to be done with a
+club, in some cases; but customarily it consists in the interviewer asking
+questions, and the interviewed answering them. It is all the rage now. Will
+you let me ask you certain questions calculated to bring out the salient
+points of your public and private history?"
+
+"Oh, with pleasure,--with pleasure. I have a very bad memory; but I hope
+you will not mind. That is to say, it is an irregular memory, singularly
+irregular. Sometimes it goes in a gallop, and then again it will be as much
+as a fortnight passing a given point. This is a great grief to me."
+
+"Oh! it is no matter, so you will try to do the best you can."
+
+"I will! I will put my whole mind on it."
+
+"Thanks! Are you ready to begin?"
+
+"Ready."
+
+_Question._ How old are you?
+
+_Answer._ Nineteen in June.
+
+_Q._ Indeed! I would have taken you to be thirty-five or six. Where were
+you born?
+
+_A._ In Missouri.
+
+_Q._ When did you begin to write?
+
+_A._ In 1836.
+
+_Q._ Why, how could that be, if you are only nineteen now?
+
+_A._ I don't know. It does seem curious, somehow.
+
+_Q._ It does indeed. Whom do you consider the most remarkable man you ever
+met?
+
+_A._ Aaron Burr.
+
+_Q._ But you never could have met Aaron Burr, if you are only nineteen
+years----
+
+_A._ Now, if you know more about me than I do, what do you ask me for?
+
+_Q._ Well, it was only a suggestion; nothing more. How did you happen to
+meet Burr?
+
+_A._ Well, I happened to be at his funeral one day; and he asked me to make
+less noise, and----
+
+_Q._ But, good heavens! If you were at his funeral, he must have been dead;
+and, if he was dead, how could he care whether you made a noise or not?
+
+_A._ I don't know. He was always a particular kind of a man that way.
+
+_Q._ Still, I don't understand it at all. You say he spoke to you, and that
+he was dead?
+
+_A._ I didn't say he was dead.
+
+_Q._ But wasn't he dead?
+
+_A._ Well, some said he was, some said he wasn't.
+
+_Q._ What do _you_ think?
+
+_A._ Oh, it was none of my business! It wasn't any of my funeral.
+
+_Q._ Did you--However we can never get this matter straight. Let me ask
+about something else. What was the date of your birth?
+
+_A._ Monday, October 31, 1693.
+
+_Q._ What! Impossible! That would make you a hundred and eighty years old.
+How do you account for that?
+
+_A._ I don't account for it at all.
+
+_Q._ But you said at first you were only nineteen, and now you make
+yourself out to be one hundred and eighty. It is an awful discrepancy.
+
+_A._ Why, have you noticed that? (_Shaking hands._) Many a time it has
+seemed to me like a discrepancy; but somehow I couldn't make up my mind.
+How quick you notice a thing!
+
+_Q._ Thank you for the compliment, as far as it goes. Had you, or have you,
+any brothers or sisters?
+
+_A._ Eh! I--I--I think so,--yes--but I don't remember.
+
+_Q._ Well, that is the most extraordinary statement I ever heard.
+
+_A._ Why, what makes you think that?
+
+_Q._ How could I think otherwise? Why, look here! Who is this a picture of
+on the wall? Isn't that a brother of yours?
+
+_A._ Oh, yes, yes, yes! Now you remind me of it, that _was_ a brother of
+mine. That's William, _Bill_ we called him. Poor old Bill!
+
+_Q._ Why, is he dead, then?
+
+_A._ Ah, well, I suppose so. We never could tell. There was a great mystery
+about it.
+
+_Q._ That is sad, very sad. He disappeared, then?
+
+_A._ Well, yes, in a sort of general way. We buried him.
+
+_Q._ _Buried_ him! Buried him without knowing whether he was dead or not?
+
+_A._ Oh, no! Not that. He was dead enough.
+
+_Q._ Well, I confess that I can't understand this. If you buried him, and
+you knew he was dead----
+
+_A._ No, no! We only thought he was.
+
+_Q._ Oh, I see! He came to life again?
+
+_A._ I bet he didn't.
+
+_Q._ Well. I never heard anything like this. _Somebody_ was dead. Somebody
+was buried. Now, where was the mystery?
+
+_A._ Ah, that's just it! That's it exactly! You see we were twins,--defunct
+and I; and we got mixed in the bathtub when we were only two weeks old, and
+one of us was drowned. But we didn't know which. Some think it was Bill;
+and some think it was me.
+
+_Q._ Well, that _is_ remarkable. What do _you_ think?
+
+_A._ Goodness knows! I would give whole worlds to know. This solemn, this
+awful mystery has cast a gloom over my whole life. But I will tell you a
+secret now, which I never have revealed to any creature before. One of us
+had a peculiar mark, a large mole on the back of his left hand; that was
+_me_. _That child was the one that was drowned._
+
+_Q._ Very well, then, I don't see that there is any mystery about it, after
+all.
+
+_A._ You don't; well, _I_ do. Anyway, I don't see how they could ever have
+been such a blundering lot as to go and bury the wrong child. But, 'sh!
+don't mention it where the family can hear of it. Heaven knows they have
+heart-breaking troubles enough without adding this.
+
+_Q._ Well, I believe I have got material enough for the present; and I am
+very much obliged to you for the pains you have taken. But I was a good
+deal interested in that account of Aaron Burr's funeral. Would you mind
+telling me what peculiar circumstance it was that made you think Burr was
+such a remarkable man?
+
+_A._ Oh, it was a mere trifle! Not one man in fifty would have noticed it
+at all. When the sermon was over, and the procession all ready to start for
+the cemetery, and the body all arranged nice in the hearse, he said he
+wanted to take a last look at the scenery; and so he _got up, and rode with
+the driver_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the young man reverently withdrew. He was very pleasant company; and I
+was sorry to see him go.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRIME OF LIFE.
+
+BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
+
+
+    I read the sentence or heard it spoken--
+      A stalwart phrase and with meaning rife--
+    And I said: "Now I know, by youth's sweet token,
+      That this is the time called the 'prime of life.'
+
+    "For my hopes soar over the loftiest mountain,
+      And the future glows red, like a fair sunrise;
+    And my spirits gush forth, like a spring-fed fountain,
+      And never a grief in the heart of me lies."
+
+    Yet later on, when with blood and muscle
+      Equipped I plunged in the world's hard strife,
+    When I loved its danger, and laughed at the tussle,
+      "Why _this_," I said, "is the prime of life."
+
+    And then, when the tide in my veins ran slower,
+      And youth's first follies had passed away,
+    When the fervent fires in my heart burned lower,
+      And over my body my brain had sway,
+
+    I said: "It is when, through the veiled ideal
+      The vigorous reason thrusts a knife
+    And rends the illusion, and shows us the real,
+      Oh! this is the time called 'prime of life.'"
+
+    Hut now when brain and body are troubled
+      (For one is tired and one is ill,
+    Yet my soul soars up with a strength redoubled
+      And sits on the throne of my broken will),
+    Now when on the ear of my listening spirit,
+      That is turned away from the earth's harsh strife,
+    The river of death sounds murmuring near it--
+      I know that _this_ "is the prime of life."
+
+
+
+
+SUPPORTING THE GUNS.
+
+
+Did you ever see a battery take position?
+
+It hasn't the thrill of a cavalry charge, nor the grimness of a line of
+bayonets moving slowly and determinedly on, but there is peculiar
+excitement about it that makes old veterans rise in the saddle and cheer.
+
+We have been fighting at the edge of the woods. Every cartridge-box has
+been emptied once and more, and a fourth of the brigade has melted away in
+dead and wounded and missing. Not a cheer is heard in the whole brigade. We
+know that we are being driven foot by foot, and that when we break back
+once more, the line will go to pieces and the enemy will pour through the
+gap.
+
+Here comes help!
+
+Down the crowded highway gallops a battery, withdrawn from some other
+position to save ours. The field fence is scattered while you could count
+thirty, and the guns rush for the hill behind us. Six horses to a piece,
+three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches where a farmer could not drive
+a wagon; through clumps of bushes, over logs a foot thick, every horse on
+the gallop, every rider lashing his team and yelling,--the sight behind us
+makes us forget the foe in front. The guns jump two feet high as the heavy
+wheels strike rock or log, but not a horse slackens his pace, not a
+cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, six caissons, sixty horses, eighty men,
+race for the brow of the hill as if he who reached it first was to be
+knighted.
+
+A moment ago the battery was a confused mob. We look again and the six guns
+are in position, the detached horses hurrying away, the ammunition-chests
+open, and along our line runs the command: "Give them one more volley and
+fall back to support the guns!" We have scarcely obeyed when boom! boom!
+boom! opens the battery, and jets of fire jump down and scorch the green
+trees under which we fought and despaired.
+
+The shattered old brigade has a chance to breathe for the first time in
+three hours as we form a line of battle behind the guns and lie down. What
+grim, cool fellows these cannoneers are. Every man is a perfect machine.
+Bullets plash dust in their faces, but they do not wince. Bullets sing over
+and around them, but they do not dodge. There goes one to the earth, shot
+through the head as he sponged his gun. The machinery loses just one
+beat,--misses just one cog in the wheel, and then works away again as
+before.
+
+Every gun is using short-fuse shell. The ground shakes and trembles--the
+roar shuts out all sounds from a battle-line three miles long, and the
+shells go shrieking into the swamp to cut trees short off--to mow great
+gaps in the bushes--to hunt out and shatter and mangle men until their
+corpses cannot be recognized as human. You would think a tornado was
+howling through the forest, followed by billows of fire, and yet men live
+through it--aye! press forward to capture the battery! We can hear their
+shouts as they form for the rush.
+
+Now the shells are changed for grape and canister, and the guns are served
+so fast that all reports blend into one mighty roar. The shriek of a shell
+is the wickedest sound in war, but nothing makes the flesh crawl like the
+demoniac singing, purring, whistling grape-shot and the serpent-like hiss
+of canister. Men's legs and arms are not shot through, but torn off. Heads
+are torn from bodies and bodies cut in two. A round shot or shell takes two
+men out of the ranks as it crashes through. Grape and canister mow a swath
+and pile the dead on top of each other.
+
+Through the smoke we see a swarm of men. It is not a battle-line, but a mob
+of men desperate enough to bathe their bayonets in the flame of the guns.
+The guns leap from the ground, almost, as they are depressed on the
+foe--and shrieks and screams and shouts blend into one awful and steady
+cry. Twenty men out of the battery are down, and the firing is interrupted.
+The foe accept it as a sign of wavering, and come rushing on. They are not
+ten feet away when the guns give them a last shot. That discharge picks
+living men off their feet and throws them into the swamp, a blackened,
+bloody mass.
+
+Up now, as the enemy are among the guns! There is a silence of ten seconds,
+and then the flash and roar of more than three thousand muskets, and a rush
+forward with bayonets. For what? Neither on the right, nor left, nor in
+front of us is a living foe! There are corpses around us which have been
+struck by three, four and even six bullets, and nowhere on this acre of
+ground is a wounded man! The wheels of the guns cannot move until the
+blockade of dead is removed. Men cannot pass from caisson to gun without
+climbing over winrows of dead. Every gun and wheel is smeared with blood,
+every foot of grass has its horrible stain.
+
+Historians write of the glory of war. Burial parties saw murder where
+historians saw glory.
+
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF THE IVY.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    In a quiet village of Germany, once dwelt a fair-haired maiden,
+    Whose eyes were as blue as the summer sky and whose hair with
+        gold was laden;
+    Her lips were as red as a rose-bud sweet, with teeth, like pearls,
+        behind them,
+    Her smiles were like dreams of bliss, complete, and her waving curls
+        enshrined them.
+    Fond lovers thronged to the maiden's side, but of all the youth around her,
+    One only had asked her to be his bride, and a willing listener found her,
+    "Some time, we'll marry," she often said, then burst into song or laughter,
+    And tripped away, while the lover's head hung low as he followed after.
+    Impatient growing, at last he said, "The springtime birds are mating,
+    Pray whisper, sweet, our day to wed; warm hearts grow cold from waiting."
+    "Not yet," she smiled, with a fond caress; but he answered, "Now or never,
+    I start for the Holy War unless I may call thee mine forever."
+    "For the Holy War? Farewell!" she cried, with never a thought of grieving.
+    His wish so often had been denied, she could not help believing
+    His heart would wait till her budding life had blown to its
+        full completeness.
+    She did not know that a wedded wife holds a spell in her youthful sweetness.
+    But alas! for the "Yes" too long delayed, he fought and he bravely perished;
+    And alas! for the heart of the tender maid, and the love it
+        fondly cherished;
+    Her smile grew sad for all hope was gone; life's sands were
+      swiftly fleeting,
+    And just at the break of a wintry dawn, her broken heart ceased beating;
+    And when, on her grave, at the early spring, bright flowers her friends were
+        throwing,
+    They knelt and there, just blossoming, they saw a strange plant growing,
+    Its tender fingers, at first, just seen, crept on through the grass
+        and clover,
+    Till, at last, with a mound of perfect green, it covered
+      the whole grave over;
+    And often the village youth would stand by the vine-clad mound,
+        in the gloaming,
+    And holding a maiden's willing hand, would tell that the strange
+        plant roaming
+    Was the maiden's soul, which could not rest and with fruitless,
+        fond endeavor,
+    Went seeking the heart it loved the best, but sought in vain, forever.
+
+
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES.
+
+BY DANIEL WEBSTER.
+
+
+And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility
+of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of
+groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let
+us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of Liberty
+and Union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote
+ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our
+action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of
+the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the
+country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny;
+let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men.
+
+Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now
+devolve upon us, for the preservation of this constitution, and the harmony
+and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our
+generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain,
+which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the
+states to this constitution, for ages to come.
+
+We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by
+judicature, and defended by the whole affections of the people. No
+monarchical throne presses these states together; no iron chain of military
+power encircles them; they live and stand upon a government popular in its
+form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality,
+and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever.
+
+In all its history it has been beneficent: it has trodden down no man's
+liberty; it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty and
+patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and
+honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by
+recent events, becomes vastly larger.
+
+This republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent.
+The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We
+realize, on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental
+edging of the buckler of Achilles--
+
+    "Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned
+    With his last hand, and poured the ocean round;
+    In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
+    And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."
+
+
+
+
+IN ARABIA.
+
+BY JAMES BERRY BENSEL, 1856.
+
+
+    "Choose thou between!" and to his enemy
+      The Arab chief a brawny hand displayed,
+    Wherein, like moonlight on a sullen sea,
+      Gleamed the gray scimitar's enamelled blade.
+
+    "Choose thou between death at my hand and thine!
+      Close in my power, my vengeance I may wreak,
+    Yet hesitate to strike. A hate like mine
+      Is noble still. Thou hast thy choosing--speak!"
+
+    And Ackbar stood. About him all the band
+      That hailed his captor chieftain, with grave eyes
+    His answer waited, while that heavy hand
+      Stretched like a bar between him and the skies.
+
+    Straight in the face before him Ackbar sent
+      A sneer of scorn, and raised his noble head;
+    "Strike!" and the desert monarch, as content,
+      Rehung the weapon at his girdle red.
+
+    Then Ackbar nearer crept and lifted high
+      His arms toward the heaven so far and blue
+    Wherein the sunset rays began to die,
+      While o'er the band, a deeper silence grew.
+
+    "Strike! I am ready! Did'st thou think to see
+      A son of Gheva spill upon the dust
+    His noble blood? Did'st hope to have my knee
+      Bend at thy feet, and with one mighty thrust,
+
+    "The life thou hatest flee before thee here?
+      Shame on thee! on thy race! Art thou the one
+    Who hast so long his vengeance counted dear?
+      My hate is greater; I did strike thy son,
+
+    "Thy one son, Noumid, dead before my face;
+      And by the swiftest courser of my stud
+    Sent to thy door his corpse. And one might trace
+      Their flight across the desert by his blood.
+
+    "Strike! for my hate is greater than thy own!"
+      But with a frown the Arab moved away,
+    Walked to a distant palm and stood alone
+      With eyes that looked where purple mountains lay.
+
+    This for an instant; then he turned again
+      Toward the place where Ackbar waited still,
+    Walking as one benumbed with bitter pain,
+      Or with a hateful mission to fulfil.
+
+    "Strike! for I hate thee!" Ackbar cried once more,
+      "Nay, but my hate I cannot find!" said now
+    His enemy.  "Thy freedom I restore,
+      Live, life were worse than death to such as thou."
+
+    So with his gift of life, the Bedouin slept
+      That night untroubled; but when dawn broke through
+    The purple East, and o'er his eyelids crept
+      The long, thin finger of the light, he drew
+
+    A heavy breath and woke. Above him shone
+      A lifted dagger--"Yea, he gave thee life,
+    But I give death!" came in fierce undertone,
+      And Ackbar died. It was dead Noumid's wife.
+
+
+
+
+The New Year Ledger.
+
+BY AMELIA E. BARR.
+
+
+    I said one year ago,
+      "I wonder, if I truly kept
+    A list of days when life burnt low,
+      Of days I smiled and days I wept,
+    If good or bad would highest mount
+    When I made up the year's account?"
+
+    I took a ledger fair and fine,
+      "And now," I said, "when days are glad,
+    I'll write with bright red ink the line,
+      And write with black when they are bad,
+    So that they'll stand before my sight
+    As clear apart as day and night.
+
+    "I will not heed the changing skies,
+      Nor if it shine nor if it rain;
+    But if there comes some sweet surprise,
+      Or friendship, love or honest gain,
+    Why, then it shall be understood
+    That day is written down as good.
+
+    "Or if to anyone I love
+      A blessing meets them on the way,
+    That will to me a pleasure prove:
+      So it shall be a happy day;
+    And if some day, I've cause to dread
+    Pass harmless by, I'll write it red.
+
+    "When hands and brain stand labor's test,
+      And I can do the thing I would,
+    Those days when I am at my best
+      Shall all be traced as very good.
+    And in 'red letter,' too, I'll write
+    Those rare, strong hours when right is might.
+
+    "When first I meet in some grand book
+      A noble soul that touches mine,
+    And with this vision I can look
+      Through some gate beautiful of time,
+    That day such happiness will shed
+    That golden-lined will seem the red.
+
+    "And when pure, holy thoughts have power
+      To touch my heart and dim my eyes,
+    And I in some diviner hour
+      Can hold sweet converse with the skies,
+    Ah! then my soul may safely write:
+    'This day has been most good and bright.'"
+
+    What do I see on looking back?
+      A red-lined book before me lies,
+    With here and there a thread of black,
+      That like a gloomy shadow flies,--
+    A shadow it must be confessed,
+    That often rose in my own breast.
+
+    And I have found it good to note
+      The blessing that is mine each day;
+    For happiness is vainly sought
+      In some dim future far away.
+    Just try my ledger for a year,
+      Then look with grateful wonder back,
+    And you will find, there is no fear,
+      The red days far exceed the black.
+
+
+
+
+GOOD READING THE GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT.
+
+BY JOHN S. HART, LL.D.
+
+
+There is one accomplishment, in particular, which I would earnestly
+recommend to you. Cultivate assiduously the ability to read well. I stop to
+particularize this, because it is a thing so very much neglected, and
+because it is such an elegant and charming accomplishment. Where one person
+is really interested by music, twenty are pleased by good reading. Where
+one person is capable of becoming a skillful musician, twenty may become
+good readers. Where there is one occasion suitable for the exercise of
+musical talent, there are twenty for that of good reading.
+
+The culture of the voice necessary for reading well, gives a delightful
+charm to the same voice in conversation. Good reading is the natural
+exponent and vehicle of all good things. It is the most effective of all
+commentaries upon the works of genius. It seems to bring dead authors to
+life again, and makes us sit down familiarly with the great and good of all
+ages.
+
+Did you ever notice what life and power the Holy Scriptures have when well
+read? Have you ever heard of the wonderful effects produced by Elizabeth
+Fry on the criminals of Newgate, by simply reading to them the parable of
+the Prodigal Son? Princes and peers of the realm, it is said, counted it a
+privilege to stand in the dismal corridors, among felons and murderers,
+merely to share with them the privilege of witnessing the marvelous pathos
+which genius, taste, and culture could infuse into that simple story.
+
+What a fascination there is in really good reading! What a power it gives
+one! In the hospital, in the chamber of the invalid, in the nursery, in the
+domestic and in the social circle, among chosen friends and companions, how
+it enables you to minister to the amusement, to the comfort, the pleasure
+of dear ones, as no other art or accomplishment can. No instrument of man's
+devising can reach the heart as does that most wonderful instrument, the
+human voice. It is God's special gift and endowment to his chosen
+creatures. Fold it not away in a napkin.
+
+If you would double the value of all your other acquisitions, if you would
+add immeasurably to your own enjoyment and to your power of promoting the
+enjoyment of others, cultivate, with incessant care, this divine gift. No
+music below the skies is equal to that of pure, silvery speech from the
+lips of a man or woman of high culture.
+
+
+
+
+PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.
+
+BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+    Listen, my children, and you shall hear,
+    Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
+    On the eighteenth of April, in seventy-five--
+    Hardly a man is now alive
+    Who remembers that famous day and year--
+
+    He said to his friend: "If the British march
+    By land or sea from the town to-night,
+    Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
+    Of the North Church tower as a signal light;
+    One, if by land, and two if by sea,
+    And I on the opposite shore will be,
+    Ready to ride and spread the alarm
+    Through every Middlesex village and farm,
+    For the country folk to be up and to arm."
+
+    Then he said "Good-night," and, with muffled oar,
+    Silently row'd to the Charlestown shore,
+    Just as the moon rose over the bay,
+    Where, swinging wide at her moorings, lay
+    The "Somerset," British man-of-war;
+    A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
+    Across the moon like a prison bar,
+    And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
+    By its own reflection in the tide.
+
+    Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street,
+    Wanders and watches with eager ears,
+    Till in the silence around him he hears
+    The muster of men at the barrack door,
+    The sound of arms and the tramp of feet,
+    And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
+    Marching down to their boats on the shore.
+
+    Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church
+    By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
+    To the belfry chamber overhead,
+    And startled the pigeons from their perch
+    On the sombre rafters, that round him made
+    Masses and moving shapes of shade,
+    By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
+    To the highest window in the wall,
+    Where he paused to listen and look down
+    A moment on the roofs of the town,
+    And the moonlight flowing over all.
+
+    Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
+    In their night encampment on the hill.
+    Wrapped in silence so deep and still
+    That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
+    The watchful night wind, as it went
+    Creeping along from tent to tent,
+    And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
+    A moment only he feels the spell
+    Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
+    Of the lonely belfry and the dead,
+    For, suddenly, all his thoughts are bent
+    On a shadowy something far away,
+    Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
+    A line of black that bends and floats
+    On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
+
+    Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
+    Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
+    On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
+    Now he patted his horse's side,
+    Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
+    Then, impetuous, stamped the earth
+    And turned and lighted his saddle-girth;
+    But mostly he watched, with eager search,
+    The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
+    As it rose above the graves on the hill,
+    Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
+    And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
+    A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
+    He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
+    But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight,
+    A second lamp in the belfry burns.
+
+    A hurry of hoofs in the village street,
+    A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
+    And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark,
+    Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
+    That was all; and yet, through the gloom and the light,
+    The fate of a nation was riding that night;
+    And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight
+    Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
+
+    He had left the village and mounted the steep,
+    And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
+    Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides,
+    And under the alders that skirt its edge,
+    Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
+    Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
+    It was twelve by the village clock
+    When he crossed the bridge into Medford town;
+    He heard the crowing of the cock
+    And the barking of the farmer's dog,
+    And felt the damp of the river's fog,
+    That rises after the sun goes down.
+
+    It was one by the village clock
+    When he galloped into Lexington.
+    He saw the gilded weathercock
+    Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
+    And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
+    Gaze at him with spectral glare,
+    As if they already stood aghast
+    At the bloody work they would look upon.
+
+    It was two by the village clock
+    When he came to the bridge in Concord town;
+    He heard the bleating of the flock,
+    And the twitter of birds among the trees,
+    And felt the breath of the morning breeze
+    Blowing over the meadows brown.
+    And one was safe and asleep in his bed
+    Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
+    Who that day would be lying dead,
+    Pierced by a British musket ball.
+    You know the rest; in the books you have read,
+    How the British regulars fired and fled;
+    How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
+    From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
+    Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
+    Then crossing the fields, to emerge again
+    Under the trees, at the turn of the road,
+    And only pausing to fire and load.
+
+    So through the night rode Paul Revere,
+    And so through the night went his cry of alarm
+    To every Middlesex village and farm,--
+    A cry of defiance and not of fear,
+    A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
+    And a word that shall echo for evermore!
+    For, borne on the night-wind of the past,
+    Through all our history to the last,
+    In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
+    The people will waken and listen to hear
+    The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed
+    And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
+
+
+
+
+BY SPECIAL REQUEST.
+
+BY FRANK CASTLES.
+
+_A Lady Standing with one Hand on a Chair in a Somewhat Amateurish
+Attitude._
+
+
+Our kind hostess has asked me to recite something, "by special request,"
+but I really don't know what to do. I have only a very small _repertoire_,
+and I'm afraid you know all my stock recitations. What shall I do?
+(_Pause._) I have it; I'll give you something entirely original. I'll tell
+you about my last experience of reciting, which really is the cause of my
+being so nervous to-night. I began reciting about a year ago; I took
+elocution lessons with Mr. ----; no, I won't tell you his name, I want to
+keep him all to myself. I studied the usual things with him--the "Mercy"
+speech from the "Merchant of Venice," and Juliet's "Balcony scene," but I
+somehow never could imagine my fat, red-faced, snub-nosed old master
+(there! I've told you who he was), I never could fancy him as an ideal
+Romeo; he looked much more like Polonius, or the Ghost before he was a
+ghost--I mean as he probably was in the flesh.
+
+My elocution master told me that Shakespeare was not my forte, so I studied
+some more modern pieces. He told me I was getting on very well--"one of my
+most promising pupils," but I found that he said that to every one.
+
+Well, it soon became known that I recited (one must have _some_ little
+vices, you know, just to show up one's virtues). I received an invitation
+from Lady Midas for a musical evening last Friday, and in a postscript, "We
+hope you will favor us with a recitation." Very flattering, wasn't it?
+
+I went there fully primed with three pieces--"The Lifeboat," by Sims, "The
+Lost Soul," and Calverley's "Waiting." I thought that I had hit on a
+perfectly original selection; but I was soon undeceived. There were a great
+many people at Lady Midas', quite fifty, I should think, or perhaps two
+hundred; but I'm very bad at guessing numbers. We had a lot of music. A
+young man, with red hair and little twinkling light eyes, sang a song by De
+Lara, but it did not sound as well as when I heard the composer sing it.
+Then two girls played a banjo duet; then--no, we had another song first,
+then a girl with big eyes and an ugly dress--brown nun's veiling with
+yellow lace, and beads, and ribbons, and sham flowers and all sorts of
+horrid things, so ugly, I'm sure it was made at home. Well--where was I?
+Oh, yes!--she stood up and recited, what do you think? Why, "Calverley's
+Waiting!" Oh! I was so cross when it came to the last verses; you remember
+how they go (_imitating_)--
+
+    "'Hush! hark! I see a hovering form!
+      From the dim distance slowly rolled;
+    It rocks like lilies in a storm,
+      And oh! its hues are green and gold.
+
+    'It comes, it comes! Ah! rest is sweet,
+      And there is rest, my babe, for us!'
+    She ceased, as at her very feet
+      Stopped the St. John's Wood omnibus."
+
+Well, when I heard that I felt inclined to cry. Just imagine how provoking;
+one of the pieces I had been practicing for weeks past. Oh, it _was_
+annoying! After that there was a violin solo, then another--no, then I had
+an ice, such a nice young man, just up from Aldershot, _very_ young, but
+_so_ amusing, and so full of somebody of "ours" who had won something, or
+lost something, I could not quite make out which.
+
+Then we came back to the drawing-room, and an elderly spinster, with curls,
+sang, "Oh that we two were Maying," and the young man from Aldershot said,
+"Thank goodness we aren't."
+
+Afterward I had another ice, not because I wanted it, not a bit, but the
+young man from Aldershot said he was _so_ thirsty.
+
+Then I saw a youth with long hair and badly-fitting clothes. I thought he
+was going to sing, but he wasn't; oh no! much worse! he recited. When I
+heard the first words I thought I should faint (_imitating_):
+
+    "Been out in the lifeboat often? Aye, aye, sir, oft enough.
+    When it's rougher than this? Lor' bless you, this ain't what _we_ calls
+        rough."
+
+How well I knew the lines! Wasn't it cruel? However, I had one hope
+left--my "Lost Soul," a beautiful poem, serious and sentimental. The
+æsthetic youth was so tedious that the young man from Aldershot asked me to
+come into the conservatory, and really I was so vexed and disappointed that
+I think I would have gone into the coal-cellar if he had asked me.
+
+We went into the conservatory and had a nice long talk, all about----well,
+it would take too long to tell you now, and besides it would not interest
+_you_.
+
+All at once mamma came in, and I felt rather frightened at first (I don't
+know why), but she was laughing and smiling. "O, Mary," she said, "that
+æsthetic young man has been so funny; they encored 'The Lifeboat,' so he
+recited a very comic piece of poetry, that sent us all into fits of
+laughter, it was called 'The Fried Sole,' a parody on 'The Lost Soul' that
+you used to recite."
+
+Alas! my last hope was wrecked; I could not read after that! I believe I
+burst into tears. Anyhow, mamma hurried me off in a cab, and I cried all
+the way home and--and--I forgot to say good-night to the young man from
+Aldershot. Wasn't it a pity?
+
+And you see that's why I don't like to recite anything to-night. (_Some one
+from the audience comes up and whispers to her_). No! really, have I? How
+stupid! I'm told that I've been reciting all this time. I am so sorry; will
+you ever forgive me? I do beg pardon; I'll never do it again! (_Runs out._)
+
+
+
+
+NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP.
+
+    [Found in the Knapsack of a Soldier of the Civil War
+    After He Had Been Slain in Battle.]
+
+
+    Near the camp-fire's flickering light,
+      In my blanket bed I lie,
+    Gazing through the shades of night
+      And the twinkling stars on high;
+    O'er me spirits in the air
+      Silent vigils seem to keep,
+    As I breathe my childhood's prayer,
+      "Now I lay me down to sleep."
+
+    Sadly sings the whip-poor-will
+      In the boughs of yonder tree;
+    Laughingly the dancing rill
+      Swells the midnight melody.
+    Foemen may be lurking near,
+      In the cañon dark and deep;
+    Low I breathe in Jesus' ear:
+      "I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep."
+
+    'Mid those stars one face I see--
+      One the Saviour turned away--
+    Mother, who in infancy
+      Taught my baby lips to pray;
+    Her sweet spirit hovers near
+      In this lonely mountain-brake.
+    Take me to her Saviour dear
+      "If I should die before I wake."
+
+    Fainter grows the flickering light,
+      As each ember slowly dies;
+    Plaintively the birds of night
+      Fill the air with sad'ning cries;
+    Over me they seem to cry:
+      "You may never more awake."
+    Low I lisp: "If I should die,
+      I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take."
+
+    Now I lay me down to sleep;
+    I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
+    If I should die before I wake,
+    I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.
+
+
+
+
+THE AMERICAN UNION.
+
+BY DANIEL WEBSTER.
+
+
+I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the
+prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our
+Federal Union. It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our
+consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly
+indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country.
+
+That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe
+school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered
+finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign
+influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and
+sprang forth with newness of life.
+
+Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and
+its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and
+wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not outrun
+its protection, or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain
+of national, social, and personal happiness.
+
+I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might
+lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances
+of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be
+broken asunder.
+
+I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see
+whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below;
+nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this
+government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how
+the union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the
+condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.
+
+While the union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread
+out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate
+the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise!
+God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind!
+
+When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in
+heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of
+a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a
+land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!
+
+Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous
+ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still
+full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
+lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured,
+bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this
+worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and
+union afterward; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living
+light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over
+the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment,
+dear to every true American heart, liberty and union now and forever, one
+and inseparable!
+
+
+
+
+THE POPPY LAND LIMITED EXPRESS.
+
+BY EDGAR WADE ABBOT.
+
+
+    The first train leaves at six p. m.
+      For the land where the poppy blows;
+    The mother dear is the engineer,
+      And the passenger laughs and crows.
+
+    The palace car is the mother's arms;
+      The whistle, a low, sweet strain:
+    The passenger winks, and nods, and blinks,
+      And goes to sleep in the train!
+
+    At eight p. m. the next train starts
+      For the poppy land afar,
+    The summons clear falls on the ear:
+      "All aboard for the sleeping-car!"
+
+    But what is the fare to poppy land?
+      I hope it is not too dear.
+    The fare is this, a hug and a kiss,
+      And it's paid to the engineer!
+
+    So I ask of Him who children took
+      On His knee in kindness great,
+    "Take charge, I pray, of the trains each day,
+      That leave at six and eight.
+
+    "Keep watch of the passengers," thus I pray,
+      "For to me they are very dear,
+    And special ward, O gracious Lord,
+      O'er the gentle engineer."
+
+
+
+
+MOTHER, HOME, AND HEAVEN.
+
+
+Mother, Home, and Heaven, says a writer, are three of the most beautiful
+words in the English language. And truly I think that they may be well
+called so--what word strikes so forcibly upon the heart as mother? Coming
+from childhood's sunny lips, it has a peculiar charm; for it speaks of one
+to whom they look and trust for protection.
+
+A mother is the truest friend we have; when trials heavy and sudden fall
+upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends, who
+rejoiced with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around
+us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and
+counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to
+our hearts.
+
+The kind voice of a mother has often been the means of reclaiming an erring
+one from the path of wickedness to a life of happiness and prosperity.
+
+The lonely convict, immured in his dreary cell, thinks of the innocent days
+of his childhood, and feels that though other friends forsake him, he has
+still a guardian angel watching over him; and that, however dark his sins
+may have been, they have all been forgiven and forgotten by her.
+
+Mother is indeed a sweet name, and her station is indeed a holy one; for in
+her hands are placed minds, to be moulded almost at her will; aye, fitted
+to shine--not much, it is true, on earth, compared, if taught aright, with
+the dazzling splendor which awaits them in heaven.
+
+Home! how often we hear persons speak of the home of their childhood. Their
+minds seem to delight in dwelling upon the recollections of joyous days
+spent beneath the parental roof, when their young and happy hearts were as
+light and free as the birds who made the woods resound with the melody of
+their cheerful voices. What a blessing it is, when weary with care, and
+burdened with sorrow, to have a home to which we can go, and there, in the
+midst of friends we love, forget our troubles and dwell in peace and
+quietness.
+
+Heaven! that land of quiet rest--toward which those, who, worn down and
+tired with the toils of earth, direct their frail barks over the troubled
+waters of life, and after a long and dangerous passage, find it--safe in
+the haven of eternal bliss. Heaven is the home that awaits us beyond the
+grave. There the friendships formed on earth, and which cruel death has
+severed, are never more to be broken: and parted friends shall meet again,
+never more to be separated.
+
+It is an inspiring hope that, when we separate here on earth at the
+summons of death's angel, and when a few more years have rolled over the
+heads of those remaining, if "faithful unto death," we shall meet again in
+Heaven, our eternal _home_, there to dwell in the presence of our Heavenly
+Father, and go no more out forever.
+
+
+
+
+PRAYING FOR SHOES.
+
+BY PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.
+
+_A True Incident._
+
+
+    On a dark November morning,
+      A lady walked slowly down
+    The thronged, tumultuous thoroughfare
+      Of an ancient seaport town.
+
+    Of a winning and gracious beauty,
+      The peace of her pure young face
+    Was soft as the gleam of an angel's dream
+      In the calms of a heavenly place.
+
+    Her eyes were fountains of pity,
+      And the sensitive mouth expressed
+    A longing to set the kind thoughts free
+      In music that filled her breast.
+
+    She met, by a bright shop window,
+      An urchin timid and thin,
+    Who, with limbs that shook and a yearning look,
+      Was mistily glancing in
+    At the rows and varied clusters
+      Of slippers and shoes outspread,
+    Some shimmering keen, but of sombre sheen,
+      Some purple and green and red.
+
+    His pale lips moved and murmured;
+      But of what, she could not hear.
+    And oft on his folded hands would fall
+      The round of a bitter tear.
+
+    "What troubles you, child?" she asked him,
+      In a voice like the May-wind sweet.
+    He turned, and while pointing dolefully
+      To his naked and bleeding feet,
+
+    "I was praying for shoes," he answered;
+      "Just look at the splendid show!
+    I was praying to God for a single pair,
+      The sharp stones hurt me so!"
+
+    She led him, in museful silence,
+      At once through the open door,
+    And his hope grew bright, like a fairy light,
+      That flickered and danced before!
+
+    And there he was washed and tended
+      And his small, brown feet were shod;
+    And he pondered there on his childish prayer,
+      And the marvelous answer of God.
+
+    Above them his keen gaze wandered,
+      How strangely from shop to shelf,
+    Till it almost seemed that he fondly dreamed
+      Of looking on God Himself.
+
+    The lady bent over, and whispered,
+      "Are you happier now, my lad?"
+    He started, and all his soul flashed forth
+      In a gratitude swift and glad.
+
+    "Happy?--Oh, yes!--I am happy!"
+      Then (wonder with reverence rife,
+    His eyes aglow, and his voice sunk low),
+      "Please tell me! Are you God's wife?"
+
+
+
+
+RUM'S DEVASTATION AND DESTINY.
+
+BY HON. WILLIAM SULLIVAN.
+
+     [In a discourse delivered before the Massachusetts
+     Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, on the
+     twenty-third of May, 1832, Hon. William Sullivan, one
+     of the vice-presidents of the society, gave an account
+     of the discovery of the art of distilling wine from
+     brandy, showing that it was made some five or six
+     hundred years ago, by an alchemist who was in search of
+     the means of acquiring "inexhaustible riches and
+     perpetual youth." After having spoken of the origin of
+     alcohol, the speaker imagines it to be "the office of
+     history to announce the future, instead of recording
+     the past," and assuming to stand beside the man who
+     made the discovery, delivered the following eloquent
+     address detailing the melancholy consequences of this
+     discovery, and forecasting the blessings which shall
+     result from the final overthrow of the rum fiend.]
+
+
+In your researches after that which you should, at once, have known to be
+impossible, by the laws of nature, you have opened a fountain of misery
+which shall flow for ages. You have not contented yourself with pressing
+out the juices of the fruits bestowed upon you, and converting these into
+strong drink which you needed not,--but you have taken this strong drink,
+and the harvest, which was given to you for food, and have drawn from these
+a liquid which is not food and which will not nourish nor sustain your
+earthly frame. This liquid shall be a curse upon you and your descendants.
+It shall be known wherever the arts of civilization are known. You shall
+call it the _elixir of life_. You shall believe it to be nutritious to the
+body and gladdening to the soul. The love of it shall grow with the use of
+it. It shall soothe the solitary hour and cheer the festive board. It shall
+charm away your griefs, and be the cause of your rejoicings. It shall be
+the inducement to communion and the bond of friendship. It shall be prized
+alike by the high and the low. It shall be the joy of princes as well as of
+the meanest of mortals. It shall be the stimulant to laborious toil, and
+the reward for labor done. It shall be bought and sold, and make the dealer
+therein rich. It shall yield abundant revenues to sovereignty. Hospitality
+shall be dishonored in not offering it to the guest, and the guest shall be
+disgraced in not receiving it at the hand of his host.
+
+But----it shall visit your limbs with palsy; it shall extinguish the pride
+of man; it shall make the husband hateful to the wife, and the wife
+loathsome to the husband; it shall annihilate the love of offspring; it
+shall make members of society a shame and a reproach to each other, and to
+all among whom they dwell. It shall steal from the virtuous and the
+honorable their good name, and shall make the strong and the vigorous to
+totter along the streets of cities. It shall pervert the law of habit,
+designed to strengthen you in the path of duty, and bind you in its iron
+chain. It shall disgrace the judge upon the bench, the minister in the
+sacred desk, and the senator in his exalted seat. It shall make your food
+tasteless, your mouth to burn as with a fever, and your stomach to tremble
+as with disease. It shall cause the besotted mother to overlay her newborn,
+unconscious that it dies beneath the pressure of her weight; the natural
+cravings of the infant shall make it strive to awaken her who has passed,
+unheeded, to her last long sleep. The son shall hide his face that he may
+not behold his father's depravity; and the father shall see the object of
+his fondest hopes turn to a foul and bloated carcass, that hurries to the
+grave. It shall turn the children of men into raving maniacs; and the
+broken ties of blood and affection shall find no relief but in the friendly
+coming of Death. As the seed which man commits to the earth comes forth
+into that which he converts into spirit, so shall this product of his own
+invention be as seed in his own heart, to bring forth violence, rapine and
+murder. It shall cause man to shut up his fellow-man in the solitude of the
+grated cell. The prisoner shall turn pale and tremble, in his loneliness,
+at the presence of his own thoughts; he shall come forth to die, in cold
+blood, by the hand of his fellow, with the spectacle of _religious homage
+on a scaffold_, and amid the gaze of curious thousands. Poverty shall be
+made squalid and odious, even so that Charity shall turn away her face in
+disgust. It shall attract the pestilence that walks, even at noon-day, in
+darkness, to the very vitals of the drunkard, as carrion invites the
+far-sighted birds of prey. The consumer of spirit shall be found dead in
+the highway, with the exhausted vessel by his side. Yea, the drunkard shall
+kindle a fire in his own bosom which shall not depart from him till he is
+turned to ashes. The dropsical drunkard shall die in his delirium, and the
+fluid which has gathered in his brain shall smell like spirit, and like
+spirit shall burn. A feeble frame, an imbecile mind, torturing pain and
+incurable madness shall be of the inheritance which drunkards bequeath, to
+run with their blood to innocent descendants.
+
+The wise men, who assemble in the halls; of legislation, shall be blind to
+this ruin, desolation, and misery. Nay, they shall license the sale of this
+poison, and shall require of dignified magistrates to certify how much
+thereof shall be sold for the "PUBLIC GOOD."
+
+This minister of woe and wretchedness shall roam over the earth at
+pleasure. It shall be found in every country of the Christian; it shall go
+into every city, into every village, and into every house. But it shall not
+visit the country of the heathen, nor spread woe and wretchedness among
+them, but by the hands of Christians.
+
+The light of reason shall at length break upon the benighted and afflicted
+world. The truth shall be told. It shall be believed. The causes of
+calamity shall be unveiled. The friends of the human race shall speak and
+be respected. Rational man shall be ashamed of his follies and his crimes,
+and humbled to the dust that he was so long ignorant of their origin.
+Governments shall be ashamed that they so long tolerated and sustained the
+most costly and cruel foe that man has ever encountered. Avarice itself
+shall be conscience-stricken and penitent. It shall remain where nature
+placed it for use; and it shall be odious in the sight of _Heaven_ and of
+_Earth_ to convert the fruits of the soil into poison.
+
+
+
+
+THE DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    An opulent lord of Ispahan,
+    In luxury, lolled on a silk divan,
+    Dreaming the idle hours away
+    In a cloud of smoke from his nargile.
+    Weary with nothing to do in life,
+      He thought, as he watched the smoky whirls,
+    "'Twill be diversion to choose a wife
+      From my peerless bevy of dancing-girls.
+    There are beauties fair from every land--
+    Lustrous eyes from Samarcand,
+    Dusky forms from the upper Nile,
+    Teeth that glisten when red lips smile,
+    Gypsy faces of olive hue,
+      Stolen from some wild wandering clan,
+    Fair complexions and eyes of blue,
+      From the sunny isles of Cardachan,
+    Regal beauties of queenly grace
+    And sinuous sirens of unknown race;
+    Some one among them will surely bless
+    Hours that grow heavy with idleness."
+    Then the slave that waited his lightest need,
+      Fell on his knee, by the silk divan,
+    And the swarthy, listening ear gave heed
+      To the will of the lord of Ispahan.
+
+    "Send hither my dancing-girls," he said,
+      "And set me a feast to please the eye
+    And tempt the palate, for this shall be
+    A wedding breakfast before us spread,
+      If the charm of beauty can satisfy
+    And one of their number pleaseth me.
+    I will wed no maiden of high degree
+      With the tips of her fingers henna-stained
+      And the dew of youth from her life-blood drained,
+    But a child of nature wild and free."
+
+    Then the slave bent low and said: "O Sire,
+      A woman lingers beside the gate;
+    Her eyes are aglow like coals of fire
+      And she mourns as one disconsolate;
+    And when we bid her to cease and go,
+      Each eye grows bright, like an evening star,
+    And she sayeth: 'The master will hear my woe,
+      For I come from the deserts of Khandakar.'"
+    "Bid her to enter," the master said,
+    And the frown from his forehead swiftly fled.
+    The hasty word on his lip way stayed
+      As he thought of his youth, in the land afar,
+    And the peerless eyes of a Bedouin maid,
+      In the desert places of Khandakar.
+    The woman entered and swift unwound
+    The veil that mantled her face around,
+    And in matchless beauty, she stood arrayed,
+    In the scant attire of a Bedouin maid.
+    The indolent lord of Ispahan
+    Started back on the silk divan,
+    For in form and feature, in very truth,
+    It seemed the love of his early youth.
+    The almond eyes and the midnight hair,
+      The rosebud mouth and the rounded chin--
+    Time had not touched them; they still were fair,
+      And the passion of yore grew strong within.
+    Then she made him the secret Bedouin sign,
+      Which only dishonor can fail to heed;
+    The solemn pact of the races nine,
+      To help each other in time of need.
+    But her eyes beheld no answering sign,
+      Though a crimson tide to his forehead ran,
+    And the trembling maiden could not divine
+      The will of the lord of Ispahan.
+    With the sound of a rippling mountain brook,
+    The voice of the woman her lips forsook;
+      And thus her tale of despair began
+      In the lordly palace of Ispahan:
+
+    "On a stallion black as the midnight skies,
+    From a desert I come, where my lover lies
+    At death's dark verge; and the hostile clan
+    That struck him down, are in Ispahan
+    With slaves to sell, in the open street;
+    And only because my steed was fleet
+    Am I now free; but here I bide,
+    For this morning the hard-rid stallion died.
+    Out of your opulence, one swift steed
+      Only a drop from the sea will be;
+    A grain of sand on the shore, to my need;
+      But the wealth of the whole, wide world to me.
+    My soul to the soul of my loved one cries,
+      At dawn or in darkness, whate'er betide,
+    And the pain of longing all peace denies,
+      To the heart that strains to my lover's side."
+    "You shall mourn no more, but sit with me
+    And rejoice in a scene of revelry;
+    For the pleasures of life are the rights of man,"
+    Said the indolent lord of Ispahan.
+
+    The curtains parted and noiseless feet
+      Of dusky slaves stole over the floor.
+    Their strong arms laden with burden sweet
+      Of fruits and flowers a goodly store.
+    Luscious peaches and apricots,
+    Plucked from the sunniest garden spots;
+    Syrian apples and cordials rare;
+    Succulent grapes that filled the air
+    With heavy sweetness, while rivers ran,
+    From beakers of wine from Astrakhan;
+    Cooling salvers of colored ice;
+    Almonds powdered with fragrant spice;
+    Smoking viands, on plates of gold,
+    And carven vessels of price untold,
+    Kindling the appetite afresh
+    For dainty morsels of fowl and flesh.
+    The musical notes of the mellow flute,
+      From a source remote, rose higher and higher,
+    With the quivering sounds from a hidden lute,
+      The plaintive sweep of the tender lyre.
+
+    Then a whirlwind of color filled the air--
+      A misty vapor of filmy lace,
+    With gleams of silk and of round arms bare,
+      In a mazy whirl of infinite grace;
+    And the lustrous glow of tresses blent
+    With the shimmer of pearls, from the Orient.
+    The half-sobbed, breathless, sweet refrain,
+      A swelling burst of sensuous sound,
+    Sank lower to swell and sink again,
+      Then died in silence most profound.
+    The panting beauties with cheeks aglow,
+      Scattered about on the rug-strewn floor,
+    Like bright-hued leaves when the chill winds blow,
+      Or tinted sea-shells along the shore.
+    But the lord of the palace turned and cried;
+      "Heavy and languid these maidens are."
+    And he said, to the Bedouin at his side:
+      "Teach them the dances of Khandakar."
+    Her dark eyes lit with the flash of fire,
+    And she said: "You will pity my need most dire?
+    You will give me steed to fly afar,
+    To my love in the deserts of Khandakar?"
+    "Half that I own shall be yours," he said,
+      "If the love of my youth that was under ban
+    Comes back to me like a soul from the dead
+      Bringing joy to the palace of Ispahan."
+
+    She sprang to the floor with an agile bound.
+    The music broke in a swirl of sound,
+    Her hair from its fillet became unbound.
+    And the dancing-girls that stood apart,
+    Gazed rapt and speechless, with hand to heart,
+      At the wild, untrammelled curves of grace
+      Of the dancing-girl from the desert race.
+    Not one of them half so fair to see;
+      Not one as lithe in the sinuous twist
+    Of twirling body and bending knee,
+      Of supple ankle and curving wrist.
+    The wilder the music, the wilder she;
+    It seemed like the song of a bird set free
+      To thrill in the heart of a cloud of mist
+    And live on its own mad ecstasy.
+      Spellbound and mute, on the silk divan,
+      Sat the lord of the palace of Ispahan.
+
+    But the thoughts of the master were drifting far
+    To his youth in the deserts of Khandakar;
+    To the time when another had danced as well,
+      And listened with tenderness in her eyes,
+    To the burning words his lips might tell,
+      With kisses freighting her soft replies.
+    And he had thought that her smile would bless
+      His roving life, in the land afar,
+    And cheer him in hours of loneliness,
+      In the tents of the deserts of Khandakar.
+    But the tribe had chosen the maid to wed
+      With the powerful chief of a hostile clan,
+    And the flattered woman had turned and fled
+      From the pleading voice of a stricken man;
+    Then out of the desert the lover sped,
+      To become a great lord of Ispahan.
+
+    And now this child, with the subtle grace
+      Of the mother that bore her, had come to him
+    With the desert's breath upon her face,
+      Rousing within him a purpose grim.
+    "By the beard of the Prophet! but you shall be
+    The light and the joy of my life to me!
+    As your mother was, you are to-day.
+      Your lover, perchance, hath lived his span;
+    You shall dry your maidenly tears and stay
+      As the wife of the lord of Ispahan."
+    That night, when the dusky shadows crept
+      Across the tiles of the banquet-room,
+    They found the form of a man who slept
+      On a silk divan, in the gathering gloom.
+    The window screens were wide to the air,
+      And the hedge, where the fragrant roses grew,
+    Was cleft and trodden to earth, just where
+      A frightened fugitive might pass through.
+
+    And the groom of the stables, heavy with wine,
+      Wakened not at the prancing tread
+    Of the milk-white steed and made no sign,
+      As the Bedouin maid from the palace fled.
+    And the indolent lord of Ispahan
+    Seemed resting still, on the silk divan;
+    But his heart was beating with love no more,
+      In his eyes no light of passion gleamed;
+    His listless fingers touched the floor,
+      Where the crimson tide of his life-blood streamed,
+    And he slept the last, long, dreamless sleep;
+      For the end had come to life's brief span;
+    And his jewelled dagger was handle deep,
+      In the heart of the lord of Ispahan.
+
+
+
+
+HORNETS.
+
+BY BILL NYE.
+
+
+Last fall I desired to add to my rare collection a large hornet's nest. I
+had an embalmed tarantula and her porcelain-lined nest, and I desired to
+add to these the gray and airy house of the hornet. I procured one of the
+large size, after cold weather, and hung it in my cabinet by a string. I
+forgot about it until spring. When warm weather came something reminded me
+of it; I think it was a hornet. He jogged my memory in some way, and called
+my attention to it. Memory is not located where I thought it was. It seemed
+as though when ever he touched me he awakened a memory,--a warm memory,
+with a red place all around it.
+
+Then some more hornets came, and began to rake up old personalities. I
+remember that one of them lit on my upper lip. He thought it was a rosebud.
+When he went away it looked like a gladiolus bulb. I wrapped a wet sheet
+around it to take out the warmth and reduce the swelling, so that I could
+go through the folding doors, and tell my wife about it. Hornets lit all
+over me, and walked around on my person. I did not dare to scrape them off,
+because they were so sensitive. You have to be very guarded in your conduct
+toward a hornet.
+
+I remember once while I was watching the busy little hornet gathering honey
+and June-bugs from the bosom of a rose, years ago, I stirred him up with a
+club, more as a practical joke than anything, and he came and lit in my
+sunny hair;--that was when I wore my own hair--and he walked around through
+my gleaming tresses quite a while, making tracks as large as a water-melon
+all over my head. If he hadn't run out of tracks my head would have looked
+like a load of summer squashes. I remember I had to thump my head against
+the smoke-house in order to smash him; and I had to comb him out with a
+fine comb, and wear a waste-paper basket two weeks for a hat. Much has
+been said of the hornet; but he has an odd, quaint way after all, that is
+forever new.
+
+
+
+
+SINCE SHE WENT HOME.
+
+BY R. J. BURDETTE.
+
+
+                Since she went home--
+    The evening shadows linger longer here,
+    The winter days fill so much of the year,
+    And even summer winds are chill and drear,
+                Since she went home.
+
+                Since she went home--
+    The robin's note has touched a minor strain,
+    The old glad songs breathe but a sad refrain,
+    And laughter sobs with hidden, bitter pain,
+                Since she went home.
+
+                Since she went home--
+    How still the empty room her presence blessed;
+    Untouched the pillow that her dear head pressed;
+    My lonely heart has nowhere for its rest,
+                Since she went home.
+
+                Since she went home--
+    The long, long days have crept away like years,
+    The sunlight has been dimmed with doubts and fears,
+    And the dark nights have rained in lonely tears,
+                Since she went home.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILDREN WE KEEP.
+
+
+    The children kept coming, one by one,
+      Till the boys were five and the girls were three,
+    And the big brown house was alive with fun
+      From the basement floor to the old roof-tree.
+    Like garden flowers the little ones grew,
+      Nurtured and trained with the tenderest care;
+    Warmed by love's sunshine, bathed in its dew,
+      They bloomed into beauty, like roses rare.
+
+    But one of the boys grew weary one day,
+      And leaning his head on his mother's breast,
+    He said, "I'm tired and cannot play;
+      Let me sit awhile on your knee and rest."
+    She cradled him close in her fond embrace,
+      She hushed him to sleep with her sweetest song,
+    And rapturous love still lighted his face
+      When his spirit had joined the heavenly throng.
+
+    Then the eldest girl, with her thoughtful eyes,
+      Who stood where the "brook and the river meet,"
+    Stole softly away into paradise
+      Ere "the river" had reached her slender feet.
+    While the father's eyes on the grave are bent,
+      The mother looked upward beyond the skies;
+    "Our treasures," she whispered, "were only lent,
+      Our darlings were angels in earth's disguise."
+
+    The years flew by and the children began
+      With longing to think of the world outside;
+    And as each, in his turn, became a man,
+      The boys proudly went from the father's side.
+    The girls were women so gentle and fair
+      That lovers were speedy to woo and win;
+    And with orange blossoms in braided hair,
+      The old home was left, the new home to begin.
+
+    So, one by one, the children have gone,--
+      The boys were five and the girls were three;
+    And the big brown house is gloomy and lone,
+      With but two old folks for its company.
+    They talk to each other about the past,
+      As they sit together in eventide,
+    And say, "All the children we keep at last
+      Are the boy and the girl who in childhood died."
+
+
+
+
+AMERICA FOR GOD.
+
+BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+But now what are the weapons by which, under our Omnipotent Leader, the
+real obstacles in the way of our country's evangelization, the ten thousand
+mile Sebastopols, are to be leveled? The first columbiad, with range enough
+to sweep from eternity to eternity, is the Bible, millions of its copies
+going out, millions on millions. Then there are all the Gospel batteries,
+manned by seventy thousand pastors and home missionaries, over the head of
+each one of whom is the shield of Divine protection, and in the right hand
+of each one the gleaming, two-edged sword of the Infinite Spirit! Hundreds
+of thousands of private soldiers for Christ, marching under the
+one-starred, blood-striped flag of Emanuel! On our side, the great and
+mighty theologians of the land the heavy artillery, and the hundreds of
+thousands of Christian children the infantry. They are marching on!
+Episcopacy, with the sublime roll of its liturgies; Methodism, with its
+battle-cry of "The sword of the Lord and John Wesley;" the Baptist Church,
+with its glorious navy sailing up our Oregons and Sacramentos and
+Mississippis; and Presbyterians, moving on with the battle-cry of "The
+sword of the Lord and John Knox." And then, after awhile will come the
+great tides of revival, sweeping over the land, the five hundred thousand
+conversions in 1857 eclipsed by the salvation of millions in a day, and the
+four American armies of the Lord's host marching toward each other, the
+Eastern army marching west, the Western army marching east, the Northern
+army marching south, the Southern army marching north; shoulder to
+shoulder! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! until they meet mid-continent, having taken
+America for God!
+
+The thunder of the bombardment is already in the air, and when the last
+bridge of opposition is taken, and the last portcullis of Satan is lifted,
+and the last gun spiked, and the last tower dismantled, and the last
+charger of iniquity shall have been hurled back upon its haunches, what a
+time of rejoicing!
+
+
+
+
+OUR OWN.
+
+BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
+
+
+    If I had known, in the morning,
+      How wearily all the day
+    The words unkind would trouble my mind
+      That I said when you went away,
+    I had been more careful, darling,
+      Nor given you needless pain;
+    But--we vex our own with look and tone
+      We might never take back again.
+
+    For though in the quiet evening
+      You may give me the kiss of peace,
+    Yet it well might be that never for me
+      The pain of the heart should cease;
+    How many go forth at morning
+      Who never come home at night,
+    And hearts have broken for harsh words spoken
+      That sorrow can ne'er set right.
+
+    We have careful thought for the stranger,
+      And smiles for the sometime guest,
+    But oft for our own the bitter tone,
+      Though we love our own the best.
+    Ah, lip with the curve impatient,
+      Ah, brow with the shade of scorn,
+    'T were a cruel fate were the night too late
+      To undue the work of morn.
+
+
+
+
+BEHIND TIME.
+
+BY FREEMAN HUNT.
+
+
+A railroad train was rushing along at almost lightning speed. A curve was
+just ahead, and beyond it was a station, at which the cars usually passed
+each other. The conductor was late, so late that the period during which
+the down train was to wait had nearly elapsed; but he hoped yet to pass the
+curve safely. Suddenly a locomotive dashed into sight right ahead. In an
+instant there was a collision. A shriek, a shock, and fifty souls were in
+eternity; and all because an engineer had been _behind time_.
+
+A great battle was going on. Column after column had been precipitated for
+eight mortal hours on the enemy posted along the ridge of a hill. The
+summer sun was sinking to the west; re-inforcements for the obstinate
+defenders were already in sight; it was necessary to carry the position
+with one final charge, or everything would be lost. A powerful corps had
+been summoned from across the country, and if it came up in season all
+would yet be well. The great conqueror, confident in its arrival, formed
+his reserve into an attacking column, and ordered them to charge the enemy.
+The whole world knows the result. Grouchy failed to appear; the imperial
+guard was beaten back; Waterloo was lost. Napoleon died a prisoner at St.
+Helena because one of his marshals was _behind time_.
+
+A leading firm in commercial circles had long struggled against bankruptcy.
+As it had enormous assets in California, it expected remittances by a
+certain day; and, if the sums promised arrived, its credit, its honor, and
+its future prosperity would be preserved. But week after week elapsed
+without bringing the gold. At last came the fatal day on which the firm had
+bills maturing to enormous amounts. The steamer was telegraphed at
+daybreak; but it was found, on inquiry, that she brought no funds, and the
+house failed. The next arrival brought nearly half a million to the
+insolvents, but it was too late; they were ruined because their agent, in
+remitting, had been _behind time_.
+
+A condemned man was led out for execution. He had taken human life, but
+under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was
+active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve; a
+favorable answer had been expected the night before; and, though it had not
+come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would yet arrive in season.
+Thus the morning passed without the appearance of the messenger. The last
+moment had come. The prisoner took his place on the drop, the cap was drawn
+over his eyes, the bolt was drawn, and a lifeless body swung revolving in
+the wind. Just at that moment a horse-man came into sight, galloping down
+hill, his steed covered with foam. He carried a packet in his right hand,
+which he waved rapidly to the crowd. He was the express rider with the
+reprieve. But he had come too late. A comparatively innocent man had died
+an ignominious death, because a watch had been five minutes too slow,
+making its bearer arrive _behind time_.
+
+It is continually so in life. The best-laid plans, the most important
+affairs, the fortunes of individuals, the weal of nations, honor,
+happiness, life itself, are daily sacrificed because somebody is "behind
+time." There are men who always fail in whatever they undertake, simply
+because they are "behind time." There are others who put off reformation
+year by year, till death seizes them, and they perish unrepentant, because
+forever "_behind time_."
+
+Five minutes in a crisis is worth years. It is but a little period, yet it
+has often saved a fortune or redeemed a people. If there is one virtue that
+should be cultivated more than another by him who would succeed in life, it
+is punctuality; if there is one error that should be avoided, it is being
+_behind time_.
+
+
+
+
+KITTENS AND BABIES.
+
+BY LIZZIE M. HADLEY.
+
+
+    There were two kittens, a black and a gray,
+      And grandmamma said, with a frown,
+    "It never will do to keep them both,
+      The black one we'd better drown."
+
+    "Don't cry, my dear," to tiny Bess,
+      "One kitten's enough to keep;
+    Now run to nurse, for 'tis growing late
+      And time you were fast asleep."
+
+    The morrow dawned, and rosy and sweet
+      Came little Bess from her nap.
+    The nurse said, "Go into mamma's room
+      And look in grandma's lap."
+
+    "Come here," said grandma, with a smile,
+      From the rocking-chair where she sat,
+    "God has sent you two little sisters;
+      Now! what do you think of that?"
+
+    Bess looked at the babies a moment,
+      With their wee heads, yellow and brown,
+    And then to grandma soberly said,
+      "_Which one are you going to drown_?"
+
+
+
+
+AN UNACCOUNTABLE MYSTERY.
+
+BY PAUL DENTON.
+
+
+Intemperance is the strangest and most unaccountable mystery with which we
+have to deal. Why, as a rule, the human soul is passionately jealous of its
+own happiness, and tirelessly selfish as to its own interest. It delights
+to seek the sunshine and the flowers this side the grave: ardently hopes
+for heaven in the life to come. It flashes its penetrating thought through
+the dark chambers of the earth; or lighted by the lurid flames of
+smouldering, volcanic fires, wings them through buried ovens. It lights up
+the ocean's bed, melting its mysteries into solution, detecting its coral
+richness, and causing its buried pearls, which have rested for long
+centuries beneath the black waves, to glow with their long-hoarded beauty.
+It holds converse with the glittering planets of the skies and compels them
+to tell it of their mountain ranges, their landscapes, and their utility.
+It toys with the mad lightnings which break from the darkness, and guides
+death and destruction through the earth, until it allures the impetuous
+element into docility and subserviency. It bids the panting waters breathe
+their hot, heavy breath upon the piston-rod and make the locomotive a
+beautiful thing of life, majestically thundering its way over continents,
+screaming forth the music of civilization in the midst of wild forests and
+the heat of burning deserts, beneath scorching, torrid suns. It leaps over
+burning plains and scalding streams; restless and daring, it lights its
+casket over arctic zones and seas; and perhaps tiring of such incumbrance,
+deserts it in the cold shade of the ice mountain and speeds on untrammeled
+and alone. Franklin followed the beckonings of his tireless spirit until
+worn out and weary, his body laid down on the cold ice and slept. Kane
+coaxed himself home to the old churchyard, and then bade his spirit drop
+the machine it had so sadly wrenched and fly through earth or the
+eternities, as God might will. Livingstone marched through the jungles and
+cheerless forests of uninviting Africa, but his limbs were too feeble to
+keep up with his hungry soul, which tore itself from its burden and left it
+to crumble beneath the burning sun. And thus the soul flies from zone to
+zone and from world to world, sipping the sweets of wisdom, as the bee
+sucks honey from the flowers; reading lessons from the leaflet on the tree,
+studying the language of the soft whispering zephyr, and of the hurricane
+which springs from nothing into devastating power; and it is ever restless
+in its researches, for it seeks its own happiness and improvement in its
+new discoveries, and in a better knowledge of God's creation. Speak to the
+human soul of liberty, and swell it with gratitude, and, beaming with
+smiles, it will follow whereever you lead. Speak to it of its immortality
+and of the divine grandeur of its faculties, and, warmed by your
+appreciation, it will strive harder for a fuller development and brighter
+existence. Lead it among the roses, and it will seldom fail to light your
+pathway with smiles and to remind you of its gratitude. It loves to be
+noticed; loves to be assisted; loves to be made happy; loves to be warned
+of danger, and yet, with reference to that which pierces it with the most
+bleeding wounds, which more than anything else bars from it the sunlight
+and robs it of happiness--Intemperance--IT IS AS HEEDLESS AS THE STONE.
+
+
+
+
+IMPERFECTUS.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    I wonder if ever a song was sung,
+      But the singer's heart sang sweeter!
+    I wonder if ever a rhyme was rung,
+      But the thought surpassed the meter!
+    I wonder if ever a sculptor wrought,
+    Till the cold stone echoed his ardent thought!
+    Or if ever a painter, with light and shade,
+    The dream of his inmost heart portrayed!
+
+    I wonder if ever a rose was found,
+      And there might not be a fairer!
+    Or if ever a glittering gem was ground,
+      And we dreamed not of a rarer!
+    Ah! never on earth do we find the best,
+    But it waits for us in a Land of Rest,
+    And a perfect thing we shall never behold,
+    Till we pass the portals of shining gold.
+
+
+
+
+A WOMAN'S POCKET.
+
+BY JAMES M. BAILEY.
+
+
+The most difficult thing to reach is a woman's pocket. This is especially
+the case if the dress is hung up in a closet, and the man is in a hurry. We
+think we are safe in saying that he always is in a hurry on such an
+occasion. The owner of the dress is in the sitting room serenely engrossed
+in a book. Having told him that the article which he is in quest of is in
+her dress pocket in the closet she has discharged her whole duty in the
+matter and can afford to feel serene. He goes at the task with a dim
+consciousness that he has been there before, but says nothing. On opening
+the closet door and finding himself confronted with a number of dresses,
+all turned inside out and presenting a most formidable front, he hastens
+back to ask "Which dress?" and being told the brown one, and also asked if
+_she_ has so _many_ dresses that there need be any great effort to find the
+right one, he returns to the closet with alacrity, and soon has his hands
+on the brown dress. It is inside out like the rest,--a fact he does not
+notice, however, until he has made several ineffectual attempts to get his
+hand into it. Then he turns it around very carefully and passes over the
+pocket several times without knowing it. A nervous movement of his hands,
+and an appearance of perspiration on his forehead are perceptible. He now
+dives one hand in at the back, and feeling around, finds a place, and
+proceeds to explore it, when he discovers that he is following up the
+inside of a lining. The nervousness increases, also the perspiration. He
+twitches the dress on the hook, and suddenly the pocket, white, plump and
+exasperating, comes to view. Then he sighs the relief he feels and is
+mentally grateful he did not allow himself to use any offensive
+expressions. It is all right now. There is the pocket in plain view--not
+the inside but the outside--and all he has to do is to put his hand right
+around in the inside and take out the article. That is all. He can't help
+but smile to think how near he was to getting mad. Then he puts his hand
+around to the other side. He does not feel the opening. He pushes a little
+further--now he has got it; he shoves the hand down, and is very much
+surprised to see it appear opposite his knees. He had made a mistake. He
+tries again; again he feels the entrance and glides down it only to appear
+again as before. This makes him open his eyes and straighten his face. He
+feels of the outside of the pocket, pinches it curiously, lifts it up,
+shakes it, and, after peering closely about the roots of it, he says, "How
+funny!" and commences again. He does it calmly this time, because hurrying
+only makes matters worse. He holds up breadth after breadth, goes over them
+carefully, gets his hand first into a lining, then into the air again
+(where it always surprises him when it appears), and finally into a pocket,
+and is about to cry out with triumph, when he discovers that it is the
+pocket to another dress. He is mad now; the closet air almost stifles him;
+he is so nervous he can hardly contain himself, and the pocket looks at him
+so exasperatingly that he cannot help but "plug" it with his clenched fist,
+and immediately does it. Being somewhat relieved by this performance he has
+a chance to look about him, and sees that he has put his foot through a
+band-box and into the crown of his wife's bonnet; has broken the brim of
+his Panama hat which was hanging in the same closet, and torn about a yard
+of bugle trimming from a new cloak. All this trouble is due directly to his
+wife's infatuation in hanging up her dresses inside out, so he immediately
+starts after her, and impetuously urging her to the closet, excitedly and
+almost profanely intimates his doubts of their being a pocket in the dress,
+anyway. The cause of the unhappy disaster quietly inserts her hand inside
+the robe, and directly brings it forth with the sought for article in its
+clasp. He doesn't know why, but this makes him madder than anything else.
+
+
+
+
+MOTHER'S DOUGHNUTS.
+
+BY CHARLES F. ADAMS.
+
+_El Dorado, 1851._
+
+
+    I've just been down ter Thompson's, boys,
+      'N feelin' kind o' blue,
+    I thought I'd look in at "The Ranch,"
+      Ter find out what wuz new;
+    When I seed this sign a-hangin'
+      On a shanty by the lake:
+    "Here's whar yer get your doughnuts
+      Like yer mother used ter make."
+
+    I've seen a grizzly show his teeth,
+      I've seen Kentucky Pete
+    Draw out his shooter, 'n advise
+      A "tenderfoot" ter treat;
+    But nuthin' ever tuk me down,
+      'N made my benders shake,
+    Like that sign about the doughnuts
+      That my mother used ter make.
+
+    A sort o' mist shut out the ranch,
+      'N standin' thar instead,
+    I seen an old, white farm-house,
+      With its doors all painted red.
+    A whiff came through the open door--
+      Wuz I sleepin' or awake?
+    The smell wuz that of doughnuts
+      Like my mother used ter make.
+
+    The bees wuz hummin' round the porch
+      Whar honeysuckles grew;
+    A yellow dish of apple-sass
+      Wuz settin' thar in view.
+    'N on the table, by the stove,
+      An old-time "Johnny-cake,"
+    'N a platter full of doughnuts
+      Like my mother used ter make.
+
+    A patient form I seemed ter see,
+      In tidy dress of black,
+    I almost thought I heard the words,
+      "When will my boy come back?"
+    'N then--the old sign creaked:
+      But now it was the boss who spake:
+    'Here's whar yer gets yer doughnuts
+      Like yer mother used ter make.
+
+    Well, boys, that kind o' broke me up,
+      'N ez I've "struck pay gravel,"
+    I ruther think I'll pack my kit,
+      Vamoose the ranch, 'n travel.
+    I'll make the old folks jubilant,
+      'N if I don't mistake,
+    I'll try some o' them doughnuts
+      Like my mother used ter make.
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY ATTRACTIONS OF THE BIBLE.
+
+BY DR. HAMILTON.
+
+
+God made the present earth as the Home of Man; but had he meant it as a
+mere lodging, a world less beautiful would have served the purpose. There
+was no need for the carpet of verdure, or the ceiling of blue; no need for
+the mountains, and cataracts, and forests; no need for the rainbow, no need
+for the flowers. A big, round island, half of it arable, and half of it
+pasture, with a clump of trees in one corner, and a magazine of fuel in
+another, might have held and fed ten millions of people; and a hundred
+islands, all made in the same pattern, big and round, might have held and
+fed the population of the globe.
+
+But man is something more than the animal which wants lodging and food. He
+has a spiritual nature, full of keen perceptions and deep sympathies. He
+has an eye for the sublime and the beautiful, and his kind Creator has
+provided man's abode with affluent materials for these nobler tastes. He
+has built Mont Blanc, and molten the lake in which its image sleeps. He has
+intoned Niagara's thunder, and has breathed the zephyr which sweeps its
+spray. He has shagged the steep with its cedars, and be-sprent the meadow
+with its king-cups and daisies. He has made it a world of fragrance and
+music,--a world of brightness and symmetry,--a world where the grand and
+the graceful, the awful and lovely, rejoice together. In fashioning the
+Home of Man, the Creator had an eye to something more than convenience, and
+built, not a barrack, but a palace--not a Union work-house, but an
+Alhambra; something which should not only be very comfortable, but very
+splendid and very fair; something which should inspire the soul of its
+inhabitant, and even draw forth the "very good" of complacent Deity.
+
+God also made the Bible as the guide and oracle of man; but had He meant it
+as the mere lesson-book of duty, a volume less various and less attractive
+would have answered every end. But in giving that Bible, its divine Author
+had regard to the mind of man. He knew that man has more curiosity than
+piety, more taste than sanctity; and that more persons are anxious to hear
+some new, or read some beauteous thing, than to read or hear about God and
+the great salvation. He knew that few would ever ask, "What must I do to be
+saved?" till they came in contact with the Bible itself; and, therefore, He
+made the Bible not only an instructive book, but an attractive one,--not
+only true, but enticing. He filled it with marvelous incident and engaging
+history; with sunny pictures from Old World scenery, and affecting
+anecdotes from the patriarch times. He replenished it with stately argument
+and thrilling verse, and sprinkled it over with sententious wisdom and
+proverbial pungency. He made it a book of lofty thoughts and noble
+images,--a book of heavenly doctrine, but withal of earthly adaptation. In
+preparing a guide to immortality, Infinite Wisdom gave, not a dictionary,
+nor a grammar, but a Bible--a book which, in trying to reach the heart of
+man, should captivate his taste; and which, in transforming his affection,
+should also expand his intellect. The pearl is of great price; but even the
+casket is of exquisite beauty. The sword is of ethereal temper, and nothing
+cuts so keen as its double edge; but there are jewels on the hilt, an
+exquisite inlaying on the scabbard. The shekels are of the purest ore; but
+even the scrip which contains them is of a texture more curious than any
+which the artists of earth can fashion. The apples are gold; but even the
+basket is silver.
+
+The Bible contains no ornamental passages, nothing written for mere
+display; its steadfast purpose is, "Glory to God in the highest," and the
+truest blessedness of man; it abounds in passages of the purest beauty and
+stateliest grandeur, all the grander and all the more beautiful because
+they are casual and unsought. The fire which flashes from the iron hoof of
+the Tartar steed as he scours the midnight path is grander than the
+artificial firework; for it is the casual effect of speed and power. The
+clang of ocean as he booms his billows on the rock, and the echoing caves
+give chorus, is more soul-filling and sublime than all the music of the
+orchestra, for it is the music of that main so mighty that there is a
+grandeur in all it does,--in its sleep a melody, and in its march a stately
+psalm. And in the bow which paints the melting cloud there is a beauty
+which the stained glass or gorgeous drapery emulates in vain; for it is the
+glory which gilds beneficence, the brightness which bespeaks a double boon,
+the flush which cannot but come forth when both the sun and shower are
+there. The style of Scripture has all this glory. It has the gracefulness
+of a high utility; it has the majesty of intrinsic power; it has the charm
+of its own sanctity: it never labors, never strives, but, instinct with
+great realities and bent on blessed ends, it has all the translucent beauty
+and unstudied power which you might expect from its lofty object and
+all-wise Author.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS BABY.
+
+BY WILL CARLETON.
+
+    "Tha'rt welcome, little bonny brid.
+    But shouldn't ha' come just when tha' did:
+                        Teimes are bad."
+
+                    _English Ballad._
+
+
+    Hoot! ye little rascal! ye come it on me this way,
+    Crowdin' yerself amongst us this blusterin' winter's day,
+    Knowin' that we already have three of ye, an' seven,
+    An' tryin' to make yerself out a Christmas present o' Heaven?
+
+    Ten of ye have we now, Sir, for this world to abuse;
+    An' Bobbie he have no waistcoat, an' Nellie she have no shoes,
+    An' Sammie he have no shirt, Sir (I tell it to his shame),
+    An' the one that was just before ye we ain't had time to name!
+
+    An, all o' the banks be smashin', an' on us poor folk fall;
+    An' Boss he whittles the wages when work's to be had at all;
+    An' Tom he have cut his foot off, an' lies in a woful plight,
+    An' all of us wonders at mornin' as what we shall eat at night;
+
+    An' but for your father an' Sandy a-findin' somewhat to do,
+    An' but for the preacher's woman, who often helps us through,
+    An' but for your poor dear mother a-doin' twice her part,
+    Ye'd 'a seen us all in heaven afore _ye_ was ready to start!
+
+    An' now _ye_ have come, ye rascal! so healthy an' fat an' sound,
+    A-weighin', I'll wager a dollar, the full of a dozen pound!
+    With yer mother's eyes a flashin', yer father's flesh an' build,
+    An' a big mouth an' stomach all ready for to be filled!
+
+    No, no! don't cry, my baby! hush up, my pretty one!
+    Don't get my chaff in yer eye, boy--I only was just in fun.
+    Ye'll like us when ye know us, although we're cur'us folks;
+    But we don't get much victual, and half our livin' is jokes!
+
+    Why, boy, did ye take me in earnest? come, sit upon my knee;
+    I'll tell ye a secret, youngster, I'll name ye after me.
+    Ye shall have all yer brothers an' sisters with ye to play,
+    An' ye shall have yer carriage, an' ride out every day!
+
+    Why, boy, do ye think ye'll suffer? I'm gettin' a trifle old,
+    But it'll be many years yet before I lose my hold;
+    An' if I should fall on the road, boy, still, them's yer brothers, there,
+    An' not a rogue of 'em ever would see ye harmed a hair!
+
+    Say! when ye come from heaven, my little name-sake dear,
+    Did ye see, 'mongst the little girls there, a face like this one here?
+    That was yer little sister--she died a year ago,
+    An' all of us cried like babies when they laid her under the snow!
+
+    Hang it! if all the rich men I ever see or knew
+    Came here with all their traps, boy, an' offered 'em for you,
+    I'd show 'em to the door, Sir, so quick they'd think it odd,
+    Before I'd sell to another my Christmas gift from God!
+
+
+
+
+A DREAM OF THE UNIVERSE.
+
+BY JEAN PAUL RICHTER.
+
+
+Into the great vestibule of heaven, God called up a man from dreams,
+saying, "Come thou hither, and see the glory of my house." And, to the
+servants that stood around His throne, He said, "Take him, and undress him
+from his robes of flesh; cleanse his vision, and put a new breath into his
+nostrils; only touch not with any change his human heart,--the heart that
+weeps and trembles."
+
+It was done; and, with a mighty angel for his guide, the man stood ready
+for his infinite voyage; and from the terraces of heaven, without sound or
+farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. Sometimes, with
+solemn flight of angel wings, they fled through Saharas of
+darkness,--through wildernesses of death, that divided the world of life;
+sometimes they swept over frontiers that were quickening under the
+prophetic motions from God.
+
+Then, from a distance that is counted only in heaven, light dawned for a
+time through a sleepy film; by unutterable pace the light swept to them;
+they by unutterable pace to the light. In a moment, the rushing of planets
+was upon them; in a moment, the blazing of suns was around them.
+
+Then came eternities of twilight, that revealed, but were not revealed. On
+the right hand and on the left, towered mighty constellations, that by
+self-repetition and answers from afar, that by counter-positions, built up
+triumphal gates, whose architraves, whose archways--horizontal,
+upright--rested, rose--at altitudes by spans that seemed ghostly from
+infinitude. Without measure were the architraves, past number were the
+archways, beyond memory the gates.
+
+Within were stairs that scaled the eternities below; above was
+below,--below was above, to the man stripped of gravitating body; depth was
+swallowed up in height insurmountable; height was swallowed up in depth
+unfathomable. Suddenly, as thus they rode from infinite to infinite;
+suddenly, as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds, a mighty cry arose that
+systems more mysterious, that worlds more billowy, other heights and other
+depths, were coming--were nearing--were at hand.
+
+Then the man sighed, and stopped, and shuddered, and wept. His overladen
+heart uttered itself in tears; and he said, "Angel, I will go no farther;
+for the spirit of man acheth with this infinity. Insufferable is the glory
+of God. Let me lie down in the grave, and hide me from the persecutions of
+the Infinite; for end, I see, there is none."
+
+And from all the listening stars that shone around, issued a choral cry,
+"The man speaks truly; end there is none that ever yet we heard of." "End
+is there none?" the angel solemnly demanded: "Is there indeed no end, and
+is this the sorrow that kills you?" But no voice answered that he might
+answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands toward the
+heaven of heavens, saying, "End is there none to the universe of God! Lo,
+also there is no beginning!"
+
+
+
+
+KEENAN'S CHARGE.
+
+BY GEORGE P. LATHROP.
+
+(_Chancellorsville, May, 1863._)
+
+
+    The sun had set;
+    The leaves with dew were wet;
+    Down fell a bloody dusk
+    On the woods, that second of May,
+    Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey,
+    Tore through, with angry tusk.
+
+    "They've trapped us, boys!"--
+    Rose from our flank a voice.
+    With a rush of steel and smoke
+    On came the Rebels straight,
+    Eager as love and wild as hate:
+    And our line reeled and broke;
+    Broke and fled.
+    No one staid--but the dead!
+    With curses, shrieks and cries,
+    Horses and wagons and men
+    Tumbled back through the shuddering glen,
+    And above us the fading skies.
+
+    There's one hope, still,--
+    Those batteries parked on the hill!
+    "Battery, wheel!" (mid the roar)
+    "Pass pieces; fix prolonge to fire
+    Retiring. Trot!" In the panic dire
+    A bugle rings "Trot"--and no more.
+
+    The horses plunged,
+    The cannon lurched and lunged,
+    To join the hopeless rout.
+    But suddenly rode a form
+    Calmly in front of the human storm,
+    With a stern, commanding shout:
+
+    "Align those guns!"
+    (We knew it was Pleasonton's)
+    The cannoneers bent to obey,
+    And worked with a will, at his word:
+    And the black guns moved as if _they_ had heard.
+    But ah, the dread delay!
+
+    "To wait is crime;
+    O God, for ten minutes' time!"
+    The general looked around.
+    There Keenan sat, like a stone,
+    With his three hundred horse alone--
+    Less shaken than the ground.
+
+    "Major, your men?"
+    "Are soldiers, General." "Then,
+    Charge, Major! Do your best:
+    Hold the enemy back, at all cost,
+    Till my guns are placed;--else the army is lost.
+    You die to save the rest!"
+
+    By the shrouded gleam of the western skies,
+    Brave Keenan looked in Pleasonton's eyes
+    For an instant,--clear, and cool, and still;
+    Then, with a smile, he said: "I will."
+    "Cavalry, charge!" Not a man of them shrank.
+    Their sharp, full cheer, from rank on rank,
+    Rose joyously, with a willing breath,
+    Rose like a greeting hail to death.
+    Then forward they sprang, and spurred and clashed;
+    Shouted the officers, crimson-sashed;
+    Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow,
+    In their faded coats of the blue and yellow;
+    And above in the air with an instinct true,
+    Like a bird of war their pennon flew.
+
+    With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds,
+    And blades that shine like sunlit reeds,
+    And strong brown faces bravely pale
+    For fear their proud attempt shall fail,
+    Three hundred Pennsylvanians close
+    On twice ten thousand gallant foes.
+
+    Line after line the troopers came
+    To the edge of the wood that was ringed with flame;
+    Rode in and sabered and shot--and fell;
+    Nor came one back his wounds to tell.
+    And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall
+    In the gloom, like a martyr awaiting his fall,
+    While the circle-stroke of his saber, swung
+    Round his head like a halo there, luminous hung.
+    Line after line, ay, whole platoons,
+    Struck dead in their saddles, of brave dragoons
+    By the maddened horses were onward borne
+    And into the vortex flung, trampled and torn;
+    As Keenan fought with his men, side by side.
+    So they rode, till there were no more to ride.
+
+    But over them, lying there, shattered and mute,
+    What deep echo rolls?--'Tis a death-salute
+    From the cannon in place; for heroes, you braved
+    Your fate not in vain: the army was saved!
+
+    Over them now,--year following year,
+    Over their graves the pine-cones fall,
+    And the whip-poor-will chants his spectre-call;
+    But they stir not again; they raise no cheer:
+    They have ceased. But their glory shall never cease,
+    Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace.
+    The rush of their charge is resounding still
+    That saved the army at Chancellorsville.
+
+
+
+
+USEFUL PRECEPTS FOR GIRLS.
+
+
+First catch your lover.
+
+Hold him when you have him.
+
+Don't let go of him to catch every new one that comes along.
+
+Try to get very well acquainted with him before you take him for life.
+
+Unless you intend to support him, find out whether he earns enough to
+support you.
+
+Don't make up your mind he is an angel. Don't palm yourself off on him for
+one either.
+
+Don't let him spend his salary on you; that right should be reserved until
+after marriage.
+
+If you have any conscientious scruples about marrying a man with a mother,
+say so in time that he may either get rid of her to oblige you, or get rid
+of you to oblige her, as he thinks best.
+
+If you object to secret societies and tobacco, it is better to come with
+your objections now than to reserve them for curtain lectures hereafter.
+
+If your adorer happens to fancy a certain shade of hair, don't color bleach
+yours to oblige him. Remember your hair belongs to you and he doesn't.
+
+Be very sure it is the man you are in love with, and not the clothes he
+wears. Fortune and fashion are both so fickle it is foolish to take a
+stylish suit for better or worse.
+
+If you intend to keep three servants after marriage, settle the matter
+beforehand. The man who is making love to you may expect you to do your own
+washing.
+
+Don't try to hurry up a proposal by carrying on a flirtation with some
+other fellow. Different men are made of different material, and the one you
+want might go off in a fit of jealousy and forget to come back.
+
+If you have a love letter to write, do not copy it out of a "letter
+writer." If your young man ever happened to consult the same book he would
+know your sentiments were borrowed.
+
+Don't marry a man to oblige any third person in existence. It is your right
+to suit yourself in the matter. But remember at the same time that love is
+blind, and a little friendly advice from one whose advice is worth having
+may insure you a lifetime of happiness, or prevent one of misery.
+
+In love affairs always keep your eyes wide open, so that when the right man
+comes along you may see him.
+
+When you see him you will recognize him and the recognition will be mutual.
+
+If you have no fault to find with him personally, financially,
+conscientiously, socially, morally, politically, religiously, or in any
+other way, he is probably perfect enough to suit you, and you can afford
+to--
+
+Believe in him; hope in him; love him; marry him!
+
+
+
+
+WIDDER BUDD.
+
+
+    I'm fifty, I'm fair, and without a gray hair,
+      An' I feel just ez young as a girl.
+    When I think o' Zerubbabel Lee, I declare
+      It sets me all into a whirl.
+    Last night he waz here, an' I told him to "clear"--
+      An' my! How supprised he did look:
+    Perhaps I wuz rash, but he's after my _cash_--
+      I see through his plans like a book.
+
+    Some offers I've had that I cannot call bad;
+      There was Deacon Philander Breezee;
+    I'd a sartin sed _Yes_, when he wanted a kiss,
+      Ef he hadn't so flustrated me.
+    It took me so quick that it felt like a kick--
+      I flew all to pieces at once;
+    Sez I, "You kin go--I'm not wanting a beau;"
+      I acted, I know, like a dunce.
+
+    Sez he, ez he rose, "I hev come to propose."
+      I stopped him afore he began:
+    Sez I, "You kin go, an' see Hepzibah Stow--
+      _I won't be tied down to a man_."
+    "Mariar," ses he, "Widder Tompkins an' me
+      Kin strike up a bargain, I know;
+    An', seein' ez we can't decide to agree,
+      I guess that I hed better go."
+
+    He picked up his hat from the chair where it sat,
+      An' solemnly started away.
+    Sez I, with a look that I'm _sure_ he mistook,
+      "You're perfectly welcome to stay."
+    My face got ez red ez our old waggin-shed--
+      I thought for the land I should melt.
+    Sez he, "I am done. Good night, leetle one,"
+      I _wish_ he'd a known how I felt.
+
+    To-day, Isaac Beers, with his snickers and sneers,
+      Whose face is ez ugly ez sin,
+    Dropped in just to see about buyin' my steers,
+      An' tickled the mole on my chin.
+    Sez I, "You jest quit; I don't like you a bit;
+      You can't come your sawder on me.
+    You'd better behave till Jane's cold in her grave,
+      Your manners is ruther too free."
+
+    When dear David died (sniff--sniff), ez I sot by his side (sniff--sniff);
+      He ketched up my hand in his own (sniff--sniff);
+    He squeezed it awhile (sniff--sniff), an' he sez with a smile
+        (sniff--sniff),
+      "You'll soon be a widder alone (sniff--sniff--sniff),
+    An' when I am gone (sniff--sniff) don't you fuss an' take on (sniff--sniff)
+      Like old Widder Dorothy Day (sniff--sniff).
+    Look out for your tin (sniff--sniff) if you marry agin (sniff--sniff),
+      Nor throw your affections away (sniff--sniff--sniff)."
+
+    My children hev grown, an' have homes o' their own--
+      They're doin' ez well ez they can (_wipes her eyes and nose_):
+    An' I'm gettin' sick o' this livin' alone--
+      I wouldn't mind havin' a man.
+    Fur David hez gone to the mansion above--
+      His body is cold in the ground,
+    Ef you know of a man who would marry for love,
+      Jest find him an' send him around.
+
+
+
+
+HIS LAST COURT.
+
+
+Old Judge Grepson, a justice of the peace, was never known to smile. He
+came to Arkansas years ago, and year after year, by the will of the voters,
+he held his place as magistrate. The lawyers who practiced in his court
+never joked with him, because every one soon learned that the old man never
+engaged in levity. Every morning, no matter how bad the weather might be,
+the old man took his place behind the bar which, with his own hands, he had
+made, and every evening, just at a certain time, he closed his books and
+went home. No one ever engaged him in private conversation, because he
+would talk to no one. No one ever went to his home, a little cottage among
+the trees in the city's outskirts, because he had never shown a disposition
+to make welcome the visits of those who even lived in the immediate
+vicinity. His office was not given him through the influence of
+"electioneering," because he never asked any man for his vote. He was first
+elected because, having been once summoned in a case of arbitration, he
+exhibited the executive side of such a legal mind that the people nominated
+and elected him. He soon gained the name of the "hard justice," and every
+lawyer in Arkansas referred to his decision. His rulings were never
+reversed by the higher courts. He showed no sentiment in decision. He stood
+upon the platform of a law which he made a study, and no one disputed him.
+
+One day, a woman, charged with misdemeanor, was arraigned before him. "The
+old man seems more than ever unsteady," remarked a lawyer as the magistrate
+took his seat. "I don't see how a man so old can stand the vexation of a
+court much longer."
+
+"I am not well to-day," said the Judge, turning to the lawyers, "and any
+cases that you may have you will please dispatch them to the best, and let
+me add, quickest of your ability."
+
+Every one saw that the old man was unusually feeble, and no one thought of
+a scheme to prolong a discussion, for all the lawyers had learned to
+reverence him.
+
+"Is this the woman?" asked the Judge. "Who is defending her?"
+
+"I have no defence, your Honor," the woman replied. "In fact, I do not
+think I need any, for I am here to confess my guilt. No man can defend me,"
+and she looked at the magistrate with a curious gaze. "I have been arrested
+on a charge of disturbing the peace, and I am willing to submit my case. I
+am dying of consumption, Judge, and I know that any ruling made by the law
+can have but little effect on me;" and she coughed a hollow, hacking cough,
+and drew around her an old black shawl that she wore. The expression on the
+face of the magistrate remained unchanged, but his eyelids dropped and he
+did not raise them when the woman continued:
+
+"As I say, no man can defend me. I am too near that awful separation of
+soul and body. Years ago I was a child of brightest promise. I lived with
+my parents in Kentucky. Wayward and light-hearted, I was admired by all the
+gay society known in the neighborhood. A man came and professed his love
+for me. I don't say this, Judge, to excite your sympathy. I have many and
+many a time been drawn before courts, but I never before spoke of my past
+life."
+
+She coughed again and caught a flow of blood on a handkerchief which she
+pressed to her lips. "I speak of it now because I know that this is the
+last court on earth before which I will be arraigned. I was fifteen years
+old when I fell in love with the man. My father said he was bad, but I
+loved him. He came again and again, and when my father said that he should
+come no more I ran away and married him. My father said I should never come
+home again. I had always been his pride and had loved him dearly, but he
+said that I must never again come to his home,--my home, the home of my
+youth and happiness. How I longed to see him. How I yearned to put my head
+on his breast. My husband became addicted to drink. He abused me. I wrote
+to my father, asking him to let me come home, but the answer that came was
+'I don't know you!' My husband died--yes, cursed God and died! Homeless and
+wretched, and with my little boy I went out into the world. My child died,
+and I bowed down and wept over a pauper's grave. I wrote to my father
+again, but he answered: 'I know not those who disobey my commandments!' I
+turned away from that letter, hardened. I spurned my teachings. Now I am
+here."
+
+Several lawyers rushed forward. A crimson stream flowed from her lips. They
+leaned her lifeless head back against the chair. The old magistrate had not
+raised his eyes; "Great God!" said a lawyer, "he is dead!"
+
+The woman was his daughter.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEAD DOLL.
+
+BY MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.
+
+
+    You needn't be trying to comfort me--I tell you my dolly is dead!
+    There's no use in saying she isn't with a crack like that in her head;
+    It's just like you said it wouldn't hurt much to have my tooth out,
+        that day,
+    And then, when the man 'most pulled my head off, you hadn't a word to say.
+
+    And I guess you must think I'm a baby, when you say you can mend it
+        with glue,
+    As if I didn't know better than that! Why, just suppose it was you?
+    You might make her look all mended--but what do I care for looks?
+    Why glue's for chairs and tables, and toys, and the backs of books!
+
+    My dolly! my own little daughter! Oh, but it's the awfullest crack!
+    It just makes me sick to think of the sound when her poor head went whack
+    Against that horrible brass thing that holds up that little shelf.
+    Now, Nursey, what makes you remind me? I know that I did it myself?
+
+    I think you must be crazy--you'll get her another head!
+    What good would forty heads do her? I tell you my dolly is dead!
+    And to think I hadn't quite finished her elegant new Spring hat!
+    And I took a sweet ribbon of her's last night to tie on that horrid cat!
+
+    When my mamma gave me that ribbon--I was playing out in the yard--
+    She said to me most expressly, "Here's a ribbon for Hildegarde."
+    And I went and put it on Tabby, and Hildegarde saw me do it;
+    But I said to myself, "Oh, never mind, I don't believe she knew it!"
+
+    But I know that she knew it now, and I just believe I do,
+    That her poor little heart was broken, and so her head broke too.
+    Oh, my baby! my little baby! I wish my head had been hit!
+    For I've hit it over and over, and it hasn't cracked a bit.
+
+    But since the darling is dead, she'll want to be buried, of course;
+    We will take my little wagon, Nurse, and you shall be the horse;
+    And I'll walk behind and cry; and we'll put her in this, you see--
+    This dear little box--and we'll bury her there out under the maple tree.
+
+    And papa will make me a tombstone, like the one he made for my bird;
+    And he'll put what I tell him on it--yes, every single word!
+    I shall say, "Here lies Hildegarde, a beautiful doll, who is dead;
+    She died of a broken heart, and a dreadful crack in her head."
+
+
+
+
+AT THE STAMP WINDOW.
+
+
+Just before twelve o'clock yesterday fore-noon there were thirteen men and
+one woman at the stamp window of the post-office. Most of the men had
+letters to post for the out-going trains. The woman had something tied up
+in a blue match-box. She got there first, and she held the position with
+her head in the window and both elbows on the shelf.
+
+"Is there such a place in this country as Cleveland?" she began.
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Do you send mail there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, a woman living next door asked me to mail this box for her. I guess
+it's directed all right. She said it ought to go for a cent."
+
+"Takes two cents," said the clerk, after weighing it. "If there is writing
+inside it will be twelve cents."
+
+"Mercy on me, but how you do charge!"
+
+Here the thirteen men began to push up and hustle around and talk about one
+old match-box delaying two dozen business letters, but the woman had lots
+of time.
+
+"Then it will be two cents, eh?"
+
+"If there is no writing inside."
+
+"Well, there may be. I know she is a great hand to write. She's sending
+some flower seeds to her sister, and I presume she has told her how to
+plant 'm."
+
+"Two threes!" called out one of the crowd, as he tried to get to the
+window.
+
+"Hurry up!" cried another.
+
+"There ought to be a separate window here for women," growled a third.
+
+"Then it will take twelve cents?" she calmly queried, as she fumbled around
+for her purse.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I'd better pay it, I guess."
+
+From one pocket she took two coppers. From her reticule she took a three
+cent piece. From her purse she fished out a nickel; and it was only after a
+hunt of eighty seconds that she got the twelve cents together. She then
+consumed four minutes in licking on the stamps, asking where to post the
+box, and wondering if there really was any writing inside,--but woman
+proposes and man disposes. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of business was
+being detained by a twelve-cent woman, and a tidal wave suddenly took her
+away from the window. In sixty seconds the thirteen men had been waited on
+and gone their ways, and the woman returned to the window, handed in the
+box, and said:
+
+"Them stamps are licked on kind o' crooked, but it won't make any
+difference, will it?"
+
+
+
+
+THE NAMELESS GUEST.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    I wonder if ever the Angel of Death
+      Comes down from the great Unknown,
+    And soars away, on the wings of night,
+      Unburdened and alone!
+    I wonder if ever the angels' eyes,
+     Are filled with pitying tears,
+    As they grant to the souls, unfit for flight,
+      A few more weary years!
+
+    For it seems, at times, when the world is still,
+      And the soft night winds are whist,
+    As though some spirit were hovering near,
+      In folds of dream-like mist,
+    And I feel, though mortals are nowhere near,
+      That I am not quite alone,
+    And, with dreary thoughts of dying and death,
+      My heart grows cold as stone.
+
+    But whether 'tis death that hovers near,
+      And knocks at the door of my heart,
+    Or whether 'tis some bright angel, come
+      To be of my life a part,
+    I cannot tell, and I long in vain,
+      The secret strange to know,
+    While the moments of mirth and grief and pain,
+      Move on in their ceaseless flow.
+
+    And at night, when I kneel to a Higher Power
+      And ask His tender care,
+    One yearning cry of a wayward life
+      Is the burden of my prayer,
+    That I may bend, with willing lips,
+      To kiss the chastening rod,
+    And learn the way, through the golden gate,
+      To the great white throne of God.
+
+
+
+
+OUR HEROES SHALL LIVE.
+
+BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.
+
+
+This brief extract from a splendid oration should be spoken in clear,
+defined tones, rather high pitch, the utterance slow, with a rather long
+pause after each question:
+
+Oh, tell me not that they are dead--that generous host, that airy army of
+invisible heroes. They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are
+they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal
+language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon
+society, and inspire the people with nobler motives, and more heroic
+patriotism?
+
+Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. It _was_ your son, but
+now he is the nation's. He made your household bright: now his example
+inspires a thousand households. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now
+brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed,
+appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, and given to
+all. Before he was yours: he _is_ ours. He has died from the family, that
+he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgotten or neglected:
+and it shall by and by be confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an
+ancient hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his
+whole life.
+
+
+
+
+LULLABY.
+
+
+    "Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green;
+    Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen."
+    Rockaby, lullaby, all the day long,
+    Down to the land of the lullaby song.
+    Babyland never again will be thine,
+    Land of all mystery, holy, divine,
+            Motherland, otherland,
+            Wonderland, underland,
+    Land of a time ne'er again to be seen;
+            Flowerland, bowerland,
+            Airyland, fairyland,
+    Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green.
+
+    Rockaby, baby, thy mother will keep
+    Gentle watch over thine azure-eyed sleep;
+    Baby can't feel what the mother-heart knows,
+    Throbbing its fear o'er your quiet repose.
+    Mother-heart knows how baby must fight
+    Wearily on through the fast coming night;
+            Battle unending,
+            Honor defending,
+    Baby must wage with the power unseen.
+            Sleep now, O baby, dear!
+            God and thy mother near;
+    Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green.
+
+    Rockaby, baby, the days will grow long;
+    Silent the voice of the mother-love song,
+    Bowed with sore burdens the man-life must own,
+    Sorrows that baby must bear all alone.
+    Wonderland never can come back again;
+    Thought will come soon--and with reason comes pain,
+            Sorrowland, motherland,
+            Drearyland, wearyland,
+    Baby and heavenland lying between.
+            Smile, then, in motherland,
+            Dream in the otherland,
+    Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green.
+
+
+
+
+PENNING A PIG.
+
+JAMES M. BAILEY.
+
+
+Two families in Slawson had a somewhat singular experience several weeks
+ago. These families live in a double house, and each had a pen with two
+pigs. Last Friday the woman in one part discovered that her two pigs were
+free from their pen, and looking after geological specimens at the foot of
+the yard. She also discovered at the same time that the gate to a cabbage
+yard adjoining was open, and that the pigs might at any moment become
+ravished by a view of the glories within.
+
+Her husband being away she hurriedly secured the gate, and then set about
+to return the truants by the following ingenious plan: Taking a shovelful
+of corn, she approached as close to the animals as possible, and, holding
+the tempting morsel near enough for them to learn its inviting character,
+she screwed her face into an expression of winning sweetness, and backed
+slowly toward the pen.
+
+It was a beautiful illustration of woman's faith, and we regret to write
+that it did not work. The pigs took one snuff at the contents of the
+shovel, just to show that they took some interest in the matter, and, being
+convinced thereby that there was nothing injurious in the experiment, fell
+to rooting about again with renewed fervor.
+
+The nearer the woman came to the pen the straighter her face grew, and
+presently lost every vestige of solicitude, and assumed instead an
+expression of medium ferocity. What she may have done will never be known,
+as at this juncture her husband made his appearance on the back stoop, and,
+her eye resting upon him, she commenced to apostrophize him in the language
+married people alone are adepts at.
+
+After requesting somebody to show him the idiot who had left those hogs out
+that he might punch his head, he drove straight at the truants, and missed
+them, of course. Then he drove at them again with a clothes pole, and
+missed them again, although he made another pole by hitting that on a
+stone. Any one who has helped to drive one or two pigs will readily
+understand the number of articles that passed through the air, and the
+style of conversation the man kept up during the chase.
+
+Finally, he got one of the animals in a corner, and, being by this time
+utterly regardless of personal appearance or consequences, threw himself
+upon the brute, neatly scraping the fence with the top of his head, and
+falling upon the pig in such a way as to hold in abeyance every one of its
+muscles except those in the throat. These were at once put into active
+operation, and the man for a moment thought he had captured a planing-mill.
+Then he raised slowly, keeping a tight hold of the animal, and getting on
+his feet with a pig in his arms, struck out for the pen, preceded by his
+wife and the other woman, and closely and anxiously observed by all the
+neighbors for a half-mile around.
+
+In this way the procession laboriously moved. The pig, having worked its
+head within two inches of the man's ear, was pouring therein a tale of
+unparalleled distress, which, if not calculated to melt the stoutest heart,
+actually threatened to split open the stoutest head. The man was utterly
+powerless to remedy the horror, having both hands engaged, and could only
+twist his ear a little out of range, and scream at the top of his voice his
+plans for the future of "them hogs."
+
+On reaching the pen, and while in the act of dumping the howling viper over
+the side, the woman next door made an unfortunate discovery. _His_ hogs
+were in the pen; the truants were _hers_. The man, who was still holding
+the pig, and might have, with reason, taken a prominent part in the debate,
+contented himself by merely expressing a hope that he might be blessed, and
+then trudged around to the other pen, where he arrived after much unlooked
+for tribulation, and again hoisted the howling monster up to the top, when
+the woman next door made another and still more remarkable discovery. Her
+pigs were in their pen.
+
+"What's that?" screamed the man, who was so fixed he could not very well
+see into the pen, and was obliged to lift his voice to make himself heard
+above the din.
+
+"Them ain't my pigs," screamed the woman.
+
+"Why ain't they?" he yelled.
+
+"Cause my pigs are here," she shrieked back.
+
+It is needless to say that the strange animals were urged out of that
+garden without the use of subterfuge.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE JIM.
+
+BY GEORGE R. SIMS.
+
+
+          Our little Jim
+          Was such a limb
+    His mother scarce could manage him.
+          His eyes were blue,
+          And looked you through,
+          And seemed to say,
+          "I'll have my way!"
+          His age was six,
+          His saucy tricks
+          But made you smile,
+          Though all the while
+          You said, "You limb,
+          You wicked Jim,
+                Be quiet, do!"
+
+          Poor little Jim!
+          Our eyes are dim
+    When soft and low we speak of him.
+          No clattering shoe
+          Goes running through
+          The silent room,
+          Now wrapped in gloom.
+          So still he lies,
+          With fast-shut eyes,
+          No need to say,
+          Alas! to-day,
+          "You little limb,
+          You baby Jim,
+                Be quiet, do!"
+
+
+
+
+GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOURSELF.
+
+BY R. J. BURDETTE.
+
+
+Telemachus, it will do you ever so much good if every once in a while you
+will go away by yourself for an hour or two and get real well acquainted
+with yourself. As a man thinketh, so he is. And you will never "know
+thyself" thoroughly unless now and then you get alone and sit down and talk
+to yourself, cross-examine yourself; learn what you know; what are your
+ambitions, your aims, your hopes,--what is your real character; because, my
+dear boy, your reputation may be one thing and your character quite
+another. Sometimes it does happen, in this faulty old world, that a really
+good man, a man whose character is above reproach, may bear the reputation
+of a rascal; and once in a while--two or three times in a while, in fact--a
+rascal wears the stolen reputation of an honest man. Go away now and then,
+my boy, and sit down all by yourself and think. Think of nothing under the
+sun only yourself. Yes, I know, my son, there are men who never think of
+anything else, and God never made more useless men; but that is because
+they do all their thinking about themselves publicly and loud. They never
+think alone.
+
+You will be honest with yourself when you are alone, my boy. A man is apt
+to be honest with himself in the dark. He does not pose in heroic postures
+when he has no audience. When he stands face to face with himself, with no
+human eye to watch him, and no human ear to listen to his confession, and
+only his Maker, who knows every secret motive and thought of his life to
+see and to listen, a man has to be honest. How could he be a hypocrite
+then?
+
+Get away from the crowd a little while every day, my boy. Stand one side
+and let the world run by, while you get acquainted with yourself, and see
+what kind of a fellow you are. Ask yourself hard questions about yourself.
+Find out all you can about yourself. Ascertain from original sources if you
+are really the manner of man people say you are. Find out if you are
+always honest; if you always tell the square, perfect truth in business
+deals; if your life is as good and upright at eleven o'clock at night as it
+is at noon; if you are as sound a temperance man on a fishing expedition as
+you are at a Sabbath-school picnic; if you are as good a boy when you go to
+Chicago as you are at home; if, in short, you really are the manner of
+young man your father hopes you are, your mother says you are, and your
+sweetheart believes you are. Get on intimate terms with yourself, my boy,
+and, believe me, every time you come out from one of those private
+interviews you will be a better, stronger, purer man. Don't forget this,
+Telemachus, and it will do you good.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE WHITE HEARSE.
+
+BY J. W. RILEY.
+
+
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by--
+      The man on the coal cart jerked his lines,
+    And smutted the lid of either eye,
+      And turned and stared at the business signs;
+    And the street-car driver stopped and beat
+    His hands on his shoulders and gazed up street
+    Till his eye on the long track reached the sky--
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by.
+
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by--
+      A stranger petted a ragged child
+    In the crowded walk, and she knew not why,
+      But he gave her a coin for the way she smiled;
+    And a bootblack thrilled with a pleasure strange
+    As a customer put back his change
+    With a kindly hand and a grateful sigh--
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by.
+
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by--
+      A man looked out of a window dim,
+    And his cheeks were wet and his heart was dry--
+      For a dead child even were dear to him!
+    And he thought of his empty life and said:
+    "Loveless alive and loveless dead,
+    Nor wife nor child in earth or sky!"--
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by.
+
+
+
+
+THERE'LL BE ROOM IN HEAVEN.
+
+
+She was a little old woman, very plainly dressed in black bombazine that
+had seen much careful wear; her bonnet was very old-fashioned, and people
+stared at her tottering up the aisle of the church, evidently bent on
+securing one of the best seats, for a great man preached that day. The
+house was filled with splendidly dressed people who had heard of the fame
+of the preacher, of his learning, his intellect and goodness, and they
+wondered at the presumption of the poor old woman. She must have been in
+her dotage, for she picked out the pew of the richest and proudest member
+of the church and took a seat. The three ladies who were seated there
+beckoned to the sexton, who bent over the intruder and whispered something,
+but she was hard of hearing, and smiled a little withered smile, as she
+said, gently: "Oh, I'm quite comfortable here, quite comfortable."
+
+"But you are not wanted here," said the sexton, pompously; "there is not
+room. Come with me, my good woman; I will see that you have a seat."
+
+"Not room," said the old woman, looking at her shrunken proportions, and
+then at the fine ladies. "Why, I'm not crowded a bit. I rode ten miles to
+hear the sermon to-day, because--"
+
+But here the sexton took her by the arm, shook her roughly in a polite
+underhand way, and then she took the hint. Her faded old eyes filled with
+tears, her chin quivered; but she rose meekly and left the pew. Turning
+quietly to the ladies, who were spreading their rich dresses over the space
+she left vacant, she said gently: "I hope, my dears, there'll be room in
+heaven for us all." Then she followed the pompous sexton to the rear of the
+church where, in the last pew, she was seated between a threadbare girl and
+a shabby old man.
+
+"She must be crazy," said one of the ladies in the pew which she had first
+occupied. "What can an ignorant old woman like her want to hear Dr. ----
+preach for? She would not be able to understand a word he said."
+
+"Those people are so persistent! The idea of her forcing herself into our
+pew! Isn't that voluntary lovely? There's Dr. ---- coming out of the
+vestry. Is he not grand?"
+
+"Splendid! What a stately man! You know he has promised to dine with us
+while he is here."
+
+He was a commanding looking man, and as the organ voluntary stopped, and he
+looked over the great crowd of worshipers gathered in the vast church, he
+seemed to scan every face. His hand was on the Bible when suddenly he
+leaned over the reading desk and beckoned to the sexton, who obsequiously
+mounted the steps to receive a mysterious message. And then the three
+ladies in the grand pew were electrified to see him take his way the whole
+length of the church to return with the old woman, when he placed her in
+the front pew of all, its other occupants making willing room for her. The
+great preacher looked at her with a smile of recognition, and then the
+services proceeded, and he preached a sermon that struck fire from every
+heart.
+
+"Who was she?" asked the ladies who could not make room for her, as they
+passed the sexton at the door.
+
+"The preacher's mother," was the reply.
+
+
+
+
+THE RETORT DIS-COURTEOUS.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    Mr. Michael McGlynn, of Dublin town,
+      And Dinny O'Doyle, of Kildare,
+    Through the streets of the city, went up and down,
+      A remarkably guileless pair.
+    Said Michael to Dinny: "Me darlin' bhoy,
+      Since the roise o' the mornin' sun,
+    Niver a dhrop or a boite have Oi,
+      Oi think I could ate a bun."
+
+    Said Dinny to Michael: "Av coorse: av coorse!
+      To ate is the woise man's part;
+    Oi have a sinsation loike that mesilf,
+      Oi think Oi could touch a tart."
+    So the kindred souls of this guileless pair,
+      An eating house speedily found,
+    And before them a jar on the table sat,
+      Full of horseradish, freshly ground.
+
+    With a tablespoon, Mr. Michael McGlynn
+      Took all that his mouth would hold,
+    Then gasped for breath, while his head turned hot
+      And his spine turned icy cold.
+    The tears on his cheeks came rolling down,
+      But he had no breath to swear,
+    So he simply clutched at the tablecloth,
+      And tore at his red, red hair.
+
+    Amazed and surprised, Mr. Dinny O'Doyle
+      Said: "Michael, me darlin' bhoy,
+    Phwat's troublin' yer sowl? Phwat's wrong wid ye now?
+      Phwat's the raison ye've tears in yer oi?"
+
+    "Oh, nothin," said Michael; "my grandfather doid
+      Some twenty-foive years ago,
+    Oi chanced to remember the fine owld man,
+      An' Oi couldn't help croiyin', ye know.
+
+    "But, Dinny O'Doyle, doant mind it at all;
+      How wake an' how choildish Oi same,"
+    Then he passed the horseradish and spoon and all;
+      "Have some of this nice oice crame!"
+    So Dinny dipped into the treacherous jar,
+      And the tears quickly sprang to his eyes,
+    While Michael McGlynn, who had got back his breath,
+      Affected a strange surprise.
+
+    "Phy, Dinny, me bhoy, ye're croiyin' yersilf,"
+      He said with a chuckle and grin;
+    "Phwat's troublin' _yer_ sowl? Phwat's wrong wid _ye_ now?
+      Is it wapin' ye are for a sin?"
+    "Is it askin' ye are, phwat's makin' me croiy?"
+      Said Dinny, "Oi'll spake as Oi'm bid,
+    Oi'm croiyin' bekase Mr. Michael McGlynn,
+      Didn't doi when his grandfather did."
+
+
+
+
+ZENOBIA'S DEFENCE.
+
+BY WILLIAM WARE.
+
+     [Zenobia became Queen of Palmyra A. D. 267, after the
+     murder of her husband, Odenatus. She was a woman of
+     great energy and assumed the title of Queen of the
+     East. She was deprived of her dominion by Aurelian A.
+     D. 272, and died in retirement near Rome.]
+
+
+I am charged with pride and ambition. The charge is true, and I glory in
+its truth. Whoever achieved anything great in letters, arts, or arms, who
+was not ambitious? Cæsar was not more ambitious than Cicero. It was but in
+another way. All greatness is born of ambition. Let the ambition be a noble
+one, and who shall blame it? I confess I did once aspire to be queen, not
+only of Palmyra, but of the East. That I am. I now aspire to remain so. Is
+it not an honorable ambition? Does it not become a descendant of the
+Ptolemies and of Cleopatra? I am applauded by you all for what I have
+already done. You would not it should have been less.
+
+But why pause here? Is _so_ much ambition praiseworthy, and _more_
+criminal? Is it fixed in nature that the limits of this empire should be
+Egypt on the one hand, the Hellespont and the Euxine on the other? Were not
+Suez and Armenia more natural limits? Or hath empire no natural limit, but
+is broad as the genius that can devise, and the power that can win? Rome
+has the West. Let Palmyra possess the East. Not that nature prescribes this
+and no more. The gods prospering, I mean that the Mediterranean shall not
+hem me in upon the west, or Persia on the east. Longinus is right,--I would
+that the world were mine. I feel, within, the will and the power to bless
+it, were it so.
+
+Are not my people happy? I look upon the past and the present, upon my
+nearer and remoter subjects, and ask, nor fear the answer, Whom have I
+wronged? What province have I oppressed, what city pillaged, what region
+drained with taxes? Whose life have I unjustly taken, or whose estates have
+I coveted or robbed? Whose honor have I wantonly assailed? Whose rights,
+though of the weakest and poorest, have I violated? I dwell, where I would
+ever dwell, in the hearts of my people. It is written in your faces, that I
+reign not more over you than within you. The foundation of my throne is not
+more power than love.
+
+Suppose, now, my ambition should add another province to our realm. Would
+that be an evil? The kingdoms already bound to us by the joint acts of
+ourselves and the late royal Odenatus, we found discordant and at war. They
+are now united and at peace. One harmonious whole has grown out of hostile
+and sundered parts. At my hands they receive a common justice and equal
+benefits. The channels of their commerce have I opened, and dug them deep
+and sure. Prosperity and plenty are in all their borders. The streets of
+our capital bear testimony to the distant and various industry which here
+seeks its market.
+
+This is no vain boasting: receive it not so, good friends. It is but the
+truth. He who traduces himself sins in the same way as he who traduces
+another. He who is unjust to himself, or less than just, breaks a law, as
+well as he who hurts his neighbor. I tell you what I am, and what I have
+done, that your trust for the future may not rest upon ignorant grounds. If
+I am more than just to myself, rebuke me. If I have over-stepped the
+modesty that became me, I am open to your censure, and I will bear it.
+
+But I have spoken that you may know your queen, not only by her acts, but
+by her admitted principles. I tell you, then, that I am ambitious, that I
+crave dominion, and while I live will reign. Sprung from a line of kings, a
+throne is my natural seat. I love it. But I strive, too--you can bear me
+witness that I do--that it shall be, while I sit upon it, an honored,
+unpolluted seat. If I can, I will hang a yet brighter glory around it.
+
+
+
+
+A SERENADE.[1]
+
+BY THOMAS HOOD.
+
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!"
+      Thus I heard a father cry.
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      The brat will never shut an eye;
+    Hither come, some power divine!
+    Close his lids or open mine!
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      What the mischief makes him cry?
+        Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Still he stares--I wonder why;
+    Why are not the sons of earth
+    Blind, like puppies, from their birth?
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!"
+      Thus I heard the father cry;
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Mary, you must come and try!
+    Hush, oh, hush, for mercy's sake--
+    The more I sing, the more you wake!
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Fie, you little creature, fie!
+        Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Is no poppy-syrup nigh?
+    Give him some, or give him all,
+    I am nodding to his fall!
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Two such nights and I shall die!
+        Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      He'll be bruised, and so shall I--
+    How can I from bedposts keep,
+    When I'm walking in my sleep?
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Sleep his very looks deny;
+        Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Nature soon will stupefy--
+    My nerves relax--my eyes grow dim--
+    Who's that fallen, me or him?"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] This poem can be made very effective as a humorous recitation by the
+performer imitating a sleepy father vainly endeavoring to quiet a restless
+child. A doll, or something to represent one, should be held in the arms.
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN VASHTI.
+
+BY T. DEWITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+We stand amid the palaces of Shushan. The pinnacles are aflame with the
+morning light. The columns rise festooned and wreathed, the wealth of
+empires flashing from the grooves; the ceilings adorned with images of bird
+and beast, and scenes of prowess and conquest. The walls are hung with
+shields, and emblazoned until it seems that the whole round of splendors is
+exhausted. Each arch is a mighty leap of architectural achievement,--golden
+stars, shining down on glowing arabesque; hangings of embroidered work, in
+which mingle the blueness of the sky, the greenness of the grass and the
+whiteness of the sea foam; tapestries hung on silver rings, wedding
+together the pillars of marble. Pavilions reach out in every
+direction,--these for repose, filled with luxuriant couches, in which weary
+limbs sink until all fatigue is submerged; these for carousal, where kings
+drink down a kingdom at one swallow.
+
+Amazing spectacle! Light of silver dripping down over stairs of ivory on
+shields of gold; floors of stained marble, sunset red and night black, and
+inlaid with gleaming pearl. Why, it seems as if a heavenly vision of
+amethyst, and jacinth, and topaz, and chrysoprasus had descended and
+alighted upon Shushan. It seems as if a billow of celestial glory had
+dashed clear over heaven's battlements upon this metropolis of Persia.
+
+In connection with this palace there is a garden, where the mighty men of
+foreign lands are seated at a banquet. Under the spread of oak, and linden,
+and acacia, the tables are arranged. The breath of honey-suckle and
+frankincense fills the air. Fountains leap up into the light, the spray
+struck through with rainbows falling in crystalline baptism upon flowering
+shrubs--then rolling down through channels of marble, and widening out here
+and there into pools swirling with the finny tribes of foreign aquariums,
+bordered with scarlet anemones, hypericums, and many colored ranunculus;
+meats of rarest bird and beast smoking up amid wreaths of aromatics; the
+vases filled with apricots and almonds; the basket piled up with apricots,
+and dates, and figs, and oranges, and pomegranates; melons tastefully
+twined with leaves of acacia; the bright waters of Eulæus filling the urns,
+and sweating outside the rim in flashing beads amid the traceries; wine
+from the royal vats of Ispahan and Shiraz, in bottles of tinged shell, and
+lily-shaped cups of silver, and flagons and tankards of solid gold.
+
+The music rises higher, and the revelry breaks out into wilder transport,
+and the wine has flushed the cheek and touched the brain, and louder than
+all other voices are the hiccough of the inebriates, the gabble of fools,
+and the song of the drunkards.
+
+In another part of the palace Queen Vashti is entertaining the princesses
+of Persia at a banquet. Drunken Ahasuerus says to his servants: "Go out and
+fetch Vashti from that banquet with the women, and bring her to this
+banquet with the men, and let me display her beauty." The servants
+immediately start to obey the king's command, but there was a rule in
+Oriental society that no woman might appear in public without having her
+face veiled. Yet here was a mandate that no one dare dispute, demanding
+that Vashti come in unveiled before the multitude. However, there was in
+Vashti's soul a principle more regal than Ahasuerus, more brilliant than
+the gold of Shushan, of more wealth than the revenue of Persia, which
+commanded her to disobey the order of the King; and so all the
+righteousness and holiness and modesty of her nature rises up into one
+sublime refusal. She says: "I will not go into the banquet unveiled." Of
+course, Ahasuerus was infuriated; and Vashti, robbed of her position and
+her estate, is driven forth in poverty and ruin to suffer the scorn of a
+nation, and yet to receive the applause of after generations, who shall
+rise up to admire this martyr to kingly insolence.
+
+The last vestige of that feast is gone; the last garland has faded; the
+last arch has fallen; the last tankard has been destroyed, and Shushan is a
+ruin; but as long as the world stands there will be multitudes of men and
+women, familiar with the Bible, who will come into this picture-gallery of
+God and admire the divine portrait of Vashti, the Queen; Vashti, the
+veiled; Vashti, the sacrifice; Vashti, the silent.
+
+
+
+
+W'EN DE DARKY AM A-WHIS'LIN' IN DE CO'N.
+
+BY S. Q. LAPIUS.
+
+
+    W'en de jewdraps 'gins to glisten,
+      An' de east am growin' red,
+    An' de catbird am a-singin' in de trees;
+    W'en de swallers an' de martins
+      Am a-quar'lin' in de shed,
+    An' de hollyhocks am callin' to de bees;
+    W'en de gray mule 'gins to whinny
+      An' de porker 'gins to squeal,
+    Den it's time to be a-wo'kin' in de mo'n,
+    Kase de sun am climbin' higher
+      An' de han's am in de field--
+    An' de darky am a whis'lin' in de c'on.
+
+    W'en de fog hab lef' de valley,
+      An' de blue am in de sky,
+    An' de bees am wo'kin' in de medder lot;
+    W'en de hollyhocks am drowsin',
+      An' de sun am ridin' high,
+    An' de dusty country road am blazin' hot;
+    Den de darky 'gins to listen--
+
+      As de catbird quits his song--
+    Fo' de soundin' ob de welcome dinner-ho'n,
+    Kase his knees am growin' wabbly,
+      An' de rows am growin' long--
+    An' he's hoin' an' a-whis'lin' in de co'n!
+
+    W'en de fiery sun am smilin'
+      An' a-sinkin' in de wes',
+    An' de shadders creep along de dusty road;
+    W'en de martins am a-chatter'n'
+      An' dey hurry home to res',
+    An' de longes' row ob all am nea'ly hoed;
+    W'en de bullfrog 'gins to holler,
+      An' de cowbell down de lane
+    'Gins to tinkle in a way dat's mos' fo'lo'n,
+    Den amid de gloomy echoes
+      Comes dat soul-refreshin' strain--
+    Ob de darky as he whis'les in de co'n!
+
+
+
+
+THE PILOT.
+
+BY JOHN B. GOUGH.
+
+
+John Maynard was well known in the lake district as a God-fearing, honest,
+and intelligent man. He was pilot on a steamboat from Detroit to Buffalo.
+One summer afternoon--at that time those steamers seldom carried
+boats--smoke was seen ascending from below; and the captain called out,
+"Simpson, go below and see what the matter is down there."
+
+Simpson came up with his face as pale as ashes, and said, "Captain, the
+ship is on fire!"
+
+Then "Fire! fire! fire!" on shipboard.
+
+All hands were called up; buckets of water were dashed on the fire, but in
+vain. There were large quantities of rosin and tar on board, and it was
+found useless to attempt to save the ship. The passengers rushed forward
+and inquired of the pilot, "How far are we from Buffalo?"
+
+"Seven miles."
+
+"How long before we can reach there?"
+
+"Three-quarters of an hour at our present rate of steam."
+
+"Is there any danger?"
+
+"Danger! Here, see the smoke bursting out!--go forward, if you would save
+your lives!"
+
+Passengers and crew--men, women and children--crowded the forward part of
+the ship. John Maynard stood at the helm. The flames burst forth in a sheet
+of fire; clouds of smoke arose.
+
+The captain cried out through his trumpet, "John Maynard!"
+
+"Ay, ay, sir!"
+
+"Are you at the helm?"
+
+"Ay, ay, sir!"
+
+"How does she head?"
+
+"Southeast by east, sir."
+
+"Head her southeast and run her on shore," said the captain. Nearer,
+nearer, yet nearer she approached the shore. Again the captain cried out,
+"John Maynard!"
+
+The response came feebly this time, "Ay, ay, sir!"
+
+"Can you hold on five minutes longer, John?" he said.
+
+"By God's help, I will!"
+
+The old man's hair was scorched from the scalp; one hand was disabled; his
+knee upon the stanchion, his teeth set, his other hand upon the wheel, he
+stood firm as a rock. He beached the ship; every man, woman, and child was
+saved, as John Maynard dropped, and his spirit took its flight to God.
+
+
+
+
+THE FATAL GLASS.
+
+BY LAURA U. CASE.
+
+
+    He raised the cup to his pure, sweet lips--
+      Lips fresh from a mother's kisses;
+    Merry the banquet hall that night,
+    For youth and beauty were there, and bright
+      The glittering lamps shone o'er them;
+    And one had sung with a voice divine,
+    A song in praise of the ruby wine,
+      That graced the feast before them.
+    Little he dreamed as he lightly quaffed
+    The sparkling wine, that the first rare draught
+      Was a link in the chain to bind him,
+    And drag his soul, like a servile slave,
+    Down slippery steps to a shameful grave,
+      From a throne where love enshrined him.
+
+    She raised the cup to her tainted lips--
+      Lips foul with the vilest curses--
+    In a loathsome haunt of sin and shame,
+    Where Christian charity seldom came,
+      With its holy words to teach them
+    Of the pastures green and waters sweet--
+    Of her who wept at the Master's feet,
+      Whose boundless love could reach them.
+    Is love so dear, and life so cheap,
+    That one poor soul, like a wandering sheep,
+      Alone on the bleak, cold mountain,
+    Should gladly turn from a life accursed,
+    To drown the past and quench the thirst
+      In draughts from a poisonous fountain?
+
+    He raised the cup to his trembling lips--
+      Lips wrinkled by age and hunger;
+    The meagre pittance he'd begged for food,
+    Brightened the palm of the man who stood
+      At his bar with his wines around him.
+    He drank, and turned on tottering feet
+    To the bitter storm and the cold, dark street,
+      Where a corpse in the morn they found him.
+    And oh! could those speechless lips have told
+    Of the want and sorrow, hunger and cold
+      He had known, or the answer given,
+    When his trembling soul for entrance plead
+    At the crystal gates, where One has said,
+      "No drunkard shall enter Heaven!"
+
+
+
+
+KATRINA'S VISIT TO NEW YORK.
+
+
+Vell, von morning I says to Hans (Hans vos mein husband): "Hans, I tinks I
+goes down to New York, und see some sights in dot village."
+
+Und Hans he say: "Vell Katrina, you vork hard pooty mooch, I tinks it vould
+petter be dot you goes und rest yourself some." So I gets meinself ready
+righd avay quick und in two days I vos de shteam cars on vistling avay for
+New York. Ve vent so fast I tinks mein head vould shplit sometimes. De
+poles for dot delegraph vires goes by like dey vos mad und running a races
+demselves mit to see vich could go de fastest mit de oder. De engine
+vistled like sometimes it vos hurt bad, und screeched mit de pain, und de
+horses by dem fields vould run as dey vas scared.
+
+I vas pooty mooch as ten hours ven ve rushed into some houses so big enough
+as all our village, und de cars begin to shtop vith so many leetle jerks I
+dinks me I shall lose all de dinner vot I eat vile I vas coming all de vay
+apoudt.
+
+Vell, ven dem cars got shtopped, de peoples all got oudt und I picked mein
+traps oup und got oudt too. I had shust shtepped de blatform on, ven so
+mooch as ein hundert men, mit vips in dere hands, und dere fingers all in
+de air oup, asked me all at vonce, "Vere I go?" Und every one of dem
+fellers vanted me to go mit him to his hotel. But I tells em I guess not; I
+vas going mit my brudder-mit-law, vot keeps ein pakeshop on de Powery, vere
+it didn't cost me notings. So I got me in dot shtreet cars, und pays de man
+mit brass buttons on his coat to let me oudt mit de shtreet vere dot Yawcup
+Schneider leeves. Oh, my! vot lots of houses! De shtreets vos all ofer
+filled mit dem. Und so many peoples I tinks me dere must be a fire, or a
+barade, or some oxcitement vot gets de whole city in von blaces. It dakes
+me so mooch time to look at everytings I forgot me ven to got oudt und
+rides apast de blaces I vants to shtop to, und has to valk again pack mit
+dree or four shquares. But I vind me dot brudder-mit-law who vos make me so
+velcome as nefer vos.
+
+Vell, dot vos Saturday mit de afternoon. I vas tired mit dot day's travel
+und I goes me pooty quick to bed und ven I vakes in de morning de sun vas
+high oup in de shky. But I gets me oup und puts on mein new silk vrock und
+tinks me I shall go to some fine churches und hear ein grosse breacher. Der
+pells vas ringing so schveet I dinks I nefer pefore hear such music. Ven I
+got de shtreet on de beoples vos all going quiet und nice to dere blaces
+mit worship, und I makes oup my mind to go in von of dem churches so soon
+as von comes along. Pooty soon I comes to de von mit ein shteeples high oup
+in de shky und I goes in mit de beoples und sits me down on ein seat all
+covered mit a leetle mattress. De big organ vas blaying so soft it seemed
+likes as if some angels must be dere to make dot music.
+
+Pooty soon de breacher man shtood in de bulbit oup und read de hymn oudt,
+und all de beoples sing until de churches vos filled mit de shweetness.
+Den de breacher man pray, und read de Pible, und den he say dot de bulbit
+would be occupied by de Rev. Villiam R. Shtover mit Leavenworth, Kansas.
+
+Den dot man gommence to breach und he read mit his dext, "Und Simon's
+vife's mudder lay sick mit a fever." He talks for so mooch as ein half hour
+already ven de beoples sings again und goes homes. I tells mein
+brudder-mit-law it vos so nice I tinks me I goes again mit some oder
+churches. So vot you tinks? I goes mit anoder churches dot afternoon und
+dot same Villiam R. Shtover vos dere und breach dot same sermon ofer again
+mit dot same dext, "Und Simon's vife's mudder lay sick mit a fever." I
+tinks to my ownself--dot vos too bad, und I goes home und dells Yawcup, und
+he says, "Nefer mind, Katrina, to-night ve goes somevhere else to
+churches." So ven de night vas come und de lamps vos all lighted mit de
+shtreets, me und mein brudder-mit-law, ve goes over to dot Brooklyn town to
+hear dot Heinrich Vard Peecher.
+
+My but dot vos ein grosse church, und so many beobles vas dere, ve vas
+crowded mit de vall back. Ven de singing vas all done, a man vot vos
+sitting mit a leetle chair got oup und say dot de Rev. Heinrich Vard
+Peecher vas to de Vhite Mountains gone mit dot hay fever, but dot de
+bulbit vould be occupied on this occasion by de Rev. Villiam R. Shtover mit
+Leavenworth, Kansas. Und dot Villiam R. Shtover he gots mit dot bulbit oup
+und breaches dot same sermon mit dot same dext, "Und Simon's vife's mudder
+lay sick mit a fever."
+
+Dot vos too bad again und I gets mad. I vos so mad I vish dot he got dot
+fever himself.
+
+Vell, von dot man vas troo Yawcup says to me, "Come, Katrina, ve'll go down
+to dot ferry und take de boat vot goes to New York!" Ven ve vas on dot boat
+de fog vas so tick dot you couldn't see your hands pehind your pack. De
+vistles vas plowing, und dem pells vos ringing, und von man shtepped up mit
+Yawcup und say "Vot vor dem pells pe ringing so mooch?"
+
+Und ven I looked around dere shtood dot Villiam R. Shtover mit Leavenworth,
+Kansas--und I said pooty quick: "Vot vor dem pells vas ringing? Vy for
+Simon's vife's mudder, vot must be died, for I hear dree times to-day
+already dot she vas sick mit ein fever."
+
+
+
+
+THE RABBI AND THE PRINCE.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+_Versified from the Talmud._
+
+
+    A monarch sat in serious thought, alone,
+    But little reck'd he of his robe and throne;
+    Naught valuing the glory of control,
+    He sought to solve the future of his soul.
+    "Why should I bow the proud, imperious knee,
+    To mighty powers no mortal eye can see?"
+    So mused he long and turned this question o'er,
+    Then, with impatient tread, he paced the floor,
+    Till maddened by conflicting trains of thought
+    And speculation vague, which came to naught,
+    With feverish haste he clutched a tasseled cord
+    As desperate hands, in battle, clutch a sword.
+    "Summon Jehoshua," the monarch cried.
+    The white-haired Rabbi soon was at his side.
+
+    *....*....*....*
+
+    "I bow no more to powers I cannot see;
+    Thy faith and learning shall be naught to me,
+    Unless, before the setting of the sun,
+    Mine eyes behold the uncreated one."
+
+    *....*....*....*
+
+    The Rabbi led him to the open air.
+    The oriental sun with furious glare
+    Sent down its rays, like beams of molten gold.
+    The aged teacher, pointing, said: "Behold."
+    "I cannot," said the Prince, "my dazzled eyes
+    Refuse their service, turned upon the skies."
+
+    *....*....*....*
+
+    "Son of the dust," the Rabbi gently said
+    And bowed, with reverence, his hoary head,
+    "This one creation, thou canst not behold,
+    Though by thy lofty state and pride made bold.
+
+    How canst thou then behold the God of Light,
+    Before whose face the sunbeams are as night?
+    Thine eyes before this trifling labor fall,
+    Canst gaze on him who hath created all?
+    Son of the dust, repentance can atone;
+    Return and worship God, who rules alone."
+
+
+
+
+THE MAID OF ORLEANS.
+
+BY J. E. SAGEBEER.
+
+
+It was just at the dawn of day, when the first rays of morning were
+breaking over Europe and dispelling the darkness of the Middle Ages. France
+and England were engaged in a desperate struggle, the one for existence,
+the other for a throne. All the western part of France had avowed the
+English cause, and the English king had been proclaimed at Paris, at Rouen
+and at Bordeaux, while the strongly fortified city of Orleans, the key to
+the French possessions, was besieged. The thunder and lightning of the
+battlefield are bad enough, but the starvation and pestilence of a besieged
+city are infinitely worse. The supplies of Orleans were exhausted; the
+garrison was reduced to a few desperate men, and the women and children had
+been abandoned to the English. But far away on the border of Germany, in
+the little village of Domremy, the Nazareth of France, God was raising up
+a deliverer for Orleans, a savior for the nation.
+
+The out-door life of a peasant girl had given to Joan of Arc a
+well-developed form, while the beauties of her soul and the spiritual
+tendencies of her nature must have given to her face that womanly beauty
+that never fails to win respect and love. Her standard was a banner of
+snowy silk; her weapon a sword, that from the day she first drew it from
+its scabbard until she finally laid it down upon the grave of St. Denis,
+was never stained with blood; and her inspiration was a self-sacrificing
+devotion to the will of God, to the rights of France and her king. Without
+a single opposing shot she passed under the very battlements of the
+besieging English, and entered Orleans with soldiers for empty forts and
+food for starving people.
+
+It needed no eloquent speech to incite the men of Orleans to deeds of valor
+and of vengeance. The ruins of their homes choked the streets; the
+desolated city was one open sepulchre, while the cries of half-starved
+children and the wails of heartbroken mothers, stirred them to such a mad
+frenzy of enthusiasm, that now, since a leader had come, they would have
+rushed headlong and thoughtlessly against the English forts as into a trap
+of death.
+
+And now the attack was planned and the lines were formed; and then as the
+crumbling walls of the city echoed back the wild shouts of the Orleanites,
+the maid of Domremy, waving her sword aloft and followed by her snowy
+banner, led her Frenchmen on to slaughter and to victory. Then from the
+English archers came flight after flight of swift-winged arrows, while the
+wild catapults threw clouds of death-laden stones crashing among the
+French. Broadsword and battle-axe clashed on shield and helmet, while the
+wild horses, mad with rage and pain, rushed with fierce yells upon the foe;
+but ever above the din and noise of battle, above death shouts and saber
+strokes, though the dust and smoke obscured her banner, ever could be heard
+the clear, ringing voice of their leader, shouting for victory and for
+France. An arrow pierced her bosom, but drawing it out with her own hand
+and throwing it aside, she showed the French her blood-stained corselet,
+and once more urged them on. As when the Archangel Michael, leading the
+heavenly cohorts, forced the rebellious angels to the very brink of hell,
+then hurled them over and so saved the throne of heaven, so did the maid of
+Orleans, leading on frenzied Frenchmen, press back the English step by
+step, and slaughtered rank by rank, till the whole army turned and fled,
+and Orleans was free and France was safe.
+
+And now her work was done. Would that some kindly voice had bade her now
+go home to tend the sheep and roll their white wool on her distaff! But she
+who had raised the siege of Orleans and led the way to Rheims, could not
+escape a jealous fate. The Duke of Burgundy had laid siege to Compiegne.
+Joan of Arc went to the rescue and was repulsed, and while bravely fighting
+in the rear of her retreating troops, fell prisoner to the recreant French
+and was sold by them to the English. For one long year she languished in
+her prison tower. Her keepers insulted her and called her a witch; and when
+in desperation she sprang from the tower and was taken up insensible, they
+loaded her poor body with chains, and two guards stayed in her cell day and
+night.
+
+Her trial came, but her doom was already sealed. The Bishop of Beauvais,
+with a hundred doctors of theology, were her judges. Without a particle of
+evidence against her, they convicted her of sorcery and sentenced her to be
+burnt at the stake. A howl of fiendish joy went up from the blood-thirsty
+court of Paris,--a howl of fiendish joy that made its way to every
+battlefield where she had fought; it rang against the rescued walls of
+Orleans and was echoed to the royal court at Rheims; it reached to the
+bottomless pit and made the imps of Satan dance with glee; it echoed
+through the halls of heaven and made the angels weep; but there was no
+rescuer for the helpless girl. Even the gladiator, forced into the fight,
+against his will, when fallen in the arena, his sword broken and the
+enemy's knee upon his breast, might yet hope for "thumbs down," and mercy
+from the hard-hearted Roman spectators. But not a single hand was raised to
+save the maid of Domremy, the saviour of Orleans.
+
+Had she not faithfully done her work? Had she not bled for them? Had she
+not saved the kingdom? And in all chivalrous France was there not a
+champion to take up the gauntlet in defence of a helpless girl? When she
+led their armies, their spears blazed in heaven's sunlight; now they would
+quench them in her blood. With scarcely time to think of death, she was
+hurried away to the public square and chained to the stake, and when the
+fagots were fired, more painful than the circling flames, she heard the
+mocking laugh of the angry crowd. Higher and higher rose the flames, until,
+pressing the cross to her heart, her unconscious head sank upon her bosom,
+and her pure spirit went up amid the smoke and soared away to heaven.
+
+
+
+
+GENTLE ALICE BROWN.
+
+BY W. S. GILBERT.
+
+     [This is one of the Bab-Ballads, on which the very
+     successful comic opera "Pinafore" was founded.]
+
+
+    It was a robber's daughter, and her name was Alice Brown,
+    Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;
+    Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing;
+    But it isn't of her parents that I'm going for to sing.
+
+    As Alice was a sitting at her window-sill one day,
+    A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way;
+    She cast her eyes upon, and he looked so good and true,
+    That she thought: "I could be happy with a gentleman like you!"
+
+    And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen,
+    She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten;
+    A sorter in the Custom-house, it was his daily road
+    (The Custom-house was fifteen minutes' walk from her abode).
+
+    But Alice was a pious girl, who knew it wasn't wise
+    To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes;
+    So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed,
+    The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed.
+
+    "Oh, holy father," Alice said, "'twould grieve you, would it not,
+    To discover that I was a most disreputable lot?
+    Of all unhappy sinners I'm the most unhappy one!"
+    The padre said: "Whatever have you been and gone and done?"
+
+    "I have helped mamma to steal a little kiddy from its dad,
+    I've assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad,
+    I've planned a little burglary and forged a little check,
+    And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!"
+
+    The worthy pastor heaved a sigh, and dropped a silent tear,
+    And said: "You mustn't judge yourself too heavily, my dear;
+    It's wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece;
+    But sins like these one expiates at half a crown apiece.
+
+    "Girls will be girls--you're very young, and flighty in your mind;
+    Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find:
+    We mustn't be too hard upon these little girlish tricks--
+    Let's see--five crimes at half-a-crown--exactly twelve-and-six."
+
+    "Oh, father!" little Alice cried, "your kindness makes me weep,
+    You do these little things for me so singularly cheap--
+    Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget;
+    But, oh! there is another crime I haven't mentioned yet!
+
+    "A pleasant looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes,
+    I've noticed at my window, as I've sat acatching flies;
+    He passes by it every day as certain as can be--
+    I blush to say I've winked at him, and he has winked at me!"
+
+    "For shame!" said father Paul, "my erring daughter! On my word
+    This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard.
+    Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand
+    To a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band!
+
+    "This dreadful piece of news will pain your worthy parent so!
+    They are the most remunerative customers I know;
+    For many, many years they've kept starvation from my doors;
+    I never knew so criminal a family as yours!
+
+    "The common country folk in this insipid neighborhood
+    Have nothing to confess, they're so ridiculously good;
+    And if you marry any one respectable at all.
+    Why, you'll reform, and what will then become of Father Paul?"
+
+    The worthy priest, he up and drew his cowl upon his crown,
+    And started off in haste to tell the news to Robber Brown--
+    To tell him how his daughter, who was now for marriage fit,
+    Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it.
+
+    Good Robber Brown he muffled up his anger pretty well;
+    He said: "I have a notion, and that notion I will tell;
+    I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits,
+    And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits.
+
+    "I've studied human nature, and I know a thing or two:
+    Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do--
+    A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall
+    When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small."
+
+    He traced that gallant sorter to a still suburban square;
+    He watched his opportunity, and seized him unaware;
+    He took a life-preserver and he hit him on the head,
+    And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed.
+
+    And pretty little Alice grew more settled in her mind,
+    She never more was guilty of a weakness of the kind,
+    Until at length good Robber Brown bestowed her pretty hand
+    On the promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band.
+
+
+
+
+YOUNG AMERICA.
+
+
+The central figure was a bareheaded woman with a broom in her hand. She
+stood on the back step, and was crying:
+
+"George!"
+
+There was no response, but anybody who had been on the other side of the
+close-boarded fence at the foot of the garden might have observed two boys
+intently engaged in building a mud pie.
+
+"That's your mother hollerin' Georgie," said one of the two, placing his
+eye to a knothole and glancing through to the stoop.
+
+"I don't care," said the other.
+
+"Ain't you going in?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Georgie!" came another call, short and sharp; "do you hear me?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Where is she now?" inquired Georgie, putting in the filling of the pie.
+
+"On the stoop," replied his friend at the knothole.
+
+"What's she doin'?"
+
+"Ain't doin' nothin'."
+
+"George Augustus!"
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"You needn't think you can hide from me, young man, for I can see you, and
+if you don't come in here at once, I'll come out there in a way that you'll
+know it."
+
+Now this was an eminently natural statement, but hardly plausible as her
+eyes would have had to pierce an inch board fence to see Georgie; and even
+were this possible, it would have required a glance in that special
+direction, and not over the top of a pear tree in an almost opposite way.
+Even the boy at the knothole could hardly repress a smile.
+
+"What's she doin' now?" inquired Georgie.
+
+"She stands there yet."
+
+"I won't speak to you again, George Augustus," came the voice. "Your father
+will be home in a few minutes, and I shall tell him all about what you have
+done."
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"Ain't you afraid?" asked the conscientious young man, drawing his eye from
+the knothole to rest it.
+
+"No! she won't tell pa; she never does, she only says it to scare me."
+
+Thus enlightened and reassured, the guard covered the knothole again.
+
+"Ain't you acoming in here, young man?" again demanded the woman, "or do
+you want me to come out there to you with a stick? I won't speak to you
+again, sir!"
+
+"Is she comin'?" asked the baker.
+
+"No."
+
+"Which way is she lookin'?"
+
+"She's lookin' over in the other yard."
+
+"Do you hear me, I say?" came the call again.
+
+No answer.
+
+"George Augustus! do you hear your mother?"
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"Oh, you just wait, young man, till your father comes home, and he'll make
+you hear, I'll warrant ye."
+
+"She's gone in now," announced the faithful sentinel, withdrawing from his
+post.
+
+"All right! take hold of this crust and pull it down on that side, and
+that'll be another pie done," said the remorse-stricken George Augustus.
+
+
+
+
+SHWATE KITTIE KEHOE.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+              Shwate Kittie Kehoe,
+              Can ye tell, I do' know.
+    Phwat the mischief's about ye that bothers me so?
+              For there's that in yer eye.
+              That I wish I may die
+    If it doesn't pursue me wherever I go.
+                            Och hone!
+                                Shwate Kitty Kehoe.
+
+              It's a livin' disgrace
+              That yer shwate purty face
+    Should be dhrivin' me sinses all over the place!
+              I go this way an' that,
+              Loike a man fur a hat,
+    Wid the wind up an alley-way, runnin' a race.
+                            Och hone!
+                                Shwate Kittie Kehoe.
+
+              Oh! Faith, but I'm sad,
+              Fur to know that I'm mad,
+    That only intinsifies all that is bad;
+              But phwat can I do,
+              Whin a shwate smile from you
+    Turns everythin' rosy and makes me sowl glad?
+                            Och hone!
+                                Shwate Kittie Kehoe.
+
+              Shwate Kittie Kehoe,
+              I beg of ye, go
+    To the outermost inds of the earth, I do' know;
+              If ye'll only do this,
+              Jist lave me wan kiss,
+    An' I'll die whin yer sthartin', Shwate Kittie Kehoe.
+                            Och hone! Och hone!
+                                Shwate Kittie Kehoe.
+
+
+
+
+THE COUNTRY'S GREATEST EVIL.
+
+     [A short speech by Vice-President Henry Wilson,
+     delivered at the National Temperance Convention, in
+     Chicago, June, 1875.]
+
+
+Forty years of experience and observation have taught me that the greatest
+evil of our country, next, at any rate, to the one that has gone down in
+fire and blood to rise no more, is the evil of intemperance. Every day's
+experience, every hour of reflection, teaches me that it is the duty of
+patriotism, the duty of humanity, the duty of Christianity, to live
+Christian lives, and to exert temperance influence among the people.
+
+There was a time, when I was younger than I am now, when I hoped to live
+long enough to see the cause which my heart loves and my judgment approves
+stronger than it is to-day. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that the
+present is a rather dark and troubled night for that cause, and it is
+because it so seems to me that I believe it to be the duty of every honest,
+conscientious, self-sacrificing man of our country to speak and to work for
+the cause in every legitimate and proper way. And my reliance for the
+advancement of the cause of temperance is the same reliance which I have
+for the spread of the Gospel of our Divine Lord and Master.
+
+The heart, the conscience and the reason must be appealed to continually;
+and Christian men and women must remember that the heart of Christianity is
+temperance. If it costs a sacrifice, give it. What is sacrifice to doing
+good and lifting toward heaven our fellow-men? We have got to rely on
+appeals and addresses made to the heart of this nation, to the conscience
+of the people and the reason of the country. We have got to train up our
+children in the cause from infancy. We must teach it in the schools and
+everywhere by word, and above all by example; and it seems to me that
+Christian ministers, in this dark hour of our country, when they see so
+much intemperance, and what looks to some of us like a reaction, should
+make the voice of the pulpits of this land heard.
+
+Members of Christian churches should remember that they have something to
+do in this cause. If anything stands in the way of Christianity it is the
+drunkenness in our land. A word for temperance at this time is the
+strongest blow against the kingdom of Satan and for the cause of our Lord
+and Master.
+
+Suppose you have been disappointed. Suppose that many of your laws have
+failed. We know that we are right. We personally feel and see it. The
+evidence is around and about us that we cannot be mistaken in living total
+abstinence lives and recommending such a course to our neighbors.
+
+When it costs something to stand by the temperance cause, then is the hour
+to stand by it. If I could be heard to-day by the people of the land, by
+the patriotic young men of this country, full of life, vigor and hope, I
+would say that it is among the first, the highest, and the grandest duties,
+which the country, God, and the love of humanity impose, to work for the
+cause of _total abstinence_.
+
+
+
+
+I WONDER.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    I wonder if, under the grass-grown sod,
+      The weary human heart finds rest!
+    If the soul, with its woes, when it flies to God,
+      Leaves all its pain, in the earth's cold breast!
+    Or whether we feel, as we do to-day,
+    That joy holds sorrow in hand, alway.
+
+    I wonder if, after the kiss of death,
+      The love that was sweet, in days of yore.
+    Departs with the last, faint, fleeting breath,
+      Or deeper grows than ever before!
+    I wonder if, there in the great Unknown,
+    Fond hearts grow weary when left alone!
+
+    I think of the daily life I lead,
+      Its broken dreams and its fitful starts,
+    The hopeless hunger, the heart's sore need,
+      The joy that gladdens, the wrong that parts,
+    And wonder whether the coming years
+    Will bring contentment, or toil and tears.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH OF PATRICK HENRY.
+
+     [Delivered before the Convention of Delegates of
+     Virginia, March 23, 1775.]
+
+
+Mr. President: It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We
+are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of
+that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise
+men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed
+to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears,
+hear not, the things which so nearly concern our temporal salvation? For my
+part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the
+whole truth,--to know the worst, and to provide for it!
+
+I have but one lamp, by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of
+experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And,
+judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of
+the British ministry, for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with
+which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House? Is it
+that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
+Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet! Suffer not
+yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss! Ask yourselves how this gracious
+reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which
+cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a
+work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be
+reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love?
+
+Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and
+subjugation,--the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen,
+sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to
+submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has
+Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this
+accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant
+for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and
+rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long
+forging. And what have we to oppose to them?--Shall we try argument? Sir,
+we have been trying that, for the last ten years. Have we anything new to
+offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light
+of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.
+
+Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we
+find which have not already been exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you,
+sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done every thing that could be
+done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we
+have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before
+the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical
+hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted, our
+remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult, our
+supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned, with
+contempt, from the foot of the throne.
+
+In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
+reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be
+free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for
+which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the
+noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have
+pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest
+shall be obtained,--we must fight; I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An
+appeal to arms, and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left us!
+
+They tell us, sir, that we are weak,--unable to cope with so formidable an
+adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the
+next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British
+guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by
+irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual
+resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom
+of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are
+not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature
+hath placed in our power.
+
+Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a
+country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our
+enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles
+alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and
+who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is
+not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
+Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it
+is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in
+submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard
+on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat
+it, sir, let it come!
+
+It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry: Peace,
+peace!--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale
+that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding
+arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What
+is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace
+so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
+Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give
+me liberty, or give me death!
+
+
+
+
+MUTATION.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    Upon the shores of No-man's-land,
+      I met an angel, one whose wings
+    Shed beams of light on either hand,
+      As radiant as the sunrise brings.
+    And happy souls, with eager tread,
+      Passed up and down the sandy slope;
+    "Oh, tell me your fair name!" I said;
+    She turned and smiled, and answered: "Hope."
+
+    Along the shores of No-man's-land,
+      The angel walked, with folded wings,
+    And shadows fell on every hand,
+      The burden that the night-wind brings.
+    With head turned backward, sad and slow
+      She paced the sands, her eyelids wet,
+    "Hope mourns," I said, and soft and low,
+    The angel sighed: "I am Regret."
+
+
+
+
+SIX LOVE LETTERS
+
+
+"Are there any more of those letters?"
+
+When her father asked this question in an awful tone, Lucilla Richmond
+could not say No, and dared not say Yes, but as an intermediate course
+burst into tears and sobbed behind her handkerchief.
+
+"Bring them to me, Lucilla," said her father, as if she had answered him,
+as indeed she had; and the girl, trembling and weeping, arose to obey him.
+
+Then Mrs. Richmond, her daughter's own self grown older, came behind her
+husband's chair and patted him on the shoulder. "Please don't be hard with
+her, my dear," she said, coaxingly. "He's a nice young man, and it's all
+our fault, after all, as much as hers."
+
+"Perhaps you approve of the whole affair, ma'am," said Mr. Richmond.
+
+"I--no--that is I only--" gasped the little woman; and hearing Lucilla
+coming, she sank into a chair, blaming herself dreadfully for not having
+been present at all her daughter's music lessons during the past year.
+
+"It was inexcusable in a poor music teacher, who should have known his
+place," Mr. Richmond declared; and he clutched the little perfumed billet
+which had fallen into his hands, as he might a scorpion, and waited for the
+others with a look upon his face which told of no softening. At last six
+little white envelopes, tied together with blue ribbons, were laid at his
+elbow by his trembling daughter.
+
+"Lock these up until I return home this evening," he said to his wife; "I
+will read them then. Meanwhile Lucilla is not to see this music teacher on
+any pretence whatever."
+
+Mr. Richmond put on his hat and departed, and Lucilla and her mother took
+the opportunity of falling into each other's arms.
+
+"It is so naughty of you," said Mrs. Richmond. "But oh, dear, I can't blame
+you. It was exactly so with your father, and my father objected because of
+his poverty. He used to be very romantic himself in those old times. Such
+letters as he wrote to me. I have them in my desk yet. He said he'd die if
+I refused him."
+
+"So does Fred," said Lucilla.
+
+"And that life would be worthless without me, and about my being
+beautiful,--I'm sure he ought to sympathize a little," said Mrs. Richmond.
+
+She went into her own room to put the letters into her desk; and as she
+placed them into one of the pigeon holes, she saw in another a bundle,
+tied exactly as these were, and drew them out. These letters were to a
+Lucilla also, one who had received them twenty years before. A strange idea
+came into Mrs. Richmond's mind.
+
+When she left the desk she looked guilty and frightened. The dinner hour
+arrived, and with it came her husband, angered and more determined than
+ever. The meal was passed in silence; then, having adjourned to the parlor,
+Mr. Richmond seated himself in a great arm-chair, and demanded, in a voice
+of thunder: "Those absurd letters, if you please."
+
+"Six letters--six shameful pieces of deception, Lucilla," said the
+indignant parent. "I am shocked that a child of mine should practice such
+duplicity. Hem! let me see. Number one, I believe. June, and this is
+December. Half a year you have deceived us then, Lucilla. Let me see--ah!
+'From the first moment I adored you,' bah! Nonsense. People don't fall in
+love in that absurd manner. 'With your smiles for a goal, I would win both
+fame and fortune, poor as I am!' Fiddlesticks, Lucilla. A man who has
+common sense would always wait until he had a fair commencement before he
+proposed to a girl. Praising your beauty, eh? 'The loveliest creature I
+ever saw!' Exaggeration, my dear. You are not plain, but such flattery is
+absurd. 'Must hear from you or die!' Dear, dear, dear--how absurd!" And Mr.
+Richmond dropped the first letter and picked another. "The same stuff," he
+commented. "I hope you do not believe a word he says. Ah! now in number
+three he calls you 'an angel!' He's romantic, upon my soul! And what is
+this? 'Those who forbid me to see you can find no fault with me but my
+poverty. I am honest--I am earnest in my efforts. I am by birth a
+gentleman, and I love you from the depths of my soul. Do not let them sell
+you for gold, Lucilla.' Great heavens, what impertinence to your parents!"
+
+"I don't remember Fred saying anything of that kind," said poor little
+Lucilla. "He never knew you would object."
+
+Mr. Richmond shook his head, frowned and then read on until the last sheet
+lay under his hand. Then with an ejaculation of rage, he sprang to his
+feet.
+
+"Infamous!" he cried! "I'll go to him this instant--I'll horsewhip him,
+I'll--I'll murder him! As for you, by Jove, I'll send you to a convent.
+Elope--elope with a music teacher! Here, John, call a cab, I----"
+
+"Oh, papa! you are crazy!" said Lucilla. "Frederick never proposed such a
+thing. Let me see the letter. Oh, that is not Fred's--upon my word it is
+not. Do look, papa, it is dated twenty years back, and Frederick's name is
+not Charles! Papa, these are your letters to mamma, written long ago.
+Mother's name is Lucilla, you know."
+
+Mr. Richmond sat down in his arm-chair in silence, very red in the face.
+
+"How did this occur?" he said, sternly; and little Mrs. Richmond,
+retreating into a corner, with her handkerchief to her eyes, sobbed:
+
+"I did it on purpose! You know, Charles, it's so long ago, and I thought
+you might not exactly remember how you fell in love with me at first sight;
+how papa and mamma objected, and how, at last, we ran away together; and it
+seemed to me if we could bring it back all plainly to you as it was then,
+we might let Lucilla marry the man she loves, who is good, if he is not
+rich. I do not need to be brought back any plainer myself; women have more
+time to remember, you know. And we've been very happy--have we not?"
+
+And certainly Mr. Richmond could not deny that. The little ruse was
+favorable to the young music teacher, who had really only been sentimental,
+and had not gone one half so far as an elopement; and in due course of time
+the two were married with all the pomp and grandeur befitting the nuptials
+of a wealthy merchant's daughter, with the perfect approbation of Lucilla's
+father.
+
+
+
+
+A ROMAN LEGEND.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    Hour by hour, with skillful pencil, wrought the artist, sad and lone,
+    Day by day, he labored nobly, though to all the world unknown;
+    He was brave, the youthful artist, but his soul grew weak and faint,
+    As he strove to place before him, the fair features of a saint;
+    Worn and weary, he strove vainly, for the touch of Heavenly grace,
+    Till, one day, a radiant sunbeam fell upon the up-turned face,
+    And the very air was flooded with a presence strangely sweet,
+    For the soul, within the sunbeam, seemed to make the work complete;
+    Swift as thought the artist's pencil deftly touched the features fair,
+    Night came down, but one bright sunbeam left its soul imprisoned there;
+    And around his dingy garret gazed the artist, wondering,
+    For the work sublime illumed it like the palace of a king;
+    And within the artist nature flamed his first fond love divine,
+    Which bewildered all his senses, as with rare, old, ruby wine.
+    Yearningly, he cried: "I love thee," to the radiant saintly face,
+    But the never-ceasing answer was a look of Heavenly grace.
+    Out into the world he wandered, questioning, searching everywhere,
+    And the stars above, full often, heard his soul burst forth in prayer:
+    "God in Heaven, in mercy, hear me! Hear thy suppliant's pleading cry,
+    Lead, oh lead! my footsteps to her. Grant but this, or let me die."
+    Friends forsook and want pursued him, still he struggled on alone,
+    Till, at last, outworn and trembling, reason tottered on its throne,
+    And he seemed the helpless plaything of some mad, relentless fate,
+    Till the Sisterhood of Mercy found him lying at their gate;
+    Made him welcome, gave him shelter and with ever-patient care
+    Bathed his brow and brushed the tangled, matted tresses of his hair.
+    Long he lingered on the borders of the holy-land of death,
+    One fair Sister, by his bedside, counting low each fluttering breath.
+    Softly fell the evening shadows, shutting out the golden glow,
+    Of a gorgeous, lingering sunset, gilding all the earth below,
+    When, upon his pillow turning, swift came to him hope's bright gleams,
+    For the anxious face above him was the loved one of his dreams.
+    But her life was one of mercy, and the band across her brow,
+    Gave the spotless testimony of a maiden's holy vow.
+    "Is this Heaven? Are you an angel?" swift he questioned her, the while
+    She smoothed back his wavy tresses, only answering with a smile;
+    "Tell me truly, couldst thou love me, since thou wouldst not let me die?"
+    But she pointed to the band about her brow and breathed a sigh.
+    In her hours of patient watching, she had learned the bitter truth,
+    That the Sisterhood of Mercy has its anguish and its ruth;
+    Nevermore she came, well-knowing, from temptation se must fly,
+    For his eager, tender questions in her heart had found reply.
+    Every morning he would question: "Will she come to me to-day?"
+    And the tender, truthful Sisters shook their heads and turned away,
+    For adown his classic features passed the shadow of his pain,
+    As he closed his eyes and murmured: "She will never come again."
+    In his dreams, one night, he fancied she had bent above his bed,
+    And his loving arms reached upward, but the vision sweet had fled.
+    Hopeless, in his great heart-hunger, through a storm of wind and rain,
+    To his picture turned the artist, bowing low with grief and pain;
+    Open wide he threw the shutters of his garret casement high,
+    Heeding not the vivid lightning, as it flashed athwart the sky.
+    On his lowly couch reclining, soon in weariness he slept,
+    While the storm clouds o'er him thundering, long and loud their vigils kept.
+    Wilder grew the night and fiercer blew the winds, until at last,
+    Like a bird of prey or demon, through the shattered casement, passed
+    The old shutter, rending, tearing every wondrous touch and trace
+    Of the artist's patient labor, from the radiant, saintly face;
+    And the jagged bands of lightning, as they flashed along the floor,
+    Lit the crushed and crumpled canvas, worthless now forevermore.
+    And the artist, slowly rising, groped his way across the room,
+    Feeling, knowing he had lost her, though enshrouded in the gloom.
+    Then besought his couch and murmured: "It is well, God knoweth best."
+    And the sunbeams of the morning found a weary soul--at rest.
+
+
+
+
+A FRIEND OF THE FLY.
+
+
+With a fly-screen under one arm and a bundle of sticky fly-paper under the
+other, an honest agent entered a grocery store one day in the summer and
+said: "Why don't you keep 'em out?"
+
+"Who vash dot?" asked the grocery-man.
+
+"Why, the pesky flies. You've got 'em by the thousand in here, and the fly
+season has only begun. Shall I put fly-screens in the doors?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To keep the flies out."
+
+"Why should I keep der flies oudt? Flies like some shance to go aroundt und
+see der city de same ash agents. If a fly ish kept out on der street all
+der time he might ash vhell be a horse."
+
+"Yes, but they are a great nuisance. I'll put you up a screen door there
+for three dollars."
+
+"Not any for me. If a fly vhants to come in here, und he behaves himself in
+a respectable manner, I have notings to say. If he don't behave, I bounce
+him oudt pooty queek, und don't he forget her!"
+
+"Well, try this fly-paper. Every sheet will catch five hundred flies."
+
+"Who vhants to catch 'em?"
+
+"I do--you--everybody."
+
+"I don't see it like dot. If I put dot fly-paper on der counter somebody
+comes along und wipes his nose mit it, or somebody leans his elbow on her
+und vhalks off mit him. It would be shust like my boy Shake to come in und
+lick all der molasses off, to play a shoke on his fadder."
+
+"Say, I'll put down a sheet, and if it doesn't catch twenty flies in five
+minutes I'll say no more."
+
+"If you catch twenty flies I have to pry 'em loose mit a stick und let 'em
+go, und dot vhas too much work. No, my agent friendt; flies must have a
+shance to get along und take some comfort. I vhas poor once myself, und I
+know all about it."
+
+"I'll give you seven sheets for ten cents."
+
+"Oxactly, but I won't do it. It looks to me like shmall beesness for a big
+agent like you to go around mit some confidence games to shwindle flies. A
+fly vhas born to be a fly, und to come into my shtore ash often ash he
+likes. When he comes I shall treat him like a shentleman. I gif him a fair
+show. I don't keep an axe to knock him in der headt, und I don't put some
+molasses all oafer a sheet of paper und coax him to come und be all stuck
+up mit his feet till he can't fly away. You can pass along--I'm no such
+person like dot."
+
+
+
+
+ANSWERED PRAYERS.
+
+BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
+
+
+    I prayed for riches, and achieved success,--
+      All that I touched turned into gold. Alas!
+    My cares were greater, and my peace was less
+      When that wish came to pass.
+
+    I prayed for glory; and I heard my name
+      Sung by sweet children and by hoary men.
+    But ah! the hurts, the hurts that come with fame!
+      I was not happy then.
+
+    I prayed for love, and had my soul's desire;
+      Through quivering heart and body and through brain
+    There swept the flame of its devouring fire;
+      And there the scars remain.
+
+    I prayed for a contented mind. At length
+      Great light upon my darkened spirit burst.
+    Great peace fell on me, also, and great strength.
+      Oh! had that prayer been first!
+
+
+
+
+GOD IN THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION.
+
+BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+Not only because of the kindness of God to this nation in the past should
+such a reverential insertion be made, but because of the fact that we are
+going to want Divine interposition still further in our national history.
+This gold and silver question will never be settled until God settles it.
+This question of tariff and free trade will never be settled until God
+settles it. This question between the East and the West, which is getting
+hotter and hotter, and looks toward a Republic of the Pacific, will not be
+settled until God settles it. We needed God in the one hundred and twenty
+years of our past national life, and we will need Him still more in the
+next one hundred and twenty years. Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates
+of our glorious Constitution, and let the King of Glory come in! Make one
+line of that immortal document radiant with Omnipotence! Spell at least one
+word with Thrones! At the beginning, or at the close, or in the centre,
+recognize Him from whom as a nation we have received all the blessing of
+the past and upon whom we are dependent for the future. Print that one
+word "God," or "Lord," or "Eternal Father," or "Ruler of Nations,"
+somewhere between the first word and the last. The Great Expounder of the
+Constitution sleeps at Marshfield, Massachusetts, the Atlantic Ocean still
+humming near his pillow of dust its prolonged lullaby; but is there not
+some one now living, who, in the white marble palace of the nation on
+yonder hill, not ten minutes away, will become the Irradiator of the
+Constitution by causing to be added the most tremendous word of our English
+vocabulary, the name of that Being before whom all nations must bow or go
+into defeat and annihilation,--"God?"
+
+
+
+
+THE ENCHANTED SHIRT.
+
+BY JOHN HAY.
+
+
+    The king was sick. His cheek was red,
+      And his eye was clear and bright;
+    He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
+      And peacefully snored at night.
+
+    But he said he was sick--and a king should know;
+      And doctors came by the score;
+    They did not cure him. He cut off their heads,
+      And sent to the schools for more.
+
+    At last two famous doctors came,
+      And one was poor as a rat;
+    He had passed his life in studious toil
+      And never found time to grow fat.
+
+    The other had never looked in a book;
+      His patients gave him no trouble;
+    If they recovered, they paid him well,
+      If they died, their heirs paid double.
+
+    Together they looked at the royal tongue,
+      As the king on his couch reclined;
+    In succession they thumped his august chest,
+      But no trace of disease could find.
+
+    The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
+      "Hang him up!" roared the king, in a gale,
+    In a ten-knot gale of royal range;
+      The other grew a shadow pale;
+
+    But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
+      And thus his prescription ran:
+    "The king will be well if he sleeps one night
+      In the shirt of a happy man."
+
+    Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
+      And fast their horses ran,
+    And many they saw, and to many they spake,
+      But they found no happy man.
+
+    They found poor men who would fain be rich,
+      And rich who thought they were poor;
+    And men who twisted their waists in stays,
+      And women that short hose wore.
+
+    They saw two men by the roadside sit,
+      And both bemoaned their lot;
+    For one had buried his wife he said,
+      And the other one had not.
+
+    At last they came to a village gate;
+      A beggar lay whistling there;
+    He whistled and sang and laughed, and rolled
+      On the grass in the soft June air.
+
+    The weary couriers paused and looked
+      At the scamp so blithe and gay,
+    And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend,
+      Yon seem to be happy to-day."
+
+    "Oh yes, fair sirs," the rascal laughed,
+      And his voice rang free and glad;
+    "An idle man has so much to do
+      That he never has time to be sad."
+
+    "This is our man," the courier said,
+      "Our luck has led us aright.
+    I will give you a hundred ducats, friend,
+      For the loan of your shirt to-night."
+
+    The merry blackguard lay back on the grass
+      And laughed till his face was black;
+    "I would do it, God wot," and he roared with fun,
+      "But I haven't a shirt to my back."
+
+    Each day to the king the reports came in
+      Of his unsuccessful spies,
+    And the sad panorama of human woes
+      Passed daily under his eyes.
+
+    And he grew ashamed of his useless life,
+      And his maladies hatched in gloom;
+    He opened the windows, and let in the air
+      Of the free heaven into his room;
+
+    And out he went in the world, and toiled
+      In his own appointed way,
+    And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
+      And the king was well and gay.
+
+
+
+
+PRAYING FOR PAPA.
+
+
+A man who had been walking for some time in the downward path, came out of
+his house and started down town for a night of carousal with some old
+companions he had promised to meet. His young wife had besought him with
+imploring eyes to spend the evening with her, and had reminded him of the
+time when evenings passed in her company were all too short. His little
+daughter had clung about his knees and coaxed in her pretty, wilful way for
+"papa" to tell her some bedtime stories, but habit was stronger than love
+for wife and child, and he eluded their tender questioning by the special
+sophistries the father of evil advances at such times from his credit fund,
+and went his way.
+
+But when he was a few blocks distant from his home, he found that in
+changing his coat he had forgotten to remove his wallet, and he could not
+go out on a drinking bout without money, even though he knew his family
+needed it, and his wife was economizing every day more and more in order to
+make up his deficits, and he hurried back and crept softly past the windows
+of the little house, in order that he might steal in and obtain it without
+running the gauntlet of either questions or caresses.
+
+But something stayed his feet; there was a fire in the grate within--for
+the night was chilly--and it lit up the little parlor and brought out in
+startling effects the pictures on the wall. But these were as nothing to
+the pictures on the hearth. There, in the soft glow of the fire-light knelt
+his child at the mother's feet, its small hands clasped in prayer, its fair
+head bowed; and as its rosy lips whispered each word with distinctness, the
+father listened, spell-bound to the spot:
+
+    "Now I lay me down to sleep,
+    I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
+    If I should die before I wake,
+    I pray the Lord my soul to take."
+
+Sweet petition! The man himself, who stood there with bearded lips shut
+tightly together, had said that prayer once at his mother's knee. Where was
+that mother now? The sunset gates had long ago unbarred to let her through.
+But the child had not finished; he heard her say "God bless mamma, papa,
+and my ownself"--and there was a pause, and she lifted her troubled blue
+eyes to her mother's face.
+
+"God bless papa," prompted the mother, softly.
+
+"God bless papa," lisped the little one.
+
+"And--please send papa home sober"--he could not hear the mother as she
+said this, but the child followed in a clear, inspired tone:
+
+"God--bless--papa--and--please--send--him--home--sober. Amen."
+
+Mother and child sprang to their feet in alarm when the door opened so
+suddenly, but they were not afraid when they saw who it was, returned so
+soon. That night, when little Mamie was being tucked up in bed after such a
+romp with papa, she said in the sleepiest and most contented of voices:
+
+"Mamma, God answers most as quick as the telegraph, doesn't he?"
+
+
+
+
+BECALMED.
+
+BY SAMUEL, K. COWAN.
+
+
+    It was as calm as calm could be;
+      A death-still night in June;
+    A silver sail on a silver sea,
+      Under a silver moon.
+
+    Not the least low air the still sea stirred;
+      But all on the dreaming deep
+    The white ship lay, like a white sea-bird,
+      With folded wings, asleep.
+
+    For a long, long month, not a breath of air;
+      For a month, not a drop of rain;
+    And the gaunt crew watched in wild despair,
+      With a fever in throat and brain.
+
+    And they saw the shore, like a dim cloud, stand
+      On the far horizon-sea;
+    It was only a day's short sail to the land,
+      And the haven where they would be.
+
+    Too faint to row--no signal brought
+      An answer, far or nigh.
+    Father, have mercy; leave them not
+      Alone, on the deep, to die.
+
+    And the gaunt crew prayed on the decks above;
+      And the women prayed below:
+    "One drop of rain, for Heaven's great love!
+      Oh, Heaven, for a breeze to blow!"
+
+    But never a shower from the cloud would burst,
+      And never a breeze would come:
+    O God, to think that man can thirst
+      And starve in sight of home!
+
+    But out to sea with the drifting tide
+      The vessel drifted away--
+    Till the far-off shore, like the dim cloud, died;
+      And the wild crew ceased to pray!
+
+    Like fiends they glared, with their eyes aglow;
+      Like beasts with hunger wild:
+    But a mother prayed, in the cabin below,
+      By the bed of her little child.
+
+    It slept, and lo! in its sleep it smiled,--
+      A babe of summers three:
+    "O Father, save my little child,
+      Whatever comes to me!"
+
+    Calm gleamed the sea, calm gleamed the sky,
+      No cloud--no sail in view;
+    And they cast them lots, for who should die
+      To feed the starving crew!
+
+    Like beasts they glared, with hunger wild,
+      And their red-glazed eyes aglow,
+    And the death-lot fell on the little child
+      That slept in the cabin below!
+
+    And the mother shrieked in wild despair:
+      "O God, my child--my son.
+    They will take his life, it is hard to bear;
+      Yet, Father, Thy will be done."
+
+    And she waked the child from its happy sleep,
+      And she kneeled by the cradle bed;
+    "We thirst, my child, on the lonely deep;
+      We are dying, my child, for bread.
+
+    "On the lone, lone sea no sail--no breeze;
+      Not a drop of rain in the sky;
+    We thirst--we starve--on the lonely seas;
+      And thou, my child, must die!"
+
+    She wept: what tears her wild soul shed
+      Not I, but Heaven knows best.
+    And the child rose up from its cradle bed,
+      And crossed its hands on its breast:
+
+    "Father," he lisped, "so good, so kind,
+      Have pity on mother's pain:
+    For mother's sake, a little wind;
+      Father, a little rain!"
+
+    And she heard them shout for the child from the deck,
+      And she knelt on the cabin stairs:
+    "The child!" they cry, "the child--stand back--
+      And a curse on your idiot prayers!"
+
+    And the mother rose in her wild despair,
+      And she bared her throat to the knife:
+    "Strike--strike me--me; but spare, oh, spare
+      My child, my dear son's life!"
+
+    O God, it was a ghastly sight,--
+      Red eyes, like flaming brands,
+    And a hundred belt-knives flashing bright
+      In the clutch of skeleton hands!
+
+    "Me--me--strike--strike, ye fiends of death!"
+      But soft--through the ghastly air
+    Whose falling tear was that? whose breath
+      Waves through the mother's hair?
+
+    A flutter of sail--a ripple of seas--
+      A speck on the cabin pane;
+    O God; it's a breeze--a breeze--
+      And a drop of blessed rain!
+
+    And the mother rushed to the cabin below,
+      And she wept on the babe's bright hair.
+    "The sweet rain falls the sweet winds blow;
+      Father has heard thy prayer!"
+
+    Bu the child had fallen asleep again,
+      And lo! in its sleep it smiled.
+    "Thank God," she cried, "for His wind and His rain!
+      Thank God, for my little child!"
+
+
+
+
+IN THE BOTTOM DRAWER.
+
+
+I saw wife pull out the bottom drawer of the old family bureau this
+evening, and went softly out, and wandered up and down, until I knew that
+she had shut it up and gone to her sewing. We have some things laid away in
+that drawer which the gold of kings could not buy, and yet they are relics
+which grieve us until both our hearts are sore. I haven't dared look at
+them for a year, but I remember each article.
+
+There are two worn shoes, a little chip hat with part of the brim gone,
+some stockings, pants, a coat, two or three spools, bits of broken
+crockery, a whip and several toys. Wife--poor thing--goes to that drawer
+every day of her life, and prays over it, and lets her tears fall upon the
+precious articles; but I dare not go.
+
+Sometimes we speak of little Jack, but not often. It has been a long time,
+but somehow we can't get over grieving. He was such a burst of sunshine
+into our lives that his going away has been like covering our every-day
+existence with a pall. Sometimes, when we sit alone of an evening, I
+writing and she sewing, a child on the street will call out as our boy used
+to, and we will both start up with beating hearts and a wild hope, only to
+find the darkness more of a burden than ever.
+
+It is so still and quiet now. I look up at the window where his blue eyes
+used to sparkle at my coming, but he is not there. I listen for his
+pattering feet, his merry shout, and his ringing laugh; but there is no
+sound. There is no one to climb over my knees, no one to search my pockets
+and tease for presents: and I never find the chairs turned over, the broom
+down, or ropes tied to the door-knobs.
+
+I want some one to tease me for my knife; to ride on my shoulder; to lose
+my axe; to follow me to the gate when I go, and be there to meet me when I
+come; to call "good-night" from the little bed, now empty. And wife, she
+misses him still more; there are no little feet to wash, no prayers to say;
+no voice teasing for lumps of sugar, or sobbing with the pain of a hurt
+toe; and she would give her own life, almost, to awake at midnight, and
+look across to the crib and see our boy there as he used to be.
+
+So we preserve our relics; and when we are dead we hope that strangers will
+handle them tenderly, even if they shed no tears over them.
+
+
+
+
+EMULATION (UP TO DATE).
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    "He who would thrive must rise at five,"
+        The old folks used to say,
+    And so, of course, to thrive the more,
+    Tis better still to rise at four,
+        And make a longer day.
+
+    Still smarter he who wakes at three,
+        And hurries out of bed;
+    And he who would this man outdo
+    Must rise when clocks are striking two,
+        To earn his daily bread.
+
+    To rise and run at stroke of one,
+        Advantage still may keep;
+    But he who would them all forestall
+    Must never go to bed at all,
+        And die for lack of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+DESTINY OF OUR COUNTRY.
+
+BY R. C. WINTHROP.
+
+
+Here, then, sir, I bring these remarks to a close. I have explained, to the
+best of my ability, the views which I entertain of the great questions of
+the day. Those views may be misrepresented hereafter, as they have been
+heretofore; but they cannot be misunderstood by any one who desires, or who
+is even willing, to understand them.
+
+Most gladly would I have found myself agreeing more entirely with some of
+the friends whom I see around me, and with more than one of those
+elsewhere, with whom I have always been proud to be associated, and whose
+lead, on almost all occasions, I have rejoiced to follow.
+
+Our tie, however, I am persuaded, still remains to us all--a common
+devotion to the Union of these States, and a common determination to
+sacrifice everything but principle to its preservation. Our
+responsibilities are indeed great. This vast republic, stretching from sea
+to sea, and rapidly outgrowing everything but our affections, looks
+anxiously to us, this day, to take care that it receives no detriment.
+
+Nor is it too much to say, that the eyes and the hearts of the friends of
+constitutional freedom throughout the world are at this moment turned
+eagerly here,--more eagerly than ever before,--to behold an example of
+successful republican institutions, and to see them come out safely and
+triumphantly from the fiery trial to which they are now subjected!
+
+I have the firmest faith that these eyes and these hearts will not be
+disappointed. I have the strongest belief that the visions and phantoms of
+disunion which now appall us will soon be remembered only like the clouds
+of some April morning, or "the dissolving views" of some evening spectacle.
+
+I have the fullest conviction that this glorious republic is destined to
+outlast all, all, at either end of the Union, who may be plotting against
+its peace, or predicting its downfall.
+
+    "Fond, impious man! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud
+      Raised by thy breath, can quench the orb of day?
+    To morrow, it repairs its golden flood,
+      And warms the nations with redoubled ray!"
+
+Let us proceed in the settlement of the unfortunate controversies in which
+we find ourselves involved, in a spirit of mutual conciliation and
+concession:--let us invoke fervently upon our efforts the blessings of that
+Almighty Being who is "the author of peace and lover of concord:"--and we
+shall still find order springing out of confusion, harmony evoked from
+discord, and peace, union and liberty, once more reassured to our land!
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMEN OF MUMBLES HEAD.
+
+BY CLEMENT SCOTT.
+
+
+    Bring, novelist, your note-book! bring, dramatist, your pen!
+    And I'll tell you a simple story of what women do for men.
+    It's only a tale of a lifeboat, of the dying and the dead,
+    Of the terrible storm and shipwreck that happened off Mumbles Head!
+    Maybe you have traveled in Wales, sir, and know it north and south;
+    Maybe you are friends with the "natives" that dwell at Oystermouth;
+    It happens, no doubt, that from Bristol you've crossed in a casual way,
+    And have sailed your yacht in the summer in the blue of Swansea Bay.
+
+    Well! it isn't like that in the winter, when the lighthouse stands alone,
+    In the teeth of Atlantic breakers that foam on its face of stone;
+    It wasn't like that when the hurricane blew, and the storm-bell tolled,
+        or when
+    There was news of a wreck, and the lifeboat launched, and a desperate
+        cry for men.
+    When in the world did the coxswain shirk? a brave old salt was he!
+    Proud to the bone of as four strong lads as ever had tasted the sea,
+    Welshmen all to the lungs and loins, who, about that coast, 'twas said,
+    Had saved some hundred lives apiece--at a shilling or so a head!
+
+    So the father launched the lifeboat, in the teeth of the tempest's roar,
+    And he stood like a man at the rudder, with an eye on his boys at the oar.
+    Out to the wreck went the father! out to the wreck went the sons!
+    Leaving the weeping of women, and booming of signal guns;
+    Leaving the mother who loved them, and the girls that the sailors love,
+    Going to death for duty, and trusting to God above!
+    Do you murmur a prayer, my brothers, when cozy and safe in bed,
+    For men like these, who are ready to die for a wreck off Mumbles Head?
+
+    It didn't go well with the lifeboat! 'twas a terrible storm that blew!
+    And it snapped the rope in a second that was flung to the drowning crew;
+    And then the anchor parted--'twas a tussle to keep afloat!
+    But the father stuck to the rudder, and the boys to the brave old boat.
+    Then at last on the poor doomed lifeboat a wave broke mountains high!
+    "God help us now!" said the father. "It's over, my lads! Good-bye!"
+    Half of the crew swam shoreward, half to the sheltered caves,
+    But father and sons were fighting death in the foam of the angry waves.
+
+    Up at a lighthouse window two women beheld the storm,
+    And saw in the boiling breakers a figure,--a fighting form;
+    It might be a gray-haired father, then the women held their breath;
+    It might be a fair-haired brother, who was having a round with death,
+    It might be a lover, a husband, whose kisses were on the lips
+    Of the women whose love is the life of men going down to the sea in ships.
+    They had seen the launch of the lifeboat, they had seen the worst, and more,
+    Then, kissing each other, these women went down from the lighthouse,
+        straight to shore.
+
+    There by the rocks on the breakers these sisters, hand in hand,
+    Beheld once more that desperate man who struggled to reach the land.
+    'Twas only aid he wanted to help him across the wave,
+    But what are a couple of women with only a man to save?
+    What are a couple of women? well, more than three craven men
+    Who stood by the shore with chattering teeth, refusing to stir--and then
+    Off went the women's shawls, sir; in a second they're torn and rent,
+    Then knotting them into a rope of love, straight into the sea they went!
+
+    "Come back!" cried the lighthouse-keeper, "For God's sake, girls,
+        come back!"
+    As they caught the waves on their foreheads, resisting the fierce attack.
+    "Come back!" moaned the gray-haired mother, as she stood by the angry sea,
+    "If the waves take you, my darlings, there's nobody left to me!"
+    "Come back!" said the three strong soldiers, who still stood faint and pale,
+    "You will drown if you face the breakers! you will fall
+        if you brave the gale!"
+    "_Come back!_" said the girls, "we will not! go tell it to all the town,
+    We'll lose our lives, God willing, before that man shall drown!"
+
+    "Give one more knot to the shawls, Bess! give one strong clutch
+        of your hand!
+    Just follow me, brave, to the shingle, and we'll bring him safe to land!
+    Wait for the next wave, darling! only a minute  more,
+    And I'll have him safe in my arms, dear, and we'll drag him to the shore."
+    Up to the arms in the water, fighting it breast to breast,
+    They caught and saved a brother alive. God bless them! you know the rest--
+    Well, many a heart beat stronger, and many a tear was shed,
+    And many a hearty cheer was raised for "The Women of Mumbles Head!"
+
+
+
+
+A REASONABLE REQUEST.
+
+MR. DARNELLE ASKS HIS FIANCEE A FAVOR, AFTER THEIR ENGAGEMENT.
+
+
+"It is so sudden, Mr. Darnelle."
+
+"I know it is," responded the young man gently.
+
+He stood before her with his weight resting easily on one foot, his left
+elbow on the mantel-piece, his right arm behind him, and his whole attitude
+one of careless, unstudied ease and grace, acquired only by long and
+patient practice.
+
+"I know it is," he repeated. "Measured by ordinary standards and by the
+cold conventionalities of society, it is indeed sudden. We have known each
+other only twenty-four hours. Until 8.25 o'clock last night neither of us
+had ever heard of the other. Yet with the heart one day is as one hundred
+years. Could we have known one another better, darling," he went on, with a
+tremor in his cultivated B flat baritone voice, "if we had attended the
+theatre, the concert, the church and the oyster parlor together for a dozen
+seasons? Does not your heart beat responsive to mine?"
+
+"I will not pretend to deny, Mr. Darnelle," replied the young lady, with a
+rich blush mantling her cheek and brow, "that your avowal moves me
+strangely."
+
+"I know it--I feel it," he responded eagerly. "Love is not the slow,
+vegetable-like growth of years. It does not move in its course with the
+measured, leisurely step of a man working by the day. It springs up like a
+mushr--like an electric flash. It takes instant possession. It does not
+need to be jerked in, as it were. It needs not the agonized coaxing of--of
+a young man's first chin whiskers, my darling. It is here! You will forgive
+my presumption, will you not, and speak the words that tremble on your
+lips--the words that will fill my cup of joy to overflowing?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The evening had passed like a beautiful dream. Mr. Darnelle, admonished by
+the clock that it was time to go, had risen reluctantly to his feet, and
+stood holding the hand of his beautiful betrothed.
+
+"My love," he said, in eager passionate accents, "now that you have blessed
+my life with a measureless, ineffable joy, and made all my future radiant
+with golden hope, you will not think I am asking too much if I plead for
+just one favor?"
+
+"What is it?" shyly responded the lovely maiden.
+
+"Will you please tell me your first name?"
+
+
+
+
+RESIGNATION.
+
+BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+    There is no flock, however watched and tended,
+      But one dead lamb is there!
+    There is no fireside howso'er defended,
+      But has one vacant chair!
+
+    The air is full of farewells to the dying;
+      And mournings for the dead;
+    The heart of Rachel, for her children crying.
+      Will not be comforted!
+
+    Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
+      Not from the ground arise,
+    But oftentimes celestial benedictions
+      Assume this dark disguise.
+
+    We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
+      Amid these earthly damps
+    What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
+      May be heaven's distant lamps.
+
+    There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
+      This life of mortal breath
+    Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
+      Whose portal we call Death.
+
+    She is not dead,--the child of our affection,--
+      But gone unto that school
+    Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
+      And Christ himself doth rule.
+
+    In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
+      By guardian angels led,
+    Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
+      She lives, whom we call dead.
+
+    Day after day we think what she is doing
+      In those bright realms of air;
+    Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
+      Behold her grown more fair.
+
+    Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
+      The bond which nature gives,
+    Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
+      May reach her where she lives.
+
+    Not as a child shall we again behold her;
+      For when with raptures wild
+    In our embraces we again enfold her,
+      She will not be a child;
+
+    But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
+      Clothed with celestial grace;
+    And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
+      Shall we behold her face.
+
+    And though at times impetuous with emotion
+      And anguish long suppressed,
+    The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
+      That cannot be at rest,--
+
+    We will be patient and assuage the feeling
+      We may not wholly stay;
+    By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
+      The grief that must have way.
+
+
+
+
+AN AFFECTIONATE LETTER.
+
+_Tipperary, Ireland, September the ten._
+
+
+MY DEAR NEPHEW:
+
+I have not heard anything of you sens the last time I wrote ye. I have
+moved from the place where I now live, or I should have written to you
+before. I did not know where a letter might find you first, but I now take
+my pen in hand to drop you a few lines, to inform you of the death of your
+own living uncle, Kilpatrick. He died very suddenly after a long illness of
+six months. Poor man, he suffered a great deal. He lay a long time in
+convulsions, perfectly quiet and speechless, and all the time talking
+incoherently and inquiring for water.
+
+I'm much at a loss to tell you what his death was occasioned by, but the
+doctor thinks it was caused by his last sickness, for he was not well ten
+days during his confinement.
+
+His age ye know jist as well as I can tell ye; he was 25 years old last
+March, lacking fifteen months; and if he had lived till this time he would
+be just six months dead.
+
+N. B. Take notis. I inclose to you a tin pound note, which ye father sends
+to ye unbeknown to me. Your mother often speaks of ye; she would like to
+send ye the brindle cow, and I would inclose her to ye but for the horns.
+
+I would beg of ye not to break the sale of this letter until two or three
+days after ye read it, for thin ye will be better prepared for the
+sorrowful news.
+
+PATRICK O'BRANIGAN.
+
+To Michael Glancy, No. -- Broad Street, United States of Ameriky, State of
+Massachusetts, in Boston.
+
+
+
+
+THE WHISTLING REGIMENT.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+     [In the recitation which follows, the effect can be
+     heightened by an accompaniment of the piano and by the
+     whistling of strains from Annie Laurie, adapting the
+     style to the sentiment of the verses.
+
+     The melody should be played very softly, except where
+     the battle is alluded to, and the whistling should be
+     so timed that the last strain of Annie Laurie may end
+     with the words, "would lay me down and die." The beat
+     of the drums can be introduced with good effect, but it
+     is better to omit it unless it can be done skilfully.
+     It is well to state before reciting, that the escape
+     described is not entirely imaginary as many prisoners
+     made their way through underground passages from rebel
+     prisons, during the Civil War. An asterisk (*) at the
+     end of a line denotes where the whistling should
+     commence, and a dagger (*t) where it should
+     cease.]
+
+
+    When the North and South had parted, and the boom of the signal gun
+    Had wakened the Northern heroes, for the great deeds to be done,
+    When the nation's cry for soldiers had echoed o'er hill and dale,
+    When hot youth flushed with courage, while the mother's cheeks turned pale,
+    In the woods of old New England, as the day sank down the west,
+    A loved one stood beside me, her brown head on my breast.
+    From the earliest hours of childhood our paths had been as one,
+    Her heart was in my keeping, though I knew not when 'twas won;
+    We had learned to love each other, in a half unspoken way,
+    But it ripened to full completeness when the parting came, that day;
+    Not a tear in the eyes of azure, but a deep and fervent prayer,
+    That seemed to say: "God bless you, and guard you, everywhere."
+    At the call for volunteers, her face was like drifted snow,
+    She read in my eyes a question and her loyal heart said, "Go."
+    As the roll of the drums drew nearer, through the leaves of the
+        rustling trees,*
+    The strains of Annie Laurie were borne to us, on the breeze.
+    Then I drew her pale face nearer and said: "Brave heart and true,
+    Your tender love and prayers shall bring me back to you."
+    And I called her _my_ Annie Laurie and whispered to her that I
+    For her sweet sake was willing--to lay me down and die.
+    And I said: "Through the days of danger, that little song shall be
+    Like a pass word from this hillside, to bring your love to me."[*t]
+    Oh! many a time, at nightfall, in the very shades of death,
+    When the picket lines were pacing their rounds with bated breath,*
+
+    The lips of strong men trembled and brave breasts heaved a sigh,
+    When some one whistled softly, "I'd lay me down and die."[*t]
+    The tender little ballad our watchword soon became,
+    And in place of Annie Laurie, each had a loved one's name.
+    In the very front of battle, where the bullets thickest fly,*
+    The boys from old New England oftimes went rushing by,
+    And the rebel lines before us gave way where'er we went,
+    For the gray coats fled in terror from the "whistling regiment."
+    Amidst the roar of the cannon, and the shriek of the shells on high,
+    Yon could hear the brave boys whistling: "I'd lay me down and die."[*t]
+    But, Alas! Though truth is mighty and right will at last prevail,
+    There are times when the best and bravest, by the wrong outnumbered, fail;
+    And thus, one day, in a skirmish, but a half-hour's fight at most,
+    A score of the whistling soldiers were caught by the rebel host.
+    With hands fast tied behind us, we were dragged to a prison pen,
+    Where, hollow-eyed and starving, lay a thousand loyal men.
+    No roof but the vault of Heaven, no bed save the beaten sod,
+    Shut in from the world around us, by a wall where the sentries trod.
+    For a time our Annie Laurie brought cheer to that prison pen;
+    A hope to the hearts of the living; a smile to the dying men.
+    But the spark of Hope burned dimly, when each day's setting sun
+    Dropped the pall of night o'er a comrade, whose sands of life were run.
+    One night, in a dismal corner, where the shadows darkest fell,
+    We huddled close together to hear a soldier tell
+    The tales of dear New England and of loved ones waiting there,
+    When, Hark! a soft, low whistle, pierced through the heavy air,*
+    And the strain was Annie Laurie. Each caught the other's eye,
+    And with trembling lips we answered, "I'd lay me down and die."
+    From the earth, near the wall behind us, a hand came struggling through,
+    With a crumpled bit of paper for the captive boys in blue.
+    And the name! My God! 'Twas Annie, my Annie, true and brave,
+    From the hills of old New England she had followed me to save.[*t]
+    "Not a word or a sign, but follow, where'er you may be led,
+    Bring four of your comrades with you," was all hat the writing said.
+    Only eight were left of the twenty and lots were quickly thrown,
+    Then our trembling fingers widened the space where the hand had shown.
+    With a stealthy glance at the sentries, the prisoners gathered round,
+    And the five whom fate had chosen stole silent underground,
+    On, on, through the damp earth creeping, we followed our dusky guide,
+    Till under a bank o'erhanging we came to the river side:
+    "Straight over," a low voice whispered, "where you see yon beacon light,"
+    And ere we could say, "God bless you," he vanished into the night.
+    Through the fog and damp of the river, when the moon was hid from sight,
+    With a fond, old, faithful negro, brave Annie had crossed each night;
+    And the long, dark, narrow passage had grown till we heard close by
+    The notes of the dear old pass-word: "I'd lay me down and die."
+    With oarlocks muffled and silent, we pushed out into the stream,
+    When a shot rang out on the stillness. We could see by the musket gleam,
+    A single sentry firing, but the balls passed harmless by,
+    For the stars had hid their faces and clouds swept o'er the sky.
+    O God! How that beacon burning, brought joy to my heart that night,*
+    For I knew whose hand had kindled that fire to guide our flight.
+    The new-born hope of freedom filled every arm with strength,
+    And we pulled at the oars like giants till the shore was reached at length.
+    We sprang from the skiff, half-fainting, once more in the land of the free,
+    And the lips of my love were waiting to welcome and comfort me.
+    In my wasted arms I held her, while the weary boys close by
+    Breathed low, "For Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down and die."[*t]
+
+
+
+
+THE MINISTER'S GRIEVANCES.
+
+
+"Brethren," said the aged minister, as he stood up before the church
+meeting on New Year's Eve, "I am afraid we will have to part. I have
+labored among you now for fifteen years, and I feel that that is almost
+enough, under the peculiar circumstances in which I am placed. Not that I
+am exactly dissatisfied; but a clergyman who has been preaching to sinners
+for fifteen years for five hundred dollars a year, naturally feels that he
+is not doing a great work when Deacon Jones, acting as an officer of the
+church, pays his last quarter's salary in a promissory note at six months,
+and then, acting as an individual, offers to discount it for him at ten per
+cent if he will take it part out in clover seed and pumpkins.
+
+"I feel somehow as if it would take about eighty-four years of severe
+preaching to prepare the deacon for existence in a felicitous hereafter.
+Let me say, also, that while I am deeply grateful to the congregation for
+the donation party they gave me on Christmas, I have calculated that it
+would be far more profitable for me to shut my house and take to the woods
+than endure another one. I will not refer to the impulsive generosity which
+persuaded Sister Potter to come with a present of eight clothes pins; I
+will not insinuate anything against Brother Ferguson, who brought with him
+a quarter of a peck of dried apples of the crop of 1872; I shall not allude
+to the benevolence of Sister Tynhirst, who came with a pen-wiper and a tin
+horse for the baby; I shall refrain from commenting upon the impression
+made by Brother Hill, who brought four phosphorescent mackerel, possibly
+with an idea that they might be useful in dissipating the gloom in my
+cellar. I omit reference to Deacon Jones' present of an elbow of stove-pipe
+and a bundle of tooth-picks, and I admit that when Sister Peabody brought
+me sweetened sausage-meat, and salted and peppered mince-meat for pies, she
+did right in not forcing her own family to suffer from her mistake in
+mixing the material. But I do think I may fairly remark respecting the case
+of Sister Walsingham, that after careful thought I am unable to perceive
+how she considered that a present of a box of hair-pins to my wife
+justified her in consuming half a pumpkin pie, six buttered muffins, two
+platefuls of oysters, and a large variety of miscellaneous food, previous
+to jamming herself full of preserves, and proceeding to the parlor to join
+in singing 'There is rest for the weary!' Such a destruction of the
+necessaries of life doubtless contributes admirably to the stimulation of
+commerce, but it is far too large a commercial operation to rest solely
+upon the basis of a ten-cent box of hair-pins.
+
+"As for matters in the church, I do not care to discuss them at length. I
+might say much about the manner in which the congregation were asked to
+contribute clothing to our mission in Senegambia; we received nothing but
+four neckties and a brass breast-pin, excepting a second-hand carriage-whip
+that Deacon Jones gave us. I might allude to the frivolous manner in which
+Brother Atkinson, our tenor, converses with Sister Priestly, our soprano,
+during my sermons, and last Sunday he kissed her when he thought I was not
+looking; I might allude to the absent-mindedness which has permitted
+Brother Brown twice lately to put half a dollar on the collection-plate and
+take off two quarters and a ten-cent piece in change; and I might dwell
+upon the circumstance that while Brother Toombs, the undertaker, sings 'I
+would not live alway' with professional enthusiasm that is pardonable, I do
+not see why he should throw such unction into the hymn 'I am unworthy
+though I give my all,' when he is in arrears for two years' pew-rent, and
+is always busy examining the carpet-pattern when the plate goes round. I
+also----"
+
+But there Brother Toombs turned off the gas suddenly, and the meeting
+adjourned full of indignation at the good pastor. His resignation was
+accepted unanimously.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOOD OLD WAY.
+
+
+    John Mann had a wife who was kind and true,--
+      A wife who loved him well;
+    She cared for the house and their only child;
+      But if I the truth must tell,
+    She fretted and pined because John was poor
+      And his business was slow to pay;
+    But he only said, when she talked of change,
+      "We'll stick to the good old way!"
+
+    She saw her neighbors were growing rich
+      And dwelling in houses grand;
+    That she was living in poverty,
+      With wealth upon every hand;
+    And she urged her husband to speculate,
+      To risk his earnings at play;
+    But he only said, "My dearest wife,
+      We'll stick to the good old way."
+
+    For he knew that the money that's quickly got
+      Is the money that's quickly lost;
+    And the money that stays is the money earned
+      At honest endeavor's cost.
+    So he plodded along in his honest style,
+      And he bettered himself each day,
+    And he only said to his fretful wife,
+      "We'll stick to the good old way."
+
+    And at last there came a terrible crash,
+      When beggary, want, and shame
+    Came down on the homes of their wealthy friends,
+      While John's remained the same;
+    For he had no debts and he gave no trust,
+      "My motto is this," he'd say,--
+    "It's a charm against panics of every kind,--
+      'Tis stick to the good old way!"
+
+    And his wife looked round on the little house
+      That was every nail their own,
+    And she asked forgiveness of honest John
+      For the peevish mistrust she had shown;
+    But he only said, as her tearful face
+      Upon his shoulder lay,
+    "The good old way is the best way, wife;
+      We'll stick to the good old way."
+
+
+
+
+EXTRACT FROM BLAINE'S ORATION ON JAMES A. GARFIELD.
+
+     [Delivered in the City of Washington, Monday, February
+     27, 1882.]
+
+
+On the morning of Saturday, July 2, the President was a contented and happy
+man--not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On his
+way to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious
+enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and
+keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful and
+congratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial his
+administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor
+and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting him at
+his inauguration had been safely passed; that trouble lay behind him and
+not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now
+recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted and at times
+almost unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most
+cheerful associations of his young manhood and to exchange greetings with
+those whose deepening interest had followed every step of his upward
+progress from the day he entered upon his college course until he had
+attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his countrymen.
+
+Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this
+world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well have been a
+happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of
+danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One
+moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully
+out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to
+weary weeks of torture, to silence and the grave.
+
+Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the
+very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he
+was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its
+aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death--and he did
+not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed,
+he could give up life hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days
+of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because
+silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage he looked into his open
+grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes whose lips may
+tell--what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what
+sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of
+sweet household ties! Behind him a proud expectant nation; a great host of
+sustaining friends; a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich
+honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life
+lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's days of
+frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into
+closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a
+father's love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet
+all demands. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was
+not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound and
+universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre
+of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love
+and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the
+winepress alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing
+tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's
+bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the
+Divine decree.
+
+As the end drew near his early craving for the sea returned. The stately
+mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he
+begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling
+air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love
+of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the
+sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving
+billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face
+tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze he looked out wistfully upon the
+ocean's changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light;
+on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the
+noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on
+the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying
+eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know.
+Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great
+waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow
+the breath of the eternal morning.
+
+
+
+
+HOW SHALL I LOVE YOU?
+
+WILL C. FERRIL.
+
+
+    How shall I love you? I dream all day
+    Dear, of a tenderer, sweeter way;
+    Songs that I sing to you, words that I say,
+    Prayers that are voiceless on lips that would pray;
+    These may not tell of the love of my life;
+    How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?
+
+    How shall I love you? Love is the bread
+    Of life to a woman--the white and the red
+    Of all the world's roses, the light that is shed
+    On all the world's pathways, till life shall be dead!
+    The star in the storm and the strength in the strife;
+    How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?
+
+    Is there a burden your heart must bear?
+    I shall kneel lowly and lift it, dear!
+    Is there a thorn in the crown that you wear?
+    Let it hide in my heart till a rose blossom there!
+    For grief or for glory--for death or for life,
+    So shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE BROWN CURL.
+
+
+    A quaint old box with a lid of blue,
+      All faded and worn with age;
+    A soft little curl of a brownish hue,
+      A yellow and half-written page.
+
+    The letters, with never a pause nor dot,
+      In a school-boy's hand are cast;
+    The lines and the curl I may hold to-day,
+      But the love of the boy is past.
+
+    It faded away with our childish dreams,
+      Died out like the morning mist,
+    And I look with a smile on the silken curl
+      That once I had tenderly kissed.
+
+    One night in the summer--so long ago--
+      We played by the parlor door,
+    And the moonlight fell, like a silver veil,
+      Spreading itself on the floor.
+
+    And the children ran on the graveled walk
+      At play in their noisy glee;
+    But the maddest, merriest fun just then
+      Was nothing to John and me.
+
+    For he was a stately boy of twelve,
+      And I was not quite eleven--
+    We thought as we sat by the parlor door
+      We had found the gate to heaven.
+
+    That night when I lay on my snowy bed,
+      Like many a foolish girl,
+    I kissed and held to my little heart
+      This letter and silken curl.
+
+    I slept and dreamed of the time when I
+      Should wake to a fairy life;
+    And sleeping, blushed, when I thought that John
+      Had called me his little wife.
+
+    I have loved since then with a woman's heart,
+      Have known all a woman's bliss,
+    But never a dream of the after life
+      Was ever so sweet as this.
+
+    The years went by with their silver feet,
+      And often I laughed with John
+    At the vows we made by the parlor door
+      When the moon and stars looked on.
+
+    Ah? boyish vows were broken and lost,
+      And a girl's first dream will end,
+    But I dearly loved his beautiful wife,
+      While he was my husband's friend.
+
+    When at last I went to my childhood's home
+      Far over the bounding wave,
+    I missed my friend, for the violets grew
+      And blossomed over his grave.
+
+    To-day as I opened the old blue box,
+      And looked on this soft brown curl,
+    And read of the love John left for me
+      When I was a little girl,
+
+    There came to my heart a throb of pain,
+      And my eyes grew moist with tears,
+    For the childish love and the dear, dear friend,
+      And the long-lost buried years.
+
+
+
+
+DE PINT WID OLE PETE.
+
+
+Upon the hurricane deck of one of our gunboats, an elderly looking darkey,
+with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted
+on his bundle, toasting his shins against the chimney, and apparently
+plunged into a state of profound meditation. Finding, upon inquiry, that he
+belonged to the Ninth Illinois, one of the most gallantly behaved and heavy
+losing regiments at the Fort Donelson battle, I began to interrogate him
+upon the subject.
+
+"Were you in the fight?"
+
+"Had a little taste of it, sa."
+
+"Stood your ground, did you?"
+
+"No, sa, I runs."
+
+"Run at the first fire, did you?"
+
+"Yes, sa; and would hab run soona, had I know'd it was comin'."
+
+"Why, that wasn't very creditable to your courage."
+
+"Massa, dat isn't my line, sa; cookin's my profeshun."
+
+"Well, but have you no regard for your reputation?"
+
+"Yah, yah! reputation's nuffin to me by de side ob life."
+
+"Do you consider _your_ life worth more than other people's?"
+
+"It is worth more to me, sa."
+
+"Then you must value it very highly?"
+
+"Yes, sa, I does; more dan all dis world, more dan a million ob dollars,
+sa; for what would dat be wuth to a man wid the bref out ob him?
+Self-preserbation am de fust law wid me."
+
+"But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?"
+
+"Because different men set different values upon deir lives; mine is not in
+the market."
+
+"But if you lost it, you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you
+died for your country."
+
+"What satisfaction would dat be to me when de power ob feelin' was gone?"
+
+"Then patriotism and honor are nothing to you?"
+
+"Nuffin whatever, sa; I regard them as among the vanities."
+
+"If our soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the
+government without resistance."
+
+"Yes, sa; dar would hab been no help for it."
+
+"Do you think any of your company would have missed you, if you had been
+killed?"
+
+"Maybe not, sa; a dead white man ain't much to dese sogers, let alone a
+dead nigga; but I'd a missed myself, and dat was de pint wid me."
+
+
+
+
+MOTHER'S FOOL.
+
+
+    "'Tis plain to see," said a farmer's wife,
+    "These boys will make their mark in life;
+    They were never made to handle a hoe,
+    And at once to a college ought to go;
+    There's Fred, he's little better than a fool,
+    But John and Henry must go to school."
+
+    "Well, really, wife," quote Farmer Brown,
+    As he sat his mug of cider down,
+    "Fred does more work in a day for me
+    Than both his brothers do in three.
+    Book larnin' will never plant one's corn,
+    Nor hoe potatoes, sure's your born,
+    Nor mend a rod of broken fence--
+    For my part give me common sense."
+
+    But his wife was bound the roast to rule,
+    And John and Henry were sent to school,
+    While Fred, of course, was left behind
+    Because his mother said he had no mind.
+
+    Five years at school the students spent;
+    Then into business each one went.
+    John learned to play the flute and fiddle,
+    And parted his hair, of course, in the middle;
+    While his brother looked rather higher than he,
+    And hung out a sign, "H. Brown, M. D."
+
+    Meanwhile, at home, their brother Fred
+    Had taken a notion into his head;
+    But he quietly trimmed his apple trees,
+    And weeded onions and planted peas,
+    While somehow or other, by hook or crook,
+    He managed to read full many a book.
+    Until at last his father said
+    He was getting "book larnin'" into his head;
+    "But for all that," added Farmer Brown,
+    "He's the smartest boy there is in town."
+
+    The war broke out and Captain Fred
+    A hundred men to battle led,
+    And when the rebel flag came down,
+    Went marching home as General Brown.
+    But he went to work on the farm again,
+    And planted corn and sowed his grain;
+    He shingled the barn and mended the fence,
+    Till people declared he had common sense.
+
+    Now, common sense was very rare,
+    And the State House needed a portion there;
+    So the "family dunce" moved into town--
+    The people called him Governor Brown;
+    And his brothers, who went to the city school,
+    Came home to live with "mother's fool."
+
+
+
+
+AN HOUR OF HORROR.
+
+
+It was close upon the hour of midnight.
+
+A man sat alone in an upper room in a tumble-down tenement--a man whose
+face showed by his furrowed brow, glaring eyes and pallid lips the effects
+of a terrible mental struggle going on within him.
+
+Before him were several pages of manuscript, and his nervous hand
+convulsively clutching a pen, was rapidly adding to them.
+
+Close to his right hand and frequently touched by it as he plied his pen,
+was a gleaming, glittering object--ivory, silver and steel--a loaded
+revolver.
+
+The window beside him was open, and through it the cool breeze entered and
+fanned his fevered brow. The night without was calm and placid. Nature was
+lovely, bathed in the light of the summer moon; but the man was oblivious
+of the beauties of the night. He glanced at the clock now and then, and
+observing the long hand climbing up the incline toward the figure twelve,
+he redoubled his labor at his manuscript.
+
+Anon he glanced at the revolver on the desk beside him. He touched its
+ivory handle as if faltering in his resolution; and then went on with his
+writing.
+
+Hark!
+
+What sound is that that is borne upon the breeze of the summer night? A
+long, low wail, like the cry of a woman in mortal anguish.
+
+The man started like a guilty soul, dashed the dews of perspiration from
+his clammy brow, and uttered an incoherent exclamation.
+
+Again! again, that moaning, uncanny cry!
+
+The man heard it and groaned aloud. He dashed aside the last page of his
+manuscript, and glanced again at the clock. The hands marked the hour of
+midnight. He grasped the revolver with a resolute air and exclaimed through
+his clenched teeth:
+
+"It must be done!"
+
+And, going to the window, he fired twice. * * * There was a scattering
+sound in the backyard, and the next day a gray cat was found dead close to
+the woodshed. The story and the deed were done.
+
+
+
+
+GO VAY, BECKY MILLER, GO VAY!
+
+
+    I don'd lofe you now von schmall little bit,
+    My dream vas blayed oudt, so blease git up und git;
+    Your false-heardted vays I can't got along mit--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    Vas all der young vomans so false-heardted like you,
+    Mit a face nice und bright, but a heart black und plue,
+    Und all der vhile schworing you lofed me so drue--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    Vy, vonce I t'ought you vas a shtar vay up high;
+    I liked you so better as gogonut bie:
+    But oh, Becky Miller, you hafe profed von big lie--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    You dook all de bresents vat I did bresent,
+    Yes, gobbled up efery virst thing vot I sent;
+    All der vhile mit anoder young rooster you vent--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    Vhen first I found oudt you vas such a big lie,
+    I didn't know vedder to schmudder or die;
+    Bud now, by der chingo, I don't efen cry--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    Don'd dry make belief you vas sorry aboudt,
+    I don'd belief a dings vot coomes oudt by your moudt;
+    Und besides I don'd care, for you vas blayed oudt--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+
+
+
+IT IS A WINTER NIGHT.
+
+BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
+
+
+      It is a winter night,
+      And the stilly earth is white,
+    With the blowing of the lilies of the snow;
+      Once it was as red,
+      With the roses summer shed;
+    But the roses fled with summer, long ago.
+
+      We sang a merry tune,
+      In the jolly days of June,
+    As we danced adown the garden in the light,
+      But now December's come,
+      And our hearts are dark and dumb,
+    As we huddle o'er the embers here to-night.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT THE LITTLE GIRL SAID.
+
+
+"Ma's upstairs changing her dress," said the freckle-faced little girl,
+tying her doll's bonnet strings and casting her eye about for a tidy large
+enough to serve as a shawl for that double-jointed young person.
+
+"Oh, your mother needn't dress up for me," replied the female agent of the
+missionary society, taking a self-satisfied view of herself in the mirror.
+"Run up and tell her to come down just as she is in her every-day clothes,
+and not stand on ceremony."
+
+"Oh, but she hasn't got on her every-day clothes. Ma was all dressed up in
+her new brown silk dress, 'cause she expected Miss Dimmond to-day. Miss
+Dimmond always comes over here to show off her nice things, and ma doesn't
+mean to get left. When ma saw you coming she said, 'the dickens!' and I
+guess she was mad about something. Ma said if you saw her new dress, she'd
+have to hear all about the poor heathen, who don't have silk, and you'd ask
+her for money to buy hymn books to send 'em. Say, do the nigger ladies use
+hymn-book leaves to do their hair up on and make it frizzy? Ma says she
+guesses that's all the good the books do 'em, if they ever get any books. I
+wish my doll was a heathen."
+
+"Why, you wicked little girl! what do you want of a heathen doll?" inquired
+the missionary lady, taking a mental inventory of the new things in the
+parlor to get material for a homily on worldly extravagance.
+
+"So folks would send her lots of nice things to wear, and feel sorry to
+have her going about naked. Then she'd have hair to frizz, and I want a
+doll with truly hair and eyes that roll up like Deacon Silderback's when
+he says amen on Sunday. I ain't a wicked girl, either, 'cause Uncle
+Dick--you know Uncle Dick, he's been out West and swears awful and smokes
+in the house--he says I'm a holy terror, and he hopes I'll be an angel
+pretty soon. Ma'll be down in a minute, so you needn't take your cloak off.
+She said she'd box my ears if I asked you to. Ma's putting on that old
+dress she had last year, 'cause she didn't want you to think she was able
+to give much this time, and she needed a muff worse than the queen of the
+cannon-ball islands needed religion. Uncle Dick says you oughter get to the
+islands, 'cause you'd be safe there, and the natives would be sorry they
+was such sinners anybody would send you to 'em. He says he never seen a
+heathen hungry enough to eat you, 'less 'twas a blind one, an' you'd set a
+blind pagan's teeth on edge so he'd never hanker after any more missionary.
+Uncle Dick's awful funny, and makes ma and pa die laughing sometimes."
+
+"Your Uncle Richard is a bad, depraved wretch, and ought to have remained
+out West, where his style is appreciated. He sets a horrid example for
+little girls like you."
+
+"Oh, I think he's nice. He showed me how to slide down the banisters, and
+he's teaching me to whistle when ma ain't around. That's a pretty cloak
+you've got, ain't it? Do you buy all your clothes with missionary money?
+Ma says you do."
+
+Just then the freckle-faced girl's ma came into the parlor and kissed the
+missionary lady on the cheek and said she was delighted to see her, and
+they proceeded to have a real sociable chat. The little girl's ma cannot
+understand why a person who professes to be so charitable as the missionary
+agent does should go right over to Miss Dimmond's and say such ill-natured
+things as she did, and she thinks the missionary is a double-faced gossip.
+
+
+
+
+"WE'RE BUILDING TWO A DAY!"
+
+BY REV. ALFRED J. HOUGH.
+
+     [During the Freethinkers' Convention, at Watkins, N.
+     Y., in response to statements that the churches
+     throughout the land were losing all aggressive power, a
+     message was received from Chaplain McCabe, of the
+     Methodist Episcopal Church Extension Board saying in
+     substance and speaking only of his own denomination,
+     "All hail the power of Jesus' name; we're building two
+     a day!"]
+
+
+    The infidels, a motley band,
+      In council, met and said:
+    "The churches die all through the land,
+      The last will soon be dead."
+    When suddenly a message came,
+      It filled them with dismay:
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    "We're building two a day," and still,
+      In stately forests stored,
+    Are shingle, rafter, beam, and sill,
+      For churches of the Lord;
+    And underpinning for the same,
+      In quarries piled away;
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    The miners rend the hills apart,
+      Earth's bosom is explored,
+    And streams from her metallic heart
+      In graceful molds are poured,
+    For bells to sound our Saviour's fame
+      From towers,--and, swinging, say,
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    The King of saints to war has gone,
+      And matchless are His deeds;
+    His sacramental hosts move on,
+      And follow where He leads;
+    While infidels His church defame,
+      Her corner-stones we lay;
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're laying two a day."
+
+    The Christless few the cross would hide,
+      The light of life shut out,
+    And leave the world to wander wide
+      Through sunless realms of doubt.
+    The pulpits lose their ancient fame,
+      Grown obsolete, they say;
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    "Extend," along the line is heard,
+      "Thy walls, O Zion, fair!"
+    And Methodism heeds the word,
+      And answers everywhere.
+
+    A new church greets the morning's flame,
+      Another evening's gray.
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    When infidels in council meet
+      Next year, with boastings vain,
+    To chronicle the Lord's defeat,
+      And count His churches slain,
+    Oh then may we with joy proclaim,
+      If we His call obey:
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building THREE a day."
+
+
+
+
+THE MODERN BELLE.
+
+
+    The daughter sits in the parlor,
+      And rocks in her easy-chair;
+    She is dressed in silks and satins,
+      And jewels are in her hair;
+    She winks, and giggles, and simpers,
+      And simpers, and giggles, and winks;
+    And though she talks but little,
+      It's vastly more than she thinks.
+
+    Her father goes clad in russet--
+      All brown and seedy at that;
+    His coat is out at the elbows,
+      And he wears a shocking bad hat.
+    He is hoarding and saving his dollars,
+      So carefully, day by day,
+    While she on her whims and fancies
+      Is squandering them all away.
+
+    She lies in bed of a morning
+      Until the hour of noon,
+    Then comes down, snapping and snarling
+      Because she's called too soon.
+    Her hair is still in papers,
+      Her cheeks still bedaubed with paint--
+    Remains of last night's blushes
+      Before she attempted to faint.
+
+    Her feet are so very little,
+      Her hands so snowy white,
+    Her jewels so very heavy,
+      And her head so very light;
+    Her color is made of cosmetics--
+      Though this she'll never own;
+    Her body is mostly cotton,
+      And her heart is wholly stone.
+
+    She falls in love with a fellow
+      Who swells with a foreign air;
+    He marries her for her money,
+      She marries him for his hair--
+    One of the very best matches;
+      Both are well mated in life;
+    She's got a fool for a husband,
+      And he's got a fool for a wife.
+
+
+
+
+THE PUZZLED DUTCHMAN.
+
+ANONYMOUS.
+
+_A Humorous Recitation._
+
+
+One who does not believe in immersion for baptism was holding a protracted
+meeting, and one night preached on the subject of baptism. In the course of
+his remarks he said that some believe it necessary to go down in the water,
+and come up out of it, to be baptized. But this he claimed to be fallacy,
+for the preposition "into" of the Scriptures should be rendered
+differently, as it does not mean into at all times. "Moses," he said, "we
+are told, went up into the mountain; and the Saviour was taken up into a
+high mountain, etc. Now we do not suppose either went into a mountain but
+went unto it. So with going down into the water; it means simply going down
+close by or near to the water, and being baptized in the ordinary way, by
+sprinkling or pouring." He carried this idea out fully, and in due season
+closed his discourse, when an invitation was given for any one so disposed
+to rise and express his thoughts. Quite a number of his brethren arose and
+said they were glad they had been present on this occasion, that they were
+well pleased with the sound sermon they had just heard, and felt their
+souls greatly blessed. Finally, a corpulent gentleman of Teutonic
+extraction, a stranger to all, arose and broke the silence that was almost
+painful, as follows:
+
+"Mister Breacher, I is so glad I vash here to-night, for I has had
+explained to my mint some dings dat I never could pelief pefore. Oh, I is
+so glad dat into does not mean into at all, but shust close py or near to,
+for now I can pelief many dings vot I could not pelief pefore. We reat, Mr.
+Breacher, dat Taniel vos cast into de ten of lions, and came out alife.
+Now I neffer could pelief dat, for wilt peasts would shust eat him right
+off; but now it is fery clear to my mint. He vash shust close py or near
+to, and tid not get into de ten at all. Oh, I ish so glad I vash here
+to-night. Again we reat dat de Heprew children vas cast into de firish
+furnace, and dat always look like a beeg story too, for they would have
+been purnt up; but it ish all blain to my mint now, for dey was shust cast
+py or close to de firish furnace. Oh, I vas so glad I vos here to-night.
+And den, Mister Breacher, it ish said dat Jonah vash cast into de sea, and
+taken into de whale's pelly. Now I neffer could pelief dat. It alwish
+seemed to me to be a beeg fish story, but it ish all blain to my mint now.
+He vash not into de whale's pelly at all, but shump onto his pack and rode
+ashore. Oh, I vash so glad I vash here to-night.
+
+"And now, Mister Breacher, if you will shust exblain two more bassages of
+Scriptures, I shall be oh so happy dat I vas here to-night! One of dem ish
+vere it saish de vicked shall be cast into a lake dat burns mit fire and
+primstone alwish. Oh, Mister Breacher, shall I be cast into dat lake if I
+am vicked, or shust close py or near to--shust near enough to be
+comfortable? Oh, I hope you tell me I shall be cast only shust py a good
+veys off, and I vill pe so glad I vash here to-night. Do oder bassage is
+dat vich saish blessed are they who do these commandments, dat dey may
+have right to de dree of life, and enter in droo de gates of the city, and
+not shust close py or near to--shust near enough to see vat I have
+lost--and I shall pe so glad I vash here to-night."
+
+
+
+
+THE FAST MAIL AND THE STAGE.
+
+BY JOHN H. YATES.
+
+
+    Lay by the weekly, Betsey, it's old like you and I,
+    And read the morning's daily, with its pages scarcely dry.
+    While you and I were sleepin', they were printing them to-day,
+    In the city by the ocean, several hundred miles away.
+
+    "How'd I get it?" Bless you, Betsey, you needn't doubt and laugh;
+    It didn't drop down from the clouds nor come by telegraph;
+    I got it by the lightning mail we've read about you know,
+    The mail that Jonathan got up about a month ago.
+
+    We farmers livin' 'round the hill went to the town to-day
+    To see the fast mail catch the bags that hung beside the way;
+    Quick as a flash from thundering clouds, whose tempest swept the sky,
+    The bags were caught on board the train as it went roarin' by.
+
+    We are seein' many changes in our fast declinin' years;
+    Strange rumors now are soundin' in our hard-of-hearin' ears.
+    Ere the sleep that knows no wakin' comes to waft us o'er the stream,
+    Some great power may be takin' all the self-conceit from steam.
+
+    Well do we remember, Betsey, when the post-man carried mails,
+    Ridin' horseback through the forest 'long the lonely Indian trails,
+    How impatiently we waited--we were earnest lovers then--
+    For our letters comin' slowly, many miles through wood and glen.
+
+    Many times, you know, we missed them--for the post-man never came--
+    Then, not knowin' what had happened, we did each the other blame;
+    Long those lover quarrels lasted, but the God who melts the proud
+    Brought our strayin' hearts together and let sunshine through the cloud.
+
+    Then at last the tidings reached us that the faithful post-man fell
+    Before the forest savage with his wild terrific yell,
+    And your letters lay and moldered, while the sweet birds sang above,
+    And I was savin' bitter things about a woman's love.
+
+    Long and tedious were the journeys--few and far between, the mails,
+    In the days when we were courtin'--when we thrashed with wooden flails;
+    Now the white winged cars are flyin' long the shores of inland seas.
+    And younger lovers read _their_ letters 'mid luxury and ease.
+
+    We have witnessed many changes in our three-score years and ten;
+    We no longer sit and wonder at the discoveries of men;
+    In the shadow of life's evenin' we rejoice that our dear boys
+    Are not called to meet the hardships that embittered half our joys.
+
+    Like the old mail through the forest, youthful years go slowly by;
+    Like the fast mail of the present, manhood's years how swift they fly;
+    We are sitting in the shadows; soon shall break life's brittle cord--
+    Soon shall come the welcome summons by the fast mail of the Lord.
+
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE LITTLE RID HIN.
+
+BY MRS. WHITNEY.
+
+
+Well, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould country,
+livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be herself, a
+little rid hin. Nice an' quiet she was, and niver did no kind o' harrum in
+her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a din o' the rocks, a
+crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould villain iv a fox, he laid
+awake o' nights, and he prowled around shly iv a day-time, thinkin' always
+so busy how he'd git the little rid hin, an' carry her home an' bile her up
+for his shupper. But the wise little rid hin niver went intil her bit iv a
+house, but she locked the door afther her and pit the kay in her pocket. So
+the ould rashkill iv a fox, he watched, an' he prowled, an' he laid awake
+nights, till he came all to skin an' bone, an' sorra a ha'porth o' the
+little rid hin could he git at. But at lasht there came a shcame intil his
+wicked ould head, an' he tuk a big bag one mornin', over his shouldher, an'
+he says till his mother, says he, "Mother, have the pot all bilin' agin' I
+come home, for I'll bring the little rid hin to-night for our shupper." An'
+away he wint, over the hill, an' came crapin' shly an' soft through the
+woods to where the little rid hin lived in her shnug bit iv a house. An'
+shure, jist at the very minute that he got along, out comes the little rid
+hin out iv the door, to pick up shticks to bile her tay-kettle. "Begorra,
+now, but I'll have yees," says the shly ould fox, an' in he shlips,
+unbeknownst, intil the house, an' hides behind the door. An' in comes the
+little rid hin, a minute afther, with her apron full of shticks, an' shuts
+too the door an' locks it, an' pits the kay in her pocket. An' thin she
+turns round,--an' there stands the baste iv a fox in the corner. Well,
+thin, what did she do, but jist dhrop down her shticks, and fly up in a
+great fright and flutter to the big bame acrass the inside o' the roof,
+where the fox couldn't git at her!
+
+"Ah, ha!" says the fox, "I'll soon bring you out o' that!" An' he began to
+whirrul round, an' round, an' round, fashter, an' fashter, an' fashter, on
+the floor, afther his big, bushy tail, till the little rid hin got so dizzy
+wid lookin', that she jist tumbled down aff the bame, and the fox whipped
+her up and popped her intil his bag, and stharted off home in a minute. An'
+he wint up the wood and down the wood, half the day long, with the little
+rid hin shut up shmotherin' in the bag. Sorra a know she knowed where she
+was at all, at all. She thought she was all biled an' ate up, an' finished
+shure! But, by an' by, she remimbered herself, an' pit her hand in her
+pocket, an' tuk out her little bright scissors, and shnipped a big hole in
+the bag behind, an' out she leapt, an' picked up a big shtone an' popped it
+intil the bag, an' rin aff home, an' locked the door.
+
+An' the fox he tugged away up over the hill, with the big stone at his back
+thumpin' his shouldhers, thinkin' to himself how heavy the little rid hin
+was, an' what a fine shupper he'd have. An' whin he came in sight iv his
+din in the rocks' and shpied his ould mother awatchin' for him at the door,
+he says, "Mother! have ye the pot bilin'?" An' the ould mother says,
+"Sure, an' it is; an' have ye the little rid hin?" "Yes, jist here in me
+bag. Open the lid o' the pot till I pit her in," says he.
+
+An' the ould mother fox she lifted the lid o' the pot, an' the rashkill
+untied the bag, and hild it over the pot o' bilin' wather, an' shuk in the
+big, heavy shtone. An' the bilin' wather shplashed up all over the rogue iv
+a fox, an' his mother, an' schalded them both to death. An' the little rid
+hin lived safe in her house foriver afther.
+
+
+
+
+ONLY A SONG.
+
+
+    It was only a simple ballad,
+      Sung to a careless throng;
+    There were none that knew the singer,
+      And few that heeded the song;
+    Yet the singer's voice was tender
+      And sweet as with love untold;
+    Surely those hearts were hardened
+      That it left so proud and cold.
+
+    She sang of the wondrous glory
+      That touches the woods in spring,
+    Of the strange, soul-stirring voices
+      When "the hills break forth and sing;"
+    Of the happy birds low warbling
+      The requiem of the day,
+    And the quiet hush of the valleys
+      In the dusk of the gloaming gray.
+
+    And one in a distant corner--
+      A woman worn with strife--
+    Heard in that song a message
+      From the spring-time of her life.
+    Fair forms rose up before her
+      From the mist of vanished years;
+    She sat in a happy blindness,
+      Her eyes were veiled in tears.
+
+    Then, when the song was ended,
+      And hushed the last sweet tone,
+    The listener rose up softly
+      And went on her way alone
+    Once more to her life of labor
+      She passed; but her heart was strong;
+    And she prayed, "God bless the singer!
+      And oh, thank God for the song!"
+
+
+
+
+THE BICYCLE RIDE.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+     [Whether bicycle riding on Sunday be sinful or not,
+     depends entirely upon the spirit in which it is done
+     and the associations of the ride.]
+
+
+    You have read of the ride of Paul Revere,
+    And of Gilpin's ride, so fraught with fear;
+    Skipper Ireson's ride in a cart,
+    And the ride where Sheridan played a part;
+    Calendar's ride on a brazen hack,
+    And Islam's prophet on Al Borak;
+    The fateful ride to Aix from Ghent,
+    And a dozen others of like portent,
+    But you never have heard of a bicycle spin
+    Which was piously ended, though started in sin.
+
+    Tom was a country parson's son,
+    Fresh from college and full of fun,
+    Fond of flirting with bright-eyed girls,
+    Raving, in verse, over golden curls,
+    Sowing a wild oat, here and there,
+    In a way that made the parson stare
+    And chide him sternly, when face to face,
+    While, in private, he laughed at the young scape-grace.
+    But the wildest passion the boy could feel
+    Was the love he bore for his shining wheel.
+
+    He rode it by night and he rode it by day,
+    If he went two rods or ten miles away;
+    And Deacon Smith was heard to remark
+    That he met that "pesky thing in the dark
+    And it went right by with a glint and a gleam
+    And a wild 'hoot-toot' that made him scream;
+    In spite of the fact that he knew right well
+    That evil spirits were all in--well--
+    He wouldn't meet that thing again
+    For a corn-crib full of good, ripe grain."
+
+    One Sunday morning, the sun was bright,
+    The bird's throats bursting with glad delight,
+    The parson-mounted his plump old bay
+    And jogged to the church, two miles away,
+    While Tom wheeled round, ten miles or more
+    And hid his wheel by the chancel door,
+    And he thought, as he sat in the parson's pew,
+    "I wonder what makes dad look so blue,"
+    Till it came like a flash to his active mind,
+    He left his sermon and specs behind.
+
+    Now the parson was old and his eyes were dim
+    And he couldn't have read a line or a hymn,
+    Without his specs for a mint of gold,
+    And his head turned hot while his toes turned cold,
+    And right in the midst of his mental shock,
+    The parson deceived his trusting flock,
+    And gave them eternal life and a crown
+    From the book he was holding upside down.
+    Tom, the rascal, five minutes before,
+    Like an arrow had shot from the chancel door.
+
+    The horses he frightened I never can tell,
+    Nor how the old church folk were shocked, as well,
+    And they said they feared that the parson's lad
+    "Was a-gettin' wild" and would go to the bad,
+    For 'twas wicked enough to set folks in a craze
+    Without "ridin' sech races on Sabbath days,"
+    And they thought the length of the parson's prayer
+    Had something to do with his fatherly care.
+    While the truth of it was, which he afterwards dropped,
+    He didn't know what he could do when he stopped.
+
+    Of course you know how the story will end,
+    The prayer was finished and duly "Amen'd,"
+    When Tom, all dust, to the pulpit flew
+    And laid down the specs and the sermon too.
+    Then the parson preached in a timid way,
+    Of sinful pleasure on Sabbath-day,
+    And he added a postscript, not in the text.
+    Saying that, when they were sore perplexed,
+    Each must decide as he chanced to feel.
+    And Tom chuckled: "Sundays, I'll ride my wheel."
+
+
+
+
+THE LAND OF OUR BIRTH.
+
+BY LILLIE E. BARR.
+
+
+    O! where is the land that each mortal loves best,
+      The land that is dearest and fairest on earth?
+    It is North, it is South, it is East, it is West;
+      For this beautiful land is the land of our birth.
+
+    'Tis the home of our childhood; the fragrance and dew
+      Of our innocent days are all linked with the spot;
+    And its fields were so green, and its mountains so blue,
+      That our hearts must be cold ere that land is forgot.
+
+    We have wandered, perchance, far away from the place,
+      But how often we see it in thought and in dreams!
+    Feel its winds, as of old, blowing cool on our face,
+      Hear the songs of its birds, and the plash of its
+    streams.
+
+    We may build grander homes than the home of our youth,
+      On far loftier objects our eyes may be cast;
+    But we never forget all its love and its truth;
+      It has charms that will hallow it unto the last.
+
+    We may learn other tongues, but that language is best
+      That we lisped with our mothers in infancy's days--
+    The language she sung when she rocked us to rest,
+      And gave us good counsel and comfort and praise.
+
+    We may love other lands, but wherever we be
+      The land that is greenest and fairest on earth
+    Is the one that, perhaps, we may never more see--
+      The home of our fathers--the land of our birth.
+
+    May its daughters and sons grow in beauty and worth!
+      May the blessing of God give it freedom and rest!
+    Be it northward, or southward, or eastward, or west,
+      The land of our birth is of all lands the best.
+
+
+
+
+THE TEACHER'S DIADEM.
+
+
+    Sitting 'mid the gathering shadows, weary with the Sabbath's care;
+    Weary with the Sabbath's burdens, that she dearly loves to bear;
+    For she sees a shining pathway, and she gladly presses on;
+    'Tis the first Great Teacher's footprints--it will lead where He has gone;
+    With a hand that's never faltered, with a love that's ne'er grown dim,
+    Long and faithfully she's labored, to His fold the lambs to bring.
+
+    But to-night her soul grows heavy; through the closed lids fall the tears,
+    As the children pass before her, that she's taught these many years;
+    And she cries in bitter anguish: "Shall not one to me be given,
+    To shine upon my coronet amid the hosts of heaven!
+    Hear my prayer to-night, my Saviour, in Thy glorious home above;
+    Give to me some little token--some approval of Thy love."
+
+    Ere the words were scarcely uttered, banishing the evening gloom,
+    Came a soft and shining radiance, bright'ning all within the room;
+    And an angel in white raiment, brighter than the morning sun,
+    Stood before her, pointing upward, while he softly whispered, "Come."
+    As he paused, she heard the rustle of his starry  pinions bright,
+    And she quickly rose and followed, out into the stilly night;
+
+    Up above the dim blue ether; up above the silver stars;
+    On, beyond the golden portals; through the open pearly doors;
+    Far across the sea of crystal, to the shining sapphire Throne,
+    Where she heard amid the chorus, "Welcome, child; thy work's well done."
+    Surely 'tis her Saviour speaking; 'tis His hands, aye, 'tis His feet;
+    And she cries: "Enough! I've seen Him; all my joys are now complete."
+
+    All forgot earth's care and sorrow; all forgot the starry crown;
+    'Twas enough e'en to be near Him; to behold Him on His Throne.
+    "Not enough," the Saviour answered; "thou wouldst know through
+        all these years,
+    If in vain has been thy teaching, all thy labor and thy prayers;
+    That from thee the end was hidden, did thy faith in me grow less?
+    Thou hast asked some little token, I will grant thee thy request."
+
+    From out a golden casket, inlaid with many a gem,
+    He took--glist'ning with countless jewels--a regal diadem;
+    Bright a name shone in each jewel, names of many scholars dear,
+    Who she thought had passed unheeded all her earnest thought and care.
+    "But," she asked, "how came these names here--names I never saw before?"
+    And the Saviour smiling answered, "'Tis the fruit thy teachings bore;
+
+    "'Tis the seed thy love hath planted, tended by my faithful hand;
+    Though unseen by thee, it's budded, blossoming in many lands.
+    Here are names from darkened Egypt, names from Afric's desert sands;
+    Names from isles amid the ocean, names from India's sunny strands;
+    Some from Greenland's frozen mountains, some from burning tropic plains;
+    From where'er man's found a dwelling, here you'll find some chosen name.
+    When thine earthly mission's ended, that in love to thee was given,
+    This is the crown of thy rejoicing, that awaits thee here in heaven."
+
+    Suddenly the bright light faded; all was dark within the room;
+    And she sat amid the shadows of the Sabbath evening gloom;
+    But a peaceful, holy incense rested on her soul like dew;
+    Though the end from her was hidden, to her Master she'd be true;
+    Sowing seed at morn and even, pausing not to count the gain;
+    If her bread was on the waters, God would give it back again;
+    If the harvest she had toiled for other hands than hers should reap,
+    He'd repay her for her labor, who had bade her, "Feed my sheep."
+
+
+
+
+TOBE'S MONUMENT.
+
+BY ELIZABETH KILHAM.
+
+
+It was "after taps," a sultry, Southern-summer night. On the extreme edge
+of the encampment, on the side nearest the enemy, a sentinel paused in his
+walk, and peered cautiously out into the darkness. "Pshaw!" he said; "it's
+nothing but a dog." He was resuming his walk, when the supposed quadruped
+rose suddenly, and walked along on two feet in a manner so unmistakably
+human, that the sentinel lowered his musket once more, and shouted, "Halt!
+Advance, and give the counter-sign!" A faint, childish voice said, "Ain't
+got none, massa."
+
+"Well, there now!" said the sentinel, "if it ain't just a little darkey,
+and I guess I've frightened him half to death. Come here, snowball."
+
+The child crept up, and said, tremblingly: "'Deed, massa, I ain't got
+nuffin ter gib yer."
+
+"Well, who asked you to give me anything?"
+
+"Yer don ax me fer gib yer suffin jes' now; and I ain't got nuffin 'cep' my
+close what I got on."
+
+"Well, you needn't fret; I don't want 'em. Corporal of the guard! Post
+two."
+
+The corporal hastened to "post two," and found the sentinel with his hand
+on the shoulder of a little black boy, who, between fear, fatigue, and
+hunger, was unable to give any account of himself. "I'll take him to
+Captain Leigh," the corporal said; "he's officer of the day. Maybe he'll be
+able to get something out of him."
+
+The captain stood in front of his tent, looking out into the night, when
+the corporal and his charge approached.
+
+"Captain," said he, "here's a boy just come into the lines."
+
+"Very well; you can leave him here."
+
+At the first sound of the captain's voice the boy drew nearer to him, as
+knowing instinctively that he had found a friend.
+
+"You can go into that tent and sleep till morning," said the captain.
+
+"What is your name!" was Captain Leigh's first question the next morning.
+
+"Name Tobe."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Dat's all, Mass Cap'n."
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Dunno, Massa Cap'n. Nobody nebber done tole me dat ar."
+
+"Where have you come from?"
+
+"Come fum de back o' Richmon', Mass Cap'n."
+
+"What did you come here for?"
+
+"All de res' ob 'em runned away; an' ole mass he wor so mad, I wor jes'
+feared o' my life. 'Sides, I t'ought I mought fin' my mammy ef I got 'mong
+der Unions."
+
+"Where is your mother?"
+
+"Dunno, Mass Cap'n. Ole mass done sol' her down in Georgy las'
+corn-shuckin', an' I ain't nebber heerd ob her sence. But I t'ought mebby
+she mought ha' runned 'way too, an' I'd fin' her wid der Unions."
+
+"Well, now, what are you going to do?"
+
+"Dunno, Mass Cap'n. I'd like ter stay 'long wid you."
+
+"What can you do?"
+
+"Kin wait on yer, Mass Cap'n; kin shine up boots, an'"--brightening up as
+his eyes, wandering round caught sight of the horses--"kin clean de hosses
+right smart." * * *
+
+"If I keep you with me you must be a good boy, and do as I tell you."
+
+"'Deed I will, Mass Cap'n. I'se do ebery work yer say, sho's yer born."
+
+So when the troops left Harrison's Landing, Tobe went too, in charge of the
+captain's horse and baggage; and, when the steamer was fairly under way, he
+brightened into a new creature as every revolution of the wheel placed a
+greater distance between himself and "old massa." * * *
+
+It proved that Tobe had told the truth about his skill in taking care of
+horses. Captain Leigh's horse had never looked so well as now, and the
+captain was delighted. Tobe turned out, moreover, to be a very good boy.
+But the army is not a very good place for boys. So one day Captain Leigh
+said:--
+
+"Tobe, how would you like to go North?"
+
+"Whar's it at, Mass Cap'n?"
+
+"I mean my home at the North."
+
+"When is yer gwine, Mass Cap'n?"
+
+"I am not going at all now."
+
+"Does yer mean ter sen' me away from yer, Mass Cap'n?"
+
+Captain Leigh was touched, and answered him very gently,--
+
+"Yes, I want to send you away from me now, because it will be better for
+you. But, when the war is over, I shall go home, and then you can stay with
+me always if you are a good boy."
+
+"I allus does jes' de t'ings yer tell me, Mass Cap'n."
+
+"I know you do. And, just because you do what I tell you so well I want to
+send you to my home, to run errands for my wife, and do what work she will
+give you in the house. And I have three little children--two little girls
+and a baby boy. I want you to go with them when they go out to play and
+take care of them. My home is in a very pleasant place in the country.
+Don't you think you would like to go there?"
+
+"Ef yer goes too, Mass Cap'n."
+
+"But, my boy, I can't possibly go now."
+
+"I'se do jes de t'ing yer say, Mass Cap'n. Ef yer tells me to go, I'se go.
+An' I'se jest do ebery word the missus say, an' I look af'r de chillens de
+bes' I knows, ontel yer comes dar. On'y please come right soon, Mass
+Cap'n."
+
+And, as the captain left the tent, Tobe laid his head upon his arm and
+cried as if his heart would break.
+
+Captain Leigh found a brother officer who was expecting to go home on a
+furlough, and who readily agreed to take charge of the boy in whom his
+friend was so deeply interested.
+
+But that night came news that made everybody give up the idea of a
+"furlough," or "going home." The Richmond government, being determined to
+"make the North feel the war as she had not felt it," had organized the
+"grand raid."
+
+An order came for Captain Leigh's regiment to march at daylight.
+
+"Tobe," said the captain, "you can go in one of the baggage-wagons. Strap
+up my blanket and poncho, and take them along; and these boots, take
+particular care of them, for it's not often I can get a pair of cavalry
+boots to fit as they do."
+
+"Yer needn't be feared, Mass Cap'n; I'se take care of 'em de bes' I knows."
+
+The main body of the raiders were reported on the line of the South
+Mountains, making for Gettysburg. Scouting expeditions were sent out from
+the Northern army in all directions, and a body of troops, including
+Captain Leigh's regiment, was ordered to proceed by the shortest route to
+Gettysburg and head the rebels off. One of the baggage-wagons broke down.
+The driver of another wagon stopped to help his comrade. The troops passed
+on, and the two wagons were left alone on the mountain. In one of them was
+Tobe with the captain's boots, over which he kept constant watch. The men
+worked busily at the wagon and Tobe sat watching them. Suddenly a tramping
+of horses' feet was heard, and a party of cavalry came round a turn in the
+road.
+
+"That's good," said one of the men; "there's some of the boys. If they'll
+wait a few minutes we can go along with 'em."
+
+"'Tain't none of our boys," said the other, after a keen glance; "them's
+rebs."
+
+At the word, Tobe slid down in the bottom of the wagon under some blankets,
+and lay silent and motionless with the boots clasped in his arms.
+
+As the soldiers advanced the officer said, apparently in reply to a
+question, "No, let the men go; we can't do anything with prisoners here.
+But we'll look through the wagon, and, if the Yanks have anything we want,
+'all's fair in war.'"
+
+They reined their horses by the wagon, and, after a few short, sharp
+questions, proceeded to break open trunks and bags, and appropriate their
+contents.
+
+The soldiers were about finishing their examination, when one of them said,
+"What's that under the seat of that wagon?"
+
+"Oh! nothing but a torn blanket," said another. "'Tain't worth taking. We
+have got all we want."
+
+"There may be something under it, though."
+
+He pushed aside the blanket with his sabre, and there lay Tobe endeavoring,
+but unsuccessfully, to hide the boots under him.
+
+"Ah!" said the officer, "this is worth while. Here's just what I wanted.
+Come, boy, hand over those boots, quick."
+
+"'Deed, massa," said Tobe, "I can't gib 'em ter yer. Dey 'longs ter Mass
+Cap'n, an' he tole me take keer ob 'em mos' partic'lar."
+
+"Can't help that. I've got to have them, so pass them along."
+
+"Please, Massa," began Tobe; but the rebel cut him short.
+
+"Will you give me those boots? If you don't do it, and in double-quick
+time, too, I'll put a ball through your black skin. I won't ask you again.
+Now, will you give them up?" and he pulled out his pistol.
+
+"'Deed, massa, I can't, case Massa Cap'n"--
+
+There was a sharp click, a flash, a long, sobbing moan, and Tobe lay
+motionless, the boots still clasped in his arms, and great drops of blood
+slowly gathering upon them.
+
+"Enemy in sight," shouted a picket riding up.
+
+The officer hastily gave an order, and the rebels dashed off at a furious
+speed a few moments before a party of Union cavalry, with Captain Leigh at
+their head, appeared, riding from the opposite direction.
+
+A few words sufficed for explanation. Captain Leigh laid his hand on Tobe's
+shoulder, and spoke his name. At the sound of the voice he loved so well,
+his eyes opened, and he said faintly, "Mass Cap'n, I done de bes' I knowed.
+I keep de boots.'"
+
+"O Tobe!" groaned the captain, "I wish you had given them up. I would have
+lost everything rather than have had this."
+
+"Mass Cap'n."
+
+"Yes, Tobe, what is it?"
+
+"De little chillens, Mass Cap'n; I meaned ter wait on 'em right smart. Tell
+'em"--His voice grew fainter, and his eyes closed.
+
+"Yes, my boy: what shall I tell them?"
+
+"Tell 'em I didn't lose de boots; I kep 'em de bes'--I knowed."
+
+There was a faint sigh, a flutter of the eyelids, and the little life that
+had been so truly "de bes' he knowed" (ah! if we could all say that!) was
+ended.
+
+Very reverently Captain Leigh lifted the boots, all wet and stained with
+blood. "I will never wear those boots again," he said; "but I will never
+part with them. They shall be Tobe's monument."
+
+In the hall of Captain Leigh's house is a deep niche, and in it, on a
+marble slab covered with a glass case, stands a pair of cavalry boots with
+dark stains upon them, and on the edge of the slab, in golden letters, is
+the inscription:
+
+    "In memory of Tobe,
+    Faithful unto death."
+
+
+
+
+THE CROWDED STREET.
+
+BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
+
+
+    Let me move slowly through the street,
+      Filled with an ever-shifting train,
+    Amid the sound of steps that beat
+      The murmuring walks like autumn rain.
+
+    How fast the flitting figures come!
+      The mild, the fierce, the stony face--
+    Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
+      Where secret tears have left their trace.
+
+    They pass to toil, to strife, to rest--
+      To halls in which the feast is spread--
+    To chambers where the funeral guest
+      In silence sits beside the dead.
+
+    And some to happy homes repair,
+      Where children pressing cheek to cheek,
+    With mute caresses shall declare
+      The tenderness they cannot speak.
+
+    And some, who walk in calmness here,
+      Shall shudder as they reach the door
+    Where one who made their dwelling dear,
+      Its flower, its light, is seen no more.
+
+    Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
+      And dreams of greatness in thine eye!
+    Go'st thou to build an early name,
+      Or early in the task to die?
+
+    Keen son of trade, with eager brow!
+      Who is now fluttering in thy snare?
+    Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,
+      Or melt the glittering spires in air?
+
+    Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
+      The dance till daylight gleam again?
+    Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?
+      Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?
+
+    Some, famine-struck, shall think how long
+      The cold, dark hours, how slow the light;
+    And some, who flaunt amid the throng,
+      Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.
+
+    Each where his tasks or pleasures call,
+      They pass, and heed each other not.
+    There is who heeds, who holds them all
+      In His large love and boundless thought.
+
+    These struggling tides of life, that seem
+      In wayward, aimless course to tend,
+    Are eddies of the mighty stream
+      That rolls to its appointed end.
+
+
+
+
+BESSIE KENDRICK'S JOURNEY.
+
+BY MRS. ANNIE A. PRESTON.
+
+
+"Cars stop twenty minutes!" called out Conductor Richardson at Allen's
+Junction. Then, as the train came to a dead halt, he jumped down upon the
+depot platform, ran along to the front of the long line of passenger cars,
+to where the engine was standing, and, swinging himself up into the cab,
+said to the engineer:
+
+"Frank; I want you to come back to the first passenger coach, and see a
+little girl that I don't know hardly what to make of."
+
+Frank nodded, and, without speaking, deliberately wiped his oily hands in a
+bunch of waste, took a look at his grim, dusty face in a narrow little
+mirror that hung beside the steam gauge, pulled off his short frock, put on
+a coat, changed his little black, greasy cap for a soft felt, taking these
+"dress-up" articles from the tender-box, where an engineer has something
+stowed away for all emergencies, and went back to the cars as requested.
+
+He entered the car and made his way to the seat where the conductor sat
+talking to a bright-looking little girl, about nine years old, oddly
+dressed in a woman's shawl and bonnet.
+
+Several of the passengers were grouped around the seat, evidently much
+interested in the child, who wore a sad, prematurely old countenance, but
+seemed to be neither timid nor confused.
+
+"Here is the engineer," said the conductor, kindly, as Frank approached.
+
+She held up her hand to him, with a winsome smile breaking over her pinched
+little face, and said:
+
+"My papa was an engineer before he became sick and went to live on a farm
+in Montana. He is dead, and my mamma is dead. She died first, before Willie
+and Susie. My papa used to tell me that after he should be dead there would
+be no one to take care of me, and then I must get on the cars and go to
+his old home in Vermont. And he said, 'cause I hadn't any ticket, I must
+ask for the engineer and tell him I am James Kendrick's little girl, and
+that he used to run on the M. & S. road."
+
+The pleading blue eyes were now suffused with tears; but she did not cry
+after the manner of childhood in general.
+
+Engineer Frank stooped down and kissed her very tenderly; and then, as he
+brushed the tears from his own eyes, said:
+
+"Well, my dear, so you are little Bessie Kendrick. I rather think a
+merciful Providence guided you on board this train."
+
+Then, turning around to the group of passengers, he went on:
+
+"I knew Jim Kendrick well. He was a man out of ten thousand. When I first
+came to Indiana, before I got acclimated, I was sick a great part of the
+time, so that I could not work, and I got homesick and discouraged. Could
+not keep my board bill paid up, to say nothing of my doctor's bill, and I
+didn't much care whether I lived or died.
+
+"One day, when the pay car came along and the men were getting their
+monthly pay, and there wasn't a cent coming to me, for I hadn't worked an
+hour for the last month, I felt so 'blue' that I sat down on a pile of
+railroad ties and leaned my elbows on my knees, with my head in my hands,
+and cried like a boy, out of sheer homesickness and discouragement.
+
+"Pretty soon one came along and said, in a voice that seemed like sweet
+music in my ears, for I hadn't found much real sympathy, although the boys
+were all good to me in their way: 'You've been having a rough time of it,
+and you must let me help you out.'
+
+"I looked up, and there stood Jim Kendrick, with his month's pay in his
+hand. He took out from the roll of bills a twenty-dollar note and held it
+out to me.
+
+"I knew he had a sickly wife and two or three children, and that he had a
+hard time of it himself to pull through from month to month, so I said,
+half-ashamed of the tears that were still streaming down my face, 'Indeed,
+I cannot take the money; you must need it yourself.'
+
+"'Indeed, you will take it, man,' said Jim. 'You will be all right in a few
+days, and then you can pay it back. Now come home with me to supper and see
+the babies. It will do you good.'
+
+"I took the note and accepted the invitation, and after that went to his
+house frequently, until he moved away, and I gradually lost sight of him.
+
+"I had returned the loan, but it was impossible to repay the good that
+little act of kindness did me, and I guess Jim Kendrick's little girl here
+won't want for anything if I can prevent it."
+
+Then turning to the child, whose bright eyes were wide open now, the
+engineer said to her:
+
+"I'll take you home with me when we get up to Wayne. My wife will fix you
+up, and we'll find out whether these Vermont folks want you or not. If they
+do, Mary or I shall go with you. But, if they don't care much about having
+you, you shall stay with us and be our girl, for we have none of our own.
+You look very much like your father, God bless him."
+
+Just then the eastern train whistled, Engineer Frank vanished out of the
+car door and went forward to the engine, wiping the tears with his coat
+sleeve, while the conductor and passengers could not suppress the tears
+this little episode evoked during the twenty minutes' stop at Allen's
+Junction.
+
+
+
+
+THERE IS A TONGUE IN EVERY LEAF.
+
+
+    There is a tongue in every leaf,
+        A voice in every rill--
+    A voice that speaketh everywhere,
+    In flood, and fire, through earth and air!
+        A tongue that's never still!
+
+    'Tis the Great Spirit, wide diffused
+        Through everything we see,
+    That with our spirits communeth
+    Of things mysterious--life and death,
+        Time and eternity!
+
+    I see Him in the blazing sun,
+        And in the thunder-cloud;
+    I hear Him in the mighty roar
+    That rusheth through the forest hoar
+        When winds are raging loud.
+
+    I feel Him in the silent dews,
+        By grateful earth betray'd;
+    I feel Him in the gentle showers,
+    The soft south wind, the breath of flowers,
+        The sunshine and the shade.
+
+    I see Him, hear Him, everywhere,
+        In all things--darkness, light,
+    Silence and sound; but, most of all,
+    When slumber's dusty curtains fall,
+        I' the silent hour of night.
+
+
+
+
+LET US GIVE THANKS.
+
+BY ELLEN ISABELLA TUPPER.
+
+
+    For all that God in mercy sends:
+    For health and children, home and friends,
+    For comfort in the time of need,
+    For every kindly word and deed,
+    For happy thoughts and holy talk,
+    For guidance in our daily walk--
+        For everything give thanks!
+
+    For beauty in this world of ours,
+    For verdant grass and lovely flowers,
+    For song of birds, for hum of bees,
+    For the refreshing summer breeze,
+    For hill and plain, for streams and wood,
+    For the great ocean's mighty flood--
+        In everything give thanks!
+
+    For the sweet sleep which comes with night,
+    For the returning morning's light,
+    For the bright sun that shines on high,
+    For the stars glittering in the sky;
+    For these and everything we see,
+    O Lord! our hearts we lift to Thee
+        For everything give thanks!
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE FEET.
+
+
+    Up from all the city's by-ways,
+      From the breathless, sickening heat,
+    To the wide-swung gate of heaven,
+      Eager throng the little feet.
+
+    Not a challenge has the warder
+      For these souls so sinless white;
+    Round each brow the Saviour's blessing
+      Circles like a crown of light.
+
+    See, the Lord Himself stands waiting,
+      Wide His loving arms are spread;
+    On his heart of hearts is pillowed
+      Every weary baby's head.
+
+    But below, with tear-wet faces,
+      And with hearts all empty grown,
+    Stand the mourning men and women,
+      Vainly calling back their own.
+
+    Upward floats the voice of mourning--
+      "Jesus, Master, dost thou care?"
+    Aye, He feels each drop of anguish--
+      "He doth all our sorrows bear."
+
+    Wipe thine eyes, O heavy laden;
+      Look beyond the clouds and see,
+    With your dear one on His bosom,
+      Jesus stands and calls to thee.
+
+    Waits with yearning, all unfathomed--
+      Love you cannot understand,
+    Lures you upward with the beckoning
+      Of your buried baby's hand.
+
+
+
+
+A RAINY DAY.
+
+
+    Patter, patter, patter,
+      On the window-pane;
+    Drip, drip, drip,
+      Comes the heavy rain.
+
+    Now the little birdies
+      Fly away to bed,
+    And each tender blossom
+      Droops its pretty head.
+
+    But the little rootlets,
+      In the earth below,
+    Open wide their tiny mouths
+      Where the rain-drops flow;
+
+    And the thirsty grasses
+      Soon grow fresh and green,
+    With the pretty daisies
+      Springing up between.
+
+
+
+
+FASHIONABLE.
+
+
+    A fashionable woman
+      In a fashionable pew;
+    A fashionable bonnet
+      Of a fashionable hue;
+    A fashionable mantle
+      And a fashionable gown;
+    A fashionable Christian
+      In a fashionable town;
+    A fashionable prayer-book.
+      And a fashionable choir;
+    A fashionable chapel
+      With a fashionable spire;
+    A fashionable preacher
+      With a fashionable speech;
+    A fashionable sermon
+      With a fashionable reach;
+    A fashionable welcome
+      At the fashionable door;
+    A fashionable penny
+      For the fashionable poor;
+    A fashionable heaven
+      And a fashionable hell;
+    A fashionable Bible
+      For this fashionable belle;
+    A fashionable kneeling
+      And a fashionable nod;
+    A fashionable everything,
+      But no fashionable God.
+
+
+
+
+RESURGAM.
+
+BY EBEN E. REXFORD.
+
+
+    "There is no God," he said, and turned away
+      From those who sought to lead him to the light;
+    "Here is a violet, growing for a day,
+      When winter comes, and all the world is white,
+    It will be dead. And I am like the flower,
+      To-day, here am I, and to-morrow, dust.
+    Is life worth living for its little hour
+      Of empty pleasure, if decay we must?"
+
+    The autumn came, and under fallen leaves
+      The little violet was hid away.
+    "Dead! dead!" cried he. "Alas, all nature grieves
+      For what she loves is destined to decay.
+    Soon like the violet, in soft, damp earth
+      I shall be hidden, and above my head
+    A stone will tell the record of my birth
+      And of my nothingness when I am dead."
+
+    Spring came, and from the mold the little flower
+      He had thought dead, sprung up to sweetest bloom.
+    He saw it, and his heart was touched that hour,
+      And grasped the earth-old mystery of the tomb.
+    "God of the flower," he said, with reverent voice,
+      "The violet lives again, and why not I?
+    At last my blind eyes see, and I rejoice.
+      The soul within me was not born to die!"
+
+
+
+
+THE FAULT OF THE AGE.
+
+BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
+
+
+    The fault of the age is a mad endeavor
+      To leap to heights that were made to climb;
+    By a burst of strength or a thought that is clever
+      We plan to outwit and forestall Time.
+
+    We scorn to wait for the thing worth having;
+      We want high noon at the day's dim dawn,
+    We find no pleasure in toiling and saving
+      As our forefathers did in the good times gone.
+
+    We force our roses before their season
+      To bloom and blossom that we may wear;
+    And then we wonder and ask the reason
+      Why perfect buds are so few and rare.
+
+    We crave the gain, but despise the getting;
+      We want wealth, not as reward, but dower;
+    And the strength that is wasted in useless fretting
+      Would fell a forest or build a tower.
+
+    To covet the prize, yet to shrink from the winning;
+      To thirst for glory, yet fear the fight--
+    Why, what can it lead to at last but sinning,
+      To mental languor and moral blight?
+
+    Better the old slow way of striving
+      And counting small gains when the year is done,
+    Than to use our forces all in contriving
+      And to grasp for pleasures we have not won.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOOK CANVASSER.
+
+BY MAX ADELER.
+
+
+He came into my office with a portfolio under his arm. Placing it upon the
+table, removing a ruined hat, and wiping his nose upon a ragged
+handkerchief that had been so long out of the wash that it was positively
+gloomy, he said: "Mr. ----, I'm canvassing for the National Portrait
+Gallery; splendid work; comes in numbers, fifty cents apiece; contains
+pictures of all the great American heroes from the earliest times down to
+the present day. Everybody subscribing for it, and I want to see if I can't
+take your name.
+
+"Now, just cast your eyes over that," he said, opening his book and
+pointing to an engraving, "That's--lemme see--yes, that's Columbus, perhaps
+you've heard sumfin' about him? The publisher was telling me to-day before
+I started out that he discovered--No; was it Columbus that dis--Oh! yes.
+Columbus, he discovered America--was the first man here. He came over in a
+ship, the publisher said, and it took fire, and he stayed on deck because
+his father told him to, if I remember right, and when the old thing busted
+to pieces he was killed. Handsome picture, ain't it? Taken from a
+photograph, all of 'em are; done especially for this work. His clothes are
+kinder odd but they say that's the way they dressed in them days. Look at
+this one. Now isn't that splendid? William Penn, one of the early settlers.
+I was reading t'other day about him. When he first arrived he got a lot of
+Indians up a tree, and when they shook some apples down, he set one on top
+of his son's head, and shot an arrow plump through it and never fazed him.
+They say it struck them Indians cold; he was such a terrific shooter. Fine
+countenance, hasn't he? Face shaved clean; he didn't wear a mustache, I
+believe, but he seems to have let himself out on hair. Now, my view is,
+that every man ought to have a picture of that Patriarch so's to see how
+the fust settlers looked and what kind of weskets they yoused to wear. See
+his legs; too! Trousers a little short maybe, as if he was going to wade in
+a creek; but he's all there. Got some kind of a paper in his hand, I see.
+Subscription list, I reckon. Now, how does that strike you? There's
+something nice. That I think, is--is--that's a--a--yes, to be sure,
+Washington--you recollect him, of course? Some people call him Father of
+his Country, George--Washington. He had no middle name, I believe. He lived
+about two hundred years ago and he was a fighter. I heard the publisher
+telling a man about him crossing the Delaware River up yer at Trenton, and
+seems to me, if I recollect right, I've read about it myself. He was
+courting some girl on the Jersey side, and he used to swim over at nights
+to see her when the old man was asleep. The girl's family were down on him,
+I reckon. He looks like a man to do that, don't he? He's got it in his eye.
+If it'd been me I'd gone over on a bridge, but he probably wanted to show
+off afore her; some men are so reckless, you know. Now, if you'll conclude
+to take this I'll get the publisher to write out some more stories about
+him, and bring 'em round to you, so's you can study up on him. I know he
+did ever so many other things, but I've forgot 'em; my memory's so awful
+poor.
+
+"Less see! Who have we next? Ah! Franklin! Benjamin Franklin! He was one of
+the old original pioneers, I think. I disremember exactly what he is
+celebrated for, but I think it was a flying a--oh! yes, flying a kite,
+that's it. The publisher mentioned it. He was out one day flying a kite,
+you know, like boys do now-a-days, and while she was a flickering up in the
+sky, and he was giving her more string, an apple fell off a tree and hit
+him on the head;--then he discovered the attraction of gravitation, I think
+they call it. Smart, wasn't it? Now, if you or me'd a been hit, it'd just a
+made us mad like as not and set us a ravin'. But men are so different. One
+man's meat's another man's pison. See what a double chin he's got. No beard
+on him, either, though a goatee would have been becoming to such a round
+face. He hasn't got on a sword and I reckon he was no soldier;--fit some
+when he was a boy, maybe, or went out with the home-guard, but not a
+regular warrior. I ain't one, myself, and I think all the better of him for
+it. Ah, here we are! Look at that! Smith and Pocahontas! John Smith! Isn't
+that gorgeous? See, how she kneels over him, and sticks out her hands while
+he lays on the ground, and that big fellow with a club tries to hammer him
+up. Talk about woman's love! There it is for you. Modocs, I believe, Anyway
+some Indians out West there, somewheres; and the publisher tells me that
+Captain Shackanasty, or whatever his name is there, was going to bang old
+Smith over the head with a log of wood, and this here girl she was sweet on
+Smith, it appears, and she broke loose, and jumped forward and says to the
+man with the stick, 'Why don't you let John alone? Me and him are going to
+marry, and if you kill him I'll never speak to you as long as I live,' or
+words like them, and so the man he give it up, and both of them hunted up a
+preacher and were married and lived happy ever afterward. Beautiful story,
+isn't it? A good wife she made him, too, I'll bet, if she was a little
+copper-colored. And don't she look just lovely in that picture? But Smith
+appears kinder sick, evidently thinks his goose is cooked, and I don't
+wonder, with that Modoc swooping down on him with such a discouraging club.
+And now we come to--to ah--to--Putnam--General Putnam:--he fought in the
+war, too; and one day a lot of 'em caught him when he was off his guard,
+and they tied him flat on his back on a horse and then licked the horse
+like the very mischief. And what does that horse do but go pitching down
+about four hundred stone steps in front of the house, with General Putnam
+lying there nearly skeered to death. Leastways the publisher said somehow
+that way, and I oncet read about it myself. But he came out safe, and I
+reckon sold the horse and made a pretty good thing of it. What surprises me
+is he didn't break his neck, but maybe it was a mule, for they're pretty
+sure footed, you know. Surprising what some of these men have gone through,
+ain't it? Turn over a couple of leaves. That's General Jackson. My father
+shook hands with him once. He was a fighter, I know. He fit down in New
+Orleans. Broke up the rebel Legislature, and then when the Ku Kluxes got
+after him he fought 'em behind cotton breastworks and licked 'em 'til they
+couldn't stand. They say he was terrific when he got real mad. Hit straight
+from the shoulder and fetched his man every time. Andrew, his fust name
+was; and look how his hair stands up. And then, here's John Adams and
+Daniel Boone and two or three pirates, and a whole lot more pictures, so
+you see it's cheap as dirt. Lemme have your name, won't you?"
+
+
+
+
+THE MISNOMER.
+
+BY JOSIE C. MALOTT.
+
+
+    It sounds rather queer, I must freely confess,
+    To hear a man ask kind heaven to bless
+    Himself and his neighbor, when over the way
+    His drinking saloon stands open all day.
+
+    _You_ may call it a "drug store," but doesn't God know?
+    Can you hide from _His_ eye the sorrow and woe--
+    The pain and the anguish, the grief and the shame
+    That comes from the house with a high-sounding name?
+
+    Such ill gotten wealth will surely take wing
+    And leave naught behind but the deadliest sting;
+    And oh, the account must be settled some day,
+    For the drug store saloon kept over the way.
+
+    Can you face the just Judge and the souls you have wrecked?
+    Oh, pause ere too late and note the effect.
+    Do you know you're destroying both body and soul
+    Of the men whose honor and manhood you've stole?
+
+    Does the hard accusation arouse you to fright?
+    Have you never looked at yourself in the light
+    Of a thief, nay, worse, a murderer, too?
+    God brands you as such, and you know it is true!
+
+    They're the deadliest poisons you have for sale--
+    The liquors you keep--yet you always fail
+    To mark them as such, and the men who drink
+    Can have what they want if they bring you the "chink."
+
+    _Don't_ call such a place a _drug store_, pray;
+    But "drinking saloon," and you'd better say
+    On the sign o'er the door in letters clear,
+    "Ye abandon all hope who enter here!"
+
+
+
+
+THE DOORSTEP.
+
+BY E. C. STEDMAN.
+
+
+    The conference-meeting through at last,
+      We boys around the vestry waited
+    To see the girls come tripping past
+      Like snowbirds willing to be mated.
+
+    Not braver he that leaps the wall
+      By level musket-flashes litten,
+    Than I, who stepped before them all,
+      Who longed to see me get the mitten.
+
+    But no; she blushed and took my arm!
+      We let the old folks have the highway,
+    And started toward the Maple Farm
+      Along a kind of lover's by-way.
+
+    I can't remember what we said,
+      'Twas nothing worth a song or story;
+    Yet that rude path by which we sped
+      Seemed all transformed and in a glory.
+
+    The snow was crisp beneath our feet,
+      The moon was full, the fields were gleaming;
+    By hood and tippet sheltered sweet,
+      Her face with youth and health was beaming.
+
+    The little hand outside her muff--
+      O sculptor, if you could but mould it!
+    So lightly touched my jacket-cuff,
+      To keep it warm I had to hold it.
+
+    To have her with me there alone,--
+      'Twas love and fear and triumph blended.
+    At last we reached the foot-worn stone
+      Where that delicious journey ended.
+
+    The old folks, too, were almost home;
+      Her dimpled hand the latches fingered,
+    We heard the voices nearer come,
+      Yet on the doorstep still we lingered.
+
+    She took her ringlets from her hood,
+      And with a "Thank you, Ned," dissembled;
+    But yet I knew she understood
+      With what a daring wish I trembled.
+
+    A cloud past kindly overhead,
+      The moon was slyly peeping through it,
+    Yet hid its face, as if it said,
+      "Come, now or never! do it! _do it_!"
+
+    My lips till then had only known
+      The kiss of mother and of sister,
+    But somehow full upon her own
+      Sweet, rosy, darling mouth--I kissed her!
+
+    Perhaps 'twas boyish love, yet still,
+      O, listless woman! weary lover!
+    To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill
+      I'd give--but who can live youth over?
+
+
+
+
+HOW "OLD MOSE" COUNTED EGGS.
+
+
+Old Mose, who sold eggs and chickens on the streets of Austin for a living,
+is as honest an old negro as ever lived, but he has got the habit of
+chatting familiarly with his customers, hence he frequently makes mistakes
+in counting out the eggs they buy. He carries his wares around in a small
+cart drawn by a diminutive donkey. He stopped in front of the residence of
+Mrs. Samuel Burton. The old lady herself came out to the gate to make the
+purchases.
+
+"Have you any eggs this morning, Uncle Mose?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, indeed I has. Jest got in ten dozen from the kentry."
+
+"Are they fresh?"
+
+"I gua'ntee 'em. I knows dey am fresh jest the same as ef I had led 'em
+myself."
+
+"I'll take nine dozen. You can just count them into this basket."
+
+"All right, mum." He counts, "One, two, free, foah, five, six, seben,
+eight, nine, ten. You kin rely on dem bein fresh. How's your son coming on
+at de school? He mus' be mos' grown."
+
+"Yes, Uncle Mose, he is a clerk in a bank at Galveston."
+
+"Why, how ole am de boy?"
+
+"He is eighteen."
+
+"You don't tole me so. Eighteen and getting a salary already, eighteen
+(counting), nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-free,
+twenty-foah, twenty-five, and how's yore gal comin' on? She was mos' growed
+up de las' time I seed her."
+
+"She is married and living in Dallas."
+
+"Wall, I declar'. How de time scoots away! An' yo' say she has childruns?
+Why, how ole am de gal? She mus' be jess about--"
+
+"Thirty-three."
+
+"Am dat so?" (counting), "firty-free, firty-foah, firty-five, firty-six,
+firty-seben, firty-eight, firty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two,
+forty-free. Hit am so singular dat you has sich old childruns. I can't
+b'leeve you has granchildruns. You don't look more den forty yeahs ole
+yerseff."
+
+"Nonsense, old man, I see you want to flatter me. When a person gets to be
+fifty-three years old----"
+
+"Fifty-free? I jess dun gwinter beleeve hit, fifty-free, fifty-foah,
+fifty-five, fifty-six--I want you to pay tenshun when I counts de eggs, so
+dar'll be no mistake--fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-tree,
+sixty-foah--Whew. Dat am a warm day. Dis am de time ob yeah when I feels
+I'se gettin' old myself. I ain't long fer dis world. You comes from an old
+family. When your fodder died he was sebenty years ole."
+
+"Seventy-two."
+
+"Dat's old, suah. Sebenty-two, sebenty-free, sebenty-foah, sebenty-five,
+sebenty-six, sebenty-seben, sebenty-eight, sebenty-nine--and your mudder?
+She was one ob the noblest looking ladies I ebber see. You reminds me ob
+her so much. She libbed to mos' a hundred. I bleeves she was done pass a
+centurion when she died."
+
+"No, Uncle Mose, she was only ninety-six when she died."
+
+"Den she warn't no chicken when she died. I know dat--ninety-six,
+ninety-seben, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, one, two, free, foah,
+five, six, seben, eight--dar 108 nice fresh eggs--jess nine dozen, and here
+am one moah egg in case I has discounted myself."
+
+Old Mose went on his way rejoicing. A few days afterward Mrs. Burton said
+to her husband:
+
+"I am afraid we will have to discharge Matilda. I am satisfied she steals
+the milk and eggs. I am positive about the eggs, for I bought them day
+before yesterday, and now about half of them are gone. I stood right there
+and heard Old Mose count them myself and there were nine dozen."
+
+
+
+
+ANNIE AND WILLIE'S PRAYER.
+
+BY MRS. SOPHIA P. SNOW.
+
+
+    'Twas the eve before Christmas, "Good-night" had been said,
+    And Annie and Willie had crept into bed;
+    There were tears on their pillows, and tears in their eyes,
+    And each little bosom was heaving with sighs,
+    For to-night their stern father's command had been given
+    That they should retire precisely at seven
+    Instead of at eight--for they troubled him more
+    With questions unheard of than ever before:
+    He had told them he thought this delusion a sin,
+    No such a creature as "Santa Claus" ever had been.
+    And he hoped, after this, he should never more hear
+    How he scrambled down chimneys with presents each year.
+    And this was the reason that two little heads
+    So restlessly tossed on their soft, downy beds.
+    Eight, nine, and the clock on the steeple tolled ten,
+    Not a word had been spoken by either till then,
+    When Willie's sad face from the blanket did peep,
+    And whispered, "Dear Annie, is 'ou fast as'eep?"
+    "Why no, brother Willie," a sweet voice replies,
+    "I've long tried in vain, but I can't shut my eyes,
+    For somehow it makes me so sorry because
+    Dear papa has said there is no 'Santa Claus,'
+    Now we know there is, and it can't be denied,
+    For he came every year before mamma died;
+    But, then, I've been thinking that she used to pray,
+    And God would hear everything mamma would say,
+    And maybe she asked him to send Santa Claus here
+    With the sack full of presents he brought every year."
+    "Well, why tan't we p'ay dest as mamma did den,
+    And ask Dod to send him with p'esents aden?"
+    "I've been thinking so too," and without a word more
+    Four little bare feet bounded out on the floor,
+    And four little knees the carpet pressed,
+    And two tiny hands were clasped close to each breast.
+
+    "Now Willie, you know we must firmly believe
+    That the presents we asked for we're sure to receive;
+    You must wait very still till I say the 'Amen,'
+    And by that you will know that your turn has come then."
+
+    "Dear Jesus, look down on my brother and me,
+    And grant us the favor we are asking of thee.
+    I want a wax dolly, a tea-set and ring,
+    And an ebony work-box that shuts with a spring.
+    Bless papa, dear Jesus, and cause him to see
+    That Santa Claus loves us as much as does he;
+    Don't let him get fretful and angry again
+    At dear brother Willie and Annie. Amen."
+
+    "Please, Desus, 'et Santa Taus tum down to-night,
+    And b'ing us some p'esents before it is light;
+    I want he should div' me a nice 'ittie s'ed,
+    With bright shinin' 'unners, and all painted red;
+    A box full of tandy, a book, and a toy,
+    Amen, and then Desus, I'll be a dood boy."
+
+    Their prayers being ended, they raised up their heads,
+    And with hearts light and cheerful, again sought their beds.
+    They were lost soon in slumber, both peaceful and deep,
+    And with fairies in dreamland were roaming in sleep.
+
+    Eight, nine, and the little French clock had struck ten,
+    Ere the father had thought of his children again:
+    He seems now to hear Annie's half-suppressed sighs,
+    And to see the big tears stand in Willie's blue eyes.
+    "I was harsh with my darlings," he mentally said,
+    "And should not have sent them so early to bed;
+    But then I was troubled; my feelings found vent,
+    For bank stock to-day has gone down ten per cent
+    But of course they've forgotten their troubles ere this,
+    And that I denied them the thrice-asked-for kiss:
+    But, just to make sure, I'll go up to their door,
+    For I never spoke harsh to my darlings before."
+    So saying, he softly ascended the stairs,
+    And arrived at the door to hear both of their prayers;
+    His Annie's "Bless papa" drew forth the big tears,
+    And Willie's grave promise fell sweet on his ears.
+    "Strange--strange--I'd forgotten," said he with a sigh,
+    "How I longed when a child to have Christmas draw nigh."
+    "I'll atone for my harshness," he inwardly said,
+    "By answering their prayers ere I sleep in my bed."
+    Then he turned to the stairs and softly went down,
+    Threw off velvet slippers and silk dressing-gown,
+    Donned hat, coat, and boots, and was out in the street--
+    A millionaire facing the cold driving sleet!
+
+    Nor stopped he until he had bought every thing,
+    From the box full of candy to the tiny gold ring;
+    Indeed, he kept adding so much to his store,
+    That the various presents outnumbered a score.
+    Then homeward he turned, when his holiday load,
+    With Aunt Mary's help, in the nursery was stowed.
+    Miss Dolly was seated beneath a pine tree,
+    By the side of a table spread out for her tea;
+    A work-box well filled in the centre was laid
+    And on it the ring for which Annie had prayed.
+    A soldier in uniform stood by a sled
+    "With bright shining runners, and all painted red."
+    There were balls, dogs, and horses, books pleasing to see,
+    And birds of all colors were perched in the tree!
+    While Santa Claus, laughing, stood up in the top,
+    As if getting ready more presents to drop.
+    And as the fond father the picture surveyed,
+    He thought for his trouble he had amply been paid,
+    And he said to himself, as he brushed off a tear,
+    "I'm happier to-night than I've been for a year;
+    I've enjoyed more true pleasure than ever before,
+    What care I if bank stock falls ten per cent more
+    Hereafter I'll make it a rule, I believe,
+    To have Santa Claus visit us each Christmas Eve."
+    So thinking, he gently extinguished the light,
+    And, tripping down stairs, retired for the night.
+
+    As soon as the beams of the bright morning sun
+    Put the darkness to flight, and the stars one by one.
+    Four little blue eyes out of sleep opened wide,
+    And at the same moment the presents espied;
+    Then out of their beds they sprang with a bound,
+    And the very gifts prayed for were all of them found.
+    They laughed and they cried, in their innocent glee,
+    And shouted for papa to come quick and see
+    What presents old Santa Claus brought in the night
+    (Just the things that they wanted), and left before light;
+    "And now," added Annie, in a voice soft and low,
+    "You'll believe there's a 'Santa Claus,' papa, I know;"
+    While dear little Willie climbed up on his knee,
+    Determined no secret between them should be,
+    And told in soft whispers how Annie had said
+    That their dear blessèd mamma, so long ago dead,
+    Used to kneel down by the side of her chair,
+    And that God up in heaven had answered her prayer.
+    "Den we dot up and prayed dust well as we tould,
+    And Dod answered our prayers: now wasn't He dood?"
+    "I should say that He was if He sent you all these,
+    And knew just what presents my children would please.
+    (Well, well, let him think so, the dear little elf,
+    'Twould be cruel to tell him I did it myself.)"
+
+    Blind father! who caused your stern heart to relent,
+    And the hasty words spoken so soon to repent?
+    'Twas the Being who bade you steal softly up stairs,
+    And made you His agent to answer their prayers.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.
+
+BY SAMUEL WOODWORTH.
+
+
+    How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
+      When fond recollection presents them to view!
+    The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,
+      And every loved spot which my infancy knew;
+    The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it,
+      The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;
+    The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,
+      And e'en the rude bucket, which hung in the well.
+    The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
+    The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.
+
+    That moss-covered bucket I hail as a treasure;
+      For often, at noon, when returned from the field,
+    I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
+      The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
+    How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing!
+      And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;
+    Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing,
+      And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well.
+    The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
+    The moss-covered bucket arose from the well.
+
+    How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
+      As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips!
+    Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
+      Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.
+    And now, far removed from the loved situation,
+      The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
+    As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,
+      And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well;
+    The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
+    The moss-covered bucket, which hangs in the well.
+
+
+
+
+MR. WINKLE PUTS ON SKATES.
+
+BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+"Now," said Wardle, after a substantial lunch, "what say you to an hour on
+the ice? We shall have plenty of time."
+
+"Capital!" said Mr. Benjamin Allen.
+
+"Prime!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer.
+
+"You skate, of course, Winkle?" said Wardle.
+
+"Ye-yes; O yes," replied Mr. Winkle. "I--I--am rather out of practice!"
+
+"O, do skate, Mr. Winkle," said Arabella. "I like to see it so much."
+
+"O, it is so graceful," said another young lady. A third young lady said it
+was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was "swanlike."
+
+"I should be very happy, I'm sure," said Mr. Winkle, reddening; "but I have
+no skates."
+
+This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had a couple of pairs, and
+the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more down stairs;
+whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely
+uncomfortable.
+
+Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and
+Mr. Weller having shoveled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it
+during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a dexterity
+which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvelous, and described circles with his
+left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without
+once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing
+devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman and the
+ladies; which reached a pitch of positive enthusiasm when old Wardle and
+Benjamin Allen, assisted by the aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic
+evolutions which they called a reel.
+
+All this time Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had
+been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his skates
+on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated
+and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather
+less about skates than a Hindoo. At length, however, with the assistance of
+Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled on, and
+Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet.
+
+"Now, then, sir," said Sam, in an encouraging tone, "off with you, and show
+'em how to do it."
+
+"Stop, Sam, stop!" said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold
+of Sam's arm with the grasp of a drowning man. "How slippery it is, Sam!"
+
+"Not an uncommon thing upon ice, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Hold up, sir!"
+
+This last observation of Mr. Weller's bore reference to a demonstration Mr.
+Winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in the
+air, and dash the back of his head on the ice.
+
+"These--these--are very awkward skates," said Mr. Winkle, staggering.
+
+"Now, Winkle," cried Mr. Pickwick, quite unconscious that there was
+anything the matter. "Come; the ladies are all anxiety."
+
+"Yes, yes," replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly smile. "I'm coming."
+
+"Just going to begin," said Sam, endeavoring to disengage himself. "Now,
+sir, start off!"
+
+"Just hold me at first, Sam, will you?" said Mr. Winkle. "There--that's
+right. I shall soon get in the way of it, Sam. Not too fast, Sam--not too
+fast!"
+
+Mr. Winkle stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being
+assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller in a very singular and un-swanlike
+manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite
+bank--"Sam!"
+
+"Sir!" shouted back Mr. Weller.
+
+"Here! I want you."
+
+"Let go, sir," said Sam. "Don't you hear the governor calling? Let go,
+sir."
+
+With a violent effort Mr. Weller disengaged himself from the grasp of the
+agonized Pickwickian, and in so doing administered a considerable impetus
+to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy which no degree of dexterity or
+practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore swiftly down
+into the centre of the reel at the very moment when Mr. Bob Sawyer was
+performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty.
+
+Mr. Winkle struck Wildly against him, and with a loud crash they both fell
+heavily down. Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his
+feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind in skates.
+He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but anguish
+was depicted on every lineament of his countenance.
+
+"Are you hurt?" inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety.
+
+"Not much," said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard.
+
+"I wish you'd let me bleed you," said Mr. Benjamin, with great eagerness.
+
+"No, thank you," replied Mr. Winkle, hurriedly.
+
+"I really think you had better," said Allen.
+
+"Thank you," replied Mr. Winkle; "I'd rather not."
+
+"What do you think, Mr. Pickwick?" inquired Bob Sawyer.
+
+Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He beckoned to Mr. Weller and said,
+in a stern voice, "Take his skates off!"
+
+"No; but really I had scarcely begun," remonstrated Mr. Winkle.
+
+"Take his skates off!" repeated Mr. Pickwick, firmly.
+
+The command was not to be resisted. Mr. Winkle allowed Sam to obey it, in
+silence.
+
+"Lift him up," said Mr. Pickwick. Sam assisted him to rise.
+
+Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and, beckoning
+his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him and uttered in a
+low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words:
+
+"You're a humbug, sir!"
+
+"A what?" said Mr. Winkle, starting.
+
+"A humbug, sir! I will speak plainer, if you wish it. An impostor, sir!"
+
+With these words Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel and rejoined his
+friends.
+
+
+
+
+MY MOTHER'S BIBLE.
+
+BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.
+
+
+    This book is all that's left me now!
+      Tears will unbidden start,--
+    With faltering lip and throbbing brow
+      I press it to my heart.
+    For many generations past,
+      Here is our family tree:
+    My mother's hand this Bible clasped;
+      She, dying, gave it me.
+
+    Ah! well do I remember those
+      Whose names these records bear,
+    Who round the hearthstone used to close
+      After the evening prayer,
+    And speak of what these pages said,
+      In tones my heart would thrill!
+    Though they are with the silent dead,
+      Here are they living still!
+
+    My father read this holy book
+      To brothers, sisters, dear;
+    How calm was my poor mother's look,
+      Who leaned God's word to hear.
+    Her angel-face--I see it yet!
+      What thronging memories come!
+    Again that little group is met
+      Within the halls of home!
+
+    Thou truest friend man ever knew,
+      Thy constancy I've tried;
+    Where all were false I found thee true,
+      My counsellor and guide.
+    The mines of earth no treasure give
+      That could this volume buy:
+    In teaching me the way to live,
+      It taught me how to die.
+
+
+
+
+AFTER-DINNER SPEECH BY A FRENCHMAN.
+
+
+"Milors and Gentlemans--You excellent chairman, M. le Baron de
+Mount-Stuart, he have say to me, 'Make de toast.' Den I say to him dat I
+have no toast to make; but he nudge my elbow ver soft, and say dat dere is
+von toast dat nobody but von Frenchman can make proper; and, derefore, wid
+your kind permission, I vill make de toast. 'De brevete is de sole of de
+feet,' as you great philosophere, Dr. Johnson, do say, in dat amusing
+little vork of his, de Pronouncing Dictionaire; and, derefore, I vill not
+say ver moch to de point.
+
+"Ah! mes amis! ven I hear to myself de flowing speech, de oration
+magnifique of your Lor' Maire, Monsieur Gobbledown, I feel dat it is von
+great privilege for von étranger to sit at de same table, and to eat de
+same food, as dat grand, dat majestique man, who are de tereur of de
+voleurs and de brigands of de metropolis, and who is also, I for to
+suppose, a halterman and de chief of you common scoundrel. Milors and
+gentlemans, I feel that I can perspire to no greatare honueur dan to be von
+common scoundrelman myself; but, hélas! dat plaisir are not for me, as I
+are not freeman of your great cité, not von liveryman servant of von you
+compagnies joint-stock. But I must not forget de toast.
+
+"Milors and Gentlemans! De immortal Shakispeare he have write, 'De ting of
+beauty are de joy for nevermore.' It is de ladies who are de toast. Vat is
+more entrancing dan de charmante smile, de soft voice, de vinking eye of de
+beautiful lady! It is de ladies who do sweeten the cares of life. It is de
+ladies who are de guiding stars of our existence. It is de ladies who do
+cheer but not inebriate, and, derefore, vid all homage to dere sex, de
+toast dat I have to propose is, 'De Ladies! Heaven bless dem all!'"
+
+
+
+
+THE WHIRLING WHEEL.
+
+BY TUDOR JENKS.
+
+
+    Oh! the regular round is a kind of a grind!
+    We rise in the morning only to find
+    That Monday's but Tuesday, and Wednesday's the same,
+    And Thursday's a change in nothing but name;
+    A Friday and Saturday wind up the week;
+    On Sunday we rest, and attempt to look meek.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Works for our weal.
+
+    And although the dull round is a kind of a grind,
+    It has compensations that we may find.
+    Famine and slaughter and sieges no more
+    Are likely to leave their cards at the door.
+    Let others delight in adventurous lives--
+    We read their sore trials at home to our wives.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Works for our weal.
+
+    The regular round, though a kind of a grind,
+    Brings thoughts of contentment to quiet the mind:
+    The babies sleep soundly in snug little beds;
+    There's a tight little roof o'er the ringletted heads;
+    The wife's welcome comes with the set of the sun,
+    And the worker may rest, for the day's work is done.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Works for our weal.
+
+    Oh! the regular round is a kind of a grind,
+    But the world's scenes are shifted by workmen behind.
+    The star who struts central may show no more art
+    Than the sturdy "first citizen" filling his part.
+    When the king to our plaudits has graciously bowed,
+    The crowd sees the king, while the king sees the crowd.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Works for our weal.
+
+    When the great mill has stopped, and the work is complete,
+    And the workers receive the reward that is meet,
+    Who can tell what the Master shall say is the best?
+    We but know that the worker who's aided the rest,
+    Who has kept his wheel turning from morning to night,
+    Who has not wronged his fellow, is not far from right.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Shall work out our weal.
+
+
+
+
+THE BLACK HORSE AND HIS RIDER.
+
+BY CHARLES SHEPPARD.
+
+
+It was the seventh of October, 1777. Horatio Gates stood before his tent,
+gazing steadfastly upon the two armies now arrayed in order of battle. It
+was a clear, bracing day, mellow with the richness of autumn. The sky was
+cloudless; the foliage of the wood scarce tinged with purple and gold; the
+buckwheat in yonder fields frostened into snowy ripeness. But the tread of
+legions shook the ground; from every bush shot the glimmer of the rifle
+barrel; on every hillside blazed the sharpened bayonet.
+
+Gates was sad and thoughtful as he watched the evolutions of the two
+armies. But all at once a smoke arose, a thunder shook the ground, and a
+chorus of shouts and groans yelled along the darkened air. The play of
+death had begun. The two flags, this of the stars, that of the red cross,
+tossed amid the smoke of battle, while the sky was clouded with leaden
+folds, and the earth throbbed with the pulsations of a mighty heart.
+
+Suddenly, Gates and his officers were startled. Along the height on which
+they stood came a rider, upon a black horse, rushing toward the distant
+battle. There was something in the appearance of this horse and his rider
+that struck them with surprise. Look! he draws his sword, the sharp blade
+quivers through the air--he points to the distant battle, and, lo! he is
+gone; gone through those clouds, while his shout echoes over the plains.
+Wherever the fight is the thickest, there, through intervals of cannon
+smoke, you may see riding madly forward that strange soldier, mounted on
+his steed black as death. Look at him, as with face red with British blood
+he waves his sword and shouts to his legions. Now you may see him fighting
+in that cannon's glare, and the next moment he is away off yonder, leading
+the forlorn hope up that steep cliff. Is it not a magnificent sight to see
+that strange soldier and that noble black horse, dashing like a meteor,
+down the long columns of battle? Let us look for a moment into those dense
+war clouds. Over this thick hedge bursts a band of American militiamen,
+their rude farmer coats stained with blood, while scattering their arms by
+the way, they flee before that company of redcoat hirelings, who come
+rushing forward, their solid front of bayonets gleaming in the battle
+light. In this moment of their flight, a horse comes crashing over the
+plains. The unknown rider reins his steed back on his haunches right in the
+path of a broad-shouldered militiaman. "Now! cowards! advance another step
+and I'll strike you to the heart!" shouts the unknown, extending a pistol
+in either hand. "What! are you Americans, men, and fly before British
+soldiers? Back again, and face them once more, or I myself will ride you
+down." This appeal was not without its effect. The militiaman turns; his
+comrades, as if by one impulse, follow his example. In one line, but thirty
+men in all, they confront thirty sharp bayonets. The British advance. "Now,
+upon the rebels, charge!" shouts the red-coat officer. They spring forward
+at the same bound. Look! their bayonets almost touch the muzzles of their
+rifles. At this moment the voice of the unknown rider is heard: "Now let
+them have it! Fire!" A sound is heard, a smoke is seen, twenty Britons are
+down, some writhing in death, some crawling along the soil, and some
+speechless as stone. The remaining ten start back. "Club your rifles and
+charge them home!" shouts the unknown. That black horse springs forward,
+followed by the militiamen. Then a confused conflict--a cry for quarter,
+and a vision of twenty farmers grouped around the rider of the black horse,
+greeting him with cheers.
+
+Thus it was all the day long. Wherever that black horse and his rider went,
+there followed victory. At last, toward the setting of the sun, the crisis
+of the conflict came. That fortress yonder, on Bemiss' Heights, must be
+won, or the American cause is lost! That cliff is too steep--that death is
+too certain. The officers cannot persuade the men to advance. The Americans
+have lost the field. Even Morgan, that iron man among iron men, leans on
+his rifle and despairs of the field. But look yonder! In this moment when
+all is dismay and horror, here crashing on, comes the black horse and his
+rider. That rider bends upon his steed, his frenzied face covered with
+sweat and dust and blood; he lays his hand upon that bold rifleman's
+shoulder, and, as though living fire had been poured into his veins, he
+seized his rifle and started toward the rock. And now look! now hold your
+breath, as that Black Steed crashes up that steep cliff. That steed
+quivers! he totters! he falls! No! No! Still on, still up the cliff, still
+on toward the fortress. The rider turns his face and shouts, "Come on, men
+of Quebec! come on!" That call is needless. Already the bold riflemen are
+on the rock. Now British cannon pour your fires, and lay your dead in tens
+and twenties on the rock. Now, red-coat hirelings, shout your battle-cry if
+you can! For look! there, in the gate of the fortress, as the smoke clears
+away, stands the Black Horse and his rider. That steed falls dead, pierced
+by an hundred balls; but his rider, as the British cry for quarter, lifts
+up his voice and shouts afar to Horatio Gates waiting yonder in his tent,
+"Saratoga is won!" As that cry goes up to heaven, he falls with his leg
+shattered by a cannon-ball. Who was the rider of the black horse? Do you
+not guess his name? Then bend down and gaze on that shattered limb, and you
+shall see that it bears the mark of a former wound. That wound was received
+in the storming of Quebec. That rider of the Black Horse was Benedict
+Arnold.
+
+
+
+
+SHE CUT HIS HAIR.
+
+
+You can always tell a boy whose mother cuts his hair. Not because the edges
+of it look as if it had been chewed off by an absent-minded horse; but you
+can tell it by the way he stops on the streets and wriggles his shoulders.
+When a fond mother has to cut her boy's hair she is careful to guard
+against any annoyance and muss by laying a sheet on the carpet. It has
+never yet occurred to her to set him over a bare floor and put the sheet
+around his neck. Then she draws the front hair over his eyes, and leaves it
+there while she cuts that which is at the back; the hair which lies over
+his eyes appears to be surcharged with electric needles, and that which is
+silently dropping down over his shirtband appears to be on fire. She has
+unconsciously continued to push his head forward until his nose presses his
+breast, and is too busily engaged to notice the snuffling sound that is
+becoming alarmingly frequent. In the meantime he is seized with an
+irresistible desire to blow his nose, but recollects that his handkerchief
+is in the other room. Then a fly lights on his nose, and does it so
+unexpectedly that he involuntarily dodges and catches the points of the
+shears in his left ear. At this he commences to cry and wish he was a man.
+But his mother doesn't notice him. She merely hits him on the other ear to
+inspire him with confidence and goes on with the work. When she is through
+she holds his jacket-collar back from his neck, and with her mouth blows
+the short bits of hair from the top of his head down his back. He calls
+her attention to this fact, but she looks for a new place on his head and
+hits him there, and asks him why he didn't use a handkerchief. Then he
+takes his awfully disfigured head to the mirror and looks at it, and, young
+as he is, shudders as he thinks of what the boys on the street will say.
+
+
+
+
+AN APPEAL FOR LIBERTY.
+
+BY JOSEPH STORY.
+
+
+I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors--by the dear
+ashes which repose in this precious soil--by all you are, and all you hope
+to be--resist every object of disunion, resist every encroachment upon your
+liberties, resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your
+public schools, or extinguish your system of public instruction.
+
+I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman, the love of
+your off-spring; teach them, as they climb your knees, or lean on your
+bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their
+baptismal vows, to be true to their country, and never to forget or forsake
+her.
+
+I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you are; whose
+inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, which brings nothing
+but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if necessary in
+defence of the liberties of your country.
+
+I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers, and your
+benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in sorrow to the grave, with
+the recollection that you have lived in vain. May not your last sun sink in
+the west upon a nation of slaves.
+
+No; I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter
+visions. We, who are now assembled here, must soon be gathered to the
+congregation of other days. The time of our departure is at hand, to make
+way for our children upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and
+theirs. May he who, at the distance of another century, shall stand here to
+celebrate this day, still look round upon a free, happy, and virtuous
+people. May he have reason to exult as we do. May he, with all the
+enthusiasm of truth as well as of poetry, exclaim, that here is still his
+country.
+
+
+
+
+OLD UNCLE JAKE.
+
+
+He was bowed by many a year of service; he was white-woolled, thick-lipped,
+and a true son of Africa, yet a grand and knightly soul animated that dusky
+breast--a soul that many a scion of the blood royal might envy.
+
+The children loved him, the neighbors respected him, his own color looked
+up to him as a superior being, and they whose goods and chattels he had
+formerly been, were sure to heed his counsels in all important family
+matters. Aye, he had an honorable record. If his skin was black, his soul
+was white as the whitest and from lusty boyhood to the present there had
+been no need of "stripes" for Uncle Jake.
+
+He had been the playmate of "young marster," the boon companion in all
+'possum hunts and fishing frolics, and when each had arrived at man's
+estate the goodfellowship contracted in youth knew no surcease.
+
+When the tocsin of war resounded through the South, and the call for
+volunteers was made, "marster" was one of the first to buckle on his armor
+and hasten to the front--doing so with greater heart as Uncle Jake was left
+in charge of those dearer than life to him.
+
+And royally did the poor unlettered African fulfil the trust committed to
+his keeping. He took upon himself the burden of all plantation matters and
+sooner than one hair on the heads of "missus or chillun" should be injured,
+he would have sacrificed his life freely any day. And when the war was over
+he positively refused to join in the hegira of his brethren, preferring
+rather to live on in the same old place that had witnessed his birth and
+the strength of his manhood's prime.
+
+In grateful recognition of his long servitude a comfortable cottage was
+built for him in a secluded nook of the plantation, in which, with his
+faithful old wife, he lived a peaceful and contented life, tilling the few
+acres which had been granted him and doing all sorts of odd jobs out of the
+pure love he bore old marse.
+
+But Uncle Jake was getting old now--more and more heavily the weight of
+years fell upon him--the whiter grew his locks until at last the time came
+when he could no longer pursue his accustomed duties, and all reluctant and
+unwilling he took to his bed never to rise again.
+
+For weeks and months he lingered on the "Border Land," attended by loving
+hands, and his slightest wish was gratified; indeed, so long he hovered
+between life and death, that those who loved him best began to cherish a
+faint hope that he would be spared to them.
+
+But the fiat had gone forth--Uncle Jake must die.
+
+One evening, just as the setting sun was flooding the fair landscape with
+his golden beams, a tearful group were assembled at his bedside, who had
+been hastily summoned thither to bid farewell to one who had been so true a
+friend to them all.
+
+There were marster and missus and their children and Jake's own wife and
+children, with a few of his fellow servants, all united in a democracy of
+grief that knew no distinction of caste in the supreme moment.
+
+No sound was heard save a half-suppressed sob now and then--the tick-tick
+of the clock on the rude mantel and the labored breathing of the dying man.
+
+For hours he had lain in a sort of stupor, broken only at intervals by
+delirious mutterings, when suddenly his eyes, in which was a preternatural
+brightness, opened and fixed themselves long and earnestly in turn upon
+each one of the faces bent so sorrowfully over him.
+
+Then in a feeble, fluttering voice, like the last effort of an expiring
+taper, he addressed his master, who was tenderly wiping the moisture from
+his brow:
+
+"Ole marse, I'se been a good and faithful servant to yer all dese years,
+has I not?"
+
+"Yes, Jake."
+
+"Ebber since we was boys togedder I'se lubed yer, and stuck to yer through
+thick and thin, and now dat Jake is goin' home yer doan' treasure up
+nothin' agin me, do yer, marse?"
+
+"No, no, Jake."
+
+"Old missus, come nearer, honey, Jake's eyes is gettin' mighty dim now, and
+he kan't see yer. Yer'll nebber forgit how Jake tuk keer of yer an' de
+chilluns when ole marster gone to de war? An' yer'll be kind to my wife and
+chilluns for my sake, won't yer?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Jake, I'll be kind to them, and I will never forget your
+fidelity, old friend."
+
+"T'ank de Lawd! I kin die happy now, when I'se know dat yer an' master will
+'member me an' be kind to dem I'se leaving behind. An' de chillun--whar's
+de chillun? I'se wants ter tell 'em all goodby an' say a las' few words to
+dem, too."
+
+And in his eagerness, with a strength born of death, the old man half arose
+upon his elbow and laid a trembling hand upon the head of each of the
+awe-struck children.
+
+"God bless yer, chillun, one an' all. I lubs my own little picaninnies, but
+I lubs old marster's just as well. I doan' want none o' yer to forgit how
+Uncle Jake has trotted yer on his knee an' toted yer on his back an' keep'
+a watchful eye on yer, les' yet git into mischief by yer pranks. Promise
+me, chillun, dat you'll nebber forgit dese ting. It pleases Uncle Jake to
+think yer'll 'member him arter he's gone from yer sight for ebber."
+
+As well as they were able for their tears, the little ones gave the
+required promise, and greatly pleased, the old man sank back exhausted upon
+his pillow.
+
+After lying a few minutes with closed eyes, as if in sleep, he suddenly
+whispered:
+
+"Dinah, whar is you? I wants yer to cum closer ter me, honey, an' put yer
+arms around my neck an' lay yer cheek ter mine like yer used ter do when we
+was courtin' down in de huckleberry patch. I wants ter die in yer arms, ole
+wife. Yer is black, an' de white folks mought not be able ter see any booty
+in yer, but Jake knows what a true an' lovin' wife you'se bin ter him, an'
+he can see de booty dat's hidden out o' sight. I'se gwine ter cross ober
+der great wide ribber dey call Death, into a kentry whar' dere'll nebber be
+any mo' black skins--whar' I'll wear de white robe and de golden crown, an'
+I'se got ter wait fur yer dere. Dinah, my lub! my lub! Hark, honey! doan'
+yer hear de bells ob heaven a-ringing? An' doan' yer see de pearly gates
+a-openin' to let ole black Jake go frew? I'se a comin', holy angels--I'se a
+comin', blessed Lawd! Glory hallelewger! Ole Jake's mos' got ober de
+ribber. His feet is touchin' de water--but it's gettin' so cold, Dinah,
+honey--I can't feel de clasp of yer arms any mo'. I'se--"
+
+And with a last, long, fluttering sigh, as knightly and true a soul as ever
+dwelt in human breast took its light to a realm where there is indeed
+neither black nor white, nor bond nor free, but all are like unto the
+angels.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOT AXLE.
+
+BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+The express train was flying from Cork to Queenstown; it was going like
+sixty--that is, about sixty miles an hour. No sight of Irish village to
+arrest our speed, no sign of a breakdown; and yet the train halted. We
+looked out of a window; saw a brakeman and a crowd of passengers gathering
+around the locomotive, and a dense smoke arising. What was the matter? _A
+hot axle!_
+
+I thought then, as I think now, that is what is the matter with people
+everywhere. In this swift, "express" American life, we go too fast for our
+endurance. We think ourselves getting on splendidly, when, in the midst of
+our success, we come to a dead halt. What is the matter? The nerves or
+muscles or our brain give out; we make too many revolutions in an hour. _A
+hot axle!_
+
+Men make the mistake of working according to their opportunities, and not
+according to their capacity of endurance. Can I be a merchant, and
+president of a bank, and a director in a life insurance company, and a
+school commission, and help edit a paper, and supervise the politics of our
+ward, and run for Congress? "I can!" the man says to himself. The store
+drives him; the bank drives him; the school drives him; politics drive him.
+He takes all the scoldings and frets and exasperations of each position.
+Some day, at the height of the business season, he does not come to the
+store. From the most important meeting of the bank directors he is absent.
+In the excitement of the most important political canvass he fails to be at
+the place appointed. What is the matter? His health has broken down; the
+train halts long before it gets to the station. _A hot axle!_
+
+Literary men have great opportunities opening in this day. If they take all
+that open, they are dead men, or worse--_living_ men that ought to be dead.
+The pen runs so easy when you have good ink and smooth paper, and an easy
+desk to write on, and the consciousness of an audience of one, two, or
+three hundred thousand readers. So great is the invitation to literary
+work, that the professional men of the day are overdone. They sit, faint
+and fagged out, on the verge of newspapers and books; each one does the
+work of three. And these men sit up late nights and choke down chunks of
+meat without mastication, and scold their wives through irritability, and
+maul innocent authors, and run the physical machinery with a liver
+miserably given out. The driving shaft has gone fifty times a second. They
+stop at no station. The steam-chest is hot and swollen. The brain and
+digestion begins to smoke. Stop, ye flying quills! "Down brakes!" _A hot
+axle!_
+
+Some of our young people have read--till they are crazed--of learned
+blacksmiths who at the forge conquered thirty languages; and shoemakers
+who, pounding sole-leather, got to be philosophers; and of milliners who,
+while their customers were at the glass trying on their spring hats, wrote
+a volume of first-rate poems. The fact is, no blacksmith ought to be
+troubled with more than five languages; and, instead of shoemakers becoming
+philosophers, we would like to turn our surplus supply of philosophers into
+shoemakers; and the supply of poetry is so much greater than the demand,
+that we wish milliners would stick to their business. Extraordinary
+examples of work and endurance may do us much good. Because Napoleon slept
+only four hours a night, hundreds of students have tried the experiment;
+but, instead of Austerlitz and Saragossa, there came of it only a sick
+headache and a botch of a recitation.
+
+Let us not go beyond our endurance, cutting short our days and making a
+wreck of our life work, but labor earnestly, zealously, intelligently for
+success; and in the twilight of old age peace and happiness will be
+ours--not the shattered and praised remains of a career disastrously
+checked.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILDREN.[2]
+
+BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+    When the lessons and tasks are ended,
+      And the school for the day is dismissed,
+    And the little ones gather around me
+      To bid me "good-night" and be kissed;
+    Oh, the little white arms that encircle
+      My neck in a tender embrace!
+    Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
+      Shedding sunshine and love on my face!
+
+    And when they are gone I sit dreaming
+      Of my childhood too lovely to last;
+    Of love, that my heart will remember
+      When it wakes to the pulse of the past.
+    Ere the world and its wickedness made me
+      A partner of sorrow and sin,
+    When the glory of God was about me,
+      And the glory of gladness within.
+
+    Oh, my heart grows weak as a woman's,
+      And the fountain of feelings will flow,
+    When I think of the paths steep and stony
+      Where the feet of the dear ones must go;
+    Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,
+      Of the tempests of fate blowing wild;
+    Oh, there's nothing on earth half so holy
+      As the innocent heart of a child.
+
+    They are idols of hearts and of households,
+      They are angels of God in disguise,
+    His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,
+      His glory still beams in their eyes;
+    Oh, those truants from earth and from heaven,
+      They have made me more manly and mild,
+    And I know how Jesus could liken
+      The kingdom of God to a child.
+
+    Seek not a life for the dear ones
+      All radiant, as others have done,
+    But that life may have just as much shadow
+      To temper the glare of the sun;
+    I would pray God to guard them from evil,
+      But my prayer would bound back to myself;
+    Ah, a seraph may pray for a sinner,
+      But a sinner must pray for himself.
+
+    The twig is so easily bended,
+      I have banished the rule and the rod;
+    I have taught them the goodness of knowledge,
+      They have taught me the goodness of God.
+    My heart is a dungeon of darkness,
+      Where I shut them from breaking a rule;
+    My frown is sufficient correction,
+      My love is the law of the school.
+
+    I shall leave the old house in the autumn,
+      To traverse its threshold no more--
+    Ah, how I shall sigh for the dear ones
+      That meet me each morn at the door.
+    I shall miss the good-nights and the kisses,
+      And the gush of their innocent glee,
+    The group on the green and the flowers
+      That are brought every morning to me.
+
+    I shall miss them at morn and eve,
+      Their songs in the school and the street,
+    Shall miss the low hum of their voices,
+      And the tramp of their delicate feet.
+    When lessons and tasks are all ended,
+      And death says the school is dismissed,
+    May the little ones gather around me
+      To bid me "good-night" and be kissed.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Found in the desk of Charles Dickens after his death.
+
+
+
+
+CHARITY.
+
+
+    When you meet with one suspected
+      Of some secret deed of shame,
+    And for this by all rejected
+      As a thing of evil fame,
+    Guard thine every look and action,
+      Speak no word of heartless blame,
+    For the slanderer's vile detraction
+      Yet may soil thy goodly name.
+
+    When you meet with one pursuing
+      Ways the lost have entered in,
+    Working out his own undoing
+      With his recklessness and sin;
+    Think, if placed in his condition,
+      Would a kind word be in vain,
+    Or a look of cold suspicion
+      Win thee back to truth again?
+
+    There are spots that bear no flowers,
+      Not because the soil is bad,
+    But the Summer's genial showers
+      Never made their bosoms glad.
+    Better have an act that's kindly
+      Treated sometimes with disdain,
+    Than, in judging others blindly,
+      Doom the innocent to pain.
+
+
+
+
+NO OBJECTION TO CHILDREN.
+
+
+It was a block of yellow-brown houses in South Boston, looking as much like
+a sheet of gingerbread as anything.
+
+An express-wagon had just backed up to No. 21 in that block, and the
+driver, unloosing ropes here and there, proceeded to unpack the luggage.
+
+"What have we here?" exclaimed Mrs. Bacon, the downstairs tenant. "A
+menagerie, I do believe. Come here, John."
+
+There was, indeed, on the very top of the load a gray horse that in the
+twilight looked very real till one noticed the rockers on which it stood.
+But there was a kennel with a live terrier's head at the window, a
+bird-cage with its fluttering tenant, a crib and high chair besides,
+suggesting that the folks in the other part might, in the language of Mrs.
+Bacon, "make music."
+
+Now, the downstairs tenants, Mr. and Mrs. Bacon, were precise, orderly
+people, living, like many other city people, in desert-island fashion, and
+only hoping that everybody else would mind their own business. It had been
+for weeks their great comfort that the other part was unoccupied, and now
+this load of household goods brimming over with pets and their belongings
+was an unwelcome sight.
+
+There were no young Bacons--no, indeed! Plants did not flourish in their
+shaded windows nor canary birds splash water from their tiny baths upon the
+clear glass. No dog barked a noisy welcome when his master returned at
+night. No cat purred in her mistress's lap. The housekeeping of the Bacons
+was a fight against dirt, dust, sunshine and noise; and somehow pets bring
+all these.
+
+"Well, John," said Mrs. Bacon as she turned from the window and pulled the
+shade over the sacred glass, "there's an end to peace and quiet. We must
+keep the entry doors locked; and don't you be whistling round to attract a
+child. Give them an inch and they'll take an ell. If folks must have
+rocking horses and what goes with them, they ought to move into the
+country, where they will not be pestering other people."
+
+But, to the surprise of the Bacons, they were not pestered, only by the
+patter of little feet overhead, or a woman's voice singing cradle-songs or
+joining in her child's laughter. Crying there was, too, sometimes, but it
+was so soon hushed in motherly caresses that it seemed a sort of rainbow
+grievance only.
+
+At night, when the father came home, there was quite a joyful noise
+upstairs, at which time John's face was a little wistful. But the new
+family did not intrude for ever so small a favor.
+
+Mrs. Bacon took good care to keep out of sight whenever the new tenants
+were passing through the entry-way. One small pair of boots had
+considerable traveling to do up and down the stairs for a stroll on the
+sidewalk or to old Dorchester Heights, just beyond, for spoils of wild
+flowers.
+
+One day Little Boots came back from this favorite resort, and instead of
+climbing the stairs, as usual, strayed hesitatingly toward Mrs. Bacon's
+kitchen door.
+
+"Smells the gingerbread," soliloquized Mrs. Bacon, grimly. "Glad the door
+is locked." She glanced toward it to be sure; yes, it was locked, though
+the key had been transferred to another door. But shining through the
+keyhole was a very bright and sweet-looking star of an eye. Only a moment
+it twinkled, and then there was thrust in very gently the stem of a
+dandelion, and the small boots scampered away up the stairs.
+
+"Little mischief!" exclaimed Mrs. Bacon, and she would have pushed the
+intruding stem outside, but her hands were in the dough. "If he wanted a
+piece of gingerbread, why didn't he say so? Mebbe he was afraid of me; cats
+run like all possessed when they see me. I can't have my key-holes choked
+up with dandelion stems--that's so. Soon's I get my hands out of this it
+will walk into the stove, that dandelion will." But the dandelion was too
+fresh and perfect, and brought back the old childhood days to Mrs. Bacon so
+clearly that she changed her mind. There was an old horseradish bottle on
+the pantry-shelf which, filled with water, received the dandelion. There,
+resting in the kitchen window, it smiled all day.
+
+There was quite a commotion upstairs that night, and John and his wife,
+drowsily hearing it, thanked their stars that they were not routed by
+children's ails. The next day Mrs. Bacon's watchful ear caught the sound of
+"Little Boots" on the stairs, and again the blue eyes twinkled at the
+keyhole. This time the door opened in response:
+
+"Well, child, what is it? Want some gingerbread?"
+
+"Oh no, thank you, dear," said the little voice--a very hoarse little voice
+it was, and the throat was all wrapped in flannel.
+
+"I wanted to know if you liked my f'ower?"
+
+"See?" Mrs. Bacon pointed to the glorified horseradish bottle.
+
+"Is your name Mrs. Bacon, dear?"
+
+"Bacon--no 'dear' about it."
+
+"I like to call you 'dear.' Don't your little boy call you so?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ally! Ally, child!" called the mother anxiously; "come back, darling;
+you'll get cold."
+
+"I'll take him up," responded Mrs. Bacon; and taking with unwonted
+tenderness the three-years-old darling, she landed him safely upstairs.
+
+"It's the croup," explained the mother. "He got cold yesterday, out for
+dandelions--his favorite flower, ma'am. Calls 'em preserved sunshine; saw
+me put up fruit last fall--there's where he got the idea; though, as to
+telling where he gets all his ideas, that beats me. The doctor says he's
+that kind of a child the croup is likely to go hard with. Scares me to
+death to hear him cough."
+
+"Goose oil is good for croup," remarked Mrs. Bacon.
+
+"Did you ever try it?" asked the new neighbor, innocently.
+
+"Me? No use for it. Got a bottle, though. Have it if you like."
+
+Alas! the doctor's prophecy was true. The fatal disease developed that very
+night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little boots are still and starry eyes shine afar off now. As he lay in his
+beautiful last sleep, a flower amid the white flowers, a woman's brown hand
+slipped a few dandelions tenderly--oh, so tenderly!--into the dainty cold
+fingers.
+
+"That is right, Mrs. Bacon, dear," said the poor mother. "'Preserved
+sunshine!' That's what he is to us."
+
+The new tenants have moved into the country, and No. 21, upper tenement, is
+again to let.
+
+Mrs. Bacon hopes the landlord will add to his advertisement, "No objection
+to children."
+
+
+
+
+BANFORD'S BURGLAR-ALARM.
+
+
+"Another Daring Burglary!" read Mrs. Banford, as she picked up the morning:
+paper. "Lucullus," she said, turning to her husband, "this is the fourth
+outrage of the kind in this town within a week, and if you don't procure a
+burglar-alarm, or adopt some other means of security, I shall not remain in
+this house another night. Some morning we'll get up and find ourselves
+murdered and the house robbed if we have to depend on the police for
+protection."
+
+Banford assured his wife that he would have the matter attended to at once.
+Then he left the house and didn't return until evening. When Mrs. B. asked
+him if he had given a second thought to the subject which she had broached
+in the morning, he drew a newspaper from his pocket, and said: "See here,
+Mirandy! There's no use o' foolin' away money on one o' those new-fangled
+burglar-alarms. Economy is wealth. Here's a capital idea suggested in this
+paper--cheap, simple and effective."
+
+And then he read the suggestion about hanging a tin pan on the
+chamber-door.
+
+"I tell you, Mirandy! the man who conceived that brilliant notion is a
+heaven-born genius--a boon to mankind; and his name should go ringing down
+the corridors of time with those of such brilliant intellect as Watt,
+Morse, Edison, and other successful scientific investigators. You see, the
+least jar of the door will dislodge the pan, and the noise occasioned
+thereby will not only awaken the occupants of the room, but will also scare
+the burglar half to death, and perhaps the pan will strike him on the head
+and fracture his skull. It is a glorious scheme, and the fact that it was
+not utilized years ago is the most remarkable thing about it."
+
+"Well," assented Mrs. B. in less sanguine tones, "it may be better than
+nothing, and it won't cost anything; and as Susan has gone out to spend the
+night with her sick sister, and we'll be all alone, I'll hunt up the pans
+now."
+
+Accordingly, each inside door was crowned with a tin pan and left slightly
+ajar. Banford also thoughtfully placed a six-shooter under his pillow and
+stood a base-ball bat within easy reach.
+
+"Now, Mirandy," he courageously observed, as they were preparing to retire,
+"if you are awakened by a noise during the night, don't scream and jump out
+of bed. Just lie still, or some o' the bullets I fire at the burglar may go
+through you and kill you. Let me wrestle with the intruder, and I'll soon
+make him regret that he had not postponed being born for a few centuries!"
+
+Then they turned down the gas with a feeling of increased security, and
+were soon asleep. About half-past midnight they were awakened by a noise
+that sounded like a sharp clap of thunder, followed by a wail that almost
+chilled the marrow in their bones.
+
+"Goodness!" screamed Mrs. B., in a voice swollen with terror, as she dived
+under the bed-clothes. "We'll be murdered in a minute. Shoot him, Lucullus!
+Quick--shoot him!"
+
+Banford, after considerable nervous fumbling under the pillow, grasped his
+revolver with an unsteady hand and discharged its six barrels in rapid
+succession, but not with very gratifying results. One bullet shattered the
+mirror in the bureau; another plowed a furrow along the ceiling; another
+splintered the bed-post; a fourth perforated a portrait of his wife's
+mother; and the other two left their imprint on the walls.
+
+"D-d-don't be fuf-fuf-frightened, M-mirandy," said Banford, encouragingly,
+his articulation sounding as if it had "collided" with an Arctic wave: "I
+gug-guess I've kik-kik-killed him. He'll not kik-kik-come here--"
+
+At this juncture there was a noise in an adjoining room, as if a two-ton
+meteorite had crashed through a boiler-foundry, and Mrs. B. uttered a
+series of ear-piercing shrieks that would have scared the life out of any
+burglar.
+
+"M-mirandy," stammered the frightened and demoralized Banford, grasping the
+base-ball bat and swinging it around with such reckless promiscuousness
+that he struck his terror-stricken wife on the head, "Mum-mirandy, the
+house is fuf-full of midnight mum-marauders, and we'll be bub-bub-butchered
+in cold bub-bub-blood! Save yourself and don't mum-mind about me!" And
+leaping out of bed, he sprang through a window on to the roof of a back
+building, and accidentally rolled off into the yard, fifteen feet below,
+just as another burglar-alarm went off with a clamor almost as deafening
+and harrowing as an amateur orchestra. Mrs. B., thinking she had been hit
+by the burglar, emitted a fresh outburst of shrieks, while her husband lay
+groaning in the back yard, with a sprained ankle and a frightful gash in
+his head.
+
+A policeman had now been awakened by the uproar, and boldly mounting the
+front stoop, he pulled the door-bell out by the roots without evoking a
+response. Then he hesitated.
+
+"If a foul murder has been committed," he mused, "the assassin has already
+made good his escape."
+
+This thought gave him courage, and he forced an entrance. In the entry he
+collided with a hat-rack, which he mistook for the outlaw, and almost
+demolished it with several whacks of his club. Then he made a careful
+reconnaissance, and dislodged one of the burglar-alarms.
+
+"Spare my life," he yelled to his imaginary assailant, "and I'll let you
+escape!"
+
+He thought he had been stabbed with a frying-pan. He rushed out of the
+house and secured the assistance of four of his fellow-officers, and a
+search of the building was resumed. Mrs. Banford was found in bed
+unconscious. Her husband was found in the yard in nearly a similar
+condition; and the burglar was found under the sofa, shivering with fear,
+and with his tail clasped tightly between his legs.
+
+The cause of the panic was soon explained. Mrs. Banford had overlooked the
+presence of her pet dog in the house, and this innocent animal, in running
+from one room to another, had dislodged the "cheap and effective"
+burglar-alarms.
+
+
+
+
+BETTER THINGS.
+
+BY GEORGE MACDONALD.
+
+
+    Better to smell the violet cool, than sip the glowing wine;
+    Better to hark a hidden brook, than watch a diamond shine.
+
+    Better the love of a gentle heart, than beauty's favor proud;
+    Better the rose's living seed, than roses in a crowd.
+
+    Better to love in loneliness, than to bask in love all day;
+    Better the fountain in the heart, than the fountain by the way.
+
+    Better be fed by a mother's hand, than eat alone at will;
+    Better to trust in God, than say: "My goods my storehouse fill."
+
+    Better to be a little wise, than in knowledge to abound;
+    Better to teach a child, than toil to fill perfection's round.
+
+    Better to sit at a master's feet, than thrill a listening State;
+    Better suspect that thou art proud, than be sure that thou art great.
+
+    Better to walk the real unseen, than watch the hour's event;
+    Better the "Well done!" at the last, than the air with shouting rent.
+
+    Better to have a quiet grief, than a hurrying delight;
+    Better the twilight of the dawn, than the noonday burning bright.
+
+    Better a death when work is done, than earth's most favored birth;
+    Better a child in God's great house, than the king of all the earth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Recitations for the Social Circle, by 
+James Clarence Harvey
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECITATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL CIRCLE ***
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Recitations For the Social Circle, by James Clarence Harvey..
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Recitations for the Social Circle, by 
+James Clarence Harvey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Recitations for the Social Circle
+
+Author: James Clarence Harvey
+
+Release Date: January 15, 2012 [EBook #38579]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECITATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL CIRCLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Josephine Paolucci, Marilynda
+Fraser-Cunliffe and the Online Distributed Proofreading
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+
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+</pre>
+
+
+
+<h1>RECITATIONS</h1>
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">For the Social Circle</span>.</h2>
+
+<h4>SELECTED AND ORIGINAL.</h4>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/p001.jpg" width="450" height="308" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+PUBLISHED BY<br />
+THE CHRISTIAN HERALD.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Louis Klopsch</span>, Proprietor,<br />
+BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+Copyright, 1896.<br />
+<span class="smcap">By Louis Klopsch.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INTRODUCTORY NOTE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In reading and recitation, the general tendency is to overdo. The quiet
+reserve force, which can be made apparent in the voice, will reach the
+heart and stir the soul when gesture and ranting fail. "Be bold! Be not too
+bold" should be the watchwords of the reciter. Self-possession, with a
+nervousness arising from an earnest desire to please, is the keynote to
+success. Never gesticulate if you can help it. When a gesture asserts
+itself to such an extent that you have made it before you realize it, be
+sure it was effective and graceful.</p>
+
+<p>It is a noble ambition to wish to sway the hearts and minds of others by
+the subtle modulations of the voice, and only he who feels the force of
+what he utters can hope to accomplish his end. The thought of the author
+must be pursued and overtaken. The sentiments between the lines must be
+enlisted before the voice will lend itself, in all its glorious power, to
+the tones that thrill and the music that charms.</p>
+
+<p>It is not always necessary to search for something your audience has never
+heard. It is far better to reveal hidden thought and new life in selections
+which are familiar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> The hackneyed recitation, if rendered better than ever
+before, will win more applause than a fresh bit carelessly studied.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, use judgment in selection. The stout lady of fifty-two should
+avoid "Marco Bozarris" and "The Elf Child," and the young lady just home
+from boarding-school should not attempt the ponderous utterances of a Roman
+gladiator.</p>
+
+<p>Care in selection; fidelity in study; wisdom in the choice of occasion;
+modesty in delivery; earnestness of manner and sincerity of feeling
+throughout, must win at last. If you make failures, trace them to a lack in
+some one or more of these requisites and, by experience, learn to avoid a
+recurrence. Orators, like poets, are "born not made," but even the born
+speaker will fail at times unless these laws are considered and observed.
+Always render an author's lines as he wrote them. The chances are ten to
+one that every word carries its burden of thought, even though you may not
+have discerned it. Err on the conservative side if in doubt.
+Over-enthusiasm is less easily pardoned.</p>
+
+<p>Never select dialect verses or stories unless you have the unusual gift
+necessary to give them the piquancy and zest which attends a good
+imitation. Ask a dozen friends for an honest opinion on the subject and
+draw an average from their criticisms to guide you in your choice of
+selections. Don't lose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> your temper over a severe criticism. Search
+carefully through your list of abilities and see if there is not, perhaps,
+some foundation for kindly suggestion. It is often a great assistance, in
+memorizing the work of another, to make a written copy, but attention
+should be given to the making of a perfect copy, properly punctuated.</p>
+
+<p>Use the eye in memorizing.</p>
+
+<p>Oftentimes a mental picture of a page will recall a line which for an
+instant seems about to escape you. Use the ear as well and study the effect
+of various modulations of voice as you rehearse in private.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, use the best of your intelligence, earnestly, in studying and
+applying the thousand little nothings that in the aggregate make the
+perfect reader.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<p>
+<span class="tocnum">PAGE.</span><br />
+<br />
+A Dream of the Universe. By Jean Paul Richter,        <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></span><br />
+<br />
+A Friend of the Fly,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_173'>173</a></span><br />
+<br />
+After-Dinner Speech by a Frenchman,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_287'>287</a></span><br />
+<br />
+America for God. By T. DeWitt Talmage,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_74'>74</a></span><br />
+<br />
+An Affectionate Letter,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_198'>198</a></span><br />
+<br />
+An Appeal for Liberty. By Joseph Story,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_296'>296</a></span><br />
+<br />
+An Hour of Horror,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_218'>218</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Annie and Willie's Prayer. By Sophia P. Snow,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_275'>275</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Answered Prayers, By Ella Wheeler Wilcox,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_175'>175</a></span><br />
+<br />
+An Unaccountable Mystery. By Paul Denton,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_80'>80</a></span><br />
+<br />
+A Rainy Day,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_260'>260</a></span><br />
+<br />
+A Reasonable Request,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_194'>194</a></span><br />
+<br />
+At the Stage Door. By James Clarence Harvey,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_16'>16</a></span><br />
+<br />
+At the Stamp Window,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_110'>110</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Becalmed. By Samuel K. Cowan,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_182'>182</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Banford's Burglar Alarm,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_314'>314</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Behind Time. By Freeman Hunt,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_77'>77</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Bessie Kendrick's Journey. By Mrs. Annie E. Preston,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_253'>253</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Better Things,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_319'>319</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Bicycle Ride. By James Clarence Harvey,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_236'>236</a></span><br />
+<br />
+By Special Request. By Frank Castles,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_47'>47</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Charity,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_308'>308</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Cut Behind. By T. DeWitt Talmage,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_14'>14</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Daughter of the Desert. By James Clarence Harvey,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_65'>65</a></span><br />
+<br />
+De Pint Wid Ole Pete,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_215'>215</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Destiny of Our Country. By R. C. Winthrop,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_188'>188</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Eloquence, the Study of. By Cicero,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_11'>11</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Emulation (Up to Date).  By James Clarence Harvey,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_187'>187</a></span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span><br />
+Extract from Blaine's Oration on James A. Garfield,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_208'>208</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Fashionable,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_261'>261</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Fast Mail and the Stage. By John H. Yates,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Frenchman and the Landlord. Anonymous,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_18'>18</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Gentle Alice Brown. By W. S. Gilbert,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_149'>149</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Get Acquainted With Yourself. By R. J. Burdette,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_119'>119</a></span><br />
+<br />
+God in the Constitution. By T. DeWitt Talmage,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_176'>176</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Good Old Way,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_207'>207</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Good Reading. By John S. Hart, L.L.D.,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_41'>41</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Go Vay, Becky Miller, Go Vay,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_220'>220</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Guild's Signal. By Francis Bret Harte,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_21'>21</a></span><br />
+<br />
+His Last Court,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_104'>104</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Hornets. By Bill Nye,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_70'>70</a></span><br />
+<br />
+How "Old Mose" Counted Eggs,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_272'>272</a></span><br />
+<br />
+How Shall I Love You? By Will C. Ferril,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_212'>212</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Imperfectus. By James Clarence Harvey,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_83'>83</a></span><br />
+<br />
+In Arabia. By James Berry Bensel,    <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_37'>37</a></span><br />
+<br />
+In the Bottom Drawer,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_185'>185</a></span><br />
+<br />
+It is a Winter Night. By Richard Henry Stoddard,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_221'>221</a></span><br />
+<br />
+I Wonder.  By James Clarence Harvey,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_159'>159</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Katrina's Visit to New York,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_138'>138</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Keenan's Charge. By George P. Lathrop,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Kittens and Babies. By Lizzie M. Hadley,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_80'>80</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Land of Our Birth. By Lillie E. Barr,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_239'>239</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Legend of the Ivy. By James Clarence Harvey,         <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_34'>34</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Let Us Give Thanks,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_258'>258</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Literary Attractions of the Bible. By Dr. Hamilton,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_88'>88</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Little Brown Curl,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_213'>213</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Little Feet,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_259'>259</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Little Jim. By George R. Sims,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_118'>118</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Little White Hearse. By J. W. Riley,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_121'>121</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Lullaby,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_114'>114</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>Maid of Orleans. By J. E. Sagebeer,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_144'>144</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mark Twain and the Interviewer,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_22'>22</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mother, Home and Heaven,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_56'>56</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mother's Doughnuts. By Charles F. Adams,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_87'>87</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mother's Fool,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_217'>217</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mr. Winkle Puts on Skates. By Charles Dickens,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_281'>281</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Mutation.  By James Clarence Harvey,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_164'>164</a></span><br />
+<br />
+My Mother's Bible. By George P. Morris,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_286'>286</a></span><br />
+<br />
+New Year Ledger. By Amelia E. Barr,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_39'>39</a></span><br />
+<br />
+No Objection to Children,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_309'>309</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_51'>51</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Old Uncle Jake,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_298'>298</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Only a Song,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Our Own. By Margaret E. Sangster,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_76'>76</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Our Heroes Shall Live.  By Henry Ward Beecher,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_113'>113</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Paul Revere's Ride. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Penning a Pig. By James A. Bailey,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_115'>115</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Praying for Papa,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_180'>180</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Praying for Shoes. By Paul Hamilton Hayne,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_58'>58</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Puzzled Dutchman,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_227'>227</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Queen Vashti. By T. DeWitt Talmage,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_131'>131</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Rabbi and the Prince. By James Clarence Harvey,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_143'>143</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Resignation. By Longfellow,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_196'>196</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Resurgam. By Eben E. Rexford,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_262'>262</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Roman Legend. By James Clarence Harvey,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Rum's Devastation and Destiny. By William Sullivan,        <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_60'>60</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Serenade. By Thomas Hood,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_129'>129</a></span><br />
+<br />
+She Cuts His Hair,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_294'>294</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Shwate Kittie Kehoe.  By James Clarence Harvey,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_155'>155</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Since She Went Home. By R. J. Burdette,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_72'>72</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Six Love Letters,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_165'>165</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Speech of Patrick Henry,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_160'>160</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Story of the Little Rid Hin. By Mrs. Whitney,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_232'>232</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>Supporting the Guns,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_30'>30</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The American Union. By Daniel Webster,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_52'>52</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Black Horse and His Rider. By Charles Sheppard,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_290'>290</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Book Canvasser. By Max Adeler,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_264'>264</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Children. By Charles Dickens,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_306'>306</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Children We Keep,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_73'>73</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Christmas Baby.  By Will Carleton,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_92'>92</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Country's Greatest Evil,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_156'>156</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Crowded Street. By William Cullen Bryant,         <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_252'>252</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Dead Doll. By Margaret Vandegrift,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_108'>108</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Doorstep. By E. C. Stedman,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_270'>270</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Enchanted Shirt. By John Hay,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_177'>177</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Fatal Glass. By Laura U. Case,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_137'>137</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Fault of the Age. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_263'>263</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Hot Axle. By T. DeWitt Talmage,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_303'>303</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Minister's Grievances,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_204'>204</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Misnomer. By Josie C. Malott,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_269'>269</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Modern Belle,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_226'>226</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Nameless Guest. By James Clarence Harvey,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_112'>112</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Old Oaken Bucket. By Samuel Woodworth,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_279'>279</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Pilot. By John B. Gough,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_135'>135</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Poppy Land Limited Express. By Edgar Wade Abbot,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_55'>55</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Prime of Life. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_29'>29</a></span><br />
+<br />
+There is a Tongue in Every Leaf,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_257'>257</a></span><br />
+<br />
+There'll Be Room in Heaven,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_122'>122</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Retort Dis-courteous. By James Clarence Harvey,        <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_125'>125</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Teacher's Diadem,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_240'>240</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The United States. By Daniel Webster,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_35'>35</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Whirling Wheel. By Tudor Jenks,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_288'>288</a></span><br />
+<br />
+The Whistling Regiment. By James Clarence Harvey,        <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_199'>199</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Tobe's Monument. By Elizabeth Kilham,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_243'>243</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>Useful Precepts for Girls,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_100'>100</a></span><br />
+<br />
+W'en de Darky am A-whis'lin'.  By S. Q. Lapius,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_134'>134</a></span><br />
+<br />
+We're Building Two a Day! By Rev. Alfred J. Hough,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_224'>224</a></span><br />
+<br />
+What the Little Girl Said,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_221'>221</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Widder Budd,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_102'>102</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Wind and Sea. By Bayard Taylor,       <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_13'>13</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Woman's Pocket. By James M. Bailey,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Women of Mumbles Head. By Clement Scott,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_190'>190</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Young America,     <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_153'>153</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Zenobia's Defence. By William Ware,      <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_126'>126</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+<h2>RECITATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL CIRCLE.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE STUDY OF ELOQUENCE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY CICERO.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I cannot conceive anything more excellent, than to be able, by language, to
+captivate the affections, to charm the understanding, and to impel or
+restrain the will of whole assemblies, at pleasure. Among every free
+people, especially in peaceful, settled governments, this single art has
+always eminently flourished, and always exercised the greatest sway. For
+what can be more surprising than that, amidst an infinite multitude, one
+man should appear, who shall be the only, or almost the only man capable of
+doing what Nature has put in every man's power? Or, can anything impart
+such exquisite pleasure to the ear and to the intellect, as a speech in
+which the wisdom and dignity of the sentiments are heightened by the utmost
+force and beauty of expression?</p>
+
+<p>Is there anything so commanding, so grand, as that the eloquence of one man
+should direct the inclinations of the people,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> the consciences of judges,
+and the majesty of senates? Nay, farther, can aught be esteemed so great,
+so generous, so public-spirited, as to assist the suppliant, to rear the
+prostrate, to communicate happiness, to avert danger, and to save a
+fellow-citizen from exile? Can anything be so necessary, as to keep those
+arms always in readiness, with which you may defend yourself, attack the
+profligate, and redress your own, or your country's wrongs?</p>
+
+<p>But let us consider this accomplishment as detached from public business,
+and from its wonderful efficacy in popular assemblies, at the bar, and in
+the senate; can anything be more agreeable, or more endearing in private
+life, than elegant language? For the great characteristic of our nature,
+and what eminently distinguishes us from brutes, is the faculty of social
+conversation, the power of expressing our thoughts and sentiments by words.
+To excel mankind, therefore, in the exercise of that very talent which
+gives them the preference to the brute creation, is what everybody must not
+only admire, but look upon as the just object of the most indefatigable
+pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>And now, to mention the chief point of all, what other power could have
+been of sufficient efficacy to bring together the vagrant individuals of
+the human race; to tame their savage manners, to reconcile them to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> social
+life; and, after cities were founded, to mark out laws, forms, and
+constitutions, for their government?&mdash;Let me, in a few words, sum up this
+almost boundless subject. I lay it down as a maxim, that upon the wisdom
+and abilities of an accomplished orator, not only his own dignity, but the
+welfare of vast numbers of individuals, and even of the whole state, must
+greatly depend.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE WIND AND THE SEA.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY BAYARD TAYLOR.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Sea is a jovial comrade;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He laughs, wherever he goes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the merriment shines<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the dimpling lines<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That wrinkle his hale repose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He lays himself down at the feet of the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And shakes all over with glee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the broad-backed billows fall faint on the shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the mirth of the mighty sea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But the wind is sad and restless,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And cursed with an inward pain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You may hark as you will,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By valley or hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But you hear him still complain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wails on the barren mountain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shrieks on the wintry sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sobs in the cedar and moans in the pine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And shivers all over the aspen tree.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Welcome are both their voices,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And I know not which is best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The laughter that slips<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the ocean's lips,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or the comfortless wind's unrest.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There's a pang in all rejoicing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A joy in the heart of pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the wind that saddens, the sea that gladdens,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Are singing the self-same strain.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CUT BEHIND.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The scene opens on a clear, crisp morning. Two boys are running to get on
+the back of a carriage, whose wheels are spinning along the road. One of
+the boys, with a quick spring, succeeds. The other leaps, but fails, and
+falls on the part of the body where it is most appropriate to fall. No
+sooner has he struck the ground than he shouts to the driver of the
+carriage, "Cut behind!"</p>
+
+<p>Human nature is the same in boy as in man&mdash;all running to gain the vehicle
+of success. Some are spry, and gain that for which they strive. Others are
+slow, and tumble down; they who fall crying out against those who mount,
+"Cut behind!"</p>
+
+<p>A political office rolls past. A multitude spring to their feet, and the
+race is on. Only one of all the number reaches that for which he runs. No
+sooner does he gain the prize,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> and begin to wipe the sweat from his brow,
+and think how grand a thing it is to ride in popular preferment, than the
+disappointed candidates cry out, "Incompetency! Stupidity! Fraud! Now let
+the newspapers of the other political party 'cut behind.'"</p>
+
+<p>There is a golden chariot of wealth rolling down the street. A thousand
+people are trying to catch it. They run, they jostle; they tread on each
+other. Push, and pull, and tug. Those talk most against riches who cannot
+get there. Clear the track for the racers! One of the thousand reaches the
+golden prize and mounts. Forthwith the air is full of cries, "Got it by
+fraud! Shoddy! Petroleum aristocracy! His father was a rag-picker! His
+mother was a washer-woman! I knew him when he blacked his own shoes! Pitch
+him off the back part of the golden chariot! Cut behind! cut behind!"</p>
+
+<p>In many eyes success is a crime. "I do not like you," said the snow-flake
+to the snow-bird. "Why?" said the snow-bird. "Because," said the
+snow-flake, "you are going <i>up</i> and I am going <i>down</i>."</p>
+
+<p>We have to state that the man in the carriage, on the crisp morning, though
+he had a long lash-whip, with which he could have made the climbing boy
+yell most lustily, did not <i>cut behind</i>. He heard the shout in the rear,
+and said, "Good morning, my son.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> That is right; climb over and sit by me.
+Here are the reins; take hold and drive; was a boy myself once, and know
+what tickles youngsters."</p>
+
+<p>Thank God, there are so many in the world that never "cut behind," but are
+ready to give a fellow a ride whenever he wants it. There are hundreds of
+people whose chief joy it is to help others on. Now it is a smile, now a
+good word, now ten dollars. When such a kind man has ridden to the end of
+the earthly road, it will be pleasant to hang up the whip with which he
+drove the enterprises of a lifetime, and feel that with it he never "cut
+behind" at those who were struggling.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>AT THE STAGE DOOR.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The curtain had fallen, the lights were dim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The rain came down with a steady pour;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A white-haired man with a kindly face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Peered through the panes of the old stage door.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I'm getting too old to be drenched like that"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He muttered and turning met face to face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The woman whose genius, an hour before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like a mighty power had filled the place.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yes, much too old," with a smile, she said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And she laid her hand on his silver hair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"You shall ride with me to your home to-night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For that is my carriage standing there."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The old door-tender stood, doffing his hat<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And holding the door, but she would not stir,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though he said it was not for the "likes of him<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To ride in a kerridge with such as her."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Come, put out your lights," she said to him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"I've something important I wish to say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I can't stand here in the draught you know&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I can tell you much better while on the way."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So into the carriage the old man crept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thanking her gratefully, o'er and o'er,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till she bade him listen while she would tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A story, concerning that old stage door.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"It was raining in torrents, ten years ago<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This very night, and a friendless child<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stood, shivering there, by that old stage door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dreading her walk in a night so wild.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She was only one of the 'extra' girls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But you gave her a nickle to take the car,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And said 'Heaven bless ye, my little one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ye can pay me back ef ye ever star.'<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"So you cast your bread on the waters then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And I pay you back, as my heart demands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we're even now&mdash;no! not quite," she said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As she emptied her purse in his trembling hands.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"And if ever you're needy and want a friend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You know where to come, for your little mite<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Put hope in my heart and made me strive<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To gain the success you have seen to-night."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then the carriage stopped, at the old man's door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the gas-light shone on him, standing there:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he stepped to the curb, as she rolled away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While his thin lips murmured a fervent prayer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He looked at the silver and bills and gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he said: "She gives all this to me?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My bread has come back a thousandfold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">God bless her! God bless all such as she!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE FRENCHMAN AND THE LANDLORD.</h2>
+
+<h3>ANONYMOUS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>A shrewd and wealthy old landlord, away down in Maine, is noted for driving
+his "sharp bargains," by which he has amassed a large amount of property.
+He is the owner of a large number of dwelling-houses, and it is said of him
+that he is not over-scrupulous of his rental charges, whenever he can find
+a customer whom he knows to be responsible. His object is to lease his
+house for a term of years to the best tenants, and get the uttermost
+farthing in the shape of rent.</p>
+
+<p>A diminutive Frenchman called on him last winter, to hire a dwelling he
+owned in Portland, and which had long remained empty. References were
+given, and the landlord, ascertaining that the tenant was a man "after his
+own heart," immediately commenced to "Jew" him. He found that the tenement
+appeared to suit the Frenchman, and he placed an exorbitant price upon it;
+the leases were drawn and duly executed, and the tenant removed into his
+new quarters.</p>
+
+<p>Upon kindling fires in the house, it was found that the chimneys wouldn't
+"draw," and the building was filled with smoke. The window-sashes rattled
+in the wind at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> night, and the cold air rushed through a hundred crevices
+about the house until now unnoticed. The snow melted upon the roof, and the
+attics were drenched from the leakage. The rain pelted, and our Frenchman
+found a "natural" bathroom upon the second floor&mdash;but the lease was signed
+and the landlord chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been vat you sall call 'tuck in,' vis zis <i>maison</i>," muttered our
+victim to himself a week afterwards, "but <i>n'importe</i>, ve sal se vat ve
+<i>sal</i> see."</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he arose bright and early, and passing down he encountered the
+landlord.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah ha!&mdash;<i>Bon jour, monsieur</i>," said he in his happiest manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Good day, sir. How do you like your house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah monsieur&mdash;elegant, beautiful, magnificent. <i>Eh bien</i>, monsieur, I have
+ze one regret!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I sal live in zat house but tree little year."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have find by vot you call ze lease, zat you have give me ze house but
+for tree year, and I ver mooch sorrow for zat."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can have it longer if you wish&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, monsieur, sal be ver mooch glad if I can have zat house <i>so long as I
+please</i>&mdash;eh&mdash;monsieur?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly, certainly, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Tres bien</i>, monsieur! I sal valk rite to your offees, and you sal give me
+vot you call ze lease for that <i>maison jes so long as I sal vant the
+house</i>. Eh, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, sir. You can stay there your lifetime, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, monsieur&mdash;I have ver mooch tanks for zis accommodation."</p>
+
+<p>The old lease was destroyed and a new one was delivered in form to the
+French gentleman, giving him possession of the premises for "such a period
+as the lessee may desire the same, he paying the rent promptly, etc."</p>
+
+<p>The next morning our crafty landlord was passing the house just as the
+French-man's last load of furniture was being started from the door; an
+hour afterward, a messenger called on him with a legal tender, for the rent
+for eight days, accompanied with a note as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur&mdash;I have been smoke&mdash;I have been drouned&mdash;I have been frees to
+death, in ze house vat I av hire of you for ze period as I may desire. I
+have stay in ze house <i>jes so long as I please</i>, and ze bearer of zis vill
+give you ze key! <i>Bon jour</i>, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to add that our landlord has never since been known to give
+up "a bird in the hand for one in the bush."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+<h2>GUILD'S SIGNAL.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY FRANCIS BRET HARTE, 1839.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Two low whistles, quaint and clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That was the signal the engineer&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That was the signal that Guild, 'tis said&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave to his wife at Providence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As through the sleeping town, and thence<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Out in the night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">On to the light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down past the farms, lying white, he sped!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As a husband's greeting, scant, no doubt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet to the woman looking out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watching and waiting, no serenade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love-song, or midnight roundelay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said what that whistle seemed to say;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"To my trust true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">So love to you!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Working or waiting.  Good night!" it said.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Brisk young bagmen, tourists fine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old commuters, along the line,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brakesmen and porters, glanced ahead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smiled as the signal, sharp, intense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pierced through the shadows of Providence,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"Nothing amiss&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Nothing!&mdash;it is<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Only Guild calling his wife," they said.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Summer and winter, the old refrain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rang o'er the billows of ripening grain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pierced through the budding boughs o'er head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flew down the track when the red leaves burned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like living coals from the engine spurned!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Sang as it flew<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"To our trust true.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">First of all, duty! Good night!" it said.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And then, one night, it was heard no more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Stonington over Rhode Island Shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the folk in Providence smiled and said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As they turned in their beds: "The engineer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has once forgotten his midnight cheer."<br /></span>
+<span class="i4"><i>One</i> only knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To his trust true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Guild lay under his engine, dead.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MARK TWAIN AND THE INTERVIEWER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The nervous, dapper, "peart" young man took the chair I offered him, and
+said he was connected with "The Daily Thunderstorm," and added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hoping it's no harm, I've come to interview you."</p>
+
+<p>"Come to what?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Interview</i> you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I see. Yes&mdash;yes. Um! Yes&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>I was not feeling bright that morning. Indeed, my powers seemed a bit under
+a cloud. However, I went to the bookcase, and when I had been looking six
+or seven minutes, I found I was obliged to refer to the young man. I
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How do you spell it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Spell what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Interview."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my goodness? What do you want to spell it for?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to spell it: I want to see what it means."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this is astonishing, I must say. <i>I</i> can tell you what it means, if
+you&mdash;if you"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, all right! That will answer, and much obliged to you, too."</p>
+
+<p>"In, <i>in</i>, ter, <i>ter</i>, <i>inter</i>"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then you spell it with an <i>I</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, certainly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is what took me so long!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my <i>dear</i> sir, what did <i>you</i> propose to spell it with?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I&mdash;I&mdash;I hardly know. I had the Unabridged; and I was ciphering
+around in the back end, hoping I might tree her among the pictures. But
+it's a very old edition."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my friend, they wouldn't have a <i>picture</i> of it in even the latest
+e&mdash;&mdash; My dear sir, I beg your pardon, I mean no harm in the world; but you
+do not look as&mdash;as&mdash;intelligent as I had expected you would. No harm,&mdash;I
+mean no harm at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't mention it! It has often been said, and by people who would not
+flatter, and who could have no inducement to flatter, that I am quite
+remarkable in that way. Yes&mdash;yes: they always speak of it with rapture."</p>
+
+<p>"I can easily imagine it. But about this interview. You know it is the
+custom, now, to interview any man who has become notorious."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! I had not heard of it before. It must be very interesting. What do
+you do it with?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well&mdash;well&mdash;well&mdash;this is disheartening. It <i>ought</i> to be done with a
+club, in some cases; but customarily it consists in the interviewer asking
+questions, and the interviewed answering them. It is all the rage now. Will
+you let me ask you certain questions calculated to bring out the salient
+points of your public and private history?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, with pleasure,&mdash;with pleasure. I have a very bad memory; but I hope
+you will not mind. That is to say, it is an irregular memory, singularly
+irregular. Sometimes it goes in a gallop, and then again it will be as much
+as a fortnight passing a given point. This is a great grief to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it is no matter, so you will try to do the best you can."</p>
+
+<p>"I will! I will put my whole mind on it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks! Are you ready to begin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ready."</p>
+
+<p><i>Question.</i> How old are you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Answer.</i> Nineteen in June.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Indeed! I would have taken you to be thirty-five or six. Where were
+you born?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> In Missouri.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> When did you begin to write?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> In 1836.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Why, how could that be, if you are only nineteen now?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> I don't know. It does seem curious, somehow.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> It does indeed. Whom do you consider the most remarkable man you ever
+met?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Aaron Burr.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> But you never could have met Aaron Burr, if you are only nineteen
+years&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Now, if you know more about me than I do, what do you ask me for?</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Well, it was only a suggestion; nothing more. How did you happen to
+meet Burr?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Well, I happened to be at his funeral one day; and he asked me to make
+less noise, and&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> But, good heavens! If you were at his funeral, he must have been dead;
+and, if he was dead, how could he care whether you made a noise or not?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> I don't know. He was always a particular kind of a man that way.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Still, I don't understand it at all. You say he spoke to you, and that
+he was dead?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> I didn't say he was dead.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> But wasn't he dead?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Well, some said he was, some said he wasn't.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> What do <i>you</i> think?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Oh, it was none of my business! It wasn't any of my funeral.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Did you&mdash;However we can never get this matter straight. Let me ask
+about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> something else. What was the date of your birth?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Monday, October 31, 1693.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> What! Impossible! That would make you a hundred and eighty years old.
+How do you account for that?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> I don't account for it at all.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> But you said at first you were only nineteen, and now you make
+yourself out to be one hundred and eighty. It is an awful discrepancy.</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Why, have you noticed that? (<i>Shaking hands.</i>) Many a time it has
+seemed to me like a discrepancy; but somehow I couldn't make up my mind.
+How quick you notice a thing!</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Thank you for the compliment, as far as it goes. Had you, or have you,
+any brothers or sisters?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Eh! I&mdash;I&mdash;I think so,&mdash;yes&mdash;but I don't remember.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Well, that is the most extraordinary statement I ever heard.</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Why, what makes you think that?</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> How could I think otherwise? Why, look here! Who is this a picture of
+on the wall? Isn't that a brother of yours?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Oh, yes, yes, yes! Now you remind me of it, that <i>was</i> a brother of
+mine. That's William, <i>Bill</i> we called him. Poor old Bill!</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Why, is he dead, then?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Ah, well, I suppose so. We never could tell. There was a great mystery
+about it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> That is sad, very sad. He disappeared, then?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Well, yes, in a sort of general way. We buried him.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> <i>Buried</i> him! Buried him without knowing whether he was dead or not?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Oh, no! Not that. He was dead enough.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Well, I confess that I can't understand this. If you buried him, and
+you knew he was dead&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> No, no! We only thought he was.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Oh, I see! He came to life again?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> I bet he didn't.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Well. I never heard anything like this. <i>Somebody</i> was dead. Somebody
+was buried. Now, where was the mystery?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Ah, that's just it! That's it exactly! You see we were twins,&mdash;defunct
+and I; and we got mixed in the bathtub when we were only two weeks old, and
+one of us was drowned. But we didn't know which. Some think it was Bill;
+and some think it was me.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Well, that <i>is</i> remarkable. What do <i>you</i> think?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Goodness knows! I would give whole worlds to know. This solemn, this
+awful mystery has cast a gloom over my whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> life. But I will tell you a
+secret now, which I never have revealed to any creature before. One of us
+had a peculiar mark, a large mole on the back of his left hand; that was
+<i>me</i>. <i>That child was the one that was drowned.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Very well, then, I don't see that there is any mystery about it, after
+all.</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> You don't; well, <i>I</i> do. Anyway, I don't see how they could ever have
+been such a blundering lot as to go and bury the wrong child. But, 'sh!
+don't mention it where the family can hear of it. Heaven knows they have
+heart-breaking troubles enough without adding this.</p>
+
+<p><i>Q.</i> Well, I believe I have got material enough for the present; and I am
+very much obliged to you for the pains you have taken. But I was a good
+deal interested in that account of Aaron Burr's funeral. Would you mind
+telling me what peculiar circumstance it was that made you think Burr was
+such a remarkable man?</p>
+
+<p><i>A.</i> Oh, it was a mere trifle! Not one man in fifty would have noticed it
+at all. When the sermon was over, and the procession all ready to start for
+the cemetery, and the body all arranged nice in the hearse, he said he
+wanted to take a last look at the scenery; and so he <i>got up, and rode with
+the driver</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Then the young man reverently withdrew. He was very pleasant company; and I
+was sorry to see him go.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE PRIME OF LIFE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I read the sentence or heard it spoken&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A stalwart phrase and with meaning rife&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I said: "Now I know, by youth's sweet token,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That this is the time called the 'prime of life.'<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For my hopes soar over the loftiest mountain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the future glows red, like a fair sunrise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And my spirits gush forth, like a spring-fed fountain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And never a grief in the heart of me lies."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet later on, when with blood and muscle<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Equipped I plunged in the world's hard strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I loved its danger, and laughed at the tussle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Why <i>this</i>," I said, "is the prime of life."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And then, when the tide in my veins ran slower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And youth's first follies had passed away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the fervent fires in my heart burned lower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And over my body my brain had sway,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I said: "It is when, through the veiled ideal<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The vigorous reason thrusts a knife<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rends the illusion, and shows us the real,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh! this is the time called 'prime of life.'"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hut now when brain and body are troubled<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(For one is tired and one is ill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet my soul soars up with a strength redoubled<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sits on the throne of my broken will),<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Now when on the ear of my listening spirit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That is turned away from the earth's harsh strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The river of death sounds murmuring near it&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I know that <i>this</i> "is the prime of life."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SUPPORTING THE GUNS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Did you ever see a battery take position?</p>
+
+<p>It hasn't the thrill of a cavalry charge, nor the grimness of a line of
+bayonets moving slowly and determinedly on, but there is peculiar
+excitement about it that makes old veterans rise in the saddle and cheer.</p>
+
+<p>We have been fighting at the edge of the woods. Every cartridge-box has
+been emptied once and more, and a fourth of the brigade has melted away in
+dead and wounded and missing. Not a cheer is heard in the whole brigade. We
+know that we are being driven foot by foot, and that when we break back
+once more, the line will go to pieces and the enemy will pour through the
+gap.</p>
+
+<p>Here comes help!</p>
+
+<p>Down the crowded highway gallops a battery, withdrawn from some other
+position to save ours. The field fence is scattered while you could count
+thirty, and the guns rush for the hill behind us. Six horses to a piece,
+three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches where a farmer could not drive
+a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> wagon; through clumps of bushes, over logs a foot thick, every horse on
+the gallop, every rider lashing his team and yelling,&mdash;the sight behind us
+makes us forget the foe in front. The guns jump two feet high as the heavy
+wheels strike rock or log, but not a horse slackens his pace, not a
+cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, six caissons, sixty horses, eighty men,
+race for the brow of the hill as if he who reached it first was to be
+knighted.</p>
+
+<p>A moment ago the battery was a confused mob. We look again and the six guns
+are in position, the detached horses hurrying away, the ammunition-chests
+open, and along our line runs the command: "Give them one more volley and
+fall back to support the guns!" We have scarcely obeyed when boom! boom!
+boom! opens the battery, and jets of fire jump down and scorch the green
+trees under which we fought and despaired.</p>
+
+<p>The shattered old brigade has a chance to breathe for the first time in
+three hours as we form a line of battle behind the guns and lie down. What
+grim, cool fellows these cannoneers are. Every man is a perfect machine.
+Bullets plash dust in their faces, but they do not wince. Bullets sing over
+and around them, but they do not dodge. There goes one to the earth, shot
+through the head as he sponged his gun. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> machinery loses just one
+beat,&mdash;misses just one cog in the wheel, and then works away again as
+before.</p>
+
+<p>Every gun is using short-fuse shell. The ground shakes and trembles&mdash;the
+roar shuts out all sounds from a battle-line three miles long, and the
+shells go shrieking into the swamp to cut trees short off&mdash;to mow great
+gaps in the bushes&mdash;to hunt out and shatter and mangle men until their
+corpses cannot be recognized as human. You would think a tornado was
+howling through the forest, followed by billows of fire, and yet men live
+through it&mdash;aye! press forward to capture the battery! We can hear their
+shouts as they form for the rush.</p>
+
+<p>Now the shells are changed for grape and canister, and the guns are served
+so fast that all reports blend into one mighty roar. The shriek of a shell
+is the wickedest sound in war, but nothing makes the flesh crawl like the
+demoniac singing, purring, whistling grape-shot and the serpent-like hiss
+of canister. Men's legs and arms are not shot through, but torn off. Heads
+are torn from bodies and bodies cut in two. A round shot or shell takes two
+men out of the ranks as it crashes through. Grape and canister mow a swath
+and pile the dead on top of each other.</p>
+
+<p>Through the smoke we see a swarm of men. It is not a battle-line, but a mob
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> men desperate enough to bathe their bayonets in the flame of the guns.
+The guns leap from the ground, almost, as they are depressed on the
+foe&mdash;and shrieks and screams and shouts blend into one awful and steady
+cry. Twenty men out of the battery are down, and the firing is interrupted.
+The foe accept it as a sign of wavering, and come rushing on. They are not
+ten feet away when the guns give them a last shot. That discharge picks
+living men off their feet and throws them into the swamp, a blackened,
+bloody mass.</p>
+
+<p>Up now, as the enemy are among the guns! There is a silence of ten seconds,
+and then the flash and roar of more than three thousand muskets, and a rush
+forward with bayonets. For what? Neither on the right, nor left, nor in
+front of us is a living foe! There are corpses around us which have been
+struck by three, four and even six bullets, and nowhere on this acre of
+ground is a wounded man! The wheels of the guns cannot move until the
+blockade of dead is removed. Men cannot pass from caisson to gun without
+climbing over winrows of dead. Every gun and wheel is smeared with blood,
+every foot of grass has its horrible stain.</p>
+
+<p>Historians write of the glory of war. Burial parties saw murder where
+historians saw glory.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A LEGEND OF THE IVY.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In a quiet village of Germany, once dwelt a fair-haired maiden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose eyes were as blue as the summer sky and whose hair with gold was laden;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her lips were as red as a rose-bud sweet, with teeth, like pearls, behind them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her smiles were like dreams of bliss, complete, and her waving curls enshrined them.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fond lovers thronged to the maiden's side, but of all the youth around her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One only had asked her to be his bride, and a willing listener found her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Some time, we'll marry," she often said, then burst into song or laughter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tripped away, while the lover's head hung low as he followed after.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Impatient growing, at last he said, "The springtime birds are mating,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pray whisper, sweet, our day to wed; warm hearts grow cold from waiting."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Not yet," she smiled, with a fond caress; but he answered, "Now or never,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I start for the Holy War unless I may call thee mine forever."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"For the Holy War? Farewell!" she cried, with never a thought of grieving.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His wish so often had been denied, she could not help believing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His heart would wait till her budding life had blown to its full completeness.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She did not know that a wedded wife holds a spell in her youthful sweetness.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">But alas! for the "Yes" too long delayed, he fought and he bravely perished;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And alas! for the heart of the tender maid, and the love it fondly cherished;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her smile grew sad for all hope was gone; life's sands were swiftly fleeting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And just at the break of a wintry dawn, her broken heart ceased beating;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when, on her grave, at the early spring, bright flowers her friends were throwing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They knelt and there, just blossoming, they saw a strange plant growing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its tender fingers, at first, just seen, crept on through the grass and clover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till, at last, with a mound of perfect green, it covered the whole grave over;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And often the village youth would stand by the vine-clad mound, in the gloaming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And holding a maiden's willing hand, would tell that the strange plant roaming<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was the maiden's soul, which could not rest and with fruitless, fond endeavor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Went seeking the heart it loved the best, but sought in vain, forever.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE UNITED STATES.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY DANIEL WEBSTER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility
+of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of
+groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let
+us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of Liberty
+and Union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote
+ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our
+action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of
+the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the
+country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny;
+let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men.</p>
+
+<p>Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now
+devolve upon us, for the preservation of this constitution, and the harmony
+and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our
+generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain,
+which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the
+states to this constitution, for ages to come.</p>
+
+<p>We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by
+judicature, and defended by the whole affections of the people. No
+monarchical throne presses these states together; no iron chain of military
+power encircles them; they live and stand upon a government popular in its
+form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality,
+and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever.</p>
+
+<p>In all its history it has been beneficent: it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> has trodden down no man's
+liberty; it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty and
+patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and
+honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by
+recent events, becomes vastly larger.</p>
+
+<p>This republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent.
+The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We
+realize, on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental
+edging of the buckler of Achilles&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his last hand, and poured the ocean round;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In living silver seemed the waves to roll,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>IN ARABIA.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES BERRY BENSEL, 1856.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Choose thou between!" and to his enemy<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Arab chief a brawny hand displayed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherein, like moonlight on a sullen sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Gleamed the gray scimitar's enamelled blade.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Choose thou between death at my hand and thine!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Close in my power, my vengeance I may wreak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet hesitate to strike. A hate like mine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is noble still. Thou hast thy choosing&mdash;speak!"<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And Ackbar stood. About him all the band<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That hailed his captor chieftain, with grave eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His answer waited, while that heavy hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stretched like a bar between him and the skies.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Straight in the face before him Ackbar sent<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A sneer of scorn, and raised his noble head;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Strike!" and the desert monarch, as content,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rehung the weapon at his girdle red.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then Ackbar nearer crept and lifted high<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His arms toward the heaven so far and blue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherein the sunset rays began to die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While o'er the band, a deeper silence grew.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Strike! I am ready! Did'st thou think to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A son of Gheva spill upon the dust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His noble blood? Did'st hope to have my knee<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bend at thy feet, and with one mighty thrust,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The life thou hatest flee before thee here?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shame on thee! on thy race! Art thou the one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who hast so long his vengeance counted dear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My hate is greater; I did strike thy son,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thy one son, Noumid, dead before my face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And by the swiftest courser of my stud<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sent to thy door his corpse. And one might trace<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their flight across the desert by his blood.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Strike! for my hate is greater than thy own!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But with a frown the Arab moved away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Walked to a distant palm and stood alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With eyes that looked where purple mountains lay.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This for an instant; then he turned again<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Toward the place where Ackbar waited still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Walking as one benumbed with bitter pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or with a hateful mission to fulfil.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Strike! for I hate thee!" Ackbar cried once more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Nay, but my hate I cannot find!" said now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His enemy.  "Thy freedom I restore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Live, life were worse than death to such as thou."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So with his gift of life, the Bedouin slept<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That night untroubled; but when dawn broke through<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The purple East, and o'er his eyelids crept<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The long, thin finger of the light, he drew<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A heavy breath and woke. Above him shone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A lifted dagger&mdash;"Yea, he gave thee life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I give death!" came in fierce undertone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And Ackbar died. It was dead Noumid's wife.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>The New Year Ledger.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY AMELIA E. BARR.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I said one year ago,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"I wonder, if I truly kept<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A list of days when life burnt low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of days I smiled and days I wept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If good or bad would highest mount<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I made up the year's account?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I took a ledger fair and fine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"And now," I said, "when days are glad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll write with bright red ink the line,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And write with black when they are bad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that they'll stand before my sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As clear apart as day and night.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I will not heed the changing skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor if it shine nor if it rain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But if there comes some sweet surprise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or friendship, love or honest gain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why, then it shall be understood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That day is written down as good.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Or if to anyone I love<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A blessing meets them on the way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That will to me a pleasure prove:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So it shall be a happy day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if some day, I've cause to dread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pass harmless by, I'll write it red.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When hands and brain stand labor's test,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And I can do the thing I would,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those days when I am at my best<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall all be traced as very good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in 'red letter,' too, I'll write<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those rare, strong hours when right is might.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When first I meet in some grand book<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A noble soul that touches mine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with this vision I can look<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through some gate beautiful of time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That day such happiness will shed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That golden-lined will seem the red.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And when pure, holy thoughts have power<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To touch my heart and dim my eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I in some diviner hour<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Can hold sweet converse with the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah! then my soul may safely write:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'This day has been most good and bright.'"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What do I see on looking back?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A red-lined book before me lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With here and there a thread of black,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That like a gloomy shadow flies,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A shadow it must be confessed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That often rose in my own breast.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I have found it good to note<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The blessing that is mine each day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For happiness is vainly sought<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In some dim future far away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just try my ledger for a year,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then look with grateful wonder back,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And you will find, there is no fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The red days far exceed the black.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>GOOD READING THE GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JOHN S. HART, LL.D.</h3>
+
+
+<p>There is one accomplishment, in particular, which I would earnestly
+recommend to you. Cultivate assiduously the ability to read well. I stop to
+particularize this, because it is a thing so very much neglected, and
+because it is such an elegant and charming accomplishment. Where one person
+is really interested by music, twenty are pleased by good reading. Where
+one person is capable of becoming a skillful musician, twenty may become
+good readers. Where there is one occasion suitable for the exercise of
+musical talent, there are twenty for that of good reading.</p>
+
+<p>The culture of the voice necessary for reading well, gives a delightful
+charm to the same voice in conversation. Good reading is the natural
+exponent and vehicle of all good things. It is the most effective of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> all
+commentaries upon the works of genius. It seems to bring dead authors to
+life again, and makes us sit down familiarly with the great and good of all
+ages.</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever notice what life and power the Holy Scriptures have when well
+read? Have you ever heard of the wonderful effects produced by Elizabeth
+Fry on the criminals of Newgate, by simply reading to them the parable of
+the Prodigal Son? Princes and peers of the realm, it is said, counted it a
+privilege to stand in the dismal corridors, among felons and murderers,
+merely to share with them the privilege of witnessing the marvelous pathos
+which genius, taste, and culture could infuse into that simple story.</p>
+
+<p>What a fascination there is in really good reading! What a power it gives
+one! In the hospital, in the chamber of the invalid, in the nursery, in the
+domestic and in the social circle, among chosen friends and companions, how
+it enables you to minister to the amusement, to the comfort, the pleasure
+of dear ones, as no other art or accomplishment can. No instrument of man's
+devising can reach the heart as does that most wonderful instrument, the
+human voice. It is God's special gift and endowment to his chosen
+creatures. Fold it not away in a napkin.</p>
+
+<p>If you would double the value of all your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> other acquisitions, if you would
+add immeasurably to your own enjoyment and to your power of promoting the
+enjoyment of others, cultivate, with incessant care, this divine gift. No
+music below the skies is equal to that of pure, silvery speech from the
+lips of a man or woman of high culture.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Listen, my children, and you shall hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the eighteenth of April, in seventy-five&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hardly a man is now alive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who remembers that famous day and year&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He said to his friend: "If the British march<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By land or sea from the town to-night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the North Church tower as a signal light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One, if by land, and two if by sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I on the opposite shore will be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ready to ride and spread the alarm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through every Middlesex village and farm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the country folk to be up and to arm."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then he said "Good-night," and, with muffled oar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Silently row'd to the Charlestown shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just as the moon rose over the bay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where, swinging wide at her moorings, lay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The "Somerset," British man-of-war;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A phantom ship, with each mast and spar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Across the moon like a prison bar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a huge black hulk, that was magnified<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By its own reflection in the tide.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wanders and watches with eager ears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till in the silence around him he hears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The muster of men at the barrack door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sound of arms and the tramp of feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the measured tread of the grenadiers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Marching down to their boats on the shore.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the belfry chamber overhead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And startled the pigeons from their perch<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the sombre rafters, that round him made<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Masses and moving shapes of shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the highest window in the wall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where he paused to listen and look down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A moment on the roofs of the town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the moonlight flowing over all.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In their night encampment on the hill.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wrapped in silence so deep and still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The watchful night wind, as it went<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Creeping along from tent to tent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A moment only he feels the spell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the lonely belfry and the dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For, suddenly, all his thoughts are bent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On a shadowy something far away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the river widens to meet the bay,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A line of black that bends and floats<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now he patted his horse's side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now gazed at the landscape far and near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, impetuous, stamped the earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And turned and lighted his saddle-girth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But mostly he watched, with eager search,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The belfry tower of the Old North Church,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As it rose above the graves on the hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A second lamp in the belfry burns.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A hurry of hoofs in the village street,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That was all; and yet, through the gloom and the light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fate of a nation was riding that night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kindled the land into flame with its heat.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He had left the village and mounted the steep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And under the alders that skirt its edge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was twelve by the village clock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he crossed the bridge into Medford town;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard the crowing of the cock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the barking of the farmer's dog,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And felt the damp of the river's fog,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That rises after the sun goes down.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It was one by the village clock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he galloped into Lexington.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw the gilded weathercock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swim in the moonlight as he passed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gaze at him with spectral glare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if they already stood aghast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At the bloody work they would look upon.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It was two by the village clock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he came to the bridge in Concord town;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He heard the bleating of the flock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the twitter of birds among the trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And felt the breath of the morning breeze<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blowing over the meadows brown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one was safe and asleep in his bed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who at the bridge would be first to fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who that day would be lying dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pierced by a British musket ball.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You know the rest; in the books you have read,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How the British regulars fired and fled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How the farmers gave them ball for ball,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From behind each fence and farmyard wall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chasing the redcoats down the lane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then crossing the fields, to emerge again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Under the trees, at the turn of the road,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And only pausing to fire and load.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So through the night rode Paul Revere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so through the night went his cry of alarm<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To every Middlesex village and farm,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A cry of defiance and not of fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a word that shall echo for evermore!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For, borne on the night-wind of the past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through all our history to the last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the hour of darkness and peril and need,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The people will waken and listen to hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the midnight message of Paul Revere.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+<h2>BY SPECIAL REQUEST.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY FRANK CASTLES.</h3>
+
+<h3><i>A Lady Standing with one Hand on a Chair in a Somewhat Amateurish
+Attitude.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Our kind hostess has asked me to recite something, "by special request,"
+but I really don't know what to do. I have only a very small <i>repertoire</i>,
+and I'm afraid you know all my stock recitations. What shall I do?
+(<i>Pause.</i>) I have it; I'll give you something entirely original. I'll tell
+you about my last experience of reciting, which really is the cause of my
+being so nervous to-night. I began reciting about a year ago; I took
+elocution lessons with Mr. &mdash;&mdash;; no, I won't tell you his name, I want to
+keep him all to myself. I studied the usual things with him&mdash;the "Mercy"
+speech from the "Merchant of Venice," and Juliet's "Balcony scene," but I
+somehow never could imagine my fat, red-faced, snub-nosed old master
+(there! I've told you who he was), I never could fancy him as an ideal
+Romeo; he looked much more like Polonius, or the Ghost before he was a
+ghost&mdash;I mean as he probably was in the flesh.</p>
+
+<p>My elocution master told me that Shakespeare was not my forte, so I studied
+some more modern pieces. He told me I was getting on very well&mdash;"one of my
+most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> promising pupils," but I found that he said that to every one.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it soon became known that I recited (one must have <i>some</i> little
+vices, you know, just to show up one's virtues). I received an invitation
+from Lady Midas for a musical evening last Friday, and in a postscript, "We
+hope you will favor us with a recitation." Very flattering, wasn't it?</p>
+
+<p>I went there fully primed with three pieces&mdash;"The Lifeboat," by Sims, "The
+Lost Soul," and Calverley's "Waiting." I thought that I had hit on a
+perfectly original selection; but I was soon undeceived. There were a great
+many people at Lady Midas', quite fifty, I should think, or perhaps two
+hundred; but I'm very bad at guessing numbers. We had a lot of music. A
+young man, with red hair and little twinkling light eyes, sang a song by De
+Lara, but it did not sound as well as when I heard the composer sing it.
+Then two girls played a banjo duet; then&mdash;no, we had another song first,
+then a girl with big eyes and an ugly dress&mdash;brown nun's veiling with
+yellow lace, and beads, and ribbons, and sham flowers and all sorts of
+horrid things, so ugly, I'm sure it was made at home. Well&mdash;where was I?
+Oh, yes!&mdash;she stood up and recited, what do you think? Why, "Calverley's
+Waiting!" Oh! I was so cross when it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> came to the last verses; you remember
+how they go (<i>imitating</i>)&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Hush! hark! I see a hovering form!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the dim distance slowly rolled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It rocks like lilies in a storm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And oh! its hues are green and gold.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'It comes, it comes! Ah! rest is sweet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And there is rest, my babe, for us!'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She ceased, as at her very feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stopped the St. John's Wood omnibus."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Well, when I heard that I felt inclined to cry. Just imagine how provoking;
+one of the pieces I had been practicing for weeks past. Oh, it <i>was</i>
+annoying! After that there was a violin solo, then another&mdash;no, then I had
+an ice, such a nice young man, just up from Aldershot, <i>very</i> young, but
+<i>so</i> amusing, and so full of somebody of "ours" who had won something, or
+lost something, I could not quite make out which.</p>
+
+<p>Then we came back to the drawing-room, and an elderly spinster, with curls,
+sang, "Oh that we two were Maying," and the young man from Aldershot said,
+"Thank goodness we aren't."</p>
+
+<p>Afterward I had another ice, not because I wanted it, not a bit, but the
+young man from Aldershot said he was <i>so</i> thirsty.</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw a youth with long hair and badly-fitting clothes. I thought he
+was going to sing, but he wasn't; oh no! much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> worse! he recited. When I
+heard the first words I thought I should faint (<i>imitating</i>):</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Been out in the lifeboat often? Aye, aye, sir, oft enough.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When it's rougher than this? Lor' bless you, this ain't what <i>we</i> calls<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">rough."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>How well I knew the lines! Wasn't it cruel? However, I had one hope
+left&mdash;my "Lost Soul," a beautiful poem, serious and sentimental. The
+&aelig;sthetic youth was so tedious that the young man from Aldershot asked me to
+come into the conservatory, and really I was so vexed and disappointed that
+I think I would have gone into the coal-cellar if he had asked me.</p>
+
+<p>We went into the conservatory and had a nice long talk, all about&mdash;&mdash;well,
+it would take too long to tell you now, and besides it would not interest
+<i>you</i>.</p>
+
+<p>All at once mamma came in, and I felt rather frightened at first (I don't
+know why), but she was laughing and smiling. "O, Mary," she said, "that
+&aelig;sthetic young man has been so funny; they encored 'The Lifeboat,' so he
+recited a very comic piece of poetry, that sent us all into fits of
+laughter, it was called 'The Fried Sole,' a parody on 'The Lost Soul' that
+you used to recite."</p>
+
+<p>Alas! my last hope was wrecked; I could not read after that! I believe I
+burst into tears. Anyhow, mamma hurried me off in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> a cab, and I cried all
+the way home and&mdash;and&mdash;I forgot to say good-night to the young man from
+Aldershot. Wasn't it a pity?</p>
+
+<p>And you see that's why I don't like to recite anything to-night. (<i>Some one
+from the audience comes up and whispers to her</i>). No! really, have I? How
+stupid! I'm told that I've been reciting all this time. I am so sorry; will
+you ever forgive me? I do beg pardon; I'll never do it again! (<i>Runs out.</i>)</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[Found in the Knapsack of a Soldier of the Civil War
+After He Had Been Slain in Battle.]</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Near the camp-fire's flickering light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In my blanket bed I lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gazing through the shades of night<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the twinkling stars on high;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er me spirits in the air<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Silent vigils seem to keep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As I breathe my childhood's prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Now I lay me down to sleep."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sadly sings the whip-poor-will<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the boughs of yonder tree;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Laughingly the dancing rill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Swells the midnight melody.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Foemen may be lurking near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the ca&ntilde;on dark and deep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Low I breathe in Jesus' ear:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Mid those stars one face I see&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">One the Saviour turned away&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mother, who in infancy<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Taught my baby lips to pray;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her sweet spirit hovers near<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In this lonely mountain-brake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take me to her Saviour dear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"If I should die before I wake."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fainter grows the flickering light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As each ember slowly dies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Plaintively the birds of night<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fill the air with sad'ning cries;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over me they seem to cry:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"You may never more awake."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Low I lisp: "If I should die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now I lay me down to sleep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If I should die before I wake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE AMERICAN UNION.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY DANIEL WEBSTER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the
+prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our
+Federal Union. It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our
+consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly
+indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe
+school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered
+finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign
+influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and
+sprang forth with newness of life.</p>
+
+<p>Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and
+its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and
+wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not outrun
+its protection, or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain
+of national, social, and personal happiness.</p>
+
+<p>I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might
+lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances
+of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be
+broken asunder.</p>
+
+<p>I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see
+whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below;
+nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this
+government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how
+the union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the
+condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>While the union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread
+out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate
+the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise!
+God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind!</p>
+
+<p>When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in
+heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of
+a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a
+land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!</p>
+
+<p>Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous
+ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still
+full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
+lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured,
+bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this
+worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and
+union afterward; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living
+light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over
+the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment,
+dear to every true American heart, liberty and union now and forever, one
+and inseparable!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE POPPY LAND LIMITED EXPRESS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY EDGAR WADE ABBOT.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The first train leaves at six p. m.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the land where the poppy blows;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mother dear is the engineer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the passenger laughs and crows.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The palace car is the mother's arms;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The whistle, a low, sweet strain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The passenger winks, and nods, and blinks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And goes to sleep in the train!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">At eight p. m. the next train starts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the poppy land afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The summons clear falls on the ear:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"All aboard for the sleeping-car!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But what is the fare to poppy land?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I hope it is not too dear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fare is this, a hug and a kiss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And it's paid to the engineer!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So I ask of Him who children took<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On His knee in kindness great,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Take charge, I pray, of the trains each day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That leave at six and eight.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Keep watch of the passengers," thus I pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"For to me they are very dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And special ward, O gracious Lord,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O'er the gentle engineer."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+<h2>MOTHER, HOME, AND HEAVEN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mother, Home, and Heaven, says a writer, are three of the most beautiful
+words in the English language. And truly I think that they may be well
+called so&mdash;what word strikes so forcibly upon the heart as mother? Coming
+from childhood's sunny lips, it has a peculiar charm; for it speaks of one
+to whom they look and trust for protection.</p>
+
+<p>A mother is the truest friend we have; when trials heavy and sudden fall
+upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends, who
+rejoiced with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around
+us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and
+counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to
+our hearts.</p>
+
+<p>The kind voice of a mother has often been the means of reclaiming an erring
+one from the path of wickedness to a life of happiness and prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>The lonely convict, immured in his dreary cell, thinks of the innocent days
+of his childhood, and feels that though other friends forsake him, he has
+still a guardian angel watching over him; and that, however dark his sins
+may have been, they have all been forgiven and forgotten by her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mother is indeed a sweet name, and her station is indeed a holy one; for in
+her hands are placed minds, to be moulded almost at her will; aye, fitted
+to shine&mdash;not much, it is true, on earth, compared, if taught aright, with
+the dazzling splendor which awaits them in heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Home! how often we hear persons speak of the home of their childhood. Their
+minds seem to delight in dwelling upon the recollections of joyous days
+spent beneath the parental roof, when their young and happy hearts were as
+light and free as the birds who made the woods resound with the melody of
+their cheerful voices. What a blessing it is, when weary with care, and
+burdened with sorrow, to have a home to which we can go, and there, in the
+midst of friends we love, forget our troubles and dwell in peace and
+quietness.</p>
+
+<p>Heaven! that land of quiet rest&mdash;toward which those, who, worn down and
+tired with the toils of earth, direct their frail barks over the troubled
+waters of life, and after a long and dangerous passage, find it&mdash;safe in
+the haven of eternal bliss. Heaven is the home that awaits us beyond the
+grave. There the friendships formed on earth, and which cruel death has
+severed, are never more to be broken: and parted friends shall meet again,
+never more to be separated.</p>
+
+<p>It is an inspiring hope that, when we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> separate here on earth at the
+summons of death's angel, and when a few more years have rolled over the
+heads of those remaining, if "faithful unto death," we shall meet again in
+Heaven, our eternal <i>home</i>, there to dwell in the presence of our Heavenly
+Father, and go no more out forever.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>PRAYING FOR SHOES.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.</h3>
+
+<h4><i>A True Incident.</i></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">On a dark November morning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A lady walked slowly down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thronged, tumultuous thoroughfare<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of an ancient seaport town.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Of a winning and gracious beauty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The peace of her pure young face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was soft as the gleam of an angel's dream<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the calms of a heavenly place.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her eyes were fountains of pity,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the sensitive mouth expressed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A longing to set the kind thoughts free<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In music that filled her breast.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She met, by a bright shop window,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An urchin timid and thin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who, with limbs that shook and a yearning look,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was mistily glancing in<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">At the rows and varied clusters<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of slippers and shoes outspread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some shimmering keen, but of sombre sheen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Some purple and green and red.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His pale lips moved and murmured;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But of what, she could not hear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And oft on his folded hands would fall<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The round of a bitter tear.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"What troubles you, child?" she asked him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In a voice like the May-wind sweet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He turned, and while pointing dolefully<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To his naked and bleeding feet,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I was praying for shoes," he answered;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Just look at the splendid show!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I was praying to God for a single pair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sharp stones hurt me so!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She led him, in museful silence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At once through the open door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his hope grew bright, like a fairy light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That flickered and danced before!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And there he was washed and tended<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And his small, brown feet were shod;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he pondered there on his childish prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the marvelous answer of God.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Above them his keen gaze wandered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How strangely from shop to shelf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till it almost seemed that he fondly dreamed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of looking on God Himself.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lady bent over, and whispered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Are you happier now, my lad?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He started, and all his soul flashed forth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In a gratitude swift and glad.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Happy?&mdash;Oh, yes!&mdash;I am happy!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then (wonder with reverence rife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His eyes aglow, and his voice sunk low),<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Please tell me! Are you God's wife?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>RUM'S DEVASTATION AND DESTINY.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY HON. WILLIAM SULLIVAN.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[In a discourse delivered before the Massachusetts
+Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, on the
+twenty-third of May, 1832, Hon. William Sullivan, one
+of the vice-presidents of the society, gave an account
+of the discovery of the art of distilling wine from
+brandy, showing that it was made some five or six
+hundred years ago, by an alchemist who was in search of
+the means of acquiring "inexhaustible riches and
+perpetual youth." After having spoken of the origin of
+alcohol, the speaker imagines it to be "the office of
+history to announce the future, instead of recording
+the past," and assuming to stand beside the man who
+made the discovery, delivered the following eloquent
+address detailing the melancholy consequences of this
+discovery, and forecasting the blessings which shall
+result from the final overthrow of the rum fiend.]</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In your researches after that which you should, at once, have known to be
+impossible, by the laws of nature, you have opened a fountain of misery
+which shall flow for ages. You have not contented yourself with pressing
+out the juices of the fruits bestowed upon you, and converting these into
+strong drink which you needed not,&mdash;but you have taken this strong drink,
+and the harvest, which was given to you for food, and have drawn from these
+a liquid which is not food<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> and which will not nourish nor sustain your
+earthly frame. This liquid shall be a curse upon you and your descendants.
+It shall be known wherever the arts of civilization are known. You shall
+call it the <i>elixir of life</i>. You shall believe it to be nutritious to the
+body and gladdening to the soul. The love of it shall grow with the use of
+it. It shall soothe the solitary hour and cheer the festive board. It shall
+charm away your griefs, and be the cause of your rejoicings. It shall be
+the inducement to communion and the bond of friendship. It shall be prized
+alike by the high and the low. It shall be the joy of princes as well as of
+the meanest of mortals. It shall be the stimulant to laborious toil, and
+the reward for labor done. It shall be bought and sold, and make the dealer
+therein rich. It shall yield abundant revenues to sovereignty. Hospitality
+shall be dishonored in not offering it to the guest, and the guest shall be
+disgraced in not receiving it at the hand of his host.</p>
+
+<p>But&mdash;&mdash;it shall visit your limbs with palsy; it shall extinguish the pride
+of man; it shall make the husband hateful to the wife, and the wife
+loathsome to the husband; it shall annihilate the love of offspring; it
+shall make members of society a shame and a reproach to each other, and to
+all among whom they dwell. It shall steal from the virtuous and the
+honorable their good name,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> and shall make the strong and the vigorous to
+totter along the streets of cities. It shall pervert the law of habit,
+designed to strengthen you in the path of duty, and bind you in its iron
+chain. It shall disgrace the judge upon the bench, the minister in the
+sacred desk, and the senator in his exalted seat. It shall make your food
+tasteless, your mouth to burn as with a fever, and your stomach to tremble
+as with disease. It shall cause the besotted mother to overlay her newborn,
+unconscious that it dies beneath the pressure of her weight; the natural
+cravings of the infant shall make it strive to awaken her who has passed,
+unheeded, to her last long sleep. The son shall hide his face that he may
+not behold his father's depravity; and the father shall see the object of
+his fondest hopes turn to a foul and bloated carcass, that hurries to the
+grave. It shall turn the children of men into raving maniacs; and the
+broken ties of blood and affection shall find no relief but in the friendly
+coming of Death. As the seed which man commits to the earth comes forth
+into that which he converts into spirit, so shall this product of his own
+invention be as seed in his own heart, to bring forth violence, rapine and
+murder. It shall cause man to shut up his fellow-man in the solitude of the
+grated cell. The prisoner shall turn pale and tremble, in his loneliness,
+at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> the presence of his own thoughts; he shall come forth to die, in cold
+blood, by the hand of his fellow, with the spectacle of <i>religious homage
+on a scaffold</i>, and amid the gaze of curious thousands. Poverty shall be
+made squalid and odious, even so that Charity shall turn away her face in
+disgust. It shall attract the pestilence that walks, even at noon-day, in
+darkness, to the very vitals of the drunkard, as carrion invites the
+far-sighted birds of prey. The consumer of spirit shall be found dead in
+the highway, with the exhausted vessel by his side. Yea, the drunkard shall
+kindle a fire in his own bosom which shall not depart from him till he is
+turned to ashes. The dropsical drunkard shall die in his delirium, and the
+fluid which has gathered in his brain shall smell like spirit, and like
+spirit shall burn. A feeble frame, an imbecile mind, torturing pain and
+incurable madness shall be of the inheritance which drunkards bequeath, to
+run with their blood to innocent descendants.</p>
+
+<p>The wise men, who assemble in the halls; of legislation, shall be blind to
+this ruin, desolation, and misery. Nay, they shall license the sale of this
+poison, and shall require of dignified magistrates to certify how much
+thereof shall be sold for the "<span class="smcap">Public Good</span>."</p>
+
+<p>This minister of woe and wretchedness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> shall roam over the earth at
+pleasure. It shall be found in every country of the Christian; it shall go
+into every city, into every village, and into every house. But it shall not
+visit the country of the heathen, nor spread woe and wretchedness among
+them, but by the hands of Christians.</p>
+
+<p>The light of reason shall at length break upon the benighted and afflicted
+world. The truth shall be told. It shall be believed. The causes of
+calamity shall be unveiled. The friends of the human race shall speak and
+be respected. Rational man shall be ashamed of his follies and his crimes,
+and humbled to the dust that he was so long ignorant of their origin.
+Governments shall be ashamed that they so long tolerated and sustained the
+most costly and cruel foe that man has ever encountered. Avarice itself
+shall be conscience-stricken and penitent. It shall remain where nature
+placed it for use; and it shall be odious in the sight of <i>Heaven</i> and of
+<i>Earth</i> to convert the fruits of the soil into poison.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">An opulent lord of Ispahan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In luxury, lolled on a silk divan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dreaming the idle hours away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a cloud of smoke from his nargile.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weary with nothing to do in life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He thought, as he watched the smoky whirls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"'Twill be diversion to choose a wife<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From my peerless bevy of dancing-girls.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There are beauties fair from every land&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lustrous eyes from Samarcand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dusky forms from the upper Nile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Teeth that glisten when red lips smile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gypsy faces of olive hue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stolen from some wild wandering clan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fair complexions and eyes of blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the sunny isles of Cardachan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Regal beauties of queenly grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sinuous sirens of unknown race;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some one among them will surely bless<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hours that grow heavy with idleness."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the slave that waited his lightest need,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fell on his knee, by the silk divan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the swarthy, listening ear gave heed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the will of the lord of Ispahan.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Send hither my dancing-girls," he said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"And set me a feast to please the eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tempt the palate, for this shall be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wedding breakfast before us spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">If the charm of beauty can satisfy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one of their number pleaseth me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I will wed no maiden of high degree<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With the tips of her fingers henna-stained<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the dew of youth from her life-blood drained,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But a child of nature wild and free."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then the slave bent low and said: "O Sire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A woman lingers beside the gate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her eyes are aglow like coals of fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And she mourns as one disconsolate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when we bid her to cease and go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Each eye grows bright, like an evening star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she sayeth: 'The master will hear my woe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For I come from the deserts of Khandakar.'"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Bid her to enter," the master said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the frown from his forehead swiftly fled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hasty word on his lip way stayed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As he thought of his youth, in the land afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the peerless eyes of a Bedouin maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the desert places of Khandakar.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The woman entered and swift unwound<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The veil that mantled her face around,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in matchless beauty, she stood arrayed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the scant attire of a Bedouin maid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The indolent lord of Ispahan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Started back on the silk divan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For in form and feature, in very truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It seemed the love of his early youth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The almond eyes and the midnight hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The rosebud mouth and the rounded chin&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Time had not touched them; they still were fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the passion of yore grew strong within.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then she made him the secret Bedouin sign,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which only dishonor can fail to heed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The solemn pact of the races nine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To help each other in time of need.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But her eyes beheld no answering sign,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though a crimson tide to his forehead ran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the trembling maiden could not divine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The will of the lord of Ispahan.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the sound of a rippling mountain brook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The voice of the woman her lips forsook;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thus her tale of despair began<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the lordly palace of Ispahan:<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"On a stallion black as the midnight skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From a desert I come, where my lover lies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At death's dark verge; and the hostile clan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That struck him down, are in Ispahan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With slaves to sell, in the open street;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And only because my steed was fleet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Am I now free; but here I bide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For this morning the hard-rid stallion died.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of your opulence, one swift steed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Only a drop from the sea will be;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A grain of sand on the shore, to my need;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But the wealth of the whole, wide world to me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My soul to the soul of my loved one cries,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At dawn or in darkness, whate'er betide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the pain of longing all peace denies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the heart that strains to my lover's side."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"You shall mourn no more, but sit with me<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rejoice in a scene of revelry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the pleasures of life are the rights of man,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said the indolent lord of Ispahan.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The curtains parted and noiseless feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of dusky slaves stole over the floor.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their strong arms laden with burden sweet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of fruits and flowers a goodly store.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Luscious peaches and apricots,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Plucked from the sunniest garden spots;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Syrian apples and cordials rare;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Succulent grapes that filled the air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With heavy sweetness, while rivers ran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From beakers of wine from Astrakhan;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cooling salvers of colored ice;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Almonds powdered with fragrant spice;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smoking viands, on plates of gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And carven vessels of price untold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kindling the appetite afresh<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For dainty morsels of fowl and flesh.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The musical notes of the mellow flute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From a source remote, rose higher and higher,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the quivering sounds from a hidden lute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The plaintive sweep of the tender lyre.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then a whirlwind of color filled the air&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A misty vapor of filmy lace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With gleams of silk and of round arms bare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In a mazy whirl of infinite grace;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the lustrous glow of tresses blent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the shimmer of pearls, from the Orient.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The half-sobbed, breathless, sweet refrain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A swelling burst of sensuous sound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sank lower to swell and sink again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then died in silence most profound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The panting beauties with cheeks aglow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Scattered about on the rug-strewn floor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like bright-hued leaves when the chill winds blow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or tinted sea-shells along the shore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the lord of the palace turned and cried;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Heavy and languid these maidens are."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he said, to the Bedouin at his side:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Teach them the dances of Khandakar."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her dark eyes lit with the flash of fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she said: "You will pity my need most dire?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You will give me steed to fly afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To my love in the deserts of Khandakar?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Half that I own shall be yours," he said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"If the love of my youth that was under ban<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Comes back to me like a soul from the dead<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bringing joy to the palace of Ispahan."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She sprang to the floor with an agile bound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The music broke in a swirl of sound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her hair from its fillet became unbound.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the dancing-girls that stood apart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gazed rapt and speechless, with hand to heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At the wild, untrammelled curves of grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the dancing-girl from the desert race.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not one of them half so fair to see;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not one as lithe in the sinuous twist<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of twirling body and bending knee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of supple ankle and curving wrist.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wilder the music, the wilder she;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It seemed like the song of a bird set free<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To thrill in the heart of a cloud of mist<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And live on its own mad ecstasy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Spellbound and mute, on the silk divan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sat the lord of the palace of Ispahan.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But the thoughts of the master were drifting far<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To his youth in the deserts of Khandakar;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the time when another had danced as well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And listened with tenderness in her eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the burning words his lips might tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With kisses freighting her soft replies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he had thought that her smile would bless<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His roving life, in the land afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And cheer him in hours of loneliness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the tents of the deserts of Khandakar.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the tribe had chosen the maid to wed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With the powerful chief of a hostile clan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the flattered woman had turned and fled<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the pleading voice of a stricken man;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then out of the desert the lover sped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To become a great lord of Ispahan.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And now this child, with the subtle grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the mother that bore her, had come to him<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the desert's breath upon her face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rousing within him a purpose grim.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"By the beard of the Prophet! but you shall be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The light and the joy of my life to me!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As your mother was, you are to-day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your lover, perchance, hath lived his span;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You shall dry your maidenly tears and stay<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As the wife of the lord of Ispahan."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That night, when the dusky shadows crept<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Across the tiles of the banquet-room,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They found the form of a man who slept<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On a silk divan, in the gathering gloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The window screens were wide to the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the hedge, where the fragrant roses grew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was cleft and trodden to earth, just where<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A frightened fugitive might pass through.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the groom of the stables, heavy with wine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wakened not at the prancing tread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the milk-white steed and made no sign,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As the Bedouin maid from the palace fled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the indolent lord of Ispahan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seemed resting still, on the silk divan;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But his heart was beating with love no more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In his eyes no light of passion gleamed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His listless fingers touched the floor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where the crimson tide of his life-blood streamed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he slept the last, long, dreamless sleep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the end had come to life's brief span;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his jewelled dagger was handle deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the heart of the lord of Ispahan.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>HORNETS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY BILL NYE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Last fall I desired to add to my rare collection a large hornet's nest. I
+had an embalmed tarantula and her porcelain-lined nest, and I desired to
+add to these the gray and airy house of the hornet. I procured one of the
+large size, after cold weather, and hung it in my cabinet by a string. I
+forgot about it until spring. When warm weather came something reminded me
+of it; I think it was a hornet. He jogged my memory in some way, and called
+my attention to it. Memory is not located where I thought it was. It seemed
+as though when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> ever he touched me he awakened a memory,&mdash;a warm memory,
+with a red place all around it.</p>
+
+<p>Then some more hornets came, and began to rake up old personalities. I
+remember that one of them lit on my upper lip. He thought it was a rosebud.
+When he went away it looked like a gladiolus bulb. I wrapped a wet sheet
+around it to take out the warmth and reduce the swelling, so that I could
+go through the folding doors, and tell my wife about it. Hornets lit all
+over me, and walked around on my person. I did not dare to scrape them off,
+because they were so sensitive. You have to be very guarded in your conduct
+toward a hornet.</p>
+
+<p>I remember once while I was watching the busy little hornet gathering honey
+and June-bugs from the bosom of a rose, years ago, I stirred him up with a
+club, more as a practical joke than anything, and he came and lit in my
+sunny hair;&mdash;that was when I wore my own hair&mdash;and he walked around through
+my gleaming tresses quite a while, making tracks as large as a water-melon
+all over my head. If he hadn't run out of tracks my head would have looked
+like a load of summer squashes. I remember I had to thump my head against
+the smoke-house in order to smash him; and I had to comb him out with a
+fine comb, and wear a waste-paper basket two weeks for a hat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> Much has
+been said of the hornet; but he has an odd, quaint way after all, that is
+forever new.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SINCE SHE WENT HOME.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY R. J. BURDETTE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Since she went home&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The evening shadows linger longer here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The winter days fill so much of the year,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And even summer winds are chill and drear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Since she went home.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Since she went home&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The robin's note has touched a minor strain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old glad songs breathe but a sad refrain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And laughter sobs with hidden, bitter pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Since she went home.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Since she went home&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How still the empty room her presence blessed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Untouched the pillow that her dear head pressed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My lonely heart has nowhere for its rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Since she went home.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12">Since she went home&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The long, long days have crept away like years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sunlight has been dimmed with doubts and fears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the dark nights have rained in lonely tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Since she went home.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE CHILDREN WE KEEP.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The children kept coming, one by one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Till the boys were five and the girls were three,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the big brown house was alive with fun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the basement floor to the old roof-tree.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like garden flowers the little ones grew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nurtured and trained with the tenderest care;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Warmed by love's sunshine, bathed in its dew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They bloomed into beauty, like roses rare.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But one of the boys grew weary one day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And leaning his head on his mother's breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said, "I'm tired and cannot play;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Let me sit awhile on your knee and rest."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She cradled him close in her fond embrace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She hushed him to sleep with her sweetest song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And rapturous love still lighted his face<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When his spirit had joined the heavenly throng.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then the eldest girl, with her thoughtful eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who stood where the "brook and the river meet,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stole softly away into paradise<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ere "the river" had reached her slender feet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the father's eyes on the grave are bent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The mother looked upward beyond the skies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Our treasures," she whispered, "were only lent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our darlings were angels in earth's disguise."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The years flew by and the children began<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With longing to think of the world outside;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as each, in his turn, became a man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The boys proudly went from the father's side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The girls were women so gentle and fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That lovers were speedy to woo and win;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with orange blossoms in braided hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The old home was left, the new home to begin.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So, one by one, the children have gone,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The boys were five and the girls were three;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the big brown house is gloomy and lone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With but two old folks for its company.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They talk to each other about the past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As they sit together in eventide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And say, "All the children we keep at last<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Are the boy and the girl who in childhood died."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>AMERICA FOR GOD.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>But now what are the weapons by which, under our Omnipotent Leader, the
+real obstacles in the way of our country's evangelization, the ten thousand
+mile Sebastopols, are to be leveled? The first columbiad, with range enough
+to sweep from eternity to eternity, is the Bible, millions of its copies
+going out, millions on millions. Then there are all the Gospel batteries,
+manned by seventy thousand pastors and home missionaries, over the head of
+each one of whom is the shield of Divine protection, and in the right hand
+of each one the gleaming, two-edged sword of the Infinite Spirit! Hundreds
+of thousands of private soldiers for Christ, marching under the
+one-starred, blood-striped flag of Emanuel! On our side, the great and
+mighty theologians of the land the heavy artillery, and the hundreds of
+thousands of Christian children the infantry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> They are marching on!
+Episcopacy, with the sublime roll of its liturgies; Methodism, with its
+battle-cry of "The sword of the Lord and John Wesley;" the Baptist Church,
+with its glorious navy sailing up our Oregons and Sacramentos and
+Mississippis; and Presbyterians, moving on with the battle-cry of "The
+sword of the Lord and John Knox." And then, after awhile will come the
+great tides of revival, sweeping over the land, the five hundred thousand
+conversions in 1857 eclipsed by the salvation of millions in a day, and the
+four American armies of the Lord's host marching toward each other, the
+Eastern army marching west, the Western army marching east, the Northern
+army marching south, the Southern army marching north; shoulder to
+shoulder! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! until they meet mid-continent, having taken
+America for God!</p>
+
+<p>The thunder of the bombardment is already in the air, and when the last
+bridge of opposition is taken, and the last portcullis of Satan is lifted,
+and the last gun spiked, and the last tower dismantled, and the last
+charger of iniquity shall have been hurled back upon its haunches, what a
+time of rejoicing!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+<h2>OUR OWN.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If I had known, in the morning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How wearily all the day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The words unkind would trouble my mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That I said when you went away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I had been more careful, darling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor given you needless pain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But&mdash;we vex our own with look and tone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We might never take back again.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For though in the quiet evening<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You may give me the kiss of peace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet it well might be that never for me<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The pain of the heart should cease;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How many go forth at morning<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who never come home at night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hearts have broken for harsh words spoken<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That sorrow can ne'er set right.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We have careful thought for the stranger,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And smiles for the sometime guest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But oft for our own the bitter tone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though we love our own the best.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, lip with the curve impatient,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ah, brow with the shade of scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'T were a cruel fate were the night too late<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To undue the work of morn.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+<h2>BEHIND TIME.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY FREEMAN HUNT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>A railroad train was rushing along at almost lightning speed. A curve was
+just ahead, and beyond it was a station, at which the cars usually passed
+each other. The conductor was late, so late that the period during which
+the down train was to wait had nearly elapsed; but he hoped yet to pass the
+curve safely. Suddenly a locomotive dashed into sight right ahead. In an
+instant there was a collision. A shriek, a shock, and fifty souls were in
+eternity; and all because an engineer had been <i>behind time</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A great battle was going on. Column after column had been precipitated for
+eight mortal hours on the enemy posted along the ridge of a hill. The
+summer sun was sinking to the west; re-inforcements for the obstinate
+defenders were already in sight; it was necessary to carry the position
+with one final charge, or everything would be lost. A powerful corps had
+been summoned from across the country, and if it came up in season all
+would yet be well. The great conqueror, confident in its arrival, formed
+his reserve into an attacking column, and ordered them to charge the enemy.
+The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> whole world knows the result. Grouchy failed to appear; the imperial
+guard was beaten back; Waterloo was lost. Napoleon died a prisoner at St.
+Helena because one of his marshals was <i>behind time</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A leading firm in commercial circles had long struggled against bankruptcy.
+As it had enormous assets in California, it expected remittances by a
+certain day; and, if the sums promised arrived, its credit, its honor, and
+its future prosperity would be preserved. But week after week elapsed
+without bringing the gold. At last came the fatal day on which the firm had
+bills maturing to enormous amounts. The steamer was telegraphed at
+daybreak; but it was found, on inquiry, that she brought no funds, and the
+house failed. The next arrival brought nearly half a million to the
+insolvents, but it was too late; they were ruined because their agent, in
+remitting, had been <i>behind time</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A condemned man was led out for execution. He had taken human life, but
+under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was
+active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve; a
+favorable answer had been expected the night before; and, though it had not
+come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would yet arrive in season.
+Thus the morning passed without the appearance of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> the messenger. The last
+moment had come. The prisoner took his place on the drop, the cap was drawn
+over his eyes, the bolt was drawn, and a lifeless body swung revolving in
+the wind. Just at that moment a horse-man came into sight, galloping down
+hill, his steed covered with foam. He carried a packet in his right hand,
+which he waved rapidly to the crowd. He was the express rider with the
+reprieve. But he had come too late. A comparatively innocent man had died
+an ignominious death, because a watch had been five minutes too slow,
+making its bearer arrive <i>behind time</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is continually so in life. The best-laid plans, the most important
+affairs, the fortunes of individuals, the weal of nations, honor,
+happiness, life itself, are daily sacrificed because somebody is "behind
+time." There are men who always fail in whatever they undertake, simply
+because they are "behind time." There are others who put off reformation
+year by year, till death seizes them, and they perish unrepentant, because
+forever "<i>behind time</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes in a crisis is worth years. It is but a little period, yet it
+has often saved a fortune or redeemed a people. If there is one virtue that
+should be cultivated more than another by him who would succeed in life, it
+is punctuality; if there is one error that should be avoided, it is being
+<i>behind time</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+<h2>KITTENS AND BABIES.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY LIZZIE M. HADLEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There were two kittens, a black and a gray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And grandmamma said, with a frown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"It never will do to keep them both,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The black one we'd better drown."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Don't cry, my dear," to tiny Bess,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"One kitten's enough to keep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now run to nurse, for 'tis growing late<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And time you were fast asleep."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The morrow dawned, and rosy and sweet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Came little Bess from her nap.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The nurse said, "Go into mamma's room<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And look in grandma's lap."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Come here," said grandma, with a smile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the rocking-chair where she sat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"God has sent you two little sisters;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now! what do you think of that?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bess looked at the babies a moment,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With their wee heads, yellow and brown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then to grandma soberly said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"<i>Which one are you going to drown</i>?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>AN UNACCOUNTABLE MYSTERY.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY PAUL DENTON.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Intemperance is the strangest and most unaccountable mystery with which we
+have to deal. Why, as a rule, the human soul is passionately jealous of its
+own happiness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> and tirelessly selfish as to its own interest. It delights
+to seek the sunshine and the flowers this side the grave: ardently hopes
+for heaven in the life to come. It flashes its penetrating thought through
+the dark chambers of the earth; or lighted by the lurid flames of
+smouldering, volcanic fires, wings them through buried ovens. It lights up
+the ocean's bed, melting its mysteries into solution, detecting its coral
+richness, and causing its buried pearls, which have rested for long
+centuries beneath the black waves, to glow with their long-hoarded beauty.
+It holds converse with the glittering planets of the skies and compels them
+to tell it of their mountain ranges, their landscapes, and their utility.
+It toys with the mad lightnings which break from the darkness, and guides
+death and destruction through the earth, until it allures the impetuous
+element into docility and subserviency. It bids the panting waters breathe
+their hot, heavy breath upon the piston-rod and make the locomotive a
+beautiful thing of life, majestically thundering its way over continents,
+screaming forth the music of civilization in the midst of wild forests and
+the heat of burning deserts, beneath scorching, torrid suns. It leaps over
+burning plains and scalding streams; restless and daring, it lights its
+casket over arctic zones and seas; and perhaps tiring of such incumbrance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+deserts it in the cold shade of the ice mountain and speeds on untrammeled
+and alone. Franklin followed the beckonings of his tireless spirit until
+worn out and weary, his body laid down on the cold ice and slept. Kane
+coaxed himself home to the old churchyard, and then bade his spirit drop
+the machine it had so sadly wrenched and fly through earth or the
+eternities, as God might will. Livingstone marched through the jungles and
+cheerless forests of uninviting Africa, but his limbs were too feeble to
+keep up with his hungry soul, which tore itself from its burden and left it
+to crumble beneath the burning sun. And thus the soul flies from zone to
+zone and from world to world, sipping the sweets of wisdom, as the bee
+sucks honey from the flowers; reading lessons from the leaflet on the tree,
+studying the language of the soft whispering zephyr, and of the hurricane
+which springs from nothing into devastating power; and it is ever restless
+in its researches, for it seeks its own happiness and improvement in its
+new discoveries, and in a better knowledge of God's creation. Speak to the
+human soul of liberty, and swell it with gratitude, and, beaming with
+smiles, it will follow whereever you lead. Speak to it of its immortality
+and of the divine grandeur of its faculties, and, warmed by your
+appreciation, it will strive harder for a fuller development<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> and brighter
+existence. Lead it among the roses, and it will seldom fail to light your
+pathway with smiles and to remind you of its gratitude. It loves to be
+noticed; loves to be assisted; loves to be made happy; loves to be warned
+of danger, and yet, with reference to that which pierces it with the most
+bleeding wounds, which more than anything else bars from it the sunlight
+and robs it of happiness&mdash;Intemperance&mdash;<span class="smcap">it is as heedless as the stone</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>IMPERFECTUS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wonder if ever a song was sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But the singer's heart sang sweeter!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wonder if ever a rhyme was rung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But the thought surpassed the meter!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wonder if ever a sculptor wrought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the cold stone echoed his ardent thought!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or if ever a painter, with light and shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dream of his inmost heart portrayed!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wonder if ever a rose was found,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And there might not be a fairer!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or if ever a glittering gem was ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And we dreamed not of a rarer!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah! never on earth do we find the best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But it waits for us in a Land of Rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a perfect thing we shall never behold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till we pass the portals of shining gold.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A WOMAN'S POCKET.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES M. BAILEY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The most difficult thing to reach is a woman's pocket. This is especially
+the case if the dress is hung up in a closet, and the man is in a hurry. We
+think we are safe in saying that he always is in a hurry on such an
+occasion. The owner of the dress is in the sitting room serenely engrossed
+in a book. Having told him that the article which he is in quest of is in
+her dress pocket in the closet she has discharged her whole duty in the
+matter and can afford to feel serene. He goes at the task with a dim
+consciousness that he has been there before, but says nothing. On opening
+the closet door and finding himself confronted with a number of dresses,
+all turned inside out and presenting a most formidable front, he hastens
+back to ask "Which dress?" and being told the brown one, and also asked if
+<i>she</i> has so <i>many</i> dresses that there need be any great effort to find the
+right one, he returns to the closet with alacrity, and soon has his hands
+on the brown dress. It is inside out like the rest,&mdash;a fact he does not
+notice, however, until he has made several ineffectual attempts to get his
+hand into it. Then he turns it around very carefully and passes over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> the
+pocket several times without knowing it. A nervous movement of his hands,
+and an appearance of perspiration on his forehead are perceptible. He now
+dives one hand in at the back, and feeling around, finds a place, and
+proceeds to explore it, when he discovers that he is following up the
+inside of a lining. The nervousness increases, also the perspiration. He
+twitches the dress on the hook, and suddenly the pocket, white, plump and
+exasperating, comes to view. Then he sighs the relief he feels and is
+mentally grateful he did not allow himself to use any offensive
+expressions. It is all right now. There is the pocket in plain view&mdash;not
+the inside but the outside&mdash;and all he has to do is to put his hand right
+around in the inside and take out the article. That is all. He can't help
+but smile to think how near he was to getting mad. Then he puts his hand
+around to the other side. He does not feel the opening. He pushes a little
+further&mdash;now he has got it; he shoves the hand down, and is very much
+surprised to see it appear opposite his knees. He had made a mistake. He
+tries again; again he feels the entrance and glides down it only to appear
+again as before. This makes him open his eyes and straighten his face. He
+feels of the outside of the pocket, pinches it curiously, lifts it up,
+shakes it, and, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> peering closely about the roots of it, he says, "How
+funny!" and commences again. He does it calmly this time, because hurrying
+only makes matters worse. He holds up breadth after breadth, goes over them
+carefully, gets his hand first into a lining, then into the air again
+(where it always surprises him when it appears), and finally into a pocket,
+and is about to cry out with triumph, when he discovers that it is the
+pocket to another dress. He is mad now; the closet air almost stifles him;
+he is so nervous he can hardly contain himself, and the pocket looks at him
+so exasperatingly that he cannot help but "plug" it with his clenched fist,
+and immediately does it. Being somewhat relieved by this performance he has
+a chance to look about him, and sees that he has put his foot through a
+band-box and into the crown of his wife's bonnet; has broken the brim of
+his Panama hat which was hanging in the same closet, and torn about a yard
+of bugle trimming from a new cloak. All this trouble is due directly to his
+wife's infatuation in hanging up her dresses inside out, so he immediately
+starts after her, and impetuously urging her to the closet, excitedly and
+almost profanely intimates his doubts of their being a pocket in the dress,
+anyway. The cause of the unhappy disaster quietly inserts her hand inside
+the robe, and directly brings it forth with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> the sought for article in its
+clasp. He doesn't know why, but this makes him madder than anything else.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MOTHER'S DOUGHNUTS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY CHARLES F. ADAMS.</h3>
+
+<h3><i>El Dorado, 1851.</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I've just been down ter Thompson's, boys,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'N feelin' kind o' blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I thought I'd look in at "The Ranch,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ter find out what wuz new;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I seed this sign a-hangin'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On a shanty by the lake:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Here's whar yer get your doughnuts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like yer mother used ter make."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I've seen a grizzly show his teeth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I've seen Kentucky Pete<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Draw out his shooter, 'n advise<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A "tenderfoot" ter treat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But nuthin' ever tuk me down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'N made my benders shake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like that sign about the doughnuts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That my mother used ter make.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A sort o' mist shut out the ranch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'N standin' thar instead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I seen an old, white farm-house,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With its doors all painted red.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A whiff came through the open door&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wuz I sleepin' or awake?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The smell wuz that of doughnuts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like my mother used ter make.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The bees wuz hummin' round the porch<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whar honeysuckles grew;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A yellow dish of apple-sass<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wuz settin' thar in view.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'N on the table, by the stove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An old-time "Johnny-cake,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'N a platter full of doughnuts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like my mother used ter make.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A patient form I seemed ter see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In tidy dress of black,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I almost thought I heard the words,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"When will my boy come back?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'N then&mdash;the old sign creaked:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But now it was the boss who spake:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Here's whar yer gets yer doughnuts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like yer mother used ter make.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Well, boys, that kind o' broke me up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'N ez I've "struck pay gravel,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I ruther think I'll pack my kit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Vamoose the ranch, 'n travel.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll make the old folks jubilant,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'N if I don't mistake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll try some o' them doughnuts<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like my mother used ter make.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LITERARY ATTRACTIONS OF THE BIBLE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY DR. HAMILTON.</h3>
+
+
+<p>God made the present earth as the Home of Man; but had he meant it as a
+mere lodging, a world less beautiful would have served the purpose. There
+was no need for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> carpet of verdure, or the ceiling of blue; no need for
+the mountains, and cataracts, and forests; no need for the rainbow, no need
+for the flowers. A big, round island, half of it arable, and half of it
+pasture, with a clump of trees in one corner, and a magazine of fuel in
+another, might have held and fed ten millions of people; and a hundred
+islands, all made in the same pattern, big and round, might have held and
+fed the population of the globe.</p>
+
+<p>But man is something more than the animal which wants lodging and food. He
+has a spiritual nature, full of keen perceptions and deep sympathies. He
+has an eye for the sublime and the beautiful, and his kind Creator has
+provided man's abode with affluent materials for these nobler tastes. He
+has built Mont Blanc, and molten the lake in which its image sleeps. He has
+intoned Niagara's thunder, and has breathed the zephyr which sweeps its
+spray. He has shagged the steep with its cedars, and be-sprent the meadow
+with its king-cups and daisies. He has made it a world of fragrance and
+music,&mdash;a world of brightness and symmetry,&mdash;a world where the grand and
+the graceful, the awful and lovely, rejoice together. In fashioning the
+Home of Man, the Creator had an eye to something more than convenience, and
+built, not a barrack, but a palace&mdash;not a Union work-house,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> but an
+Alhambra; something which should not only be very comfortable, but very
+splendid and very fair; something which should inspire the soul of its
+inhabitant, and even draw forth the "very good" of complacent Deity.</p>
+
+<p>God also made the Bible as the guide and oracle of man; but had He meant it
+as the mere lesson-book of duty, a volume less various and less attractive
+would have answered every end. But in giving that Bible, its divine Author
+had regard to the mind of man. He knew that man has more curiosity than
+piety, more taste than sanctity; and that more persons are anxious to hear
+some new, or read some beauteous thing, than to read or hear about God and
+the great salvation. He knew that few would ever ask, "What must I do to be
+saved?" till they came in contact with the Bible itself; and, therefore, He
+made the Bible not only an instructive book, but an attractive one,&mdash;not
+only true, but enticing. He filled it with marvelous incident and engaging
+history; with sunny pictures from Old World scenery, and affecting
+anecdotes from the patriarch times. He replenished it with stately argument
+and thrilling verse, and sprinkled it over with sententious wisdom and
+proverbial pungency. He made it a book of lofty thoughts and noble
+images,&mdash;a book of heavenly doctrine, but withal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> of earthly adaptation. In
+preparing a guide to immortality, Infinite Wisdom gave, not a dictionary,
+nor a grammar, but a Bible&mdash;a book which, in trying to reach the heart of
+man, should captivate his taste; and which, in transforming his affection,
+should also expand his intellect. The pearl is of great price; but even the
+casket is of exquisite beauty. The sword is of ethereal temper, and nothing
+cuts so keen as its double edge; but there are jewels on the hilt, an
+exquisite inlaying on the scabbard. The shekels are of the purest ore; but
+even the scrip which contains them is of a texture more curious than any
+which the artists of earth can fashion. The apples are gold; but even the
+basket is silver.</p>
+
+<p>The Bible contains no ornamental passages, nothing written for mere
+display; its steadfast purpose is, "Glory to God in the highest," and the
+truest blessedness of man; it abounds in passages of the purest beauty and
+stateliest grandeur, all the grander and all the more beautiful because
+they are casual and unsought. The fire which flashes from the iron hoof of
+the Tartar steed as he scours the midnight path is grander than the
+artificial firework; for it is the casual effect of speed and power. The
+clang of ocean as he booms his billows on the rock, and the echoing caves
+give chorus, is more soul-filling and sublime than all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> music of the
+orchestra, for it is the music of that main so mighty that there is a
+grandeur in all it does,&mdash;in its sleep a melody, and in its march a stately
+psalm. And in the bow which paints the melting cloud there is a beauty
+which the stained glass or gorgeous drapery emulates in vain; for it is the
+glory which gilds beneficence, the brightness which bespeaks a double boon,
+the flush which cannot but come forth when both the sun and shower are
+there. The style of Scripture has all this glory. It has the gracefulness
+of a high utility; it has the majesty of intrinsic power; it has the charm
+of its own sanctity: it never labors, never strives, but, instinct with
+great realities and bent on blessed ends, it has all the translucent beauty
+and unstudied power which you might expect from its lofty object and
+all-wise Author.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE CHRISTMAS BABY.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY WILL CARLETON.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Tha'rt welcome, little bonny brid.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But shouldn't ha' come just when tha' did:<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Teimes are bad."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16"><i>English Ballad.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hoot! ye little rascal! ye come it on me this way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crowdin' yerself amongst us this blusterin' winter's day,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Knowin' that we already have three of ye, an' seven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' tryin' to make yerself out a Christmas present o' Heaven?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ten of ye have we now, Sir, for this world to abuse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' Bobbie he have no waistcoat, an' Nellie she have no shoes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' Sammie he have no shirt, Sir (I tell it to his shame),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' the one that was just before ye we ain't had time to name!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">An, all o' the banks be smashin', an' on us poor folk fall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' Boss he whittles the wages when work's to be had at all;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' Tom he have cut his foot off, an' lies in a woful plight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' all of us wonders at mornin' as what we shall eat at night;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">An' but for your father an' Sandy a-findin' somewhat to do,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' but for the preacher's woman, who often helps us through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' but for your poor dear mother a-doin' twice her part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye'd 'a seen us all in heaven afore <i>ye</i> was ready to start!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">An' now <i>ye</i> have come, ye rascal! so healthy an' fat an' sound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A-weighin', I'll wager a dollar, the full of a dozen pound!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With yer mother's eyes a flashin', yer father's flesh an' build,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' a big mouth an' stomach all ready for to be filled!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No, no! don't cry, my baby! hush up, my pretty one!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Don't get my chaff in yer eye, boy&mdash;I only was just in fun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye'll like us when ye know us, although we're cur'us folks;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But we don't get much victual, and half our livin' is jokes!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Why, boy, did ye take me in earnest? come, sit upon my knee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll tell ye a secret, youngster, I'll name ye after me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye shall have all yer brothers an' sisters with ye to play,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' ye shall have yer carriage, an' ride out every day!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Why, boy, do ye think ye'll suffer? I'm gettin' a trifle old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But it'll be many years yet before I lose my hold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' if I should fall on the road, boy, still, them's yer brothers, there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' not a rogue of 'em ever would see ye harmed a hair!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Say! when ye come from heaven, my little name-sake dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Did ye see, 'mongst the little girls there, a face like this one here?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That was yer little sister&mdash;she died a year ago,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' all of us cried like babies when they laid her under the snow!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hang it! if all the rich men I ever see or knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came here with all their traps, boy, an' offered 'em for you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'd show 'em to the door, Sir, so quick they'd think it odd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before I'd sell to another my Christmas gift from God!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A DREAM OF THE UNIVERSE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JEAN PAUL RICHTER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Into the great vestibule of heaven, God called up a man from dreams,
+saying, "Come thou hither, and see the glory of my house." And, to the
+servants that stood around His throne, He said, "Take him, and undress him
+from his robes of flesh; cleanse his vision, and put a new breath into his
+nostrils; only touch not with any change his human heart,&mdash;the heart that
+weeps and trembles."</p>
+
+<p>It was done; and, with a mighty angel for his guide, the man stood ready
+for his infinite voyage; and from the terraces of heaven, without sound or
+farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. Sometimes, with
+solemn flight of angel wings, they fled through Saharas of
+darkness,&mdash;through wildernesses of death, that divided the world of life;
+sometimes they swept over frontiers that were quickening under the
+prophetic motions from God.</p>
+
+<p>Then, from a distance that is counted only in heaven, light dawned for a
+time through a sleepy film; by unutterable pace the light swept to them;
+they by unutterable pace to the light. In a moment, the rushing of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> planets
+was upon them; in a moment, the blazing of suns was around them.</p>
+
+<p>Then came eternities of twilight, that revealed, but were not revealed. On
+the right hand and on the left, towered mighty constellations, that by
+self-repetition and answers from afar, that by counter-positions, built up
+triumphal gates, whose architraves, whose archways&mdash;horizontal,
+upright&mdash;rested, rose&mdash;at altitudes by spans that seemed ghostly from
+infinitude. Without measure were the architraves, past number were the
+archways, beyond memory the gates.</p>
+
+<p>Within were stairs that scaled the eternities below; above was
+below,&mdash;below was above, to the man stripped of gravitating body; depth was
+swallowed up in height insurmountable; height was swallowed up in depth
+unfathomable. Suddenly, as thus they rode from infinite to infinite;
+suddenly, as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds, a mighty cry arose that
+systems more mysterious, that worlds more billowy, other heights and other
+depths, were coming&mdash;were nearing&mdash;were at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then the man sighed, and stopped, and shuddered, and wept. His overladen
+heart uttered itself in tears; and he said, "Angel, I will go no farther;
+for the spirit of man acheth with this infinity. Insufferable is the glory
+of God. Let me lie down in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> grave, and hide me from the persecutions of
+the Infinite; for end, I see, there is none."</p>
+
+<p>And from all the listening stars that shone around, issued a choral cry,
+"The man speaks truly; end there is none that ever yet we heard of." "End
+is there none?" the angel solemnly demanded: "Is there indeed no end, and
+is this the sorrow that kills you?" But no voice answered that he might
+answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands toward the
+heaven of heavens, saying, "End is there none to the universe of God! Lo,
+also there is no beginning!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>KEENAN'S CHARGE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY GEORGE P. LATHROP.</h3>
+
+<h4>(<i>Chancellorsville, May, 1863.</i>)</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sun had set;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The leaves with dew were wet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down fell a bloody dusk<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the woods, that second of May,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tore through, with angry tusk.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"They've trapped us, boys!"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose from our flank a voice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a rush of steel and smoke<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On came the Rebels straight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eager as love and wild as hate:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And our line reeled and broke;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Broke and fled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No one staid&mdash;but the dead!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With curses, shrieks and cries,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Horses and wagons and men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tumbled back through the shuddering glen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And above us the fading skies.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There's one hope, still,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those batteries parked on the hill!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Battery, wheel!" (mid the roar)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Pass pieces; fix prolonge to fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Retiring. Trot!" In the panic dire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A bugle rings "Trot"&mdash;and no more.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The horses plunged,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cannon lurched and lunged,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To join the hopeless rout.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But suddenly rode a form<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Calmly in front of the human storm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a stern, commanding shout:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Align those guns!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(We knew it was Pleasonton's)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cannoneers bent to obey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And worked with a will, at his word:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the black guns moved as if <i>they</i> had heard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ah, the dread delay!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"To wait is crime;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O God, for ten minutes' time!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The general looked around.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There Keenan sat, like a stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his three hundred horse alone&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Less shaken than the ground.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Major, your men?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Are soldiers, General." "Then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Charge, Major! Do your best:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hold the enemy back, at all cost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till my guns are placed;&mdash;else the army is lost.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You die to save the rest!"<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">By the shrouded gleam of the western skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brave Keenan looked in Pleasonton's eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For an instant,&mdash;clear, and cool, and still;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, with a smile, he said: "I will."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Cavalry, charge!" Not a man of them shrank.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their sharp, full cheer, from rank on rank,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose joyously, with a willing breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose like a greeting hail to death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then forward they sprang, and spurred and clashed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shouted the officers, crimson-sashed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In their faded coats of the blue and yellow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And above in the air with an instinct true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a bird of war their pennon flew.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And blades that shine like sunlit reeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And strong brown faces bravely pale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For fear their proud attempt shall fail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three hundred Pennsylvanians close<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On twice ten thousand gallant foes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Line after line the troopers came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the edge of the wood that was ringed with flame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rode in and sabered and shot&mdash;and fell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor came one back his wounds to tell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the gloom, like a martyr awaiting his fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the circle-stroke of his saber, swung<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round his head like a halo there, luminous hung.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Line after line, ay, whole platoons,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Struck dead in their saddles, of brave dragoons<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the maddened horses were onward borne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And into the vortex flung, trampled and torn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As Keenan fought with his men, side by side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So they rode, till there were no more to ride.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But over them, lying there, shattered and mute,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What deep echo rolls?&mdash;'Tis a death-salute<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the cannon in place; for heroes, you braved<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your fate not in vain: the army was saved!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Over them now,&mdash;year following year,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over their graves the pine-cones fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the whip-poor-will chants his spectre-call;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But they stir not again; they raise no cheer:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They have ceased. But their glory shall never cease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rush of their charge is resounding still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That saved the army at Chancellorsville.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>USEFUL PRECEPTS FOR GIRLS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>First catch your lover.</p>
+
+<p>Hold him when you have him.</p>
+
+<p>Don't let go of him to catch every new one that comes along.</p>
+
+<p>Try to get very well acquainted with him before you take him for life.</p>
+
+<p>Unless you intend to support him, find out whether he earns enough to
+support you.</p>
+
+<p>Don't make up your mind he is an angel. Don't palm yourself off on him for
+one either.</p>
+
+<p>Don't let him spend his salary on you; that right should be reserved until
+after marriage.</p>
+
+<p>If you have any conscientious scruples about marrying a man with a mother,
+say so in time that he may either get rid of her to oblige you, or get rid
+of you to oblige her, as he thinks best.</p>
+
+<p>If you object to secret societies and tobacco, it is better to come with
+your objections now than to reserve them for curtain lectures hereafter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If your adorer happens to fancy a certain shade of hair, don't color bleach
+yours to oblige him. Remember your hair belongs to you and he doesn't.</p>
+
+<p>Be very sure it is the man you are in love with, and not the clothes he
+wears. Fortune and fashion are both so fickle it is foolish to take a
+stylish suit for better or worse.</p>
+
+<p>If you intend to keep three servants after marriage, settle the matter
+beforehand. The man who is making love to you may expect you to do your own
+washing.</p>
+
+<p>Don't try to hurry up a proposal by carrying on a flirtation with some
+other fellow. Different men are made of different material, and the one you
+want might go off in a fit of jealousy and forget to come back.</p>
+
+<p>If you have a love letter to write, do not copy it out of a "letter
+writer." If your young man ever happened to consult the same book he would
+know your sentiments were borrowed.</p>
+
+<p>Don't marry a man to oblige any third person in existence. It is your right
+to suit yourself in the matter. But remember at the same time that love is
+blind, and a little friendly advice from one whose advice is worth having
+may insure you a lifetime of happiness, or prevent one of misery.</p>
+
+<p>In love affairs always keep your eyes wide open, so that when the right man
+comes along you may see him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When you see him you will recognize him and the recognition will be mutual.</p>
+
+<p>If you have no fault to find with him personally, financially,
+conscientiously, socially, morally, politically, religiously, or in any
+other way, he is probably perfect enough to suit you, and you can afford
+to&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Believe in him; hope in him; love him; marry him!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>WIDDER BUDD.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I'm fifty, I'm fair, and without a gray hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' I feel just ez young as a girl.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I think o' Zerubbabel Lee, I declare<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It sets me all into a whirl.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Last night he waz here, an' I told him to "clear"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' my! How supprised he did look:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perhaps I wuz rash, but he's after my <i>cash</i>&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I see through his plans like a book.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Some offers I've had that I cannot call bad;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">There was Deacon Philander Breezee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'd a sartin sed <i>Yes</i>, when he wanted a kiss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ef he hadn't so flustrated me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It took me so quick that it felt like a kick&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I flew all to pieces at once;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sez I, "You kin go&mdash;I'm not wanting a beau;"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I acted, I know, like a dunce.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sez he, ez he rose, "I hev come to propose."<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I stopped him afore he began:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sez I, "You kin go, an' see Hepzibah Stow&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>I won't be tied down to a man</i>."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">"Mariar," ses he, "Widder Tompkins an' me<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Kin strike up a bargain, I know;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An', seein' ez we can't decide to agree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I guess that I hed better go."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He picked up his hat from the chair where it sat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' solemnly started away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sez I, with a look that I'm <i>sure</i> he mistook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"You're perfectly welcome to stay."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My face got ez red ez our old waggin-shed&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I thought for the land I should melt.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sez he, "I am done. Good night, leetle one,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I <i>wish</i> he'd a known how I felt.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To-day, Isaac Beers, with his snickers and sneers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose face is ez ugly ez sin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dropped in just to see about buyin' my steers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' tickled the mole on my chin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sez I, "You jest quit; I don't like you a bit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">You can't come your sawder on me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You'd better behave till Jane's cold in her grave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your manners is ruther too free."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When dear David died (sniff&mdash;sniff), ez I sot by his side (sniff&mdash;sniff);<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He ketched up my hand in his own (sniff&mdash;sniff);<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He squeezed it awhile (sniff&mdash;sniff), an' he sez with a smile (sniff&mdash;sniff),<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"You'll soon be a widder alone (sniff&mdash;sniff&mdash;sniff),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' when I am gone (sniff&mdash;sniff) don't you fuss an' take on (sniff&mdash;sniff)<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like old Widder Dorothy Day (sniff&mdash;sniff).<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Look out for your tin (sniff&mdash;sniff) if you marry agin (sniff&mdash;sniff),<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor throw your affections away (sniff&mdash;sniff&mdash;sniff)."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My children hev grown, an' have homes o' their own&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They're doin' ez well ez they can (<i>wipes her eyes and nose</i>):<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' I'm gettin' sick o' this livin' alone&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I wouldn't mind havin' a man.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fur David hez gone to the mansion above&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His body is cold in the ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ef you know of a man who would marry for love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Jest find him an' send him around.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>HIS LAST COURT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Old Judge Grepson, a justice of the peace, was never known to smile. He
+came to Arkansas years ago, and year after year, by the will of the voters,
+he held his place as magistrate. The lawyers who practiced in his court
+never joked with him, because every one soon learned that the old man never
+engaged in levity. Every morning, no matter how bad the weather might be,
+the old man took his place behind the bar which, with his own hands, he had
+made, and every evening, just at a certain time, he closed his books and
+went home. No one ever engaged him in private conversation, because he
+would talk to no one. No one ever went to his home, a little cottage among
+the trees in the city's outskirts, because he had never shown a disposition
+to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> welcome the visits of those who even lived in the immediate
+vicinity. His office was not given him through the influence of
+"electioneering," because he never asked any man for his vote. He was first
+elected because, having been once summoned in a case of arbitration, he
+exhibited the executive side of such a legal mind that the people nominated
+and elected him. He soon gained the name of the "hard justice," and every
+lawyer in Arkansas referred to his decision. His rulings were never
+reversed by the higher courts. He showed no sentiment in decision. He stood
+upon the platform of a law which he made a study, and no one disputed him.</p>
+
+<p>One day, a woman, charged with misdemeanor, was arraigned before him. "The
+old man seems more than ever unsteady," remarked a lawyer as the magistrate
+took his seat. "I don't see how a man so old can stand the vexation of a
+court much longer."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not well to-day," said the Judge, turning to the lawyers, "and any
+cases that you may have you will please dispatch them to the best, and let
+me add, quickest of your ability."</p>
+
+<p>Every one saw that the old man was unusually feeble, and no one thought of
+a scheme to prolong a discussion, for all the lawyers had learned to
+reverence him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is this the woman?" asked the Judge. "Who is defending her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no defence, your Honor," the woman replied. "In fact, I do not
+think I need any, for I am here to confess my guilt. No man can defend me,"
+and she looked at the magistrate with a curious gaze. "I have been arrested
+on a charge of disturbing the peace, and I am willing to submit my case. I
+am dying of consumption, Judge, and I know that any ruling made by the law
+can have but little effect on me;" and she coughed a hollow, hacking cough,
+and drew around her an old black shawl that she wore. The expression on the
+face of the magistrate remained unchanged, but his eyelids dropped and he
+did not raise them when the woman continued:</p>
+
+<p>"As I say, no man can defend me. I am too near that awful separation of
+soul and body. Years ago I was a child of brightest promise. I lived with
+my parents in Kentucky. Wayward and light-hearted, I was admired by all the
+gay society known in the neighborhood. A man came and professed his love
+for me. I don't say this, Judge, to excite your sympathy. I have many and
+many a time been drawn before courts, but I never before spoke of my past
+life."</p>
+
+<p>She coughed again and caught a flow of blood on a handkerchief which she
+pressed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> her lips. "I speak of it now because I know that this is the
+last court on earth before which I will be arraigned. I was fifteen years
+old when I fell in love with the man. My father said he was bad, but I
+loved him. He came again and again, and when my father said that he should
+come no more I ran away and married him. My father said I should never come
+home again. I had always been his pride and had loved him dearly, but he
+said that I must never again come to his home,&mdash;my home, the home of my
+youth and happiness. How I longed to see him. How I yearned to put my head
+on his breast. My husband became addicted to drink. He abused me. I wrote
+to my father, asking him to let me come home, but the answer that came was
+'I don't know you!' My husband died&mdash;yes, cursed God and died! Homeless and
+wretched, and with my little boy I went out into the world. My child died,
+and I bowed down and wept over a pauper's grave. I wrote to my father
+again, but he answered: 'I know not those who disobey my commandments!' I
+turned away from that letter, hardened. I spurned my teachings. Now I am
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Several lawyers rushed forward. A crimson stream flowed from her lips. They
+leaned her lifeless head back against the chair. The old magistrate had not
+raised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> his eyes; "Great God!" said a lawyer, "he is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>The woman was his daughter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE DEAD DOLL.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You needn't be trying to comfort me&mdash;I tell you my dolly is dead!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There's no use in saying she isn't with a crack like that in her head;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It's just like you said it wouldn't hurt much to have my tooth out, that day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then, when the man 'most pulled my head off, you hadn't a word to say.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I guess you must think I'm a baby, when you say you can mend it with glue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if I didn't know better than that! Why, just suppose it was you?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You might make her look all mended&mdash;but what do I care for looks?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why glue's for chairs and tables, and toys, and the backs of books!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My dolly! my own little daughter! Oh, but it's the awfullest crack!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It just makes me sick to think of the sound when her poor head went whack<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Against that horrible brass thing that holds up that little shelf.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, Nursey, what makes you remind me? I know that I did it myself?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I think you must be crazy&mdash;you'll get her another head!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What good would forty heads do her? I tell you my dolly is dead!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And to think I hadn't quite finished her elegant new Spring hat!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I took a sweet ribbon of her's last night to tie on that horrid cat!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When my mamma gave me that ribbon&mdash;I was playing out in the yard&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She said to me most expressly, "Here's a ribbon for Hildegarde."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I went and put it on Tabby, and Hildegarde saw me do it;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I said to myself, "Oh, never mind, I don't believe she knew it!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But I know that she knew it now, and I just believe I do,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That her poor little heart was broken, and so her head broke too.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, my baby! my little baby! I wish my head had been hit!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I've hit it over and over, and it hasn't cracked a bit.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But since the darling is dead, she'll want to be buried, of course;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We will take my little wagon, Nurse, and you shall be the horse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I'll walk behind and cry; and we'll put her in this, you see&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This dear little box&mdash;and we'll bury her there out under the maple tree.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And papa will make me a tombstone, like the one he made for my bird;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he'll put what I tell him on it&mdash;yes, every single word!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shall say, "Here lies Hildegarde, a beautiful doll, who is dead;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She died of a broken heart, and a dreadful crack in her head."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+<h2>AT THE STAMP WINDOW.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Just before twelve o'clock yesterday fore-noon there were thirteen men and
+one woman at the stamp window of the post-office. Most of the men had
+letters to post for the out-going trains. The woman had something tied up
+in a blue match-box. She got there first, and she held the position with
+her head in the window and both elbows on the shelf.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there such a place in this country as Cleveland?" she began.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you send mail there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, a woman living next door asked me to mail this box for her. I guess
+it's directed all right. She said it ought to go for a cent."</p>
+
+<p>"Takes two cents," said the clerk, after weighing it. "If there is writing
+inside it will be twelve cents."</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on me, but how you do charge!"</p>
+
+<p>Here the thirteen men began to push up and hustle around and talk about one
+old match-box delaying two dozen business letters, but the woman had lots
+of time.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it will be two cents, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"If there is no writing inside."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there may be. I know she is a great hand to write. She's sending
+some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> flower seeds to her sister, and I presume she has told her how to
+plant 'm."</p>
+
+<p>"Two threes!" called out one of the crowd, as he tried to get to the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up!" cried another.</p>
+
+<p>"There ought to be a separate window here for women," growled a third.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it will take twelve cents?" she calmly queried, as she fumbled around
+for her purse.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'd better pay it, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>From one pocket she took two coppers. From her reticule she took a three
+cent piece. From her purse she fished out a nickel; and it was only after a
+hunt of eighty seconds that she got the twelve cents together. She then
+consumed four minutes in licking on the stamps, asking where to post the
+box, and wondering if there really was any writing inside,&mdash;but woman
+proposes and man disposes. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of business was
+being detained by a twelve-cent woman, and a tidal wave suddenly took her
+away from the window. In sixty seconds the thirteen men had been waited on
+and gone their ways, and the woman returned to the window, handed in the
+box, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Them stamps are licked on kind o' crooked, but it won't make any
+difference, will it?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE NAMELESS GUEST.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wonder if ever the Angel of Death<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Comes down from the great Unknown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And soars away, on the wings of night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unburdened and alone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wonder if ever the angels' eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Are filled with pitying tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As they grant to the souls, unfit for flight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A few more weary years!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For it seems, at times, when the world is still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the soft night winds are whist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As though some spirit were hovering near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In folds of dream-like mist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I feel, though mortals are nowhere near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That I am not quite alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, with dreary thoughts of dying and death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My heart grows cold as stone.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But whether 'tis death that hovers near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And knocks at the door of my heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or whether 'tis some bright angel, come<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To be of my life a part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I cannot tell, and I long in vain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The secret strange to know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the moments of mirth and grief and pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Move on in their ceaseless flow.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And at night, when I kneel to a Higher Power<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And ask His tender care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One yearning cry of a wayward life<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is the burden of my prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I may bend, with willing lips,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To kiss the chastening rod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And learn the way, through the golden gate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To the great white throne of God.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+<h2>OUR HEROES SHALL LIVE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>This brief extract from a splendid oration should be spoken in clear,
+defined tones, rather high pitch, the utterance slow, with a rather long
+pause after each question:</p>
+
+<p>Oh, tell me not that they are dead&mdash;that generous host, that airy army of
+invisible heroes. They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are
+they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal
+language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon
+society, and inspire the people with nobler motives, and more heroic
+patriotism?</p>
+
+<p>Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. It <i>was</i> your son, but
+now he is the nation's. He made your household bright: now his example
+inspires a thousand households. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now
+brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed,
+appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, and given to
+all. Before he was yours: he <i>is</i> ours. He has died from the family, that
+he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgotten or neglected:
+and it shall by and by be confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an
+ancient hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his
+whole life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+<h2>LULLABY.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rockaby, lullaby, all the day long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down to the land of the lullaby song.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Babyland never again will be thine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Land of all mystery, holy, divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Motherland, otherland,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Wonderland, underland,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Land of a time ne'er again to be seen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Flowerland, bowerland,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Airyland, fairyland,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rockaby, baby, thy mother will keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gentle watch over thine azure-eyed sleep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Baby can't feel what the mother-heart knows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Throbbing its fear o'er your quiet repose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mother-heart knows how baby must fight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wearily on through the fast coming night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Battle unending,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Honor defending,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Baby must wage with the power unseen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Sleep now, O baby, dear!<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">God and thy mother near;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rockaby, baby, the days will grow long;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Silent the voice of the mother-love song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bowed with sore burdens the man-life must own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sorrows that baby must bear all alone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wonderland never can come back again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thought will come soon&mdash;and with reason comes pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Sorrowland, motherland,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Drearyland, wearyland,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Baby and heavenland lying between.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Smile, then, in motherland,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Dream in the otherland,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PENNING A PIG.</h2>
+
+<h3>JAMES M. BAILEY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Two families in Slawson had a somewhat singular experience several weeks
+ago. These families live in a double house, and each had a pen with two
+pigs. Last Friday the woman in one part discovered that her two pigs were
+free from their pen, and looking after geological specimens at the foot of
+the yard. She also discovered at the same time that the gate to a cabbage
+yard adjoining was open, and that the pigs might at any moment become
+ravished by a view of the glories within.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband being away she hurriedly secured the gate, and then set about
+to return the truants by the following ingenious plan: Taking a shovelful
+of corn, she approached as close to the animals as possible, and, holding
+the tempting morsel near enough for them to learn its inviting character,
+she screwed her face into an expression of winning sweetness, and backed
+slowly toward the pen.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful illustration of woman's faith, and we regret to write
+that it did not work. The pigs took one snuff at the contents of the
+shovel, just to show that they took some interest in the matter, and, being
+convinced thereby that there was nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> injurious in the experiment, fell
+to rooting about again with renewed fervor.</p>
+
+<p>The nearer the woman came to the pen the straighter her face grew, and
+presently lost every vestige of solicitude, and assumed instead an
+expression of medium ferocity. What she may have done will never be known,
+as at this juncture her husband made his appearance on the back stoop, and,
+her eye resting upon him, she commenced to apostrophize him in the language
+married people alone are adepts at.</p>
+
+<p>After requesting somebody to show him the idiot who had left those hogs out
+that he might punch his head, he drove straight at the truants, and missed
+them, of course. Then he drove at them again with a clothes pole, and
+missed them again, although he made another pole by hitting that on a
+stone. Any one who has helped to drive one or two pigs will readily
+understand the number of articles that passed through the air, and the
+style of conversation the man kept up during the chase.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, he got one of the animals in a corner, and, being by this time
+utterly regardless of personal appearance or consequences, threw himself
+upon the brute, neatly scraping the fence with the top of his head, and
+falling upon the pig in such a way as to hold in abeyance every one of its
+muscles except those in the throat. These were at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> once put into active
+operation, and the man for a moment thought he had captured a planing-mill.
+Then he raised slowly, keeping a tight hold of the animal, and getting on
+his feet with a pig in his arms, struck out for the pen, preceded by his
+wife and the other woman, and closely and anxiously observed by all the
+neighbors for a half-mile around.</p>
+
+<p>In this way the procession laboriously moved. The pig, having worked its
+head within two inches of the man's ear, was pouring therein a tale of
+unparalleled distress, which, if not calculated to melt the stoutest heart,
+actually threatened to split open the stoutest head. The man was utterly
+powerless to remedy the horror, having both hands engaged, and could only
+twist his ear a little out of range, and scream at the top of his voice his
+plans for the future of "them hogs."</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the pen, and while in the act of dumping the howling viper over
+the side, the woman next door made an unfortunate discovery. <i>His</i> hogs
+were in the pen; the truants were <i>hers</i>. The man, who was still holding
+the pig, and might have, with reason, taken a prominent part in the debate,
+contented himself by merely expressing a hope that he might be blessed, and
+then trudged around to the other pen, where he arrived after much unlooked
+for tribulation, and again hoisted the howling monster up to the top, when
+the woman next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> door made another and still more remarkable discovery. Her
+pigs were in their pen.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" screamed the man, who was so fixed he could not very well
+see into the pen, and was obliged to lift his voice to make himself heard
+above the din.</p>
+
+<p>"Them ain't my pigs," screamed the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Why ain't they?" he yelled.</p>
+
+<p>"Cause my pigs are here," she shrieked back.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say that the strange animals were urged out of that
+garden without the use of subterfuge.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LITTLE JIM.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY GEORGE R. SIMS.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">Our little Jim<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Was such a limb<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His mother scarce could manage him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">His eyes were blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And looked you through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">And seemed to say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">"I'll have my way!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">His age was six,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">His saucy tricks<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">But made you smile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Though all the while<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">You said, "You limb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">You wicked Jim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Be quiet, do!"<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">Poor little Jim!<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Our eyes are dim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When soft and low we speak of him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">No clattering shoe<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Goes running through<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">The silent room,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Now wrapped in gloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">So still he lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">With fast-shut eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">No need to say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Alas! to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">"You little limb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">You baby Jim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">Be quiet, do!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOURSELF.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY R. J. BURDETTE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Telemachus, it will do you ever so much good if every once in a while you
+will go away by yourself for an hour or two and get real well acquainted
+with yourself. As a man thinketh, so he is. And you will never "know
+thyself" thoroughly unless now and then you get alone and sit down and talk
+to yourself, cross-examine yourself; learn what you know; what are your
+ambitions, your aims, your hopes,&mdash;what is your real character; because, my
+dear boy, your reputation may be one thing and your character quite
+another. Sometimes it does happen, in this faulty old world, that a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> really
+good man, a man whose character is above reproach, may bear the reputation
+of a rascal; and once in a while&mdash;two or three times in a while, in fact&mdash;a
+rascal wears the stolen reputation of an honest man. Go away now and then,
+my boy, and sit down all by yourself and think. Think of nothing under the
+sun only yourself. Yes, I know, my son, there are men who never think of
+anything else, and God never made more useless men; but that is because
+they do all their thinking about themselves publicly and loud. They never
+think alone.</p>
+
+<p>You will be honest with yourself when you are alone, my boy. A man is apt
+to be honest with himself in the dark. He does not pose in heroic postures
+when he has no audience. When he stands face to face with himself, with no
+human eye to watch him, and no human ear to listen to his confession, and
+only his Maker, who knows every secret motive and thought of his life to
+see and to listen, a man has to be honest. How could he be a hypocrite
+then?</p>
+
+<p>Get away from the crowd a little while every day, my boy. Stand one side
+and let the world run by, while you get acquainted with yourself, and see
+what kind of a fellow you are. Ask yourself hard questions about yourself.
+Find out all you can about yourself. Ascertain from original sources if you
+are really the manner of man people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> say you are. Find out if you are
+always honest; if you always tell the square, perfect truth in business
+deals; if your life is as good and upright at eleven o'clock at night as it
+is at noon; if you are as sound a temperance man on a fishing expedition as
+you are at a Sabbath-school picnic; if you are as good a boy when you go to
+Chicago as you are at home; if, in short, you really are the manner of
+young man your father hopes you are, your mother says you are, and your
+sweetheart believes you are. Get on intimate terms with yourself, my boy,
+and, believe me, every time you come out from one of those private
+interviews you will be a better, stronger, purer man. Don't forget this,
+Telemachus, and it will do you good.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE LITTLE WHITE HEARSE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY J. W. RILEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As the little white hearse went glimmering by&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The man on the coal cart jerked his lines,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And smutted the lid of either eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And turned and stared at the business signs;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the street-car driver stopped and beat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His hands on his shoulders and gazed up street<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till his eye on the long track reached the sky&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the little white hearse went glimmering by.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As the little white hearse went glimmering by&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A stranger petted a ragged child<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the crowded walk, and she knew not why,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But he gave her a coin for the way she smiled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a bootblack thrilled with a pleasure strange<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a customer put back his change<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a kindly hand and a grateful sigh&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the little white hearse went glimmering by.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As the little white hearse went glimmering by&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A man looked out of a window dim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his cheeks were wet and his heart was dry&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For a dead child even were dear to him!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he thought of his empty life and said:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Loveless alive and loveless dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor wife nor child in earth or sky!"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the little white hearse went glimmering by.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THERE'LL BE ROOM IN HEAVEN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>She was a little old woman, very plainly dressed in black bombazine that
+had seen much careful wear; her bonnet was very old-fashioned, and people
+stared at her tottering up the aisle of the church, evidently bent on
+securing one of the best seats, for a great man preached that day. The
+house was filled with splendidly dressed people who had heard of the fame
+of the preacher, of his learning, his intellect and goodness, and they
+wondered at the presumption of the poor old woman. She must have been in
+her dotage, for she picked out the pew of the richest and proudest member
+of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> church and took a seat. The three ladies who were seated there
+beckoned to the sexton, who bent over the intruder and whispered something,
+but she was hard of hearing, and smiled a little withered smile, as she
+said, gently: "Oh, I'm quite comfortable here, quite comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are not wanted here," said the sexton, pompously; "there is not
+room. Come with me, my good woman; I will see that you have a seat."</p>
+
+<p>"Not room," said the old woman, looking at her shrunken proportions, and
+then at the fine ladies. "Why, I'm not crowded a bit. I rode ten miles to
+hear the sermon to-day, because&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But here the sexton took her by the arm, shook her roughly in a polite
+underhand way, and then she took the hint. Her faded old eyes filled with
+tears, her chin quivered; but she rose meekly and left the pew. Turning
+quietly to the ladies, who were spreading their rich dresses over the space
+she left vacant, she said gently: "I hope, my dears, there'll be room in
+heaven for us all." Then she followed the pompous sexton to the rear of the
+church where, in the last pew, she was seated between a threadbare girl and
+a shabby old man.</p>
+
+<p>"She must be crazy," said one of the ladies in the pew which she had first
+occupied. "What can an ignorant old woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> like her want to hear Dr. &mdash;&mdash;
+preach for? She would not be able to understand a word he said."</p>
+
+<p>"Those people are so persistent! The idea of her forcing herself into our
+pew! Isn't that voluntary lovely? There's Dr. &mdash;&mdash; coming out of the
+vestry. Is he not grand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid! What a stately man! You know he has promised to dine with us
+while he is here."</p>
+
+<p>He was a commanding looking man, and as the organ voluntary stopped, and he
+looked over the great crowd of worshipers gathered in the vast church, he
+seemed to scan every face. His hand was on the Bible when suddenly he
+leaned over the reading desk and beckoned to the sexton, who obsequiously
+mounted the steps to receive a mysterious message. And then the three
+ladies in the grand pew were electrified to see him take his way the whole
+length of the church to return with the old woman, when he placed her in
+the front pew of all, its other occupants making willing room for her. The
+great preacher looked at her with a smile of recognition, and then the
+services proceeded, and he preached a sermon that struck fire from every
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was she?" asked the ladies who could not make room for her, as they
+passed the sexton at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"The preacher's mother," was the reply.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE RETORT DIS-COURTEOUS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Mr. Michael McGlynn, of Dublin town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And Dinny O'Doyle, of Kildare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the streets of the city, went up and down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A remarkably guileless pair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said Michael to Dinny: "Me darlin' bhoy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Since the roise o' the mornin' sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Niver a dhrop or a boite have Oi,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oi think I could ate a bun."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Said Dinny to Michael: "Av coorse: av coorse!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To ate is the woise man's part;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oi have a sinsation loike that mesilf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oi think Oi could touch a tart."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So the kindred souls of this guileless pair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An eating house speedily found,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And before them a jar on the table sat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Full of horseradish, freshly ground.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With a tablespoon, Mr. Michael McGlynn<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Took all that his mouth would hold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then gasped for breath, while his head turned hot<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And his spine turned icy cold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tears on his cheeks came rolling down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But he had no breath to swear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So he simply clutched at the tablecloth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And tore at his red, red hair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Amazed and surprised, Mr. Dinny O'Doyle<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Said: "Michael, me darlin' bhoy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Phwat's troublin' yer sowl? Phwat's wrong wid ye now?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Phwat's the raison ye've tears in yer oi?"<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, nothin," said Michael; "my grandfather doid<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Some twenty-foive years ago,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oi chanced to remember the fine owld man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' Oi couldn't help croiyin', ye know.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But, Dinny O'Doyle, doant mind it at all;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How wake an' how choildish Oi same,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then he passed the horseradish and spoon and all;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Have some of this nice oice crame!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So Dinny dipped into the treacherous jar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the tears quickly sprang to his eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Michael McGlynn, who had got back his breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Affected a strange surprise.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Phy, Dinny, me bhoy, ye're croiyin' yersilf,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He said with a chuckle and grin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Phwat's troublin' <i>yer</i> sowl? Phwat's wrong wid <i>ye</i> now?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is it wapin' ye are for a sin?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Is it askin' ye are, phwat's makin' me croiy?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Said Dinny, "Oi'll spake as Oi'm bid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oi'm croiyin' bekase Mr. Michael McGlynn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Didn't doi when his grandfather did."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ZENOBIA'S DEFENCE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY WILLIAM WARE.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[Zenobia became Queen of Palmyra A. D. 267, after the
+murder of her husband, Odenatus. She was a woman of
+great energy and assumed the title of Queen of the
+East. She was deprived of her dominion by Aurelian A.
+D. 272, and died in retirement near Rome.]</p></div>
+
+
+<p>I am charged with pride and ambition. The charge is true, and I glory in
+its truth. Whoever achieved anything great in letters,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> arts, or arms, who
+was not ambitious? C&aelig;sar was not more ambitious than Cicero. It was but in
+another way. All greatness is born of ambition. Let the ambition be a noble
+one, and who shall blame it? I confess I did once aspire to be queen, not
+only of Palmyra, but of the East. That I am. I now aspire to remain so. Is
+it not an honorable ambition? Does it not become a descendant of the
+Ptolemies and of Cleopatra? I am applauded by you all for what I have
+already done. You would not it should have been less.</p>
+
+<p>But why pause here? Is <i>so</i> much ambition praiseworthy, and <i>more</i>
+criminal? Is it fixed in nature that the limits of this empire should be
+Egypt on the one hand, the Hellespont and the Euxine on the other? Were not
+Suez and Armenia more natural limits? Or hath empire no natural limit, but
+is broad as the genius that can devise, and the power that can win? Rome
+has the West. Let Palmyra possess the East. Not that nature prescribes this
+and no more. The gods prospering, I mean that the Mediterranean shall not
+hem me in upon the west, or Persia on the east. Longinus is right,&mdash;I would
+that the world were mine. I feel, within, the will and the power to bless
+it, were it so.</p>
+
+<p>Are not my people happy? I look upon the past and the present, upon my
+nearer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> and remoter subjects, and ask, nor fear the answer, Whom have I
+wronged? What province have I oppressed, what city pillaged, what region
+drained with taxes? Whose life have I unjustly taken, or whose estates have
+I coveted or robbed? Whose honor have I wantonly assailed? Whose rights,
+though of the weakest and poorest, have I violated? I dwell, where I would
+ever dwell, in the hearts of my people. It is written in your faces, that I
+reign not more over you than within you. The foundation of my throne is not
+more power than love.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose, now, my ambition should add another province to our realm. Would
+that be an evil? The kingdoms already bound to us by the joint acts of
+ourselves and the late royal Odenatus, we found discordant and at war. They
+are now united and at peace. One harmonious whole has grown out of hostile
+and sundered parts. At my hands they receive a common justice and equal
+benefits. The channels of their commerce have I opened, and dug them deep
+and sure. Prosperity and plenty are in all their borders. The streets of
+our capital bear testimony to the distant and various industry which here
+seeks its market.</p>
+
+<p>This is no vain boasting: receive it not so, good friends. It is but the
+truth. He who traduces himself sins in the same way as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> who traduces
+another. He who is unjust to himself, or less than just, breaks a law, as
+well as he who hurts his neighbor. I tell you what I am, and what I have
+done, that your trust for the future may not rest upon ignorant grounds. If
+I am more than just to myself, rebuke me. If I have over-stepped the
+modesty that became me, I am open to your censure, and I will bear it.</p>
+
+<p>But I have spoken that you may know your queen, not only by her acts, but
+by her admitted principles. I tell you, then, that I am ambitious, that I
+crave dominion, and while I live will reign. Sprung from a line of kings, a
+throne is my natural seat. I love it. But I strive, too&mdash;you can bear me
+witness that I do&mdash;that it shall be, while I sit upon it, an honored,
+unpolluted seat. If I can, I will hang a yet brighter glory around it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>A SERENADE.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
+
+<h3>BY THOMAS HOOD.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thus I heard a father cry.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The brat will never shut an eye;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hither come, some power divine!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Close his lids or open mine!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What the mischief makes him cry?<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Still he stares&mdash;I wonder why;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why are not the sons of earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blind, like puppies, from their birth?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thus I heard the father cry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mary, you must come and try!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hush, oh, hush, for mercy's sake&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The more I sing, the more you wake!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fie, you little creature, fie!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is no poppy-syrup nigh?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Give him some, or give him all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am nodding to his fall!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Two such nights and I shall die!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He'll be bruised, and so shall I&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How can I from bedposts keep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I'm walking in my sleep?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sleep his very looks deny;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nature soon will stupefy&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My nerves relax&mdash;my eyes grow dim&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who's that fallen, me or him?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This poem can be made very effective as a humorous recitation
+by the performer imitating a sleepy father vainly endeavoring to quiet a
+restless child. A doll, or something to represent one, should be held in
+the arms.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+<h2>QUEEN VASHTI.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY T. DEWITT TALMAGE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>We stand amid the palaces of Shushan. The pinnacles are aflame with the
+morning light. The columns rise festooned and wreathed, the wealth of
+empires flashing from the grooves; the ceilings adorned with images of bird
+and beast, and scenes of prowess and conquest. The walls are hung with
+shields, and emblazoned until it seems that the whole round of splendors is
+exhausted. Each arch is a mighty leap of architectural achievement,&mdash;golden
+stars, shining down on glowing arabesque; hangings of embroidered work, in
+which mingle the blueness of the sky, the greenness of the grass and the
+whiteness of the sea foam; tapestries hung on silver rings, wedding
+together the pillars of marble. Pavilions reach out in every
+direction,&mdash;these for repose, filled with luxuriant couches, in which weary
+limbs sink until all fatigue is submerged; these for carousal, where kings
+drink down a kingdom at one swallow.</p>
+
+<p>Amazing spectacle! Light of silver dripping down over stairs of ivory on
+shields of gold; floors of stained marble, sunset red and night black, and
+inlaid with gleaming pearl. Why, it seems as if a heavenly vision of
+amethyst, and jacinth, and topaz, and chrysoprasus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> had descended and
+alighted upon Shushan. It seems as if a billow of celestial glory had
+dashed clear over heaven's battlements upon this metropolis of Persia.</p>
+
+<p>In connection with this palace there is a garden, where the mighty men of
+foreign lands are seated at a banquet. Under the spread of oak, and linden,
+and acacia, the tables are arranged. The breath of honey-suckle and
+frankincense fills the air. Fountains leap up into the light, the spray
+struck through with rainbows falling in crystalline baptism upon flowering
+shrubs&mdash;then rolling down through channels of marble, and widening out here
+and there into pools swirling with the finny tribes of foreign aquariums,
+bordered with scarlet anemones, hypericums, and many colored ranunculus;
+meats of rarest bird and beast smoking up amid wreaths of aromatics; the
+vases filled with apricots and almonds; the basket piled up with apricots,
+and dates, and figs, and oranges, and pomegranates; melons tastefully
+twined with leaves of acacia; the bright waters of Eul&aelig;us filling the urns,
+and sweating outside the rim in flashing beads amid the traceries; wine
+from the royal vats of Ispahan and Shiraz, in bottles of tinged shell, and
+lily-shaped cups of silver, and flagons and tankards of solid gold.</p>
+
+<p>The music rises higher, and the revelry breaks out into wilder transport,
+and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> wine has flushed the cheek and touched the brain, and louder than
+all other voices are the hiccough of the inebriates, the gabble of fools,
+and the song of the drunkards.</p>
+
+<p>In another part of the palace Queen Vashti is entertaining the princesses
+of Persia at a banquet. Drunken Ahasuerus says to his servants: "Go out and
+fetch Vashti from that banquet with the women, and bring her to this
+banquet with the men, and let me display her beauty." The servants
+immediately start to obey the king's command, but there was a rule in
+Oriental society that no woman might appear in public without having her
+face veiled. Yet here was a mandate that no one dare dispute, demanding
+that Vashti come in unveiled before the multitude. However, there was in
+Vashti's soul a principle more regal than Ahasuerus, more brilliant than
+the gold of Shushan, of more wealth than the revenue of Persia, which
+commanded her to disobey the order of the King; and so all the
+righteousness and holiness and modesty of her nature rises up into one
+sublime refusal. She says: "I will not go into the banquet unveiled." Of
+course, Ahasuerus was infuriated; and Vashti, robbed of her position and
+her estate, is driven forth in poverty and ruin to suffer the scorn of a
+nation, and yet to receive the applause of after generations, who shall
+rise up to admire this martyr to kingly insolence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The last vestige of that feast is gone; the last garland has faded; the
+last arch has fallen; the last tankard has been destroyed, and Shushan is a
+ruin; but as long as the world stands there will be multitudes of men and
+women, familiar with the Bible, who will come into this picture-gallery of
+God and admire the divine portrait of Vashti, the Queen; Vashti, the
+veiled; Vashti, the sacrifice; Vashti, the silent.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>W'EN DE DARKY AM A-WHIS'LIN' IN DE CO'N.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY S. Q. LAPIUS.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">W'en de jewdraps 'gins to glisten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' de east am growin' red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' de catbird am a-singin' in de trees;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">W'en de swallers an' de martins<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Am a-quar'lin' in de shed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' de hollyhocks am callin' to de bees;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">W'en de gray mule 'gins to whinny<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' de porker 'gins to squeal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Den it's time to be a-wo'kin' in de mo'n,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kase de sun am climbin' higher<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' de han's am in de field&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' de darky am a whis'lin' in de c'on.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">W'en de fog hab lef' de valley,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' de blue am in de sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' de bees am wo'kin' in de medder lot;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">W'en de hollyhocks am drowsin',<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' de sun am ridin' high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' de dusty country road am blazin' hot;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Den de darky 'gins to listen&mdash;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">As de catbird quits his song&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fo' de soundin' ob de welcome dinner-ho'n,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kase his knees am growin' wabbly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' de rows am growin' long&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' he's hoin' an' a-whis'lin' in de co'n!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">W'en de fiery sun am smilin'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' a-sinkin' in de wes',<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' de shadders creep along de dusty road;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">W'en de martins am a-chatter'n'<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' dey hurry home to res',<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' de longes' row ob all am nea'ly hoed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">W'en de bullfrog 'gins to holler,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An' de cowbell down de lane<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Gins to tinkle in a way dat's mos' fo'lo'n,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Den amid de gloomy echoes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Comes dat soul-refreshin' strain&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ob de darky as he whis'les in de co'n!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE PILOT.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JOHN B. GOUGH.</h3>
+
+
+<p>John Maynard was well known in the lake district as a God-fearing, honest,
+and intelligent man. He was pilot on a steamboat from Detroit to Buffalo.
+One summer afternoon&mdash;at that time those steamers seldom carried
+boats&mdash;smoke was seen ascending from below; and the captain called out,
+"Simpson, go below and see what the matter is down there."</p>
+
+<p>Simpson came up with his face as pale as ashes, and said, "Captain, the
+ship is on fire!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then "Fire! fire! fire!" on shipboard.</p>
+
+<p>All hands were called up; buckets of water were dashed on the fire, but in
+vain. There were large quantities of rosin and tar on board, and it was
+found useless to attempt to save the ship. The passengers rushed forward
+and inquired of the pilot, "How far are we from Buffalo?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seven miles."</p>
+
+<p>"How long before we can reach there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three-quarters of an hour at our present rate of steam."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any danger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Danger! Here, see the smoke bursting out!&mdash;go forward, if you would save
+your lives!"</p>
+
+<p>Passengers and crew&mdash;men, women and children&mdash;crowded the forward part of
+the ship. John Maynard stood at the helm. The flames burst forth in a sheet
+of fire; clouds of smoke arose.</p>
+
+<p>The captain cried out through his trumpet, "John Maynard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you at the helm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"How does she head?"</p>
+
+<p>"Southeast by east, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Head her southeast and run her on shore," said the captain. Nearer,
+nearer, yet nearer she approached the shore. Again the captain cried out,
+"John Maynard!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The response came feebly this time, "Ay, ay, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you hold on five minutes longer, John?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"By God's help, I will!"</p>
+
+<p>The old man's hair was scorched from the scalp; one hand was disabled; his
+knee upon the stanchion, his teeth set, his other hand upon the wheel, he
+stood firm as a rock. He beached the ship; every man, woman, and child was
+saved, as John Maynard dropped, and his spirit took its flight to God.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE FATAL GLASS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY LAURA U. CASE.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He raised the cup to his pure, sweet lips&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lips fresh from a mother's kisses;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Merry the banquet hall that night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For youth and beauty were there, and bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The glittering lamps shone o'er them;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one had sung with a voice divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A song in praise of the ruby wine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That graced the feast before them.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Little he dreamed as he lightly quaffed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sparkling wine, that the first rare draught<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was a link in the chain to bind him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And drag his soul, like a servile slave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down slippery steps to a shameful grave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From a throne where love enshrined him.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She raised the cup to her tainted lips&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lips foul with the vilest curses&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a loathsome haunt of sin and shame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Christian charity seldom came,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+<span class="i2">With its holy words to teach them<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the pastures green and waters sweet&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of her who wept at the Master's feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose boundless love could reach them.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is love so dear, and life so cheap,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That one poor soul, like a wandering sheep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alone on the bleak, cold mountain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should gladly turn from a life accursed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To drown the past and quench the thirst<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In draughts from a poisonous fountain?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He raised the cup to his trembling lips&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lips wrinkled by age and hunger;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The meagre pittance he'd begged for food,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brightened the palm of the man who stood<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At his bar with his wines around him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He drank, and turned on tottering feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the bitter storm and the cold, dark street,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where a corpse in the morn they found him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And oh! could those speechless lips have told<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the want and sorrow, hunger and cold<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He had known, or the answer given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When his trembling soul for entrance plead<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At the crystal gates, where One has said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"No drunkard shall enter Heaven!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>KATRINA'S VISIT TO NEW YORK.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Vell, von morning I says to Hans (Hans vos mein husband): "Hans, I tinks I
+goes down to New York, und see some sights in dot village."</p>
+
+<p>Und Hans he say: "Vell Katrina, you vork hard pooty mooch, I tinks it vould
+petter be dot you goes und rest yourself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> some." So I gets meinself ready
+righd avay quick und in two days I vos de shteam cars on vistling avay for
+New York. Ve vent so fast I tinks mein head vould shplit sometimes. De
+poles for dot delegraph vires goes by like dey vos mad und running a races
+demselves mit to see vich could go de fastest mit de oder. De engine
+vistled like sometimes it vos hurt bad, und screeched mit de pain, und de
+horses by dem fields vould run as dey vas scared.</p>
+
+<p>I vas pooty mooch as ten hours ven ve rushed into some houses so big enough
+as all our village, und de cars begin to shtop vith so many leetle jerks I
+dinks me I shall lose all de dinner vot I eat vile I vas coming all de vay
+apoudt.</p>
+
+<p>Vell, ven dem cars got shtopped, de peoples all got oudt und I picked mein
+traps oup und got oudt too. I had shust shtepped de blatform on, ven so
+mooch as ein hundert men, mit vips in dere hands, und dere fingers all in
+de air oup, asked me all at vonce, "Vere I go?" Und every one of dem
+fellers vanted me to go mit him to his hotel. But I tells em I guess not; I
+vas going mit my brudder-mit-law, vot keeps ein pakeshop on de Powery, vere
+it didn't cost me notings. So I got me in dot shtreet cars, und pays de man
+mit brass buttons on his coat to let me oudt mit de shtreet vere dot Yawcup
+Schneider leeves. Oh, my!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> vot lots of houses! De shtreets vos all ofer
+filled mit dem. Und so many peoples I tinks me dere must be a fire, or a
+barade, or some oxcitement vot gets de whole city in von blaces. It dakes
+me so mooch time to look at everytings I forgot me ven to got oudt und
+rides apast de blaces I vants to shtop to, und has to valk again pack mit
+dree or four shquares. But I vind me dot brudder-mit-law who vos make me so
+velcome as nefer vos.</p>
+
+<p>Vell, dot vos Saturday mit de afternoon. I vas tired mit dot day's travel
+und I goes me pooty quick to bed und ven I vakes in de morning de sun vas
+high oup in de shky. But I gets me oup und puts on mein new silk vrock und
+tinks me I shall go to some fine churches und hear ein grosse breacher. Der
+pells vas ringing so schveet I dinks I nefer pefore hear such music. Ven I
+got de shtreet on de beoples vos all going quiet und nice to dere blaces
+mit worship, und I makes oup my mind to go in von of dem churches so soon
+as von comes along. Pooty soon I comes to de von mit ein shteeples high oup
+in de shky und I goes in mit de beoples und sits me down on ein seat all
+covered mit a leetle mattress. De big organ vas blaying so soft it seemed
+likes as if some angels must be dere to make dot music.</p>
+
+<p>Pooty soon de breacher man shtood in de bulbit oup und read de hymn oudt,
+und all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> de beoples sing until de churches vos filled mit de shweetness.
+Den de breacher man pray, und read de Pible, und den he say dot de bulbit
+would be occupied by de Rev. Villiam R. Shtover mit Leavenworth, Kansas.</p>
+
+<p>Den dot man gommence to breach und he read mit his dext, "Und Simon's
+vife's mudder lay sick mit a fever." He talks for so mooch as ein half hour
+already ven de beoples sings again und goes homes. I tells mein
+brudder-mit-law it vos so nice I tinks me I goes again mit some oder
+churches. So vot you tinks? I goes mit anoder churches dot afternoon und
+dot same Villiam R. Shtover vos dere und breach dot same sermon ofer again
+mit dot same dext, "Und Simon's vife's mudder lay sick mit a fever." I
+tinks to my ownself&mdash;dot vos too bad, und I goes home und dells Yawcup, und
+he says, "Nefer mind, Katrina, to-night ve goes somevhere else to
+churches." So ven de night vas come und de lamps vos all lighted mit de
+shtreets, me und mein brudder-mit-law, ve goes over to dot Brooklyn town to
+hear dot Heinrich Vard Peecher.</p>
+
+<p>My but dot vos ein grosse church, und so many beobles vas dere, ve vas
+crowded mit de vall back. Ven de singing vas all done, a man vot vos
+sitting mit a leetle chair got oup und say dot de Rev. Heinrich Vard
+Peecher vas to de Vhite Mountains gone mit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> dot hay fever, but dot de
+bulbit vould be occupied on this occasion by de Rev. Villiam R. Shtover mit
+Leavenworth, Kansas. Und dot Villiam R. Shtover he gots mit dot bulbit oup
+und breaches dot same sermon mit dot same dext, "Und Simon's vife's mudder
+lay sick mit a fever."</p>
+
+<p>Dot vos too bad again und I gets mad. I vos so mad I vish dot he got dot
+fever himself.</p>
+
+<p>Vell, von dot man vas troo Yawcup says to me, "Come, Katrina, ve'll go down
+to dot ferry und take de boat vot goes to New York!" Ven ve vas on dot boat
+de fog vas so tick dot you couldn't see your hands pehind your pack. De
+vistles vas plowing, und dem pells vos ringing, und von man shtepped up mit
+Yawcup und say "Vot vor dem pells pe ringing so mooch?"</p>
+
+<p>Und ven I looked around dere shtood dot Villiam R. Shtover mit Leavenworth,
+Kansas&mdash;und I said pooty quick: "Vot vor dem pells vas ringing? Vy for
+Simon's vife's mudder, vot must be died, for I hear dree times to-day
+already dot she vas sick mit ein fever."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE RABBI AND THE PRINCE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+<h4><i>Versified from the Talmud.</i></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A monarch sat in serious thought, alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But little reck'd he of his robe and throne;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Naught valuing the glory of control,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sought to solve the future of his soul.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Why should I bow the proud, imperious knee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To mighty powers no mortal eye can see?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So mused he long and turned this question o'er,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, with impatient tread, he paced the floor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till maddened by conflicting trains of thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And speculation vague, which came to naught,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With feverish haste he clutched a tasseled cord<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As desperate hands, in battle, clutch a sword.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Summon Jehoshua," the monarch cried.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The white-haired Rabbi soon was at his side.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*....*....*....*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I bow no more to powers I cannot see;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy faith and learning shall be naught to me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unless, before the setting of the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mine eyes behold the uncreated one."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*....*....*....*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Rabbi led him to the open air.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The oriental sun with furious glare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sent down its rays, like beams of molten gold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The aged teacher, pointing, said: "Behold."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I cannot," said the Prince, "my dazzled eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Refuse their service, turned upon the skies."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*....*....*....*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Son of the dust," the Rabbi gently said<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bowed, with reverence, his hoary head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"This one creation, thou canst not behold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though by thy lofty state and pride made bold.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How canst thou then behold the God of Light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before whose face the sunbeams are as night?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thine eyes before this trifling labor fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Canst gaze on him who hath created all?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Son of the dust, repentance can atone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Return and worship God, who rules alone."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE MAID OF ORLEANS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY J. E. SAGEBEER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was just at the dawn of day, when the first rays of morning were
+breaking over Europe and dispelling the darkness of the Middle Ages. France
+and England were engaged in a desperate struggle, the one for existence,
+the other for a throne. All the western part of France had avowed the
+English cause, and the English king had been proclaimed at Paris, at Rouen
+and at Bordeaux, while the strongly fortified city of Orleans, the key to
+the French possessions, was besieged. The thunder and lightning of the
+battlefield are bad enough, but the starvation and pestilence of a besieged
+city are infinitely worse. The supplies of Orleans were exhausted; the
+garrison was reduced to a few desperate men, and the women and children had
+been abandoned to the English. But far away on the border of Germany, in
+the little village of Domremy, the Nazareth of France, God was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> raising up
+a deliverer for Orleans, a savior for the nation.</p>
+
+<p>The out-door life of a peasant girl had given to Joan of Arc a
+well-developed form, while the beauties of her soul and the spiritual
+tendencies of her nature must have given to her face that womanly beauty
+that never fails to win respect and love. Her standard was a banner of
+snowy silk; her weapon a sword, that from the day she first drew it from
+its scabbard until she finally laid it down upon the grave of St. Denis,
+was never stained with blood; and her inspiration was a self-sacrificing
+devotion to the will of God, to the rights of France and her king. Without
+a single opposing shot she passed under the very battlements of the
+besieging English, and entered Orleans with soldiers for empty forts and
+food for starving people.</p>
+
+<p>It needed no eloquent speech to incite the men of Orleans to deeds of valor
+and of vengeance. The ruins of their homes choked the streets; the
+desolated city was one open sepulchre, while the cries of half-starved
+children and the wails of heartbroken mothers, stirred them to such a mad
+frenzy of enthusiasm, that now, since a leader had come, they would have
+rushed headlong and thoughtlessly against the English forts as into a trap
+of death.</p>
+
+<p>And now the attack was planned and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> lines were formed; and then as the
+crumbling walls of the city echoed back the wild shouts of the Orleanites,
+the maid of Domremy, waving her sword aloft and followed by her snowy
+banner, led her Frenchmen on to slaughter and to victory. Then from the
+English archers came flight after flight of swift-winged arrows, while the
+wild catapults threw clouds of death-laden stones crashing among the
+French. Broadsword and battle-axe clashed on shield and helmet, while the
+wild horses, mad with rage and pain, rushed with fierce yells upon the foe;
+but ever above the din and noise of battle, above death shouts and saber
+strokes, though the dust and smoke obscured her banner, ever could be heard
+the clear, ringing voice of their leader, shouting for victory and for
+France. An arrow pierced her bosom, but drawing it out with her own hand
+and throwing it aside, she showed the French her blood-stained corselet,
+and once more urged them on. As when the Archangel Michael, leading the
+heavenly cohorts, forced the rebellious angels to the very brink of hell,
+then hurled them over and so saved the throne of heaven, so did the maid of
+Orleans, leading on frenzied Frenchmen, press back the English step by
+step, and slaughtered rank by rank, till the whole army turned and fled,
+and Orleans was free and France was safe.</p>
+
+<p>And now her work was done. Would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> that some kindly voice had bade her now
+go home to tend the sheep and roll their white wool on her distaff! But she
+who had raised the siege of Orleans and led the way to Rheims, could not
+escape a jealous fate. The Duke of Burgundy had laid siege to Compiegne.
+Joan of Arc went to the rescue and was repulsed, and while bravely fighting
+in the rear of her retreating troops, fell prisoner to the recreant French
+and was sold by them to the English. For one long year she languished in
+her prison tower. Her keepers insulted her and called her a witch; and when
+in desperation she sprang from the tower and was taken up insensible, they
+loaded her poor body with chains, and two guards stayed in her cell day and
+night.</p>
+
+<p>Her trial came, but her doom was already sealed. The Bishop of Beauvais,
+with a hundred doctors of theology, were her judges. Without a particle of
+evidence against her, they convicted her of sorcery and sentenced her to be
+burnt at the stake. A howl of fiendish joy went up from the blood-thirsty
+court of Paris,&mdash;a howl of fiendish joy that made its way to every
+battlefield where she had fought; it rang against the rescued walls of
+Orleans and was echoed to the royal court at Rheims; it reached to the
+bottomless pit and made the imps of Satan dance with glee; it echoed
+through the halls of heaven and made the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> angels weep; but there was no
+rescuer for the helpless girl. Even the gladiator, forced into the fight,
+against his will, when fallen in the arena, his sword broken and the
+enemy's knee upon his breast, might yet hope for "thumbs down," and mercy
+from the hard-hearted Roman spectators. But not a single hand was raised to
+save the maid of Domremy, the saviour of Orleans.</p>
+
+<p>Had she not faithfully done her work? Had she not bled for them? Had she
+not saved the kingdom? And in all chivalrous France was there not a
+champion to take up the gauntlet in defence of a helpless girl? When she
+led their armies, their spears blazed in heaven's sunlight; now they would
+quench them in her blood. With scarcely time to think of death, she was
+hurried away to the public square and chained to the stake, and when the
+fagots were fired, more painful than the circling flames, she heard the
+mocking laugh of the angry crowd. Higher and higher rose the flames, until,
+pressing the cross to her heart, her unconscious head sank upon her bosom,
+and her pure spirit went up amid the smoke and soared away to heaven.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+<h2>GENTLE ALICE BROWN.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY W. S. GILBERT.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[This is one of the Bab-Ballads, on which the very
+successful comic opera "Pinafore" was founded.]</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It was a robber's daughter, and her name was Alice Brown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But it isn't of her parents that I'm going for to sing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As Alice was a sitting at her window-sill one day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She cast her eyes upon, and he looked so good and true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That she thought: "I could be happy with a gentleman like you!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sorter in the Custom-house, it was his daily road<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(The Custom-house was fifteen minutes' walk from her abode).<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But Alice was a pious girl, who knew it wasn't wise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, holy father," Alice said, "'twould grieve you, would it not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To discover that I was a most disreputable lot?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all unhappy sinners I'm the most unhappy one!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The padre said: "Whatever have you been and gone and done?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I have helped mamma to steal a little kiddy from its dad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I've assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I've planned a little burglary and forged a little check,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The worthy pastor heaved a sigh, and dropped a silent tear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And said: "You mustn't judge yourself too heavily, my dear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It's wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But sins like these one expiates at half a crown apiece.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Girls will be girls&mdash;you're very young, and flighty in your mind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We mustn't be too hard upon these little girlish tricks&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let's see&mdash;five crimes at half-a-crown&mdash;exactly twelve-and-six."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, father!" little Alice cried, "your kindness makes me weep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You do these little things for me so singularly cheap&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, oh! there is another crime I haven't mentioned yet!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A pleasant looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I've noticed at my window, as I've sat acatching flies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He passes by it every day as certain as can be&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I blush to say I've winked at him, and he has winked at me!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For shame!" said father Paul, "my erring daughter! On my word<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"This dreadful piece of news will pain your worthy parent so!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are the most remunerative customers I know;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For many, many years they've kept starvation from my doors;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I never knew so criminal a family as yours!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The common country folk in this insipid neighborhood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have nothing to confess, they're so ridiculously good;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if you marry any one respectable at all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why, you'll reform, and what will then become of Father Paul?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The worthy priest, he up and drew his cowl upon his crown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And started off in haste to tell the news to Robber Brown&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To tell him how his daughter, who was now for marriage fit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Good Robber Brown he muffled up his anger pretty well;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He said: "I have a notion, and that notion I will tell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I've studied human nature, and I know a thing or two:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He traced that gallant sorter to a still suburban square;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He watched his opportunity, and seized him unaware;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He took a life-preserver and he hit him on the head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And pretty little Alice grew more settled in her mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She never more was guilty of a weakness of the kind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until at length good Robber Brown bestowed her pretty hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+<h2>YOUNG AMERICA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The central figure was a bareheaded woman with a broom in her hand. She
+stood on the back step, and was crying:</p>
+
+<p>"George!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no response, but anybody who had been on the other side of the
+close-boarded fence at the foot of the garden might have observed two boys
+intently engaged in building a mud pie.</p>
+
+<p>"That's your mother hollerin' Georgie," said one of the two, placing his
+eye to a knothole and glancing through to the stoop.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't you going in?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Georgie!" came another call, short and sharp; "do you hear me?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is she now?" inquired Georgie, putting in the filling of the pie.</p>
+
+<p>"On the stoop," replied his friend at the knothole.</p>
+
+<p>"What's she doin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't doin' nothin'."</p>
+
+<p>"George Augustus!"</p>
+
+<p>Still no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't think you can hide from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> me, young man, for I can see you, and
+if you don't come in here at once, I'll come out there in a way that you'll
+know it."</p>
+
+<p>Now this was an eminently natural statement, but hardly plausible as her
+eyes would have had to pierce an inch board fence to see Georgie; and even
+were this possible, it would have required a glance in that special
+direction, and not over the top of a pear tree in an almost opposite way.
+Even the boy at the knothole could hardly repress a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"What's she doin' now?" inquired Georgie.</p>
+
+<p>"She stands there yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't speak to you again, George Augustus," came the voice. "Your father
+will be home in a few minutes, and I shall tell him all about what you have
+done."</p>
+
+<p>Still no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't you afraid?" asked the conscientious young man, drawing his eye from
+the knothole to rest it.</p>
+
+<p>"No! she won't tell pa; she never does, she only says it to scare me."</p>
+
+<p>Thus enlightened and reassured, the guard covered the knothole again.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't you acoming in here, young man?" again demanded the woman, "or do
+you want me to come out there to you with a stick? I won't speak to you
+again, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is she comin'?" asked the baker.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Which way is she lookin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's lookin' over in the other yard."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear me, I say?" came the call again.</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"George Augustus! do you hear your mother?"</p>
+
+<p>Still no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you just wait, young man, till your father comes home, and he'll make
+you hear, I'll warrant ye."</p>
+
+<p>"She's gone in now," announced the faithful sentinel, withdrawing from his
+post.</p>
+
+<p>"All right! take hold of this crust and pull it down on that side, and
+that'll be another pie done," said the remorse-stricken George Augustus.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SHWATE KITTIE KEHOE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">Shwate Kittie Kehoe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Can ye tell, I do' know.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Phwat the mischief's about ye that bothers me so?<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">For there's that in yer eye.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">That I wish I may die<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If it doesn't pursue me wherever I go.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24">Och hone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i28">Shwate Kitty Kehoe.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">It's a livin' disgrace<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">That yer shwate purty face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should be dhrivin' me sinses all over the place!<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">I go this way an' that,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Loike a man fur a hat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wid the wind up an alley-way, runnin' a race.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24">Och hone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i28">Shwate Kittie Kehoe.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">Oh! Faith, but I'm sad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Fur to know that I'm mad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That only intinsifies all that is bad;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">But phwat can I do,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Whin a shwate smile from you<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turns everythin' rosy and makes me sowl glad?<br /></span>
+<span class="i24">Och hone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i28">Shwate Kittie Kehoe.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">Shwate Kittie Kehoe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">I beg of ye, go<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the outermost inds of the earth, I do' know;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">If ye'll only do this,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Jist lave me wan kiss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' I'll die whin yer sthartin', Shwate Kittie Kehoe.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24">Och hone! Och hone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i28">Shwate Kittie Kehoe.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE COUNTRY'S GREATEST EVIL.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[A short speech by Vice-President Henry Wilson,
+delivered at the National Temperance Convention, in
+Chicago, June, 1875.]</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Forty years of experience and observation have taught me that the greatest
+evil of our country, next, at any rate, to the one that has gone down in
+fire and blood to rise no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> more, is the evil of intemperance. Every day's
+experience, every hour of reflection, teaches me that it is the duty of
+patriotism, the duty of humanity, the duty of Christianity, to live
+Christian lives, and to exert temperance influence among the people.</p>
+
+<p>There was a time, when I was younger than I am now, when I hoped to live
+long enough to see the cause which my heart loves and my judgment approves
+stronger than it is to-day. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that the
+present is a rather dark and troubled night for that cause, and it is
+because it so seems to me that I believe it to be the duty of every honest,
+conscientious, self-sacrificing man of our country to speak and to work for
+the cause in every legitimate and proper way. And my reliance for the
+advancement of the cause of temperance is the same reliance which I have
+for the spread of the Gospel of our Divine Lord and Master.</p>
+
+<p>The heart, the conscience and the reason must be appealed to continually;
+and Christian men and women must remember that the heart of Christianity is
+temperance. If it costs a sacrifice, give it. What is sacrifice to doing
+good and lifting toward heaven our fellow-men? We have got to rely on
+appeals and addresses made to the heart of this nation, to the conscience
+of the people and the reason of the country. We have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> got to train up our
+children in the cause from infancy. We must teach it in the schools and
+everywhere by word, and above all by example; and it seems to me that
+Christian ministers, in this dark hour of our country, when they see so
+much intemperance, and what looks to some of us like a reaction, should
+make the voice of the pulpits of this land heard.</p>
+
+<p>Members of Christian churches should remember that they have something to
+do in this cause. If anything stands in the way of Christianity it is the
+drunkenness in our land. A word for temperance at this time is the
+strongest blow against the kingdom of Satan and for the cause of our Lord
+and Master.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose you have been disappointed. Suppose that many of your laws have
+failed. We know that we are right. We personally feel and see it. The
+evidence is around and about us that we cannot be mistaken in living total
+abstinence lives and recommending such a course to our neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>When it costs something to stand by the temperance cause, then is the hour
+to stand by it. If I could be heard to-day by the people of the land, by
+the patriotic young men of this country, full of life, vigor and hope, I
+would say that it is among the first, the highest, and the grandest duties,
+which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> the country, God, and the love of humanity impose, to work for the
+cause of <i>total abstinence</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>I WONDER.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wonder if, under the grass-grown sod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The weary human heart finds rest!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If the soul, with its woes, when it flies to God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Leaves all its pain, in the earth's cold breast!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or whether we feel, as we do to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That joy holds sorrow in hand, alway.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wonder if, after the kiss of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The love that was sweet, in days of yore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Departs with the last, faint, fleeting breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or deeper grows than ever before!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wonder if, there in the great Unknown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fond hearts grow weary when left alone!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I think of the daily life I lead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Its broken dreams and its fitful starts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hopeless hunger, the heart's sore need,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The joy that gladdens, the wrong that parts,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wonder whether the coming years<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will bring contentment, or toil and tears.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+<h2>SPEECH OF PATRICK HENRY.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[Delivered before the Convention of Delegates of
+Virginia, March 23, 1775.]</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Mr. President: It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We
+are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of
+that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise
+men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed
+to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears,
+hear not, the things which so nearly concern our temporal salvation? For my
+part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the
+whole truth,&mdash;to know the worst, and to provide for it!</p>
+
+<p>I have but one lamp, by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of
+experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And,
+judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of
+the British ministry, for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with
+which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House? Is it
+that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
+Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet! Suffer not
+yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss! Ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> yourselves how this gracious
+reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which
+cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a
+work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be
+reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love?</p>
+
+<p>Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and
+subjugation,&mdash;the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen,
+sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to
+submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has
+Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this
+accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant
+for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and
+rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long
+forging. And what have we to oppose to them?&mdash;Shall we try argument? Sir,
+we have been trying that, for the last ten years. Have we anything new to
+offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light
+of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we
+find which have not already been exhausted?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> Let us not, I beseech you,
+sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done every thing that could be
+done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we
+have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before
+the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical
+hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted, our
+remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult, our
+supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned, with
+contempt, from the foot of the throne.</p>
+
+<p>In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
+reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be
+free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for
+which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the
+noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have
+pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest
+shall be obtained,&mdash;we must fight; I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An
+appeal to arms, and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left us!</p>
+
+<p>They tell us, sir, that we are weak,&mdash;unable to cope with so formidable an
+adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the
+next year?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British
+guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by
+irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual
+resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom
+of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are
+not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature
+hath placed in our power.</p>
+
+<p>Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a
+country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our
+enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles
+alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and
+who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is
+not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
+Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it
+is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in
+submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard
+on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat
+it, sir, let it come!</p>
+
+<p>It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry: Peace,
+peace!&mdash;but there is no peace. The war is actually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> begun! The next gale
+that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding
+arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What
+is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace
+so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
+Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give
+me liberty, or give me death!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MUTATION.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Upon the shores of No-man's-land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I met an angel, one whose wings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shed beams of light on either hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As radiant as the sunrise brings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And happy souls, with eager tread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Passed up and down the sandy slope;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Oh, tell me your fair name!" I said;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She turned and smiled, and answered: "Hope."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Along the shores of No-man's-land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The angel walked, with folded wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shadows fell on every hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The burden that the night-wind brings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With head turned backward, sad and slow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She paced the sands, her eyelids wet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Hope mourns," I said, and soft and low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The angel sighed: "I am Regret."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+<h2>SIX LOVE LETTERS</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Are there any more of those letters?"</p>
+
+<p>When her father asked this question in an awful tone, Lucilla Richmond
+could not say No, and dared not say Yes, but as an intermediate course
+burst into tears and sobbed behind her handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring them to me, Lucilla," said her father, as if she had answered him,
+as indeed she had; and the girl, trembling and weeping, arose to obey him.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mrs. Richmond, her daughter's own self grown older, came behind her
+husband's chair and patted him on the shoulder. "Please don't be hard with
+her, my dear," she said, coaxingly. "He's a nice young man, and it's all
+our fault, after all, as much as hers."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you approve of the whole affair, ma'am," said Mr. Richmond.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;no&mdash;that is I only&mdash;" gasped the little woman; and hearing Lucilla
+coming, she sank into a chair, blaming herself dreadfully for not having
+been present at all her daughter's music lessons during the past year.</p>
+
+<p>"It was inexcusable in a poor music teacher, who should have known his
+place," Mr. Richmond declared; and he clutched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> the little perfumed billet
+which had fallen into his hands, as he might a scorpion, and waited for the
+others with a look upon his face which told of no softening. At last six
+little white envelopes, tied together with blue ribbons, were laid at his
+elbow by his trembling daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Lock these up until I return home this evening," he said to his wife; "I
+will read them then. Meanwhile Lucilla is not to see this music teacher on
+any pretence whatever."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Richmond put on his hat and departed, and Lucilla and her mother took
+the opportunity of falling into each other's arms.</p>
+
+<p>"It is so naughty of you," said Mrs. Richmond. "But oh, dear, I can't blame
+you. It was exactly so with your father, and my father objected because of
+his poverty. He used to be very romantic himself in those old times. Such
+letters as he wrote to me. I have them in my desk yet. He said he'd die if
+I refused him."</p>
+
+<p>"So does Fred," said Lucilla.</p>
+
+<p>"And that life would be worthless without me, and about my being
+beautiful,&mdash;I'm sure he ought to sympathize a little," said Mrs. Richmond.</p>
+
+<p>She went into her own room to put the letters into her desk; and as she
+placed them into one of the pigeon holes, she saw in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> another a bundle,
+tied exactly as these were, and drew them out. These letters were to a
+Lucilla also, one who had received them twenty years before. A strange idea
+came into Mrs. Richmond's mind.</p>
+
+<p>When she left the desk she looked guilty and frightened. The dinner hour
+arrived, and with it came her husband, angered and more determined than
+ever. The meal was passed in silence; then, having adjourned to the parlor,
+Mr. Richmond seated himself in a great arm-chair, and demanded, in a voice
+of thunder: "Those absurd letters, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>"Six letters&mdash;six shameful pieces of deception, Lucilla," said the
+indignant parent. "I am shocked that a child of mine should practice such
+duplicity. Hem! let me see. Number one, I believe. June, and this is
+December. Half a year you have deceived us then, Lucilla. Let me see&mdash;ah!
+'From the first moment I adored you,' bah! Nonsense. People don't fall in
+love in that absurd manner. 'With your smiles for a goal, I would win both
+fame and fortune, poor as I am!' Fiddlesticks, Lucilla. A man who has
+common sense would always wait until he had a fair commencement before he
+proposed to a girl. Praising your beauty, eh? 'The loveliest creature I
+ever saw!' Exaggeration, my dear. You are not plain, but such flattery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> is
+absurd. 'Must hear from you or die!' Dear, dear, dear&mdash;how absurd!" And Mr.
+Richmond dropped the first letter and picked another. "The same stuff," he
+commented. "I hope you do not believe a word he says. Ah! now in number
+three he calls you 'an angel!' He's romantic, upon my soul! And what is
+this? 'Those who forbid me to see you can find no fault with me but my
+poverty. I am honest&mdash;I am earnest in my efforts. I am by birth a
+gentleman, and I love you from the depths of my soul. Do not let them sell
+you for gold, Lucilla.' Great heavens, what impertinence to your parents!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember Fred saying anything of that kind," said poor little
+Lucilla. "He never knew you would object."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Richmond shook his head, frowned and then read on until the last sheet
+lay under his hand. Then with an ejaculation of rage, he sprang to his
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Infamous!" he cried! "I'll go to him this instant&mdash;I'll horsewhip him,
+I'll&mdash;I'll murder him! As for you, by Jove, I'll send you to a convent.
+Elope&mdash;elope with a music teacher! Here, John, call a cab, I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, papa! you are crazy!" said Lucilla. "Frederick never proposed such a
+thing. Let me see the letter. Oh, that is not Fred's&mdash;upon my word it is
+not. Do look, papa,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> it is dated twenty years back, and Frederick's name is
+not Charles! Papa, these are your letters to mamma, written long ago.
+Mother's name is Lucilla, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Richmond sat down in his arm-chair in silence, very red in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"How did this occur?" he said, sternly; and little Mrs. Richmond,
+retreating into a corner, with her handkerchief to her eyes, sobbed:</p>
+
+<p>"I did it on purpose! You know, Charles, it's so long ago, and I thought
+you might not exactly remember how you fell in love with me at first sight;
+how papa and mamma objected, and how, at last, we ran away together; and it
+seemed to me if we could bring it back all plainly to you as it was then,
+we might let Lucilla marry the man she loves, who is good, if he is not
+rich. I do not need to be brought back any plainer myself; women have more
+time to remember, you know. And we've been very happy&mdash;have we not?"</p>
+
+<p>And certainly Mr. Richmond could not deny that. The little ruse was
+favorable to the young music teacher, who had really only been sentimental,
+and had not gone one half so far as an elopement; and in due course of time
+the two were married with all the pomp and grandeur befitting the nuptials
+of a wealthy merchant's daughter, with the perfect approbation of Lucilla's
+father.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A ROMAN LEGEND.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hour by hour, with skillful pencil, wrought the artist, sad and lone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Day by day, he labored nobly, though to all the world unknown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was brave, the youthful artist, but his soul grew weak and faint,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he strove to place before him, the fair features of a saint;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Worn and weary, he strove vainly, for the touch of Heavenly grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till, one day, a radiant sunbeam fell upon the up-turned face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the very air was flooded with a presence strangely sweet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the soul, within the sunbeam, seemed to make the work complete;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swift as thought the artist's pencil deftly touched the features fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Night came down, but one bright sunbeam left its soul imprisoned there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And around his dingy garret gazed the artist, wondering,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the work sublime illumed it like the palace of a king;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And within the artist nature flamed his first fond love divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which bewildered all his senses, as with rare, old, ruby wine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yearningly, he cried: "I love thee," to the radiant saintly face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the never-ceasing answer was a look of Heavenly grace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out into the world he wandered, questioning, searching everywhere,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And the stars above, full often, heard his soul burst forth in prayer:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"God in Heaven, in mercy, hear me! Hear thy suppliant's pleading cry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lead, oh lead! my footsteps to her. Grant but this, or let me die."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Friends forsook and want pursued him, still he struggled on alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till, at last, outworn and trembling, reason tottered on its throne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he seemed the helpless plaything of some mad, relentless fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the Sisterhood of Mercy found him lying at their gate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made him welcome, gave him shelter and with ever-patient care<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bathed his brow and brushed the tangled, matted tresses of his hair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long he lingered on the borders of the holy-land of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One fair Sister, by his bedside, counting low each fluttering breath.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Softly fell the evening shadows, shutting out the golden glow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of a gorgeous, lingering sunset, gilding all the earth below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When, upon his pillow turning, swift came to him hope's bright gleams,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the anxious face above him was the loved one of his dreams.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But her life was one of mercy, and the band across her brow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave the spotless testimony of a maiden's holy vow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Is this Heaven? Are you an angel?" swift he questioned her, the while<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She smoothed back his wavy tresses, only answering with a smile;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Tell me truly, couldst thou love me, since thou wouldst not let me die?"<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">But she pointed to the band about her brow and breathed a sigh.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In her hours of patient watching, she had learned the bitter truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the Sisterhood of Mercy has its anguish and its ruth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nevermore she came, well-knowing, from temptation se must fly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For his eager, tender questions in her heart had found reply.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Every morning he would question: "Will she come to me to-day?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the tender, truthful Sisters shook their heads and turned away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For adown his classic features passed the shadow of his pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he closed his eyes and murmured: "She will never come again."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In his dreams, one night, he fancied she had bent above his bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his loving arms reached upward, but the vision sweet had fled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hopeless, in his great heart-hunger, through a storm of wind and rain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To his picture turned the artist, bowing low with grief and pain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Open wide he threw the shutters of his garret casement high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heeding not the vivid lightning, as it flashed athwart the sky.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On his lowly couch reclining, soon in weariness he slept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the storm clouds o'er him thundering, long and loud their vigils kept.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wilder grew the night and fiercer blew the winds, until at last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a bird of prey or demon, through the shattered casement, passed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old shutter, rending, tearing every wondrous touch and trace<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the artist's patient labor, from the radiant, saintly face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the jagged bands of lightning, as they flashed along the floor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lit the crushed and crumpled canvas, worthless now forevermore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the artist, slowly rising, groped his way across the room,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feeling, knowing he had lost her, though enshrouded in the gloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then besought his couch and murmured: "It is well, God knoweth best."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the sunbeams of the morning found a weary soul&mdash;at rest.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>A FRIEND OF THE FLY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>With a fly-screen under one arm and a bundle of sticky fly-paper under the
+other, an honest agent entered a grocery store one day in the summer and
+said: "Why don't you keep 'em out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who vash dot?" asked the grocery-man.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the pesky flies. You've got 'em by the thousand in here, and the fly
+season has only begun. Shall I put fly-screens in the doors?"</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"To keep the flies out."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I keep der flies oudt? Flies like some shance to go aroundt und
+see der city de same ash agents. If a fly ish kept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> out on der street all
+der time he might ash vhell be a horse."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but they are a great nuisance. I'll put you up a screen door there
+for three dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Not any for me. If a fly vhants to come in here, und he behaves himself in
+a respectable manner, I have notings to say. If he don't behave, I bounce
+him oudt pooty queek, und don't he forget her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, try this fly-paper. Every sheet will catch five hundred flies."</p>
+
+<p>"Who vhants to catch 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do&mdash;you&mdash;everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see it like dot. If I put dot fly-paper on der counter somebody
+comes along und wipes his nose mit it, or somebody leans his elbow on her
+und vhalks off mit him. It would be shust like my boy Shake to come in und
+lick all der molasses off, to play a shoke on his fadder."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, I'll put down a sheet, and if it doesn't catch twenty flies in five
+minutes I'll say no more."</p>
+
+<p>"If you catch twenty flies I have to pry 'em loose mit a stick und let 'em
+go, und dot vhas too much work. No, my agent friendt; flies must have a
+shance to get along und take some comfort. I vhas poor once myself, und I
+know all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you seven sheets for ten cents."</p>
+
+<p>"Oxactly, but I won't do it. It looks to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> me like shmall beesness for a big
+agent like you to go around mit some confidence games to shwindle flies. A
+fly vhas born to be a fly, und to come into my shtore ash often ash he
+likes. When he comes I shall treat him like a shentleman. I gif him a fair
+show. I don't keep an axe to knock him in der headt, und I don't put some
+molasses all oafer a sheet of paper und coax him to come und be all stuck
+up mit his feet till he can't fly away. You can pass along&mdash;I'm no such
+person like dot."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ANSWERED PRAYERS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I prayed for riches, and achieved success,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All that I touched turned into gold. Alas!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My cares were greater, and my peace was less<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When that wish came to pass.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I prayed for glory; and I heard my name<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sung by sweet children and by hoary men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ah! the hurts, the hurts that come with fame!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I was not happy then.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I prayed for love, and had my soul's desire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through quivering heart and body and through brain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There swept the flame of its devouring fire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And there the scars remain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I prayed for a contented mind. At length<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Great light upon my darkened spirit burst.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Great peace fell on me, also, and great strength.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh! had that prayer been first!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+<h2>GOD IN THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Not only because of the kindness of God to this nation in the past should
+such a reverential insertion be made, but because of the fact that we are
+going to want Divine interposition still further in our national history.
+This gold and silver question will never be settled until God settles it.
+This question of tariff and free trade will never be settled until God
+settles it. This question between the East and the West, which is getting
+hotter and hotter, and looks toward a Republic of the Pacific, will not be
+settled until God settles it. We needed God in the one hundred and twenty
+years of our past national life, and we will need Him still more in the
+next one hundred and twenty years. Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates
+of our glorious Constitution, and let the King of Glory come in! Make one
+line of that immortal document radiant with Omnipotence! Spell at least one
+word with Thrones! At the beginning, or at the close, or in the centre,
+recognize Him from whom as a nation we have received all the blessing of
+the past and upon whom we are dependent for the future.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> Print that one
+word "God," or "Lord," or "Eternal Father," or "Ruler of Nations,"
+somewhere between the first word and the last. The Great Expounder of the
+Constitution sleeps at Marshfield, Massachusetts, the Atlantic Ocean still
+humming near his pillow of dust its prolonged lullaby; but is there not
+some one now living, who, in the white marble palace of the nation on
+yonder hill, not ten minutes away, will become the Irradiator of the
+Constitution by causing to be added the most tremendous word of our English
+vocabulary, the name of that Being before whom all nations must bow or go
+into defeat and annihilation,&mdash;"God?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE ENCHANTED SHIRT.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JOHN HAY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The king was sick. His cheek was red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And his eye was clear and bright;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He ate and drank with a kingly zest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And peacefully snored at night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But he said he was sick&mdash;and a king should know;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And doctors came by the score;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They did not cure him. He cut off their heads,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sent to the schools for more.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">At last two famous doctors came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And one was poor as a rat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had passed his life in studious toil<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And never found time to grow fat.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The other had never looked in a book;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His patients gave him no trouble;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If they recovered, they paid him well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">If they died, their heirs paid double.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Together they looked at the royal tongue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As the king on his couch reclined;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In succession they thumped his august chest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But no trace of disease could find.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Hang him up!" roared the king, in a gale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a ten-knot gale of royal range;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The other grew a shadow pale;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thus his prescription ran:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The king will be well if he sleeps one night<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the shirt of a happy man."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And fast their horses ran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many they saw, and to many they spake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But they found no happy man.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They found poor men who would fain be rich,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And rich who thought they were poor;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And men who twisted their waists in stays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And women that short hose wore.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They saw two men by the roadside sit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And both bemoaned their lot;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For one had buried his wife he said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the other one had not.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">At last they came to a village gate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A beggar lay whistling there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He whistled and sang and laughed, and rolled<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On the grass in the soft June air.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The weary couriers paused and looked<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At the scamp so blithe and gay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yon seem to be happy to-day."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh yes, fair sirs," the rascal laughed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And his voice rang free and glad;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"An idle man has so much to do<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That he never has time to be sad."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"This is our man," the courier said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Our luck has led us aright.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I will give you a hundred ducats, friend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the loan of your shirt to-night."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The merry blackguard lay back on the grass<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And laughed till his face was black;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I would do it, God wot," and he roared with fun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"But I haven't a shirt to my back."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Each day to the king the reports came in<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of his unsuccessful spies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the sad panorama of human woes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Passed daily under his eyes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And he grew ashamed of his useless life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And his maladies hatched in gloom;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He opened the windows, and let in the air<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the free heaven into his room;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And out he went in the world, and toiled<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In his own appointed way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the people blessed him, the land was glad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the king was well and gay.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PRAYING FOR PAPA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>A man who had been walking for some time in the downward path, came out of
+his house and started down town for a night of carousal with some old
+companions he had promised to meet. His young wife had besought him with
+imploring eyes to spend the evening with her, and had reminded him of the
+time when evenings passed in her company were all too short. His little
+daughter had clung about his knees and coaxed in her pretty, wilful way for
+"papa" to tell her some bedtime stories, but habit was stronger than love
+for wife and child, and he eluded their tender questioning by the special
+sophistries the father of evil advances at such times from his credit fund,
+and went his way.</p>
+
+<p>But when he was a few blocks distant from his home, he found that in
+changing his coat he had forgotten to remove his wallet, and he could not
+go out on a drinking bout without money, even though he knew his family
+needed it, and his wife was economizing every day more and more in order to
+make up his deficits, and he hurried back and crept softly past the windows
+of the little house, in order that he might steal in and obtain it without
+running the gauntlet of either questions or caresses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But something stayed his feet; there was a fire in the grate within&mdash;for
+the night was chilly&mdash;and it lit up the little parlor and brought out in
+startling effects the pictures on the wall. But these were as nothing to
+the pictures on the hearth. There, in the soft glow of the fire-light knelt
+his child at the mother's feet, its small hands clasped in prayer, its fair
+head bowed; and as its rosy lips whispered each word with distinctness, the
+father listened, spell-bound to the spot:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Now I lay me down to sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I pray the Lord my soul to keep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If I should die before I wake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I pray the Lord my soul to take."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Sweet petition! The man himself, who stood there with bearded lips shut
+tightly together, had said that prayer once at his mother's knee. Where was
+that mother now? The sunset gates had long ago unbarred to let her through.
+But the child had not finished; he heard her say "God bless mamma, papa,
+and my ownself"&mdash;and there was a pause, and she lifted her troubled blue
+eyes to her mother's face.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless papa," prompted the mother, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless papa," lisped the little one.</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;please send papa home sober"&mdash;he could not hear the mother as she
+said this, but the child followed in a clear, inspired tone:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"God&mdash;bless&mdash;papa&mdash;and&mdash;please&mdash;send&mdash;him&mdash;home&mdash;sober. Amen."</p>
+
+<p>Mother and child sprang to their feet in alarm when the door opened so
+suddenly, but they were not afraid when they saw who it was, returned so
+soon. That night, when little Mamie was being tucked up in bed after such a
+romp with papa, she said in the sleepiest and most contented of voices:</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, God answers most as quick as the telegraph, doesn't he?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>BECALMED.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY SAMUEL, K. COWAN.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It was as calm as calm could be;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A death-still night in June;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A silver sail on a silver sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Under a silver moon.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not the least low air the still sea stirred;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But all on the dreaming deep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The white ship lay, like a white sea-bird,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With folded wings, asleep.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For a long, long month, not a breath of air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For a month, not a drop of rain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the gaunt crew watched in wild despair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With a fever in throat and brain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And they saw the shore, like a dim cloud, stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On the far horizon-sea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It was only a day's short sail to the land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the haven where they would be.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Too faint to row&mdash;no signal brought<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">An answer, far or nigh.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Father, have mercy; leave them not<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alone, on the deep, to die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the gaunt crew prayed on the decks above;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the women prayed below:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"One drop of rain, for Heaven's great love!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh, Heaven, for a breeze to blow!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But never a shower from the cloud would burst,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And never a breeze would come:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O God, to think that man can thirst<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And starve in sight of home!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But out to sea with the drifting tide<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The vessel drifted away&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the far-off shore, like the dim cloud, died;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the wild crew ceased to pray!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Like fiends they glared, with their eyes aglow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like beasts with hunger wild:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But a mother prayed, in the cabin below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By the bed of her little child.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It slept, and lo! in its sleep it smiled,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A babe of summers three:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"O Father, save my little child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whatever comes to me!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Calm gleamed the sea, calm gleamed the sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No cloud&mdash;no sail in view;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they cast them lots, for who should die<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To feed the starving crew!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Like beasts they glared, with hunger wild,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And their red-glazed eyes aglow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the death-lot fell on the little child<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That slept in the cabin below!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the mother shrieked in wild despair:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"O God, my child&mdash;my son.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They will take his life, it is hard to bear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yet, Father, Thy will be done."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And she waked the child from its happy sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And she kneeled by the cradle bed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"We thirst, my child, on the lonely deep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We are dying, my child, for bread.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"On the lone, lone sea no sail&mdash;no breeze;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not a drop of rain in the sky;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We thirst&mdash;we starve&mdash;on the lonely seas;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thou, my child, must die!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She wept: what tears her wild soul shed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not I, but Heaven knows best.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the child rose up from its cradle bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And crossed its hands on its breast:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Father," he lisped, "so good, so kind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Have pity on mother's pain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For mother's sake, a little wind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Father, a little rain!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And she heard them shout for the child from the deck,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And she knelt on the cabin stairs:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The child!" they cry, "the child&mdash;stand back&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a curse on your idiot prayers!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the mother rose in her wild despair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And she bared her throat to the knife:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Strike&mdash;strike me&mdash;me; but spare, oh, spare<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My child, my dear son's life!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O God, it was a ghastly sight,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Red eyes, like flaming brands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a hundred belt-knives flashing bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the clutch of skeleton hands!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Me&mdash;me&mdash;strike&mdash;strike, ye fiends of death!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But soft&mdash;through the ghastly air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose falling tear was that? whose breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Waves through the mother's hair?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A flutter of sail&mdash;a ripple of seas&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A speck on the cabin pane;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O God; it's a breeze&mdash;a breeze&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a drop of blessed rain!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the mother rushed to the cabin below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And she wept on the babe's bright hair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The sweet rain falls the sweet winds blow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Father has heard thy prayer!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bu the child had fallen asleep again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And lo! in its sleep it smiled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Thank God," she cried, "for His wind and His rain!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thank God, for my little child!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>IN THE BOTTOM DRAWER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I saw wife pull out the bottom drawer of the old family bureau this
+evening, and went softly out, and wandered up and down, until I knew that
+she had shut it up and gone to her sewing. We have some things laid away in
+that drawer which the gold of kings could not buy, and yet they are relics
+which grieve us until both our hearts are sore. I haven't dared look at
+them for a year, but I remember each article.</p>
+
+<p>There are two worn shoes, a little chip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> hat with part of the brim gone,
+some stockings, pants, a coat, two or three spools, bits of broken
+crockery, a whip and several toys. Wife&mdash;poor thing&mdash;goes to that drawer
+every day of her life, and prays over it, and lets her tears fall upon the
+precious articles; but I dare not go.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we speak of little Jack, but not often. It has been a long time,
+but somehow we can't get over grieving. He was such a burst of sunshine
+into our lives that his going away has been like covering our every-day
+existence with a pall. Sometimes, when we sit alone of an evening, I
+writing and she sewing, a child on the street will call out as our boy used
+to, and we will both start up with beating hearts and a wild hope, only to
+find the darkness more of a burden than ever.</p>
+
+<p>It is so still and quiet now. I look up at the window where his blue eyes
+used to sparkle at my coming, but he is not there. I listen for his
+pattering feet, his merry shout, and his ringing laugh; but there is no
+sound. There is no one to climb over my knees, no one to search my pockets
+and tease for presents: and I never find the chairs turned over, the broom
+down, or ropes tied to the door-knobs.</p>
+
+<p>I want some one to tease me for my knife; to ride on my shoulder; to lose
+my axe; to follow me to the gate when I go, and be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> there to meet me when I
+come; to call "good-night" from the little bed, now empty. And wife, she
+misses him still more; there are no little feet to wash, no prayers to say;
+no voice teasing for lumps of sugar, or sobbing with the pain of a hurt
+toe; and she would give her own life, almost, to awake at midnight, and
+look across to the crib and see our boy there as he used to be.</p>
+
+<p>So we preserve our relics; and when we are dead we hope that strangers will
+handle them tenderly, even if they shed no tears over them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>EMULATION (UP TO DATE).</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"He who would thrive must rise at five,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The old folks used to say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And so, of course, to thrive the more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tis better still to rise at four,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And make a longer day.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Still smarter he who wakes at three,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And hurries out of bed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he who would this man outdo<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must rise when clocks are striking two,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To earn his daily bread.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To rise and run at stroke of one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Advantage still may keep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he who would them all forestall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must never go to bed at all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And die for lack of sleep.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+<h2>DESTINY OF OUR COUNTRY.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY R. C. WINTHROP.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Here, then, sir, I bring these remarks to a close. I have explained, to the
+best of my ability, the views which I entertain of the great questions of
+the day. Those views may be misrepresented hereafter, as they have been
+heretofore; but they cannot be misunderstood by any one who desires, or who
+is even willing, to understand them.</p>
+
+<p>Most gladly would I have found myself agreeing more entirely with some of
+the friends whom I see around me, and with more than one of those
+elsewhere, with whom I have always been proud to be associated, and whose
+lead, on almost all occasions, I have rejoiced to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Our tie, however, I am persuaded, still remains to us all&mdash;a common
+devotion to the Union of these States, and a common determination to
+sacrifice everything but principle to its preservation. Our
+responsibilities are indeed great. This vast republic, stretching from sea
+to sea, and rapidly outgrowing everything but our affections, looks
+anxiously to us, this day, to take care that it receives no detriment.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it too much to say, that the eyes and the hearts of the friends of
+constitutional freedom throughout the world are at this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> moment turned
+eagerly here,&mdash;more eagerly than ever before,&mdash;to behold an example of
+successful republican institutions, and to see them come out safely and
+triumphantly from the fiery trial to which they are now subjected!</p>
+
+<p>I have the firmest faith that these eyes and these hearts will not be
+disappointed. I have the strongest belief that the visions and phantoms of
+disunion which now appall us will soon be remembered only like the clouds
+of some April morning, or "the dissolving views" of some evening spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>I have the fullest conviction that this glorious republic is destined to
+outlast all, all, at either end of the Union, who may be plotting against
+its peace, or predicting its downfall.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Fond, impious man! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Raised by thy breath, can quench the orb of day?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To morrow, it repairs its golden flood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And warms the nations with redoubled ray!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Let us proceed in the settlement of the unfortunate controversies in which
+we find ourselves involved, in a spirit of mutual conciliation and
+concession:&mdash;let us invoke fervently upon our efforts the blessings of that
+Almighty Being who is "the author of peace and lover of concord:"&mdash;and we
+shall still find order springing out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> confusion, harmony evoked from
+discord, and peace, union and liberty, once more reassured to our land!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE WOMEN OF MUMBLES HEAD.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY CLEMENT SCOTT.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bring, novelist, your note-book! bring, dramatist, your pen!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I'll tell you a simple story of what women do for men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It's only a tale of a lifeboat, of the dying and the dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the terrible storm and shipwreck that happened off Mumbles Head!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maybe you have traveled in Wales, sir, and know it north and south;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maybe you are friends with the "natives" that dwell at Oystermouth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It happens, no doubt, that from Bristol you've crossed in a casual way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And have sailed your yacht in the summer in the blue of Swansea Bay.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Well! it isn't like that in the winter, when the lighthouse stands alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the teeth of Atlantic breakers that foam on its face of stone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It wasn't like that when the hurricane blew, and the storm-bell tolled, or when<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was news of a wreck, and the lifeboat launched, and a desperate cry for men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When in the world did the coxswain shirk? a brave old salt was he!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proud to the bone of as four strong lads as ever had tasted the sea,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Welshmen all to the lungs and loins, who, about that coast, 'twas said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had saved some hundred lives apiece&mdash;at a shilling or so a head!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So the father launched the lifeboat, in the teeth of the tempest's roar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he stood like a man at the rudder, with an eye on his boys at the oar.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out to the wreck went the father! out to the wreck went the sons!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leaving the weeping of women, and booming of signal guns;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leaving the mother who loved them, and the girls that the sailors love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Going to death for duty, and trusting to God above!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Do you murmur a prayer, my brothers, when cozy and safe in bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For men like these, who are ready to die for a wreck off Mumbles Head?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It didn't go well with the lifeboat! 'twas a terrible storm that blew!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And it snapped the rope in a second that was flung to the drowning crew;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then the anchor parted&mdash;'twas a tussle to keep afloat!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the father stuck to the rudder, and the boys to the brave old boat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then at last on the poor doomed lifeboat a wave broke mountains high!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"God help us now!" said the father. "It's over, my lads! Good-bye!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Half of the crew swam shoreward, half to the sheltered caves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But father and sons were fighting death in the foam of the angry waves.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up at a lighthouse window two women beheld the storm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And saw in the boiling breakers a figure,&mdash;a fighting form;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It might be a gray-haired father, then the women held their breath;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It might be a fair-haired brother, who was having a round with death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It might be a lover, a husband, whose kisses were on the lips<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the women whose love is the life of men going down to the sea in ships.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They had seen the launch of the lifeboat, they had seen the worst, and more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, kissing each other, these women went down from the lighthouse, straight to shore.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There by the rocks on the breakers these sisters, hand in hand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beheld once more that desperate man who struggled to reach the land.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twas only aid he wanted to help him across the wave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But what are a couple of women with only a man to save?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What are a couple of women? well, more than three craven men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who stood by the shore with chattering teeth, refusing to stir&mdash;and then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Off went the women's shawls, sir; in a second they're torn and rent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then knotting them into a rope of love, straight into the sea they went!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Come back!" cried the lighthouse-keeper, "For God's sake, girls, come back!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As they caught the waves on their foreheads, resisting the fierce attack.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">"Come back!" moaned the gray-haired mother, as she stood by the angry sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"If the waves take you, my darlings, there's nobody left to me!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Come back!" said the three strong soldiers, who still stood faint and pale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"You will drown if you face the breakers! you will fall if you brave the gale!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"<i>Come back!</i>" said the girls, "we will not! go tell it to all the town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll lose our lives, God willing, before that man shall drown!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Give one more knot to the shawls, Bess! give one strong clutch of your hand!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just follow me, brave, to the shingle, and we'll bring him safe to land!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wait for the next wave, darling! only a minute  more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I'll have him safe in my arms, dear, and we'll drag him to the shore."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up to the arms in the water, fighting it breast to breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They caught and saved a brother alive. God bless them! you know the rest&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Well, many a heart beat stronger, and many a tear was shed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And many a hearty cheer was raised for "The Women of Mumbles Head!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A REASONABLE REQUEST.</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. DARNELLE ASKS HIS FIANCEE A FAVOR, AFTER THEIR ENGAGEMENT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"It is so sudden, Mr. Darnelle."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is," responded the young man gently.</p>
+
+<p>He stood before her with his weight resting easily on one foot, his left
+elbow on the mantel-piece, his right arm behind him, and his whole attitude
+one of careless, unstudied ease and grace, acquired only by long and
+patient practice.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is," he repeated. "Measured by ordinary standards and by the
+cold conventionalities of society, it is indeed sudden. We have known each
+other only twenty-four hours. Until 8.25 o'clock last night neither of us
+had ever heard of the other. Yet with the heart one day is as one hundred
+years. Could we have known one another better, darling," he went on, with a
+tremor in his cultivated B flat baritone voice, "if we had attended the
+theatre, the concert, the church and the oyster parlor together for a dozen
+seasons? Does not your heart beat responsive to mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not pretend to deny, Mr. Darnelle," replied the young lady, with a
+rich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> blush mantling her cheek and brow, "that your avowal moves me
+strangely."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it&mdash;I feel it," he responded eagerly. "Love is not the slow,
+vegetable-like growth of years. It does not move in its course with the
+measured, leisurely step of a man working by the day. It springs up like a
+mushr&mdash;like an electric flash. It takes instant possession. It does not
+need to be jerked in, as it were. It needs not the agonized coaxing of&mdash;of
+a young man's first chin whiskers, my darling. It is here! You will forgive
+my presumption, will you not, and speak the words that tremble on your
+lips&mdash;the words that will fill my cup of joy to overflowing?"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The evening had passed like a beautiful dream. Mr. Darnelle, admonished by
+the clock that it was time to go, had risen reluctantly to his feet, and
+stood holding the hand of his beautiful betrothed.</p>
+
+<p>"My love," he said, in eager passionate accents, "now that you have blessed
+my life with a measureless, ineffable joy, and made all my future radiant
+with golden hope, you will not think I am asking too much if I plead for
+just one favor?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" shyly responded the lovely maiden.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you please tell me your first name?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+<h2>RESIGNATION.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is no flock, however watched and tended,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But one dead lamb is there!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no fireside howso'er defended,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But has one vacant chair!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The air is full of farewells to the dying;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And mournings for the dead;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heart of Rachel, for her children crying.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Will not be comforted!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let us be patient! These severe afflictions<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not from the ground arise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But oftentimes celestial benedictions<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Assume this dark disguise.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Amid these earthly damps<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">May be heaven's distant lamps.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is no Death! What seems so is transition;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This life of mortal breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is but a suburb of the life elysian,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose portal we call Death.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She is not dead,&mdash;the child of our affection,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But gone unto that school<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where she no longer needs our poor protection,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And Christ himself doth rule.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By guardian angels led,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She lives, whom we call dead.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Day after day we think what she is doing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In those bright realms of air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Behold her grown more fair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The bond which nature gives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">May reach her where she lives.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not as a child shall we again behold her;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For when with raptures wild<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In our embraces we again enfold her,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She will not be a child;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clothed with celestial grace;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beautiful with all the soul's expansion<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall we behold her face.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And though at times impetuous with emotion<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And anguish long suppressed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That cannot be at rest,&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We will be patient and assuage the feeling<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We may not wholly stay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By silence sanctifying, not concealing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The grief that must have way.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+<h2>AN AFFECTIONATE LETTER.</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Tipperary, Ireland, September the ten.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Nephew</span>:</p>
+
+<p>I have not heard anything of you sens the last time I wrote ye. I have
+moved from the place where I now live, or I should have written to you
+before. I did not know where a letter might find you first, but I now take
+my pen in hand to drop you a few lines, to inform you of the death of your
+own living uncle, Kilpatrick. He died very suddenly after a long illness of
+six months. Poor man, he suffered a great deal. He lay a long time in
+convulsions, perfectly quiet and speechless, and all the time talking
+incoherently and inquiring for water.</p>
+
+<p>I'm much at a loss to tell you what his death was occasioned by, but the
+doctor thinks it was caused by his last sickness, for he was not well ten
+days during his confinement.</p>
+
+<p>His age ye know jist as well as I can tell ye; he was 25 years old last
+March, lacking fifteen months; and if he had lived till this time he would
+be just six months dead.</p>
+
+<p>N. B. Take notis. I inclose to you a tin pound note, which ye father sends
+to ye unbeknown to me. Your mother often speaks of ye; she would like to
+send ye the brindle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> cow, and I would inclose her to ye but for the horns.</p>
+
+<p>I would beg of ye not to break the sale of this letter until two or three
+days after ye read it, for thin ye will be better prepared for the
+sorrowful news.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">Patrick O'Branigan.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>To Michael Glancy, No. &mdash; Broad Street, United States of Ameriky, State of
+Massachusetts, in Boston.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE WHISTLING REGIMENT.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[In the recitation which follows, the effect can be
+heightened by an accompaniment of the piano and by the
+whistling of strains from Annie Laurie, adapting the
+style to the sentiment of the verses.</p>
+
+<p>The melody should be played very softly, except where
+the battle is alluded to, and the whistling should be
+so timed that the last strain of Annie Laurie may end
+with the words, "would lay me down and die." The beat
+of the drums can be introduced with good effect, but it
+is better to omit it unless it can be done skilfully.
+It is well to state before reciting, that the escape
+described is not entirely imaginary as many prisoners
+made their way through underground passages from rebel
+prisons, during the Civil War. An asterisk (*) at the
+end of a line denotes where the whistling should
+commence, and a dagger (&#8224;) where it should
+cease.]</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When the North and South had parted, and the boom of the signal gun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had wakened the Northern heroes, for the great deeds to be done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the nation's cry for soldiers had echoed o'er hill and dale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When hot youth flushed with courage, while the mother's cheeks turned pale,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the woods of old New England, as the day sank down the west,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A loved one stood beside me, her brown head on my breast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the earliest hours of childhood our paths had been as one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her heart was in my keeping, though I knew not when 'twas won;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We had learned to love each other, in a half unspoken way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But it ripened to full completeness when the parting came, that day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not a tear in the eyes of azure, but a deep and fervent prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That seemed to say: "God bless you, and guard you, everywhere."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At the call for volunteers, her face was like drifted snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She read in my eyes a question and her loyal heart said, "Go."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the roll of the drums drew nearer, through the leaves of the rustling trees,*<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The strains of Annie Laurie were borne to us, on the breeze.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then I drew her pale face nearer and said: "Brave heart and true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your tender love and prayers shall bring me back to you."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I called her <i>my</i> Annie Laurie and whispered to her that I<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For her sweet sake was willing&mdash;to lay me down and die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I said: "Through the days of danger, that little song shall be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a pass word from this hillside, to bring your love to me."&#8224;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh! many a time, at nightfall, in the very shades of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the picket lines were pacing their rounds with bated breath,*<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lips of strong men trembled and brave breasts heaved a sigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When some one whistled softly, "I'd lay me down and die."&#8224;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tender little ballad our watchword soon became,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And in place of Annie Laurie, each had a loved one's name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the very front of battle, where the bullets thickest fly,*<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The boys from old New England oftimes went rushing by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the rebel lines before us gave way where'er we went,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the gray coats fled in terror from the "whistling regiment."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amidst the roar of the cannon, and the shriek of the shells on high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yon could hear the brave boys whistling: "I'd lay me down and die."&#8224;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, Alas! Though truth is mighty and right will at last prevail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There are times when the best and bravest, by the wrong outnumbered, fail;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thus, one day, in a skirmish, but a half-hour's fight at most,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A score of the whistling soldiers were caught by the rebel host.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With hands fast tied behind us, we were dragged to a prison pen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where, hollow-eyed and starving, lay a thousand loyal men.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No roof but the vault of Heaven, no bed save the beaten sod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shut in from the world around us, by a wall where the sentries trod.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a time our Annie Laurie brought cheer to that prison pen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hope to the hearts of the living; a smile to the dying men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the spark of Hope burned dimly, when each day's setting sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dropped the pall of night o'er a comrade, whose sands of life were run.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One night, in a dismal corner, where the shadows darkest fell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We huddled close together to hear a soldier tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tales of dear New England and of loved ones waiting there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When, Hark! a soft, low whistle, pierced through the heavy air,*<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the strain was Annie Laurie. Each caught the other's eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with trembling lips we answered, "I'd lay me down and die."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the earth, near the wall behind us, a hand came struggling through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a crumpled bit of paper for the captive boys in blue.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the name! My God! 'Twas Annie, my Annie, true and brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the hills of old New England she had followed me to save.&#8224;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Not a word or a sign, but follow, where'er you may be led,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bring four of your comrades with you," was all hat the writing said.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Only eight were left of the twenty and lots were quickly thrown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then our trembling fingers widened the space where the hand had shown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a stealthy glance at the sentries, the prisoners gathered round,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the five whom fate had chosen stole silent underground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On, on, through the damp earth creeping, we followed our dusky guide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till under a bank o'erhanging we came to the river side:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Straight over," a low voice whispered, "where you see yon beacon light,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ere we could say, "God bless you," he vanished into the night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the fog and damp of the river, when the moon was hid from sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a fond, old, faithful negro, brave Annie had crossed each night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the long, dark, narrow passage had grown till we heard close by<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The notes of the dear old pass-word: "I'd lay me down and die."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With oarlocks muffled and silent, we pushed out into the stream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When a shot rang out on the stillness. We could see by the musket gleam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A single sentry firing, but the balls passed harmless by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the stars had hid their faces and clouds swept o'er the sky.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O God! How that beacon burning, brought joy to my heart that night,*<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I knew whose hand had kindled that fire to guide our flight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The new-born hope of freedom filled every arm with strength,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we pulled at the oars like giants till the shore was reached at length.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We sprang from the skiff, half-fainting, once more in the land of the free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the lips of my love were waiting to welcome and comfort me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In my wasted arms I held her, while the weary boys close by<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breathed low, "For Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down and die."&#8224;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE MINISTER'S GRIEVANCES.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Brethren," said the aged minister, as he stood up before the church
+meeting on New Year's Eve, "I am afraid we will have to part. I have
+labored among you now for fifteen years, and I feel that that is almost
+enough, under the peculiar circumstances in which I am placed. Not that I
+am exactly dissatisfied; but a clergyman who has been preaching to sinners
+for fifteen years for five hundred dollars a year, naturally feels that he
+is not doing a great work when Deacon Jones, acting as an officer of the
+church, pays his last quarter's salary in a promissory note at six months,
+and then, acting as an individual, offers to discount it for him at ten per
+cent if he will take it part out in clover seed and pumpkins.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel somehow as if it would take about eighty-four years of severe
+preaching to prepare the deacon for existence in a felicitous hereafter.
+Let me say, also, that while I am deeply grateful to the congregation for
+the donation party they gave me on Christmas, I have calculated that it
+would be far more profitable for me to shut my house and take to the woods
+than endure another one. I will not refer to the impulsive generosity which
+persuaded Sister<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> Potter to come with a present of eight clothes pins; I
+will not insinuate anything against Brother Ferguson, who brought with him
+a quarter of a peck of dried apples of the crop of 1872; I shall not allude
+to the benevolence of Sister Tynhirst, who came with a pen-wiper and a tin
+horse for the baby; I shall refrain from commenting upon the impression
+made by Brother Hill, who brought four phosphorescent mackerel, possibly
+with an idea that they might be useful in dissipating the gloom in my
+cellar. I omit reference to Deacon Jones' present of an elbow of stove-pipe
+and a bundle of tooth-picks, and I admit that when Sister Peabody brought
+me sweetened sausage-meat, and salted and peppered mince-meat for pies, she
+did right in not forcing her own family to suffer from her mistake in
+mixing the material. But I do think I may fairly remark respecting the case
+of Sister Walsingham, that after careful thought I am unable to perceive
+how she considered that a present of a box of hair-pins to my wife
+justified her in consuming half a pumpkin pie, six buttered muffins, two
+platefuls of oysters, and a large variety of miscellaneous food, previous
+to jamming herself full of preserves, and proceeding to the parlor to join
+in singing 'There is rest for the weary!' Such a destruction of the
+necessaries of life doubtless contributes admirably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> to the stimulation of
+commerce, but it is far too large a commercial operation to rest solely
+upon the basis of a ten-cent box of hair-pins.</p>
+
+<p>"As for matters in the church, I do not care to discuss them at length. I
+might say much about the manner in which the congregation were asked to
+contribute clothing to our mission in Senegambia; we received nothing but
+four neckties and a brass breast-pin, excepting a second-hand carriage-whip
+that Deacon Jones gave us. I might allude to the frivolous manner in which
+Brother Atkinson, our tenor, converses with Sister Priestly, our soprano,
+during my sermons, and last Sunday he kissed her when he thought I was not
+looking; I might allude to the absent-mindedness which has permitted
+Brother Brown twice lately to put half a dollar on the collection-plate and
+take off two quarters and a ten-cent piece in change; and I might dwell
+upon the circumstance that while Brother Toombs, the undertaker, sings 'I
+would not live alway' with professional enthusiasm that is pardonable, I do
+not see why he should throw such unction into the hymn 'I am unworthy
+though I give my all,' when he is in arrears for two years' pew-rent, and
+is always busy examining the carpet-pattern when the plate goes round. I
+also&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But there Brother Toombs turned off the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> gas suddenly, and the meeting
+adjourned full of indignation at the good pastor. His resignation was
+accepted unanimously.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE GOOD OLD WAY.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">John Mann had a wife who was kind and true,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A wife who loved him well;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She cared for the house and their only child;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But if I the truth must tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She fretted and pined because John was poor<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And his business was slow to pay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he only said, when she talked of change,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"We'll stick to the good old way!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She saw her neighbors were growing rich<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And dwelling in houses grand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That she was living in poverty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With wealth upon every hand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she urged her husband to speculate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To risk his earnings at play;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he only said, "My dearest wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We'll stick to the good old way."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For he knew that the money that's quickly got<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is the money that's quickly lost;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the money that stays is the money earned<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At honest endeavor's cost.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So he plodded along in his honest style,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he bettered himself each day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he only said to his fretful wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"We'll stick to the good old way."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And at last there came a terrible crash,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When beggary, want, and shame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came down on the homes of their wealthy friends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While John's remained the same;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he had no debts and he gave no trust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"My motto is this," he'd say,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"It's a charm against panics of every kind,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Tis stick to the good old way!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And his wife looked round on the little house<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That was every nail their own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she asked forgiveness of honest John<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the peevish mistrust she had shown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he only said, as her tearful face<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon his shoulder lay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The good old way is the best way, wife;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We'll stick to the good old way."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>EXTRACT FROM BLAINE'S ORATION ON JAMES A. GARFIELD.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[Delivered in the City of Washington, Monday, February
+27, 1882.]</p></div>
+
+
+<p>On the morning of Saturday, July 2, the President was a contented and happy
+man&mdash;not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On his
+way to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious
+enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and
+keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful and
+congratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial his
+administration was strong in its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor
+and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting him at
+his inauguration had been safely passed; that trouble lay behind him and
+not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now
+recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted and at times
+almost unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most
+cheerful associations of his young manhood and to exchange greetings with
+those whose deepening interest had followed every step of his upward
+progress from the day he entered upon his college course until he had
+attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this
+world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well have been a
+happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of
+danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One
+moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully
+out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to
+weary weeks of torture, to silence and the grave.</p>
+
+<p>Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the
+very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> hand of murder, he
+was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its
+aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death&mdash;and he did
+not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed,
+he could give up life hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days
+of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because
+silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage he looked into his open
+grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes whose lips may
+tell&mdash;what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what
+sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of
+sweet household ties! Behind him a proud expectant nation; a great host of
+sustaining friends; a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich
+honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life
+lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's days of
+frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into
+closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a
+father's love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet
+all demands. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was
+not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound and
+universal sympathy. Masterful in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> mortal weakness, he became the centre
+of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love
+and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the
+winepress alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing
+tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's
+bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the
+Divine decree.</p>
+
+<p>As the end drew near his early craving for the sea returned. The stately
+mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he
+begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling
+air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love
+of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the
+sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving
+billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face
+tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze he looked out wistfully upon the
+ocean's changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light;
+on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the
+noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on
+the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying
+eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> soul may know.
+Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great
+waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow
+the breath of the eternal morning.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>HOW SHALL I LOVE YOU?</h2>
+
+<h3>WILL C. FERRIL.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How shall I love you? I dream all day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dear, of a tenderer, sweeter way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Songs that I sing to you, words that I say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prayers that are voiceless on lips that would pray;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These may not tell of the love of my life;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How shall I love you? Love is the bread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of life to a woman&mdash;the white and the red<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all the world's roses, the light that is shed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On all the world's pathways, till life shall be dead!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The star in the storm and the strength in the strife;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Is there a burden your heart must bear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I shall kneel lowly and lift it, dear!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is there a thorn in the crown that you wear?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let it hide in my heart till a rose blossom there!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For grief or for glory&mdash;for death or for life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE LITTLE BROWN CURL.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A quaint old box with a lid of blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All faded and worn with age;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A soft little curl of a brownish hue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A yellow and half-written page.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The letters, with never a pause nor dot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In a school-boy's hand are cast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lines and the curl I may hold to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But the love of the boy is past.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It faded away with our childish dreams,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Died out like the morning mist,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I look with a smile on the silken curl<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That once I had tenderly kissed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">One night in the summer&mdash;so long ago&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We played by the parlor door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the moonlight fell, like a silver veil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Spreading itself on the floor.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the children ran on the graveled walk<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At play in their noisy glee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the maddest, merriest fun just then<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was nothing to John and me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For he was a stately boy of twelve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And I was not quite eleven&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We thought as we sat by the parlor door<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We had found the gate to heaven.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That night when I lay on my snowy bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like many a foolish girl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I kissed and held to my little heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This letter and silken curl.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I slept and dreamed of the time when I<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Should wake to a fairy life;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sleeping, blushed, when I thought that John<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Had called me his little wife.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I have loved since then with a woman's heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Have known all a woman's bliss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But never a dream of the after life<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was ever so sweet as this.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The years went by with their silver feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And often I laughed with John<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At the vows we made by the parlor door<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When the moon and stars looked on.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah? boyish vows were broken and lost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a girl's first dream will end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I dearly loved his beautiful wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While he was my husband's friend.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When at last I went to my childhood's home<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Far over the bounding wave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I missed my friend, for the violets grew<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And blossomed over his grave.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To-day as I opened the old blue box,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And looked on this soft brown curl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And read of the love John left for me<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When I was a little girl,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There came to my heart a throb of pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And my eyes grew moist with tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the childish love and the dear, dear friend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the long-lost buried years.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+<h2>DE PINT WID OLE PETE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Upon the hurricane deck of one of our gunboats, an elderly looking darkey,
+with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted
+on his bundle, toasting his shins against the chimney, and apparently
+plunged into a state of profound meditation. Finding, upon inquiry, that he
+belonged to the Ninth Illinois, one of the most gallantly behaved and heavy
+losing regiments at the Fort Donelson battle, I began to interrogate him
+upon the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you in the fight?"</p>
+
+<p>"Had a little taste of it, sa."</p>
+
+<p>"Stood your ground, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sa, I runs."</p>
+
+<p>"Run at the first fire, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sa; and would hab run soona, had I know'd it was comin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that wasn't very creditable to your courage."</p>
+
+<p>"Massa, dat isn't my line, sa; cookin's my profeshun."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but have you no regard for your reputation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yah, yah! reputation's nuffin to me by de side ob life."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you consider <i>your</i> life worth more than other people's?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is worth more to me, sa."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must value it very highly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sa, I does; more dan all dis world, more dan a million ob dollars,
+sa; for what would dat be wuth to a man wid the bref out ob him?
+Self-preserbation am de fust law wid me."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because different men set different values upon deir lives; mine is not in
+the market."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you lost it, you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you
+died for your country."</p>
+
+<p>"What satisfaction would dat be to me when de power ob feelin' was gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then patriotism and honor are nothing to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nuffin whatever, sa; I regard them as among the vanities."</p>
+
+<p>"If our soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the
+government without resistance."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sa; dar would hab been no help for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think any of your company would have missed you, if you had been
+killed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe not, sa; a dead white man ain't much to dese sogers, let alone a
+dead nigga; but I'd a missed myself, and dat was de pint wid me."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+<h2>MOTHER'S FOOL.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Tis plain to see," said a farmer's wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"These boys will make their mark in life;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were never made to handle a hoe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And at once to a college ought to go;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There's Fred, he's little better than a fool,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But John and Henry must go to school."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Well, really, wife," quote Farmer Brown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he sat his mug of cider down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Fred does more work in a day for me<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than both his brothers do in three.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Book larnin' will never plant one's corn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor hoe potatoes, sure's your born,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor mend a rod of broken fence&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For my part give me common sense."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But his wife was bound the roast to rule,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And John and Henry were sent to school,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Fred, of course, was left behind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because his mother said he had no mind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Five years at school the students spent;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then into business each one went.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">John learned to play the flute and fiddle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And parted his hair, of course, in the middle;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While his brother looked rather higher than he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hung out a sign, "H. Brown, M. D."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Meanwhile, at home, their brother Fred<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had taken a notion into his head;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he quietly trimmed his apple trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And weeded onions and planted peas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While somehow or other, by hook or crook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He managed to read full many a book.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Until at last his father said<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was getting "book larnin'" into his head;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">"But for all that," added Farmer Brown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"He's the smartest boy there is in town."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The war broke out and Captain Fred<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hundred men to battle led,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when the rebel flag came down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Went marching home as General Brown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he went to work on the farm again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And planted corn and sowed his grain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He shingled the barn and mended the fence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till people declared he had common sense.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now, common sense was very rare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the State House needed a portion there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So the "family dunce" moved into town&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The people called him Governor Brown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his brothers, who went to the city school,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came home to live with "mother's fool."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>AN HOUR OF HORROR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was close upon the hour of midnight.</p>
+
+<p>A man sat alone in an upper room in a tumble-down tenement&mdash;a man whose
+face showed by his furrowed brow, glaring eyes and pallid lips the effects
+of a terrible mental struggle going on within him.</p>
+
+<p>Before him were several pages of manuscript, and his nervous hand
+convulsively clutching a pen, was rapidly adding to them.</p>
+
+<p>Close to his right hand and frequently touched by it as he plied his pen,
+was a gleaming, glittering object&mdash;ivory, silver and steel&mdash;a loaded
+revolver.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The window beside him was open, and through it the cool breeze entered and
+fanned his fevered brow. The night without was calm and placid. Nature was
+lovely, bathed in the light of the summer moon; but the man was oblivious
+of the beauties of the night. He glanced at the clock now and then, and
+observing the long hand climbing up the incline toward the figure twelve,
+he redoubled his labor at his manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>Anon he glanced at the revolver on the desk beside him. He touched its
+ivory handle as if faltering in his resolution; and then went on with his
+writing.</p>
+
+<p>Hark!</p>
+
+<p>What sound is that that is borne upon the breeze of the summer night? A
+long, low wail, like the cry of a woman in mortal anguish.</p>
+
+<p>The man started like a guilty soul, dashed the dews of perspiration from
+his clammy brow, and uttered an incoherent exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>Again! again, that moaning, uncanny cry!</p>
+
+<p>The man heard it and groaned aloud. He dashed aside the last page of his
+manuscript, and glanced again at the clock. The hands marked the hour of
+midnight. He grasped the revolver with a resolute air and exclaimed through
+his clenched teeth:</p>
+
+<p>"It must be done!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And, going to the window, he fired twice. * * * There was a scattering
+sound in the backyard, and the next day a gray cat was found dead close to
+the woodshed. The story and the deed were done.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>GO VAY, BECKY MILLER, GO VAY!</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I don'd lofe you now von schmall little bit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My dream vas blayed oudt, so blease git up und git;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your false-heardted vays I can't got along mit&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Vas all der young vomans so false-heardted like you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mit a face nice und bright, but a heart black und plue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und all der vhile schworing you lofed me so drue&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Vy, vonce I t'ought you vas a shtar vay up high;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I liked you so better as gogonut bie:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But oh, Becky Miller, you hafe profed von big lie&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You dook all de bresents vat I did bresent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yes, gobbled up efery virst thing vot I sent;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All der vhile mit anoder young rooster you vent&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Vhen first I found oudt you vas such a big lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I didn't know vedder to schmudder or die;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bud now, by der chingo, I don't efen cry&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Don'd dry make belief you vas sorry aboudt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I don'd belief a dings vot coomes oudt by your moudt;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und besides I don'd care, for you vas blayed oudt&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>IT IS A WINTER NIGHT.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">It is a winter night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the stilly earth is white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the blowing of the lilies of the snow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Once it was as red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With the roses summer shed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the roses fled with summer, long ago.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">We sang a merry tune,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the jolly days of June,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As we danced adown the garden in the light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But now December's come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And our hearts are dark and dumb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As we huddle o'er the embers here to-night.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>WHAT THE LITTLE GIRL SAID.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Ma's upstairs changing her dress," said the freckle-faced little girl,
+tying her doll's bonnet strings and casting her eye about for a tidy large
+enough to serve as a shawl for that double-jointed young person.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, your mother needn't dress up for me," replied the female agent of the
+missionary society, taking a self-satisfied view<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> of herself in the mirror.
+"Run up and tell her to come down just as she is in her every-day clothes,
+and not stand on ceremony."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but she hasn't got on her every-day clothes. Ma was all dressed up in
+her new brown silk dress, 'cause she expected Miss Dimmond to-day. Miss
+Dimmond always comes over here to show off her nice things, and ma doesn't
+mean to get left. When ma saw you coming she said, 'the dickens!' and I
+guess she was mad about something. Ma said if you saw her new dress, she'd
+have to hear all about the poor heathen, who don't have silk, and you'd ask
+her for money to buy hymn books to send 'em. Say, do the nigger ladies use
+hymn-book leaves to do their hair up on and make it frizzy? Ma says she
+guesses that's all the good the books do 'em, if they ever get any books. I
+wish my doll was a heathen."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you wicked little girl! what do you want of a heathen doll?" inquired
+the missionary lady, taking a mental inventory of the new things in the
+parlor to get material for a homily on worldly extravagance.</p>
+
+<p>"So folks would send her lots of nice things to wear, and feel sorry to
+have her going about naked. Then she'd have hair to frizz, and I want a
+doll with truly hair and eyes that roll up like Deacon Silderback's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> when
+he says amen on Sunday. I ain't a wicked girl, either, 'cause Uncle
+Dick&mdash;you know Uncle Dick, he's been out West and swears awful and smokes
+in the house&mdash;he says I'm a holy terror, and he hopes I'll be an angel
+pretty soon. Ma'll be down in a minute, so you needn't take your cloak off.
+She said she'd box my ears if I asked you to. Ma's putting on that old
+dress she had last year, 'cause she didn't want you to think she was able
+to give much this time, and she needed a muff worse than the queen of the
+cannon-ball islands needed religion. Uncle Dick says you oughter get to the
+islands, 'cause you'd be safe there, and the natives would be sorry they
+was such sinners anybody would send you to 'em. He says he never seen a
+heathen hungry enough to eat you, 'less 'twas a blind one, an' you'd set a
+blind pagan's teeth on edge so he'd never hanker after any more missionary.
+Uncle Dick's awful funny, and makes ma and pa die laughing sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Your Uncle Richard is a bad, depraved wretch, and ought to have remained
+out West, where his style is appreciated. He sets a horrid example for
+little girls like you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I think he's nice. He showed me how to slide down the banisters, and
+he's teaching me to whistle when ma ain't around. That's a pretty cloak
+you've got,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> ain't it? Do you buy all your clothes with missionary money?
+Ma says you do."</p>
+
+<p>Just then the freckle-faced girl's ma came into the parlor and kissed the
+missionary lady on the cheek and said she was delighted to see her, and
+they proceeded to have a real sociable chat. The little girl's ma cannot
+understand why a person who professes to be so charitable as the missionary
+agent does should go right over to Miss Dimmond's and say such ill-natured
+things as she did, and she thinks the missionary is a double-faced gossip.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>"WE'RE BUILDING TWO A DAY!"</h2>
+
+<h3>BY REV. ALFRED J. HOUGH.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[During the Freethinkers' Convention, at Watkins, N.
+Y., in response to statements that the churches
+throughout the land were losing all aggressive power, a
+message was received from Chaplain McCabe, of the
+Methodist Episcopal Church Extension Board saying in
+substance and speaking only of his own denomination,
+"All hail the power of Jesus' name; we're building two
+a day!"]</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The infidels, a motley band,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In council, met and said:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"The churches die all through the land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The last will soon be dead."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When suddenly a message came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It filled them with dismay:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"All hail the power of Jesus' name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We're building two a day."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"We're building two a day," and still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In stately forests stored,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are shingle, rafter, beam, and sill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For churches of the Lord;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And underpinning for the same,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In quarries piled away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"All hail the power of Jesus' name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We're building two a day."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The miners rend the hills apart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Earth's bosom is explored,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And streams from her metallic heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In graceful molds are poured,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For bells to sound our Saviour's fame<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From towers,&mdash;and, swinging, say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"All hail the power of Jesus' name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We're building two a day."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The King of saints to war has gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And matchless are His deeds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His sacramental hosts move on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And follow where He leads;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While infidels His church defame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her corner-stones we lay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"All hail the power of Jesus' name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We're laying two a day."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Christless few the cross would hide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The light of life shut out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leave the world to wander wide<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through sunless realms of doubt.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pulpits lose their ancient fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Grown obsolete, they say;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"All hail the power of Jesus' name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We're building two a day."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Extend," along the line is heard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Thy walls, O Zion, fair!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Methodism heeds the word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And answers everywhere.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A new church greets the morning's flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Another evening's gray.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"All hail the power of Jesus' name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We're building two a day."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When infidels in council meet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Next year, with boastings vain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To chronicle the Lord's defeat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And count His churches slain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh then may we with joy proclaim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">If we His call obey:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"All hail the power of Jesus' name!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We're building THREE a day."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE MODERN BELLE.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The daughter sits in the parlor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And rocks in her easy-chair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She is dressed in silks and satins,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And jewels are in her hair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She winks, and giggles, and simpers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And simpers, and giggles, and winks;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And though she talks but little,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It's vastly more than she thinks.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her father goes clad in russet&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All brown and seedy at that;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His coat is out at the elbows,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he wears a shocking bad hat.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He is hoarding and saving his dollars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So carefully, day by day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While she on her whims and fancies<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is squandering them all away.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She lies in bed of a morning<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Until the hour of noon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then comes down, snapping and snarling<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Because she's called too soon.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Her hair is still in papers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her cheeks still bedaubed with paint&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remains of last night's blushes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Before she attempted to faint.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her feet are so very little,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her hands so snowy white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her jewels so very heavy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And her head so very light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her color is made of cosmetics&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though this she'll never own;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her body is mostly cotton,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And her heart is wholly stone.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She falls in love with a fellow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who swells with a foreign air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He marries her for her money,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She marries him for his hair&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One of the very best matches;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Both are well mated in life;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She's got a fool for a husband,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And he's got a fool for a wife.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE PUZZLED DUTCHMAN.</h2>
+
+<h3>ANONYMOUS.</h3>
+
+<h4><i>A Humorous Recitation.</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>One who does not believe in immersion for baptism was holding a protracted
+meeting, and one night preached on the subject of baptism. In the course of
+his remarks he said that some believe it necessary to go down in the water,
+and come up out of it, to be baptized. But this he claimed to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> fallacy,
+for the preposition "into" of the Scriptures should be rendered
+differently, as it does not mean into at all times. "Moses," he said, "we
+are told, went up into the mountain; and the Saviour was taken up into a
+high mountain, etc. Now we do not suppose either went into a mountain but
+went unto it. So with going down into the water; it means simply going down
+close by or near to the water, and being baptized in the ordinary way, by
+sprinkling or pouring." He carried this idea out fully, and in due season
+closed his discourse, when an invitation was given for any one so disposed
+to rise and express his thoughts. Quite a number of his brethren arose and
+said they were glad they had been present on this occasion, that they were
+well pleased with the sound sermon they had just heard, and felt their
+souls greatly blessed. Finally, a corpulent gentleman of Teutonic
+extraction, a stranger to all, arose and broke the silence that was almost
+painful, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Mister Breacher, I is so glad I vash here to-night, for I has had
+explained to my mint some dings dat I never could pelief pefore. Oh, I is
+so glad dat into does not mean into at all, but shust close py or near to,
+for now I can pelief many dings vot I could not pelief pefore. We reat, Mr.
+Breacher, dat Taniel vos cast into de ten of lions, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> came out alife.
+Now I neffer could pelief dat, for wilt peasts would shust eat him right
+off; but now it is fery clear to my mint. He vash shust close py or near
+to, and tid not get into de ten at all. Oh, I ish so glad I vash here
+to-night. Again we reat dat de Heprew children vas cast into de firish
+furnace, and dat always look like a beeg story too, for they would have
+been purnt up; but it ish all blain to my mint now, for dey was shust cast
+py or close to de firish furnace. Oh, I vas so glad I vos here to-night.
+And den, Mister Breacher, it ish said dat Jonah vash cast into de sea, and
+taken into de whale's pelly. Now I neffer could pelief dat. It alwish
+seemed to me to be a beeg fish story, but it ish all blain to my mint now.
+He vash not into de whale's pelly at all, but shump onto his pack and rode
+ashore. Oh, I vash so glad I vash here to-night.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, Mister Breacher, if you will shust exblain two more bassages of
+Scriptures, I shall be oh so happy dat I vas here to-night! One of dem ish
+vere it saish de vicked shall be cast into a lake dat burns mit fire and
+primstone alwish. Oh, Mister Breacher, shall I be cast into dat lake if I
+am vicked, or shust close py or near to&mdash;shust near enough to be
+comfortable? Oh, I hope you tell me I shall be cast only shust py a good
+veys off, and I vill pe so glad I vash here to-night. Do oder bassage is
+dat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> vich saish blessed are they who do these commandments, dat dey may
+have right to de dree of life, and enter in droo de gates of the city, and
+not shust close py or near to&mdash;shust near enough to see vat I have
+lost&mdash;and I shall pe so glad I vash here to-night."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE FAST MAIL AND THE STAGE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JOHN H. YATES.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Lay by the weekly, Betsey, it's old like you and I,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And read the morning's daily, with its pages scarcely dry.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While you and I were sleepin', they were printing them to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the city by the ocean, several hundred miles away.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"How'd I get it?" Bless you, Betsey, you needn't doubt and laugh;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It didn't drop down from the clouds nor come by telegraph;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I got it by the lightning mail we've read about you know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mail that Jonathan got up about a month ago.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We farmers livin' 'round the hill went to the town to-day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see the fast mail catch the bags that hung beside the way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quick as a flash from thundering clouds, whose tempest swept the sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bags were caught on board the train as it went roarin' by.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We are seein' many changes in our fast declinin' years;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange rumors now are soundin' in our hard-of-hearin' ears.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere the sleep that knows no wakin' comes to waft us o'er the stream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some great power may be takin' all the self-conceit from steam.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Well do we remember, Betsey, when the post-man carried mails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ridin' horseback through the forest 'long the lonely Indian trails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How impatiently we waited&mdash;we were earnest lovers then&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For our letters comin' slowly, many miles through wood and glen.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Many times, you know, we missed them&mdash;for the post-man never came&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, not knowin' what had happened, we did each the other blame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long those lover quarrels lasted, but the God who melts the proud<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought our strayin' hearts together and let sunshine through the cloud.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then at last the tidings reached us that the faithful post-man fell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the forest savage with his wild terrific yell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And your letters lay and moldered, while the sweet birds sang above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I was savin' bitter things about a woman's love.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Long and tedious were the journeys&mdash;few and far between, the mails,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the days when we were courtin'&mdash;when we thrashed with wooden flails;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Now the white winged cars are flyin' long the shores of inland seas.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And younger lovers read <i>their</i> letters 'mid luxury and ease.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We have witnessed many changes in our three-score years and ten;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We no longer sit and wonder at the discoveries of men;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the shadow of life's evenin' we rejoice that our dear boys<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are not called to meet the hardships that embittered half our joys.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Like the old mail through the forest, youthful years go slowly by;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the fast mail of the present, manhood's years how swift they fly;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We are sitting in the shadows; soon shall break life's brittle cord&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soon shall come the welcome summons by the fast mail of the Lord.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>STORY OF THE LITTLE RID HIN.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY MRS. WHITNEY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Well, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould country,
+livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be herself, a
+little rid hin. Nice an' quiet she was, and niver did no kind o' harrum in
+her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a din o' the rocks, a
+crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould villain iv a fox, he laid
+awake o' nights, and he prowled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> around shly iv a day-time, thinkin' always
+so busy how he'd git the little rid hin, an' carry her home an' bile her up
+for his shupper. But the wise little rid hin niver went intil her bit iv a
+house, but she locked the door afther her and pit the kay in her pocket. So
+the ould rashkill iv a fox, he watched, an' he prowled, an' he laid awake
+nights, till he came all to skin an' bone, an' sorra a ha'porth o' the
+little rid hin could he git at. But at lasht there came a shcame intil his
+wicked ould head, an' he tuk a big bag one mornin', over his shouldher, an'
+he says till his mother, says he, "Mother, have the pot all bilin' agin' I
+come home, for I'll bring the little rid hin to-night for our shupper." An'
+away he wint, over the hill, an' came crapin' shly an' soft through the
+woods to where the little rid hin lived in her shnug bit iv a house. An'
+shure, jist at the very minute that he got along, out comes the little rid
+hin out iv the door, to pick up shticks to bile her tay-kettle. "Begorra,
+now, but I'll have yees," says the shly ould fox, an' in he shlips,
+unbeknownst, intil the house, an' hides behind the door. An' in comes the
+little rid hin, a minute afther, with her apron full of shticks, an' shuts
+too the door an' locks it, an' pits the kay in her pocket. An' thin she
+turns round,&mdash;an' there stands the baste iv a fox in the corner. Well,
+thin, what did she do, but jist dhrop down her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> shticks, and fly up in a
+great fright and flutter to the big bame acrass the inside o' the roof,
+where the fox couldn't git at her!</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, ha!" says the fox, "I'll soon bring you out o' that!" An' he began to
+whirrul round, an' round, an' round, fashter, an' fashter, an' fashter, on
+the floor, afther his big, bushy tail, till the little rid hin got so dizzy
+wid lookin', that she jist tumbled down aff the bame, and the fox whipped
+her up and popped her intil his bag, and stharted off home in a minute. An'
+he wint up the wood and down the wood, half the day long, with the little
+rid hin shut up shmotherin' in the bag. Sorra a know she knowed where she
+was at all, at all. She thought she was all biled an' ate up, an' finished
+shure! But, by an' by, she remimbered herself, an' pit her hand in her
+pocket, an' tuk out her little bright scissors, and shnipped a big hole in
+the bag behind, an' out she leapt, an' picked up a big shtone an' popped it
+intil the bag, an' rin aff home, an' locked the door.</p>
+
+<p>An' the fox he tugged away up over the hill, with the big stone at his back
+thumpin' his shouldhers, thinkin' to himself how heavy the little rid hin
+was, an' what a fine shupper he'd have. An' whin he came in sight iv his
+din in the rocks' and shpied his ould mother awatchin' for him at the door,
+he says, "Mother! have ye the pot bilin'?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> An' the ould mother says,
+"Sure, an' it is; an' have ye the little rid hin?" "Yes, jist here in me
+bag. Open the lid o' the pot till I pit her in," says he.</p>
+
+<p>An' the ould mother fox she lifted the lid o' the pot, an' the rashkill
+untied the bag, and hild it over the pot o' bilin' wather, an' shuk in the
+big, heavy shtone. An' the bilin' wather shplashed up all over the rogue iv
+a fox, an' his mother, an' schalded them both to death. An' the little rid
+hin lived safe in her house foriver afther.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ONLY A SONG.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It was only a simple ballad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sung to a careless throng;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There were none that knew the singer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And few that heeded the song;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet the singer's voice was tender<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sweet as with love untold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Surely those hearts were hardened<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That it left so proud and cold.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She sang of the wondrous glory<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That touches the woods in spring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the strange, soul-stirring voices<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When "the hills break forth and sing;"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the happy birds low warbling<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The requiem of the day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the quiet hush of the valleys<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the dusk of the gloaming gray.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And one in a distant corner&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A woman worn with strife&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heard in that song a message<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the spring-time of her life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fair forms rose up before her<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the mist of vanished years;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She sat in a happy blindness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her eyes were veiled in tears.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then, when the song was ended,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And hushed the last sweet tone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The listener rose up softly<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And went on her way alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Once more to her life of labor<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She passed; but her heart was strong;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she prayed, "God bless the singer!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And oh, thank God for the song!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE BICYCLE RIDE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>[Whether bicycle riding on Sunday be sinful or not,
+depends entirely upon the spirit in which it is done
+and the associations of the ride.]</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You have read of the ride of Paul Revere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And of Gilpin's ride, so fraught with fear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Skipper Ireson's ride in a cart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the ride where Sheridan played a part;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Calendar's ride on a brazen hack,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Islam's prophet on Al Borak;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fateful ride to Aix from Ghent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a dozen others of like portent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But you never have heard of a bicycle spin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which was piously ended, though started in sin.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tom was a country parson's son,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fresh from college and full of fun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fond of flirting with bright-eyed girls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Raving, in verse, over golden curls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sowing a wild oat, here and there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a way that made the parson stare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And chide him sternly, when face to face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While, in private, he laughed at the young scape-grace.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the wildest passion the boy could feel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was the love he bore for his shining wheel.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He rode it by night and he rode it by day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If he went two rods or ten miles away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Deacon Smith was heard to remark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That he met that "pesky thing in the dark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And it went right by with a glint and a gleam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a wild 'hoot-toot' that made him scream;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In spite of the fact that he knew right well<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That evil spirits were all in&mdash;well&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He wouldn't meet that thing again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a corn-crib full of good, ripe grain."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">One Sunday morning, the sun was bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bird's throats bursting with glad delight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The parson-mounted his plump old bay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And jogged to the church, two miles away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Tom wheeled round, ten miles or more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hid his wheel by the chancel door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he thought, as he sat in the parson's pew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I wonder what makes dad look so blue,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till it came like a flash to his active mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He left his sermon and specs behind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now the parson was old and his eyes were dim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he couldn't have read a line or a hymn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without his specs for a mint of gold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his head turned hot while his toes turned cold,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">And right in the midst of his mental shock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The parson deceived his trusting flock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gave them eternal life and a crown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the book he was holding upside down.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tom, the rascal, five minutes before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like an arrow had shot from the chancel door.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The horses he frightened I never can tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor how the old church folk were shocked, as well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they said they feared that the parson's lad<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Was a-gettin' wild" and would go to the bad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For 'twas wicked enough to set folks in a craze<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without "ridin' sech races on Sabbath days,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And they thought the length of the parson's prayer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had something to do with his fatherly care.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the truth of it was, which he afterwards dropped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He didn't know what he could do when he stopped.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Of course you know how the story will end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The prayer was finished and duly "Amen'd,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Tom, all dust, to the pulpit flew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And laid down the specs and the sermon too.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the parson preached in a timid way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of sinful pleasure on Sabbath-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he added a postscript, not in the text.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saying that, when they were sore perplexed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each must decide as he chanced to feel.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Tom chuckled: "Sundays, I'll ride my wheel."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE LAND OF OUR BIRTH.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY LILLIE E. BARR.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O! where is the land that each mortal loves best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The land that is dearest and fairest on earth?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It is North, it is South, it is East, it is West;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For this beautiful land is the land of our birth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Tis the home of our childhood; the fragrance and dew<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of our innocent days are all linked with the spot;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And its fields were so green, and its mountains so blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That our hearts must be cold ere that land is forgot.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We have wandered, perchance, far away from the place,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But how often we see it in thought and in dreams!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feel its winds, as of old, blowing cool on our face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hear the songs of its birds, and the plash of its<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">streams.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We may build grander homes than the home of our youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On far loftier objects our eyes may be cast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But we never forget all its love and its truth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It has charms that will hallow it unto the last.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We may learn other tongues, but that language is best<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That we lisped with our mothers in infancy's days&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The language she sung when she rocked us to rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And gave us good counsel and comfort and praise.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We may love other lands, but wherever we be<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The land that is greenest and fairest on earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is the one that, perhaps, we may never more see&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The home of our fathers&mdash;the land of our birth.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">May its daughters and sons grow in beauty and worth!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">May the blessing of God give it freedom and rest!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be it northward, or southward, or eastward, or west,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The land of our birth is of all lands the best.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE TEACHER'S DIADEM.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sitting 'mid the gathering shadows, weary with the Sabbath's care;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Weary with the Sabbath's burdens, that she dearly loves to bear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For she sees a shining pathway, and she gladly presses on;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis the first Great Teacher's footprints&mdash;it will lead where He has gone;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a hand that's never faltered, with a love that's ne'er grown dim,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long and faithfully she's labored, to His fold the lambs to bring.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But to-night her soul grows heavy; through the closed lids fall the tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the children pass before her, that she's taught these many years;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she cries in bitter anguish: "Shall not one to me be given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To shine upon my coronet amid the hosts of heaven!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hear my prayer to-night, my Saviour, in Thy glorious home above;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Give to me some little token&mdash;some approval of Thy love."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ere the words were scarcely uttered, banishing the evening gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came a soft and shining radiance, bright'ning all within the room;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And an angel in white raiment, brighter than the morning sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stood before her, pointing upward, while he softly whispered, "Come."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he paused, she heard the rustle of his starry  pinions bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she quickly rose and followed, out into the stilly night;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up above the dim blue ether; up above the silver stars;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On, beyond the golden portals; through the open pearly doors;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far across the sea of crystal, to the shining sapphire Throne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where she heard amid the chorus, "Welcome, child; thy work's well done."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Surely 'tis her Saviour speaking; 'tis His hands, aye, 'tis His feet;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she cries: "Enough! I've seen Him; all my joys are now complete."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All forgot earth's care and sorrow; all forgot the starry crown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twas enough e'en to be near Him; to behold Him on His Throne.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Not enough," the Saviour answered; "thou wouldst know through all these years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If in vain has been thy teaching, all thy labor and thy prayers;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That from thee the end was hidden, did thy faith in me grow less?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou hast asked some little token, I will grant thee thy request."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From out a golden casket, inlaid with many a gem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He took&mdash;glist'ning with countless jewels&mdash;a regal diadem;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright a name shone in each jewel, names of many scholars dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who she thought had passed unheeded all her earnest thought and care.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"But," she asked, "how came these names here&mdash;names I never saw before?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the Saviour smiling answered, "'Tis the fruit thy teachings bore;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Tis the seed thy love hath planted, tended by my faithful hand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though unseen by thee, it's budded, blossoming in many lands.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here are names from darkened Egypt, names from Afric's desert sands;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Names from isles amid the ocean, names from India's sunny strands;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some from Greenland's frozen mountains, some from burning tropic plains;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From where'er man's found a dwelling, here you'll find some chosen name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When thine earthly mission's ended, that in love to thee was given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This is the crown of thy rejoicing, that awaits thee here in heaven."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Suddenly the bright light faded; all was dark within the room;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she sat amid the shadows of the Sabbath evening gloom;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But a peaceful, holy incense rested on her soul like dew;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though the end from her was hidden, to her Master she'd be true;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Sowing seed at morn and even, pausing not to count the gain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If her bread was on the waters, God would give it back again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If the harvest she had toiled for other hands than hers should reap,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He'd repay her for her labor, who had bade her, "Feed my sheep."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>TOBE'S MONUMENT.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ELIZABETH KILHAM.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was "after taps," a sultry, Southern-summer night. On the extreme edge
+of the encampment, on the side nearest the enemy, a sentinel paused in his
+walk, and peered cautiously out into the darkness. "Pshaw!" he said; "it's
+nothing but a dog." He was resuming his walk, when the supposed quadruped
+rose suddenly, and walked along on two feet in a manner so unmistakably
+human, that the sentinel lowered his musket once more, and shouted, "Halt!
+Advance, and give the counter-sign!" A faint, childish voice said, "Ain't
+got none, massa."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there now!" said the sentinel, "if it ain't just a little darkey,
+and I guess I've frightened him half to death. Come here, snowball."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The child crept up, and said, tremblingly: "'Deed, massa, I ain't got
+nuffin ter gib yer."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who asked you to give me anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yer don ax me fer gib yer suffin jes' now; and I ain't got nuffin 'cep' my
+close what I got on."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you needn't fret; I don't want 'em. Corporal of the guard! Post
+two."</p>
+
+<p>The corporal hastened to "post two," and found the sentinel with his hand
+on the shoulder of a little black boy, who, between fear, fatigue, and
+hunger, was unable to give any account of himself. "I'll take him to
+Captain Leigh," the corporal said; "he's officer of the day. Maybe he'll be
+able to get something out of him."</p>
+
+<p>The captain stood in front of his tent, looking out into the night, when
+the corporal and his charge approached.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain," said he, "here's a boy just come into the lines."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; you can leave him here."</p>
+
+<p>At the first sound of the captain's voice the boy drew nearer to him, as
+knowing instinctively that he had found a friend.</p>
+
+<p>"You can go into that tent and sleep till morning," said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your name!" was Captain Leigh's first question the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Name Tobe."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dat's all, Mass Cap'n."</p>
+
+<p>"How old are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dunno, Massa Cap'n. Nobody nebber done tole me dat ar."</p>
+
+<p>"Where have you come from?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come fum de back o' Richmon', Mass Cap'n."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you come here for?"</p>
+
+<p>"All de res' ob 'em runned away; an' ole mass he wor so mad, I wor jes'
+feared o' my life. 'Sides, I t'ought I mought fin' my mammy ef I got 'mong
+der Unions."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dunno, Mass Cap'n. Ole mass done sol' her down in Georgy las'
+corn-shuckin', an' I ain't nebber heerd ob her sence. But I t'ought mebby
+she mought ha' runned 'way too, an' I'd fin' her wid der Unions."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, what are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dunno, Mass Cap'n. I'd like ter stay 'long wid you."</p>
+
+<p>"What can you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kin wait on yer, Mass Cap'n; kin shine up boots, an'"&mdash;brightening up as
+his eyes, wandering round caught sight of the horses&mdash;"kin clean de hosses
+right smart." * * *</p>
+
+<p>"If I keep you with me you must be a good boy, and do as I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed I will, Mass Cap'n. I'se do ebery work yer say, sho's yer born."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So when the troops left Harrison's Landing, Tobe went too, in charge of the
+captain's horse and baggage; and, when the steamer was fairly under way, he
+brightened into a new creature as every revolution of the wheel placed a
+greater distance between himself and "old massa." * * *</p>
+
+<p>It proved that Tobe had told the truth about his skill in taking care of
+horses. Captain Leigh's horse had never looked so well as now, and the
+captain was delighted. Tobe turned out, moreover, to be a very good boy.
+But the army is not a very good place for boys. So one day Captain Leigh
+said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tobe, how would you like to go North?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whar's it at, Mass Cap'n?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean my home at the North."</p>
+
+<p>"When is yer gwine, Mass Cap'n?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going at all now."</p>
+
+<p>"Does yer mean ter sen' me away from yer, Mass Cap'n?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Leigh was touched, and answered him very gently,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I want to send you away from me now, because it will be better for
+you. But, when the war is over, I shall go home, and then you can stay with
+me always if you are a good boy."</p>
+
+<p>"I allus does jes' de t'ings yer tell me, Mass Cap'n."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know you do. And, just because you do what I tell you so well I want to
+send you to my home, to run errands for my wife, and do what work she will
+give you in the house. And I have three little children&mdash;two little girls
+and a baby boy. I want you to go with them when they go out to play and
+take care of them. My home is in a very pleasant place in the country.
+Don't you think you would like to go there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ef yer goes too, Mass Cap'n."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my boy, I can't possibly go now."</p>
+
+<p>"I'se do jes de t'ing yer say, Mass Cap'n. Ef yer tells me to go, I'se go.
+An' I'se jest do ebery word the missus say, an' I look af'r de chillens de
+bes' I knows, ontel yer comes dar. On'y please come right soon, Mass
+Cap'n."</p>
+
+<p>And, as the captain left the tent, Tobe laid his head upon his arm and
+cried as if his heart would break.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Leigh found a brother officer who was expecting to go home on a
+furlough, and who readily agreed to take charge of the boy in whom his
+friend was so deeply interested.</p>
+
+<p>But that night came news that made everybody give up the idea of a
+"furlough," or "going home." The Richmond government, being determined to
+"make the North feel the war as she had not felt it," had organized the
+"grand raid."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>An order came for Captain Leigh's regiment to march at daylight.</p>
+
+<p>"Tobe," said the captain, "you can go in one of the baggage-wagons. Strap
+up my blanket and poncho, and take them along; and these boots, take
+particular care of them, for it's not often I can get a pair of cavalry
+boots to fit as they do."</p>
+
+<p>"Yer needn't be feared, Mass Cap'n; I'se take care of 'em de bes' I knows."</p>
+
+<p>The main body of the raiders were reported on the line of the South
+Mountains, making for Gettysburg. Scouting expeditions were sent out from
+the Northern army in all directions, and a body of troops, including
+Captain Leigh's regiment, was ordered to proceed by the shortest route to
+Gettysburg and head the rebels off. One of the baggage-wagons broke down.
+The driver of another wagon stopped to help his comrade. The troops passed
+on, and the two wagons were left alone on the mountain. In one of them was
+Tobe with the captain's boots, over which he kept constant watch. The men
+worked busily at the wagon and Tobe sat watching them. Suddenly a tramping
+of horses' feet was heard, and a party of cavalry came round a turn in the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>"That's good," said one of the men; "there's some of the boys. If they'll
+wait a few minutes we can go along with 'em."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't none of our boys," said the other, after a keen glance; "them's
+rebs."</p>
+
+<p>At the word, Tobe slid down in the bottom of the wagon under some blankets,
+and lay silent and motionless with the boots clasped in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>As the soldiers advanced the officer said, apparently in reply to a
+question, "No, let the men go; we can't do anything with prisoners here.
+But we'll look through the wagon, and, if the Yanks have anything we want,
+'all's fair in war.'"</p>
+
+<p>They reined their horses by the wagon, and, after a few short, sharp
+questions, proceeded to break open trunks and bags, and appropriate their
+contents.</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers were about finishing their examination, when one of them said,
+"What's that under the seat of that wagon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! nothing but a torn blanket," said another. "'Tain't worth taking. We
+have got all we want."</p>
+
+<p>"There may be something under it, though."</p>
+
+<p>He pushed aside the blanket with his sabre, and there lay Tobe endeavoring,
+but unsuccessfully, to hide the boots under him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said the officer, "this is worth while. Here's just what I wanted.
+Come, boy, hand over those boots, quick."</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed, massa," said Tobe, "I can't gib<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> 'em ter yer. Dey 'longs ter Mass
+Cap'n, an' he tole me take keer ob 'em mos' partic'lar."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't help that. I've got to have them, so pass them along."</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Massa," began Tobe; but the rebel cut him short.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you give me those boots? If you don't do it, and in double-quick
+time, too, I'll put a ball through your black skin. I won't ask you again.
+Now, will you give them up?" and he pulled out his pistol.</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed, massa, I can't, case Massa Cap'n"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>There was a sharp click, a flash, a long, sobbing moan, and Tobe lay
+motionless, the boots still clasped in his arms, and great drops of blood
+slowly gathering upon them.</p>
+
+<p>"Enemy in sight," shouted a picket riding up.</p>
+
+<p>The officer hastily gave an order, and the rebels dashed off at a furious
+speed a few moments before a party of Union cavalry, with Captain Leigh at
+their head, appeared, riding from the opposite direction.</p>
+
+<p>A few words sufficed for explanation. Captain Leigh laid his hand on Tobe's
+shoulder, and spoke his name. At the sound of the voice he loved so well,
+his eyes opened, and he said faintly, "Mass Cap'n, I done de bes' I knowed.
+I keep de boots.'"</p>
+
+<p>"O Tobe!" groaned the captain, "I wish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> you had given them up. I would have
+lost everything rather than have had this."</p>
+
+<p>"Mass Cap'n."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Tobe, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"De little chillens, Mass Cap'n; I meaned ter wait on 'em right smart. Tell
+'em"&mdash;His voice grew fainter, and his eyes closed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my boy: what shall I tell them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell 'em I didn't lose de boots; I kep 'em de bes'&mdash;I knowed."</p>
+
+<p>There was a faint sigh, a flutter of the eyelids, and the little life that
+had been so truly "de bes' he knowed" (ah! if we could all say that!) was
+ended.</p>
+
+<p>Very reverently Captain Leigh lifted the boots, all wet and stained with
+blood. "I will never wear those boots again," he said; "but I will never
+part with them. They shall be Tobe's monument."</p>
+
+<p>In the hall of Captain Leigh's house is a deep niche, and in it, on a
+marble slab covered with a glass case, stands a pair of cavalry boots with
+dark stains upon them, and on the edge of the slab, in golden letters, is
+the inscription:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In memory of Tobe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faithful unto death."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE CROWDED STREET.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let me move slowly through the street,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Filled with an ever-shifting train,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amid the sound of steps that beat<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The murmuring walks like autumn rain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How fast the flitting figures come!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The mild, the fierce, the stony face&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where secret tears have left their trace.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They pass to toil, to strife, to rest&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To halls in which the feast is spread&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To chambers where the funeral guest<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In silence sits beside the dead.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And some to happy homes repair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where children pressing cheek to cheek,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With mute caresses shall declare<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The tenderness they cannot speak.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And some, who walk in calmness here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall shudder as they reach the door<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where one who made their dwelling dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Its flower, its light, is seen no more.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And dreams of greatness in thine eye!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go'st thou to build an early name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or early in the task to die?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Keen son of trade, with eager brow!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who is now fluttering in thy snare?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or melt the glittering spires in air?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Who of this crowd to-night shall tread<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The dance till daylight gleam again?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Some, famine-struck, shall think how long<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The cold, dark hours, how slow the light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And some, who flaunt amid the throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Each where his tasks or pleasures call,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They pass, and heed each other not.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is who heeds, who holds them all<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In His large love and boundless thought.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">These struggling tides of life, that seem<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In wayward, aimless course to tend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are eddies of the mighty stream<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That rolls to its appointed end.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>BESSIE KENDRICK'S JOURNEY.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY MRS. ANNIE A. PRESTON.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Cars stop twenty minutes!" called out Conductor Richardson at Allen's
+Junction. Then, as the train came to a dead halt, he jumped down upon the
+depot platform, ran along to the front of the long line of passenger cars,
+to where the engine was standing, and, swinging himself up into the cab,
+said to the engineer:</p>
+
+<p>"Frank; I want you to come back to the first passenger coach, and see a
+little girl that I don't know hardly what to make of."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Frank nodded, and, without speaking, deliberately wiped his oily hands in a
+bunch of waste, took a look at his grim, dusty face in a narrow little
+mirror that hung beside the steam gauge, pulled off his short frock, put on
+a coat, changed his little black, greasy cap for a soft felt, taking these
+"dress-up" articles from the tender-box, where an engineer has something
+stowed away for all emergencies, and went back to the cars as requested.</p>
+
+<p>He entered the car and made his way to the seat where the conductor sat
+talking to a bright-looking little girl, about nine years old, oddly
+dressed in a woman's shawl and bonnet.</p>
+
+<p>Several of the passengers were grouped around the seat, evidently much
+interested in the child, who wore a sad, prematurely old countenance, but
+seemed to be neither timid nor confused.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the engineer," said the conductor, kindly, as Frank approached.</p>
+
+<p>She held up her hand to him, with a winsome smile breaking over her pinched
+little face, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"My papa was an engineer before he became sick and went to live on a farm
+in Montana. He is dead, and my mamma is dead. She died first, before Willie
+and Susie. My papa used to tell me that after he should be dead there would
+be no one to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> take care of me, and then I must get on the cars and go to
+his old home in Vermont. And he said, 'cause I hadn't any ticket, I must
+ask for the engineer and tell him I am James Kendrick's little girl, and
+that he used to run on the M. &amp; S. road."</p>
+
+<p>The pleading blue eyes were now suffused with tears; but she did not cry
+after the manner of childhood in general.</p>
+
+<p>Engineer Frank stooped down and kissed her very tenderly; and then, as he
+brushed the tears from his own eyes, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear, so you are little Bessie Kendrick. I rather think a
+merciful Providence guided you on board this train."</p>
+
+<p>Then, turning around to the group of passengers, he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"I knew Jim Kendrick well. He was a man out of ten thousand. When I first
+came to Indiana, before I got acclimated, I was sick a great part of the
+time, so that I could not work, and I got homesick and discouraged. Could
+not keep my board bill paid up, to say nothing of my doctor's bill, and I
+didn't much care whether I lived or died.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, when the pay car came along and the men were getting their
+monthly pay, and there wasn't a cent coming to me, for I hadn't worked an
+hour for the last month, I felt so 'blue' that I sat down on a pile of
+railroad ties and leaned my elbows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> on my knees, with my head in my hands,
+and cried like a boy, out of sheer homesickness and discouragement.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty soon one came along and said, in a voice that seemed like sweet
+music in my ears, for I hadn't found much real sympathy, although the boys
+were all good to me in their way: 'You've been having a rough time of it,
+and you must let me help you out.'</p>
+
+<p>"I looked up, and there stood Jim Kendrick, with his month's pay in his
+hand. He took out from the roll of bills a twenty-dollar note and held it
+out to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew he had a sickly wife and two or three children, and that he had a
+hard time of it himself to pull through from month to month, so I said,
+half-ashamed of the tears that were still streaming down my face, 'Indeed,
+I cannot take the money; you must need it yourself.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Indeed, you will take it, man,' said Jim. 'You will be all right in a few
+days, and then you can pay it back. Now come home with me to supper and see
+the babies. It will do you good.'</p>
+
+<p>"I took the note and accepted the invitation, and after that went to his
+house frequently, until he moved away, and I gradually lost sight of him.</p>
+
+<p>"I had returned the loan, but it was impossible to repay the good that
+little act of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> kindness did me, and I guess Jim Kendrick's little girl here
+won't want for anything if I can prevent it."</p>
+
+<p>Then turning to the child, whose bright eyes were wide open now, the
+engineer said to her:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take you home with me when we get up to Wayne. My wife will fix you
+up, and we'll find out whether these Vermont folks want you or not. If they
+do, Mary or I shall go with you. But, if they don't care much about having
+you, you shall stay with us and be our girl, for we have none of our own.
+You look very much like your father, God bless him."</p>
+
+<p>Just then the eastern train whistled, Engineer Frank vanished out of the
+car door and went forward to the engine, wiping the tears with his coat
+sleeve, while the conductor and passengers could not suppress the tears
+this little episode evoked during the twenty minutes' stop at Allen's
+Junction.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THERE IS A TONGUE IN EVERY LEAF.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is a tongue in every leaf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A voice in every rill&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A voice that speaketh everywhere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In flood, and fire, through earth and air!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A tongue that's never still!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Tis the Great Spirit, wide diffused<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Through everything we see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That with our spirits communeth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of things mysterious&mdash;life and death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Time and eternity!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I see Him in the blazing sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And in the thunder-cloud;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I hear Him in the mighty roar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That rusheth through the forest hoar<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">When winds are raging loud.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I feel Him in the silent dews,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">By grateful earth betray'd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I feel Him in the gentle showers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soft south wind, the breath of flowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The sunshine and the shade.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I see Him, hear Him, everywhere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In all things&mdash;darkness, light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Silence and sound; but, most of all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When slumber's dusty curtains fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I' the silent hour of night.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LET US GIVE THANKS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ELLEN ISABELLA TUPPER.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For all that God in mercy sends:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For health and children, home and friends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For comfort in the time of need,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For every kindly word and deed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For happy thoughts and holy talk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For guidance in our daily walk&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For everything give thanks!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For beauty in this world of ours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For verdant grass and lovely flowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For song of birds, for hum of bees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the refreshing summer breeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For hill and plain, for streams and wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the great ocean's mighty flood&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In everything give thanks!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For the sweet sleep which comes with night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the returning morning's light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the bright sun that shines on high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the stars glittering in the sky;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For these and everything we see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O Lord! our hearts we lift to Thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For everything give thanks!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LITTLE FEET.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up from all the city's by-ways,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the breathless, sickening heat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the wide-swung gate of heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Eager throng the little feet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not a challenge has the warder<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For these souls so sinless white;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round each brow the Saviour's blessing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Circles like a crown of light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">See, the Lord Himself stands waiting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wide His loving arms are spread;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On his heart of hearts is pillowed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Every weary baby's head.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But below, with tear-wet faces,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And with hearts all empty grown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stand the mourning men and women,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Vainly calling back their own.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Upward floats the voice of mourning&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Jesus, Master, dost thou care?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aye, He feels each drop of anguish&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"He doth all our sorrows bear."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wipe thine eyes, O heavy laden;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Look beyond the clouds and see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With your dear one on His bosom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Jesus stands and calls to thee.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Waits with yearning, all unfathomed&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Love you cannot understand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lures you upward with the beckoning<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of your buried baby's hand.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>A RAINY DAY.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Patter, patter, patter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">On the window-pane;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Drip, drip, drip,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Comes the heavy rain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Now the little birdies<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fly away to bed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each tender blossom<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Droops its pretty head.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But the little rootlets,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the earth below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Open wide their tiny mouths<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where the rain-drops flow;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the thirsty grasses<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Soon grow fresh and green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the pretty daisies<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Springing up between.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+<h2>FASHIONABLE.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A fashionable woman<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In a fashionable pew;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable bonnet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of a fashionable hue;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable mantle<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a fashionable gown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable Christian<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In a fashionable town;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable prayer-book.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a fashionable choir;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable chapel<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With a fashionable spire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable preacher<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With a fashionable speech;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable sermon<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With a fashionable reach;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable welcome<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At the fashionable door;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable penny<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the fashionable poor;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable heaven<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a fashionable hell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable Bible<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For this fashionable belle;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable kneeling<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a fashionable nod;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fashionable everything,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But no fashionable God.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
+<h2>RESURGAM.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY EBEN E. REXFORD.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There is no God," he said, and turned away<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From those who sought to lead him to the light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Here is a violet, growing for a day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When winter comes, and all the world is white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It will be dead. And I am like the flower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To-day, here am I, and to-morrow, dust.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is life worth living for its little hour<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of empty pleasure, if decay we must?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The autumn came, and under fallen leaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The little violet was hid away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Dead! dead!" cried he. "Alas, all nature grieves<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For what she loves is destined to decay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soon like the violet, in soft, damp earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I shall be hidden, and above my head<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A stone will tell the record of my birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And of my nothingness when I am dead."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Spring came, and from the mold the little flower<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He had thought dead, sprung up to sweetest bloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He saw it, and his heart was touched that hour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And grasped the earth-old mystery of the tomb.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"God of the flower," he said, with reverent voice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"The violet lives again, and why not I?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At last my blind eyes see, and I rejoice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The soul within me was not born to die!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE FAULT OF THE AGE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The fault of the age is a mad endeavor<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To leap to heights that were made to climb;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By a burst of strength or a thought that is clever<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We plan to outwit and forestall Time.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We scorn to wait for the thing worth having;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We want high noon at the day's dim dawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We find no pleasure in toiling and saving<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As our forefathers did in the good times gone.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We force our roses before their season<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To bloom and blossom that we may wear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then we wonder and ask the reason<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Why perfect buds are so few and rare.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We crave the gain, but despise the getting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We want wealth, not as reward, but dower;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the strength that is wasted in useless fretting<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Would fell a forest or build a tower.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To covet the prize, yet to shrink from the winning;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To thirst for glory, yet fear the fight&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why, what can it lead to at last but sinning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To mental languor and moral blight?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better the old slow way of striving<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And counting small gains when the year is done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than to use our forces all in contriving<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And to grasp for pleasures we have not won.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE BOOK CANVASSER.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY MAX ADELER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>He came into my office with a portfolio under his arm. Placing it upon the
+table, removing a ruined hat, and wiping his nose upon a ragged
+handkerchief that had been so long out of the wash that it was positively
+gloomy, he said: "Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, I'm canvassing for the National Portrait
+Gallery; splendid work; comes in numbers, fifty cents apiece; contains
+pictures of all the great American heroes from the earliest times down to
+the present day. Everybody subscribing for it, and I want to see if I can't
+take your name.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, just cast your eyes over that," he said, opening his book and
+pointing to an engraving, "That's&mdash;lemme see&mdash;yes, that's Columbus, perhaps
+you've heard sumfin' about him? The publisher was telling me to-day before
+I started out that he discovered&mdash;No; was it Columbus that dis&mdash;Oh! yes.
+Columbus, he discovered America&mdash;was the first man here. He came over in a
+ship, the publisher said, and it took fire, and he stayed on deck because
+his father told him to, if I remember right, and when the old thing busted
+to pieces he was killed. Handsome picture, ain't it? Taken from a
+photograph, all of 'em are;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> done especially for this work. His clothes are
+kinder odd but they say that's the way they dressed in them days. Look at
+this one. Now isn't that splendid? William Penn, one of the early settlers.
+I was reading t'other day about him. When he first arrived he got a lot of
+Indians up a tree, and when they shook some apples down, he set one on top
+of his son's head, and shot an arrow plump through it and never fazed him.
+They say it struck them Indians cold; he was such a terrific shooter. Fine
+countenance, hasn't he? Face shaved clean; he didn't wear a mustache, I
+believe, but he seems to have let himself out on hair. Now, my view is,
+that every man ought to have a picture of that Patriarch so's to see how
+the fust settlers looked and what kind of weskets they yoused to wear. See
+his legs; too! Trousers a little short maybe, as if he was going to wade in
+a creek; but he's all there. Got some kind of a paper in his hand, I see.
+Subscription list, I reckon. Now, how does that strike you? There's
+something nice. That I think, is&mdash;is&mdash;that's a&mdash;a&mdash;yes, to be sure,
+Washington&mdash;you recollect him, of course? Some people call him Father of
+his Country, George&mdash;Washington. He had no middle name, I believe. He lived
+about two hundred years ago and he was a fighter. I heard the publisher
+telling a man about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> him crossing the Delaware River up yer at Trenton, and
+seems to me, if I recollect right, I've read about it myself. He was
+courting some girl on the Jersey side, and he used to swim over at nights
+to see her when the old man was asleep. The girl's family were down on him,
+I reckon. He looks like a man to do that, don't he? He's got it in his eye.
+If it'd been me I'd gone over on a bridge, but he probably wanted to show
+off afore her; some men are so reckless, you know. Now, if you'll conclude
+to take this I'll get the publisher to write out some more stories about
+him, and bring 'em round to you, so's you can study up on him. I know he
+did ever so many other things, but I've forgot 'em; my memory's so awful
+poor.</p>
+
+<p>"Less see! Who have we next? Ah! Franklin! Benjamin Franklin! He was one of
+the old original pioneers, I think. I disremember exactly what he is
+celebrated for, but I think it was a flying a&mdash;oh! yes, flying a kite,
+that's it. The publisher mentioned it. He was out one day flying a kite,
+you know, like boys do now-a-days, and while she was a flickering up in the
+sky, and he was giving her more string, an apple fell off a tree and hit
+him on the head;&mdash;then he discovered the attraction of gravitation, I think
+they call it. Smart, wasn't it? Now, if you or me'd a been hit, it'd just a
+made us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> mad like as not and set us a ravin'. But men are so different. One
+man's meat's another man's pison. See what a double chin he's got. No beard
+on him, either, though a goatee would have been becoming to such a round
+face. He hasn't got on a sword and I reckon he was no soldier;&mdash;fit some
+when he was a boy, maybe, or went out with the home-guard, but not a
+regular warrior. I ain't one, myself, and I think all the better of him for
+it. Ah, here we are! Look at that! Smith and Pocahontas! John Smith! Isn't
+that gorgeous? See, how she kneels over him, and sticks out her hands while
+he lays on the ground, and that big fellow with a club tries to hammer him
+up. Talk about woman's love! There it is for you. Modocs, I believe, Anyway
+some Indians out West there, somewheres; and the publisher tells me that
+Captain Shackanasty, or whatever his name is there, was going to bang old
+Smith over the head with a log of wood, and this here girl she was sweet on
+Smith, it appears, and she broke loose, and jumped forward and says to the
+man with the stick, 'Why don't you let John alone? Me and him are going to
+marry, and if you kill him I'll never speak to you as long as I live,' or
+words like them, and so the man he give it up, and both of them hunted up a
+preacher and were married and lived happy ever afterward. Beautiful story,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
+isn't it? A good wife she made him, too, I'll bet, if she was a little
+copper-colored. And don't she look just lovely in that picture? But Smith
+appears kinder sick, evidently thinks his goose is cooked, and I don't
+wonder, with that Modoc swooping down on him with such a discouraging club.
+And now we come to&mdash;to ah&mdash;to&mdash;Putnam&mdash;General Putnam:&mdash;he fought in the
+war, too; and one day a lot of 'em caught him when he was off his guard,
+and they tied him flat on his back on a horse and then licked the horse
+like the very mischief. And what does that horse do but go pitching down
+about four hundred stone steps in front of the house, with General Putnam
+lying there nearly skeered to death. Leastways the publisher said somehow
+that way, and I oncet read about it myself. But he came out safe, and I
+reckon sold the horse and made a pretty good thing of it. What surprises me
+is he didn't break his neck, but maybe it was a mule, for they're pretty
+sure footed, you know. Surprising what some of these men have gone through,
+ain't it? Turn over a couple of leaves. That's General Jackson. My father
+shook hands with him once. He was a fighter, I know. He fit down in New
+Orleans. Broke up the rebel Legislature, and then when the Ku Kluxes got
+after him he fought 'em behind cotton breastworks and licked 'em 'til they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+couldn't stand. They say he was terrific when he got real mad. Hit straight
+from the shoulder and fetched his man every time. Andrew, his fust name
+was; and look how his hair stands up. And then, here's John Adams and
+Daniel Boone and two or three pirates, and a whole lot more pictures, so
+you see it's cheap as dirt. Lemme have your name, won't you?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE MISNOMER.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JOSIE C. MALOTT.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It sounds rather queer, I must freely confess,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hear a man ask kind heaven to bless<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Himself and his neighbor, when over the way<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His drinking saloon stands open all day.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>You</i> may call it a "drug store," but doesn't God know?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can you hide from <i>His</i> eye the sorrow and woe&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pain and the anguish, the grief and the shame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That comes from the house with a high-sounding name?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Such ill gotten wealth will surely take wing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leave naught behind but the deadliest sting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And oh, the account must be settled some day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the drug store saloon kept over the way.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Can you face the just Judge and the souls you have wrecked?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, pause ere too late and note the effect.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Do you know you're destroying both body and soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the men whose honor and manhood you've stole?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Does the hard accusation arouse you to fright?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have you never looked at yourself in the light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of a thief, nay, worse, a murderer, too?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God brands you as such, and you know it is true!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They're the deadliest poisons you have for sale&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The liquors you keep&mdash;yet you always fail<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To mark them as such, and the men who drink<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can have what they want if they bring you the "chink."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Don't</i> call such a place a <i>drug store</i>, pray;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But "drinking saloon," and you'd better say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the sign o'er the door in letters clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Ye abandon all hope who enter here!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE DOORSTEP.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY E. C. STEDMAN.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The conference-meeting through at last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We boys around the vestry waited<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see the girls come tripping past<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like snowbirds willing to be mated.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not braver he that leaps the wall<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By level musket-flashes litten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than I, who stepped before them all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who longed to see me get the mitten.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But no; she blushed and took my arm!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We let the old folks have the highway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And started toward the Maple Farm<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Along a kind of lover's by-way.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I can't remember what we said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Twas nothing worth a song or story;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet that rude path by which we sped<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Seemed all transformed and in a glory.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The snow was crisp beneath our feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The moon was full, the fields were gleaming;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By hood and tippet sheltered sweet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her face with youth and health was beaming.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The little hand outside her muff&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O sculptor, if you could but mould it!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So lightly touched my jacket-cuff,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To keep it warm I had to hold it.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To have her with me there alone,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Twas love and fear and triumph blended.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At last we reached the foot-worn stone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where that delicious journey ended.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The old folks, too, were almost home;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her dimpled hand the latches fingered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We heard the voices nearer come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yet on the doorstep still we lingered.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She took her ringlets from her hood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And with a "Thank you, Ned," dissembled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But yet I knew she understood<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With what a daring wish I trembled.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A cloud past kindly overhead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The moon was slyly peeping through it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet hid its face, as if it said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Come, now or never! do it! <i>do it</i>!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My lips till then had only known<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The kiss of mother and of sister,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But somehow full upon her own<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sweet, rosy, darling mouth&mdash;I kissed her!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Perhaps 'twas boyish love, yet still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O, listless woman! weary lover!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I'd give&mdash;but who can live youth over?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>HOW "OLD MOSE" COUNTED EGGS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Old Mose, who sold eggs and chickens on the streets of Austin for a living,
+is as honest an old negro as ever lived, but he has got the habit of
+chatting familiarly with his customers, hence he frequently makes mistakes
+in counting out the eggs they buy. He carries his wares around in a small
+cart drawn by a diminutive donkey. He stopped in front of the residence of
+Mrs. Samuel Burton. The old lady herself came out to the gate to make the
+purchases.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any eggs this morning, Uncle Mose?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed I has. Jest got in ten dozen from the kentry."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they fresh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I gua'ntee 'em. I knows dey am fresh jest the same as ef I had led 'em
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take nine dozen. You can just count them into this basket."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, mum." He counts, "One, two, free, foah, five, six, seben,
+eight, nine, ten. You kin rely on dem bein fresh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> How's your son coming on
+at de school? He mus' be mos' grown."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Uncle Mose, he is a clerk in a bank at Galveston."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how ole am de boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is eighteen."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tole me so. Eighteen and getting a salary already, eighteen
+(counting), nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-free,
+twenty-foah, twenty-five, and how's yore gal comin' on? She was mos' growed
+up de las' time I seed her."</p>
+
+<p>"She is married and living in Dallas."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, I declar'. How de time scoots away! An' yo' say she has childruns?
+Why, how ole am de gal? She mus' be jess about&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty-three."</p>
+
+<p>"Am dat so?" (counting), "firty-free, firty-foah, firty-five, firty-six,
+firty-seben, firty-eight, firty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two,
+forty-free. Hit am so singular dat you has sich old childruns. I can't
+b'leeve you has granchildruns. You don't look more den forty yeahs ole
+yerseff."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, old man, I see you want to flatter me. When a person gets to be
+fifty-three years old&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty-free? I jess dun gwinter beleeve hit, fifty-free, fifty-foah,
+fifty-five, fifty-six&mdash;I want you to pay tenshun when I counts de eggs, so
+dar'll be no mistake&mdash;fifty-nine,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-tree,
+sixty-foah&mdash;Whew. Dat am a warm day. Dis am de time ob yeah when I feels
+I'se gettin' old myself. I ain't long fer dis world. You comes from an old
+family. When your fodder died he was sebenty years ole."</p>
+
+<p>"Seventy-two."</p>
+
+<p>"Dat's old, suah. Sebenty-two, sebenty-free, sebenty-foah, sebenty-five,
+sebenty-six, sebenty-seben, sebenty-eight, sebenty-nine&mdash;and your mudder?
+She was one ob the noblest looking ladies I ebber see. You reminds me ob
+her so much. She libbed to mos' a hundred. I bleeves she was done pass a
+centurion when she died."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Uncle Mose, she was only ninety-six when she died."</p>
+
+<p>"Den she warn't no chicken when she died. I know dat&mdash;ninety-six,
+ninety-seben, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, one, two, free, foah,
+five, six, seben, eight&mdash;dar 108 nice fresh eggs&mdash;jess nine dozen, and here
+am one moah egg in case I has discounted myself."</p>
+
+<p>Old Mose went on his way rejoicing. A few days afterward Mrs. Burton said
+to her husband:</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid we will have to discharge Matilda. I am satisfied she steals
+the milk and eggs. I am positive about the eggs, for I bought them day
+before yesterday, and now about half of them are gone. I stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> right there
+and heard Old Mose count them myself and there were nine dozen."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ANNIE AND WILLIE'S PRAYER.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY MRS. SOPHIA P. SNOW.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Twas the eve before Christmas, "Good-night" had been said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Annie and Willie had crept into bed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There were tears on their pillows, and tears in their eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And each little bosom was heaving with sighs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For to-night their stern father's command had been given<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That they should retire precisely at seven<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Instead of at eight&mdash;for they troubled him more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With questions unheard of than ever before:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had told them he thought this delusion a sin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No such a creature as "Santa Claus" ever had been.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he hoped, after this, he should never more hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How he scrambled down chimneys with presents each year.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this was the reason that two little heads<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So restlessly tossed on their soft, downy beds.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eight, nine, and the clock on the steeple tolled ten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not a word had been spoken by either till then,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Willie's sad face from the blanket did peep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And whispered, "Dear Annie, is 'ou fast as'eep?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Why no, brother Willie," a sweet voice replies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I've long tried in vain, but I can't shut my eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For somehow it makes me so sorry because<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dear papa has said there is no 'Santa Claus,'<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Now we know there is, and it can't be denied,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he came every year before mamma died;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, then, I've been thinking that she used to pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And God would hear everything mamma would say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And maybe she asked him to send Santa Claus here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the sack full of presents he brought every year."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Well, why tan't we p'ay dest as mamma did den,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ask Dod to send him with p'esents aden?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I've been thinking so too," and without a word more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Four little bare feet bounded out on the floor,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And four little knees the carpet pressed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And two tiny hands were clasped close to each breast.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Now Willie, you know we must firmly believe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the presents we asked for we're sure to receive;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You must wait very still till I say the 'Amen,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And by that you will know that your turn has come then."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Dear Jesus, look down on my brother and me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And grant us the favor we are asking of thee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I want a wax dolly, a tea-set and ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And an ebony work-box that shuts with a spring.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bless papa, dear Jesus, and cause him to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Santa Claus loves us as much as does he;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Don't let him get fretful and angry again<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At dear brother Willie and Annie. Amen."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Please, Desus, 'et Santa Taus tum down to-night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And b'ing us some p'esents before it is light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I want he should div' me a nice 'ittie s'ed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With bright shinin' 'unners, and all painted red;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A box full of tandy, a book, and a toy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amen, and then Desus, I'll be a dood boy."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Their prayers being ended, they raised up their heads,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with hearts light and cheerful, again sought their beds.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were lost soon in slumber, both peaceful and deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with fairies in dreamland were roaming in sleep.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Eight, nine, and the little French clock had struck ten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere the father had thought of his children again:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He seems now to hear Annie's half-suppressed sighs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to see the big tears stand in Willie's blue eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I was harsh with my darlings," he mentally said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"And should not have sent them so early to bed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But then I was troubled; my feelings found vent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For bank stock to-day has gone down ten per cent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But of course they've forgotten their troubles ere this,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that I denied them the thrice-asked-for kiss:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, just to make sure, I'll go up to their door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I never spoke harsh to my darlings before."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So saying, he softly ascended the stairs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And arrived at the door to hear both of their prayers;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His Annie's "Bless papa" drew forth the big tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Willie's grave promise fell sweet on his ears.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Strange&mdash;strange&mdash;I'd forgotten," said he with a sigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"How I longed when a child to have Christmas draw nigh."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I'll atone for my harshness," he inwardly said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"By answering their prayers ere I sleep in my bed."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then he turned to the stairs and softly went down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Threw off velvet slippers and silk dressing-gown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Donned hat, coat, and boots, and was out in the street&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A millionaire facing the cold driving sleet!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nor stopped he until he had bought every thing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the box full of candy to the tiny gold ring;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indeed, he kept adding so much to his store,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the various presents outnumbered a score.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then homeward he turned, when his holiday load,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Aunt Mary's help, in the nursery was stowed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Miss Dolly was seated beneath a pine tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the side of a table spread out for her tea;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A work-box well filled in the centre was laid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on it the ring for which Annie had prayed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A soldier in uniform stood by a sled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"With bright shining runners, and all painted red."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There were balls, dogs, and horses, books pleasing to see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And birds of all colors were perched in the tree!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While Santa Claus, laughing, stood up in the top,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if getting ready more presents to drop.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as the fond father the picture surveyed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He thought for his trouble he had amply been paid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he said to himself, as he brushed off a tear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I'm happier to-night than I've been for a year;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I've enjoyed more true pleasure than ever before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What care I if bank stock falls ten per cent more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hereafter I'll make it a rule, I believe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To have Santa Claus visit us each Christmas Eve."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So thinking, he gently extinguished the light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, tripping down stairs, retired for the night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As soon as the beams of the bright morning sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Put the darkness to flight, and the stars one by one.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Four little blue eyes out of sleep opened wide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And at the same moment the presents espied;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then out of their beds they sprang with a bound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the very gifts prayed for were all of them found.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They laughed and they cried, in their innocent glee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shouted for papa to come quick and see<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">What presents old Santa Claus brought in the night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Just the things that they wanted), and left before light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"And now," added Annie, in a voice soft and low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"You'll believe there's a 'Santa Claus,' papa, I know;"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While dear little Willie climbed up on his knee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Determined no secret between them should be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And told in soft whispers how Annie had said<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That their dear bless&egrave;d mamma, so long ago dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Used to kneel down by the side of her chair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And that God up in heaven had answered her prayer.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Den we dot up and prayed dust well as we tould,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Dod answered our prayers: now wasn't He dood?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"I should say that He was if He sent you all these,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And knew just what presents my children would please.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Well, well, let him think so, the dear little elf,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twould be cruel to tell him I did it myself.)"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Blind father! who caused your stern heart to relent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the hasty words spoken so soon to repent?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twas the Being who bade you steal softly up stairs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And made you His agent to answer their prayers.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY SAMUEL WOODWORTH.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When fond recollection presents them to view!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And every loved spot which my infancy knew;<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And e'en the rude bucket, which hung in the well.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That moss-covered bucket I hail as a treasure;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For often, at noon, when returned from the field,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moss-covered bucket arose from the well.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now, far removed from the loved situation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The tear of regret will intrusively swell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moss-covered bucket, which hangs in the well.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+<h2>MR. WINKLE PUTS ON SKATES.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY CHARLES DICKENS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Now," said Wardle, after a substantial lunch, "what say you to an hour on
+the ice? We shall have plenty of time."</p>
+
+<p>"Capital!" said Mr. Benjamin Allen.</p>
+
+<p>"Prime!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"You skate, of course, Winkle?" said Wardle.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-yes; O yes," replied Mr. Winkle. "I&mdash;I&mdash;am rather out of practice!"</p>
+
+<p>"O, do skate, Mr. Winkle," said Arabella. "I like to see it so much."</p>
+
+<p>"O, it is so graceful," said another young lady. A third young lady said it
+was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was "swanlike."</p>
+
+<p>"I should be very happy, I'm sure," said Mr. Winkle, reddening; "but I have
+no skates."</p>
+
+<p>This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had a couple of pairs, and
+the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more down stairs;
+whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely
+uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and
+Mr. Weller having shoveled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it
+during the night, Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a dexterity
+which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvelous, and described circles with his
+left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without
+once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing
+devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman and the
+ladies; which reached a pitch of positive enthusiasm when old Wardle and
+Benjamin Allen, assisted by the aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic
+evolutions which they called a reel.</p>
+
+<p>All this time Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had
+been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his skates
+on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated
+and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather
+less about skates than a Hindoo. At length, however, with the assistance of
+Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled on, and
+Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, then, sir," said Sam, in an encouraging tone, "off with you, and show
+'em how to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, Sam, stop!" said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold
+of Sam's arm with the grasp of a drowning man. "How slippery it is, Sam!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not an uncommon thing upon ice, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Hold up, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>This last observation of Mr. Weller's bore reference to a demonstration Mr.
+Winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in the
+air, and dash the back of his head on the ice.</p>
+
+<p>"These&mdash;these&mdash;are very awkward skates," said Mr. Winkle, staggering.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Winkle," cried Mr. Pickwick, quite unconscious that there was
+anything the matter. "Come; the ladies are all anxiety."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly smile. "I'm coming."</p>
+
+<p>"Just going to begin," said Sam, endeavoring to disengage himself. "Now,
+sir, start off!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just hold me at first, Sam, will you?" said Mr. Winkle. "There&mdash;that's
+right. I shall soon get in the way of it, Sam. Not too fast, Sam&mdash;not too
+fast!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Winkle stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being
+assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller in a very singular and un-swanlike
+manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite
+bank&mdash;"Sam!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!" shouted back Mr. Weller.</p>
+
+<p>"Here! I want you."</p>
+
+<p>"Let go, sir," said Sam. "Don't you hear the governor calling? Let go,
+sir."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With a violent effort Mr. Weller disengaged himself from the grasp of the
+agonized Pickwickian, and in so doing administered a considerable impetus
+to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy which no degree of dexterity or
+practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore swiftly down
+into the centre of the reel at the very moment when Mr. Bob Sawyer was
+performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Winkle struck Wildly against him, and with a loud crash they both fell
+heavily down. Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his
+feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind in skates.
+He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but anguish
+was depicted on every lineament of his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hurt?" inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much," said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd let me bleed you," said Mr. Benjamin, with great eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you," replied Mr. Winkle, hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I really think you had better," said Allen.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," replied Mr. Winkle; "I'd rather not."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do you think, Mr. Pickwick?" inquired Bob Sawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He beckoned to Mr. Weller and said,
+in a stern voice, "Take his skates off!"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but really I had scarcely begun," remonstrated Mr. Winkle.</p>
+
+<p>"Take his skates off!" repeated Mr. Pickwick, firmly.</p>
+
+<p>The command was not to be resisted. Mr. Winkle allowed Sam to obey it, in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Lift him up," said Mr. Pickwick. Sam assisted him to rise.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and, beckoning
+his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him and uttered in a
+low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words:</p>
+
+<p>"You're a humbug, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"A what?" said Mr. Winkle, starting.</p>
+
+<p>"A humbug, sir! I will speak plainer, if you wish it. An impostor, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>With these words Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel and rejoined his
+friends.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+<h2>MY MOTHER'S BIBLE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This book is all that's left me now!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Tears will unbidden start,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With faltering lip and throbbing brow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I press it to my heart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For many generations past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Here is our family tree:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My mother's hand this Bible clasped;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She, dying, gave it me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ah! well do I remember those<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose names these records bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who round the hearthstone used to close<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">After the evening prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And speak of what these pages said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In tones my heart would thrill!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though they are with the silent dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Here are they living still!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My father read this holy book<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To brothers, sisters, dear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How calm was my poor mother's look,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who leaned God's word to hear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her angel-face&mdash;I see it yet!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What thronging memories come!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Again that little group is met<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Within the halls of home!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou truest friend man ever knew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy constancy I've tried;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where all were false I found thee true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My counsellor and guide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mines of earth no treasure give<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That could this volume buy:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In teaching me the way to live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It taught me how to die.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+<h2>AFTER-DINNER SPEECH BY A FRENCHMAN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Milors and Gentlemans&mdash;You excellent chairman, M. le Baron de
+Mount-Stuart, he have say to me, 'Make de toast.' Den I say to him dat I
+have no toast to make; but he nudge my elbow ver soft, and say dat dere is
+von toast dat nobody but von Frenchman can make proper; and, derefore, wid
+your kind permission, I vill make de toast. 'De brevete is de sole of de
+feet,' as you great philosophere, Dr. Johnson, do say, in dat amusing
+little vork of his, de Pronouncing Dictionaire; and, derefore, I vill not
+say ver moch to de point.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! mes amis! ven I hear to myself de flowing speech, de oration
+magnifique of your Lor' Maire, Monsieur Gobbledown, I feel dat it is von
+great privilege for von &eacute;tranger to sit at de same table, and to eat de
+same food, as dat grand, dat majestique man, who are de tereur of de
+voleurs and de brigands of de metropolis, and who is also, I for to
+suppose, a halterman and de chief of you common scoundrel. Milors and
+gentlemans, I feel that I can perspire to no greatare honueur dan to be von
+common scoundrelman myself; but, h&eacute;las! dat plaisir are not for me, as I
+are not freeman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> of your great cit&eacute;, not von liveryman servant of von you
+compagnies joint-stock. But I must not forget de toast.</p>
+
+<p>"Milors and Gentlemans! De immortal Shakispeare he have write, 'De ting of
+beauty are de joy for nevermore.' It is de ladies who are de toast. Vat is
+more entrancing dan de charmante smile, de soft voice, de vinking eye of de
+beautiful lady! It is de ladies who do sweeten the cares of life. It is de
+ladies who are de guiding stars of our existence. It is de ladies who do
+cheer but not inebriate, and, derefore, vid all homage to dere sex, de
+toast dat I have to propose is, 'De Ladies! Heaven bless dem all!'"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE WHIRLING WHEEL.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY TUDOR JENKS.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh! the regular round is a kind of a grind!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We rise in the morning only to find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Monday's but Tuesday, and Wednesday's the same,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Thursday's a change in nothing but name;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A Friday and Saturday wind up the week;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Sunday we rest, and attempt to look meek.<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">So set a firm shoulder<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">And push on the wheel!<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">The mill that we're grinding<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">Works for our weal.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And although the dull round is a kind of a grind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It has compensations that we may find.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Famine and slaughter and sieges no more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are likely to leave their cards at the door.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let others delight in adventurous lives&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We read their sore trials at home to our wives.<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">So set a firm shoulder<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">And push on the wheel!<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">The mill that we're grinding<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">Works for our weal.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The regular round, though a kind of a grind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brings thoughts of contentment to quiet the mind:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The babies sleep soundly in snug little beds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There's a tight little roof o'er the ringletted heads;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wife's welcome comes with the set of the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the worker may rest, for the day's work is done.<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">So set a firm shoulder<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">And push on the wheel!<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">The mill that we're grinding<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">Works for our weal.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh! the regular round is a kind of a grind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the world's scenes are shifted by workmen behind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The star who struts central may show no more art<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than the sturdy "first citizen" filling his part.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the king to our plaudits has graciously bowed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crowd sees the king, while the king sees the crowd.<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">So set a firm shoulder<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">And push on the wheel!<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">The mill that we're grinding<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">Works for our weal.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When the great mill has stopped, and the work is complete,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the workers receive the reward that is meet,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">Who can tell what the Master shall say is the best?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We but know that the worker who's aided the rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who has kept his wheel turning from morning to night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who has not wronged his fellow, is not far from right.<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">So set a firm shoulder<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">And push on the wheel!<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">The mill that we're grinding<br /></span>
+<span class="i16">Shall work out our weal.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE BLACK HORSE AND HIS RIDER.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY CHARLES SHEPPARD.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was the seventh of October, 1777. Horatio Gates stood before his tent,
+gazing steadfastly upon the two armies now arrayed in order of battle. It
+was a clear, bracing day, mellow with the richness of autumn. The sky was
+cloudless; the foliage of the wood scarce tinged with purple and gold; the
+buckwheat in yonder fields frostened into snowy ripeness. But the tread of
+legions shook the ground; from every bush shot the glimmer of the rifle
+barrel; on every hillside blazed the sharpened bayonet.</p>
+
+<p>Gates was sad and thoughtful as he watched the evolutions of the two
+armies. But all at once a smoke arose, a thunder shook the ground, and a
+chorus of shouts and groans yelled along the darkened air. The play<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> of
+death had begun. The two flags, this of the stars, that of the red cross,
+tossed amid the smoke of battle, while the sky was clouded with leaden
+folds, and the earth throbbed with the pulsations of a mighty heart.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, Gates and his officers were startled. Along the height on which
+they stood came a rider, upon a black horse, rushing toward the distant
+battle. There was something in the appearance of this horse and his rider
+that struck them with surprise. Look! he draws his sword, the sharp blade
+quivers through the air&mdash;he points to the distant battle, and, lo! he is
+gone; gone through those clouds, while his shout echoes over the plains.
+Wherever the fight is the thickest, there, through intervals of cannon
+smoke, you may see riding madly forward that strange soldier, mounted on
+his steed black as death. Look at him, as with face red with British blood
+he waves his sword and shouts to his legions. Now you may see him fighting
+in that cannon's glare, and the next moment he is away off yonder, leading
+the forlorn hope up that steep cliff. Is it not a magnificent sight to see
+that strange soldier and that noble black horse, dashing like a meteor,
+down the long columns of battle? Let us look for a moment into those dense
+war clouds. Over this thick hedge bursts a band of American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> militiamen,
+their rude farmer coats stained with blood, while scattering their arms by
+the way, they flee before that company of redcoat hirelings, who come
+rushing forward, their solid front of bayonets gleaming in the battle
+light. In this moment of their flight, a horse comes crashing over the
+plains. The unknown rider reins his steed back on his haunches right in the
+path of a broad-shouldered militiaman. "Now! cowards! advance another step
+and I'll strike you to the heart!" shouts the unknown, extending a pistol
+in either hand. "What! are you Americans, men, and fly before British
+soldiers? Back again, and face them once more, or I myself will ride you
+down." This appeal was not without its effect. The militiaman turns; his
+comrades, as if by one impulse, follow his example. In one line, but thirty
+men in all, they confront thirty sharp bayonets. The British advance. "Now,
+upon the rebels, charge!" shouts the red-coat officer. They spring forward
+at the same bound. Look! their bayonets almost touch the muzzles of their
+rifles. At this moment the voice of the unknown rider is heard: "Now let
+them have it! Fire!" A sound is heard, a smoke is seen, twenty Britons are
+down, some writhing in death, some crawling along the soil, and some
+speechless as stone. The remaining ten start back. "Club your rifles and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+charge them home!" shouts the unknown. That black horse springs forward,
+followed by the militiamen. Then a confused conflict&mdash;a cry for quarter,
+and a vision of twenty farmers grouped around the rider of the black horse,
+greeting him with cheers.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was all the day long. Wherever that black horse and his rider went,
+there followed victory. At last, toward the setting of the sun, the crisis
+of the conflict came. That fortress yonder, on Bemiss' Heights, must be
+won, or the American cause is lost! That cliff is too steep&mdash;that death is
+too certain. The officers cannot persuade the men to advance. The Americans
+have lost the field. Even Morgan, that iron man among iron men, leans on
+his rifle and despairs of the field. But look yonder! In this moment when
+all is dismay and horror, here crashing on, comes the black horse and his
+rider. That rider bends upon his steed, his frenzied face covered with
+sweat and dust and blood; he lays his hand upon that bold rifleman's
+shoulder, and, as though living fire had been poured into his veins, he
+seized his rifle and started toward the rock. And now look! now hold your
+breath, as that Black Steed crashes up that steep cliff. That steed
+quivers! he totters! he falls! No! No! Still on, still up the cliff, still
+on toward the fortress. The rider turns his face and shouts, "Come on, men
+of Quebec!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> come on!" That call is needless. Already the bold riflemen are
+on the rock. Now British cannon pour your fires, and lay your dead in tens
+and twenties on the rock. Now, red-coat hirelings, shout your battle-cry if
+you can! For look! there, in the gate of the fortress, as the smoke clears
+away, stands the Black Horse and his rider. That steed falls dead, pierced
+by an hundred balls; but his rider, as the British cry for quarter, lifts
+up his voice and shouts afar to Horatio Gates waiting yonder in his tent,
+"Saratoga is won!" As that cry goes up to heaven, he falls with his leg
+shattered by a cannon-ball. Who was the rider of the black horse? Do you
+not guess his name? Then bend down and gaze on that shattered limb, and you
+shall see that it bears the mark of a former wound. That wound was received
+in the storming of Quebec. That rider of the Black Horse was Benedict
+Arnold.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SHE CUT HIS HAIR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>You can always tell a boy whose mother cuts his hair. Not because the edges
+of it look as if it had been chewed off by an absent-minded horse; but you
+can tell it by the way he stops on the streets and wriggles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> his shoulders.
+When a fond mother has to cut her boy's hair she is careful to guard
+against any annoyance and muss by laying a sheet on the carpet. It has
+never yet occurred to her to set him over a bare floor and put the sheet
+around his neck. Then she draws the front hair over his eyes, and leaves it
+there while she cuts that which is at the back; the hair which lies over
+his eyes appears to be surcharged with electric needles, and that which is
+silently dropping down over his shirtband appears to be on fire. She has
+unconsciously continued to push his head forward until his nose presses his
+breast, and is too busily engaged to notice the snuffling sound that is
+becoming alarmingly frequent. In the meantime he is seized with an
+irresistible desire to blow his nose, but recollects that his handkerchief
+is in the other room. Then a fly lights on his nose, and does it so
+unexpectedly that he involuntarily dodges and catches the points of the
+shears in his left ear. At this he commences to cry and wish he was a man.
+But his mother doesn't notice him. She merely hits him on the other ear to
+inspire him with confidence and goes on with the work. When she is through
+she holds his jacket-collar back from his neck, and with her mouth blows
+the short bits of hair from the top of his head down his back. He calls
+her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> attention to this fact, but she looks for a new place on his head and
+hits him there, and asks him why he didn't use a handkerchief. Then he
+takes his awfully disfigured head to the mirror and looks at it, and, young
+as he is, shudders as he thinks of what the boys on the street will say.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>AN APPEAL FOR LIBERTY.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY JOSEPH STORY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors&mdash;by the dear
+ashes which repose in this precious soil&mdash;by all you are, and all you hope
+to be&mdash;resist every object of disunion, resist every encroachment upon your
+liberties, resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your
+public schools, or extinguish your system of public instruction.</p>
+
+<p>I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman, the love of
+your off-spring; teach them, as they climb your knees, or lean on your
+bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their
+baptismal vows, to be true to their country, and never to forget or forsake
+her.</p>
+
+<p>I call upon you, young men, to remember<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> whose sons you are; whose
+inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, which brings nothing
+but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if necessary in
+defence of the liberties of your country.</p>
+
+<p>I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers, and your
+benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in sorrow to the grave, with
+the recollection that you have lived in vain. May not your last sun sink in
+the west upon a nation of slaves.</p>
+
+<p>No; I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter
+visions. We, who are now assembled here, must soon be gathered to the
+congregation of other days. The time of our departure is at hand, to make
+way for our children upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and
+theirs. May he who, at the distance of another century, shall stand here to
+celebrate this day, still look round upon a free, happy, and virtuous
+people. May he have reason to exult as we do. May he, with all the
+enthusiasm of truth as well as of poetry, exclaim, that here is still his
+country.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p>
+<h2>OLD UNCLE JAKE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>He was bowed by many a year of service; he was white-woolled, thick-lipped,
+and a true son of Africa, yet a grand and knightly soul animated that dusky
+breast&mdash;a soul that many a scion of the blood royal might envy.</p>
+
+<p>The children loved him, the neighbors respected him, his own color looked
+up to him as a superior being, and they whose goods and chattels he had
+formerly been, were sure to heed his counsels in all important family
+matters. Aye, he had an honorable record. If his skin was black, his soul
+was white as the whitest and from lusty boyhood to the present there had
+been no need of "stripes" for Uncle Jake.</p>
+
+<p>He had been the playmate of "young marster," the boon companion in all
+'possum hunts and fishing frolics, and when each had arrived at man's
+estate the goodfellowship contracted in youth knew no surcease.</p>
+
+<p>When the tocsin of war resounded through the South, and the call for
+volunteers was made, "marster" was one of the first to buckle on his armor
+and hasten to the front&mdash;doing so with greater heart as Uncle Jake was left
+in charge of those dearer than life to him.</p>
+
+<p>And royally did the poor unlettered African<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> fulfil the trust committed to
+his keeping. He took upon himself the burden of all plantation matters and
+sooner than one hair on the heads of "missus or chillun" should be injured,
+he would have sacrificed his life freely any day. And when the war was over
+he positively refused to join in the hegira of his brethren, preferring
+rather to live on in the same old place that had witnessed his birth and
+the strength of his manhood's prime.</p>
+
+<p>In grateful recognition of his long servitude a comfortable cottage was
+built for him in a secluded nook of the plantation, in which, with his
+faithful old wife, he lived a peaceful and contented life, tilling the few
+acres which had been granted him and doing all sorts of odd jobs out of the
+pure love he bore old marse.</p>
+
+<p>But Uncle Jake was getting old now&mdash;more and more heavily the weight of
+years fell upon him&mdash;the whiter grew his locks until at last the time came
+when he could no longer pursue his accustomed duties, and all reluctant and
+unwilling he took to his bed never to rise again.</p>
+
+<p>For weeks and months he lingered on the "Border Land," attended by loving
+hands, and his slightest wish was gratified; indeed, so long he hovered
+between life and death, that those who loved him best began to cherish a
+faint hope that he would be spared to them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the fiat had gone forth&mdash;Uncle Jake must die.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, just as the setting sun was flooding the fair landscape with
+his golden beams, a tearful group were assembled at his bedside, who had
+been hastily summoned thither to bid farewell to one who had been so true a
+friend to them all.</p>
+
+<p>There were marster and missus and their children and Jake's own wife and
+children, with a few of his fellow servants, all united in a democracy of
+grief that knew no distinction of caste in the supreme moment.</p>
+
+<p>No sound was heard save a half-suppressed sob now and then&mdash;the tick-tick
+of the clock on the rude mantel and the labored breathing of the dying man.</p>
+
+<p>For hours he had lain in a sort of stupor, broken only at intervals by
+delirious mutterings, when suddenly his eyes, in which was a preternatural
+brightness, opened and fixed themselves long and earnestly in turn upon
+each one of the faces bent so sorrowfully over him.</p>
+
+<p>Then in a feeble, fluttering voice, like the last effort of an expiring
+taper, he addressed his master, who was tenderly wiping the moisture from
+his brow:</p>
+
+<p>"Ole marse, I'se been a good and faithful servant to yer all dese years,
+has I not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Jake."</p>
+
+<p>"Ebber since we was boys togedder I'se<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> lubed yer, and stuck to yer through
+thick and thin, and now dat Jake is goin' home yer doan' treasure up
+nothin' agin me, do yer, marse?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Jake."</p>
+
+<p>"Old missus, come nearer, honey, Jake's eyes is gettin' mighty dim now, and
+he kan't see yer. Yer'll nebber forgit how Jake tuk keer of yer an' de
+chilluns when ole marster gone to de war? An' yer'll be kind to my wife and
+chilluns for my sake, won't yer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, Jake, I'll be kind to them, and I will never forget your
+fidelity, old friend."</p>
+
+<p>"T'ank de Lawd! I kin die happy now, when I'se know dat yer an' master will
+'member me an' be kind to dem I'se leaving behind. An' de chillun&mdash;whar's
+de chillun? I'se wants ter tell 'em all goodby an' say a las' few words to
+dem, too."</p>
+
+<p>And in his eagerness, with a strength born of death, the old man half arose
+upon his elbow and laid a trembling hand upon the head of each of the
+awe-struck children.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless yer, chillun, one an' all. I lubs my own little picaninnies, but
+I lubs old marster's just as well. I doan' want none o' yer to forgit how
+Uncle Jake has trotted yer on his knee an' toted yer on his back an' keep'
+a watchful eye on yer, les' yet git into mischief by yer pranks. Promise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+me, chillun, dat you'll nebber forgit dese ting. It pleases Uncle Jake to
+think yer'll 'member him arter he's gone from yer sight for ebber."</p>
+
+<p>As well as they were able for their tears, the little ones gave the
+required promise, and greatly pleased, the old man sank back exhausted upon
+his pillow.</p>
+
+<p>After lying a few minutes with closed eyes, as if in sleep, he suddenly
+whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Dinah, whar is you? I wants yer to cum closer ter me, honey, an' put yer
+arms around my neck an' lay yer cheek ter mine like yer used ter do when we
+was courtin' down in de huckleberry patch. I wants ter die in yer arms, ole
+wife. Yer is black, an' de white folks mought not be able ter see any booty
+in yer, but Jake knows what a true an' lovin' wife you'se bin ter him, an'
+he can see de booty dat's hidden out o' sight. I'se gwine ter cross ober
+der great wide ribber dey call Death, into a kentry whar' dere'll nebber be
+any mo' black skins&mdash;whar' I'll wear de white robe and de golden crown, an'
+I'se got ter wait fur yer dere. Dinah, my lub! my lub! Hark, honey! doan'
+yer hear de bells ob heaven a-ringing? An' doan' yer see de pearly gates
+a-openin' to let ole black Jake go frew? I'se a comin', holy angels&mdash;I'se a
+comin', blessed Lawd! Glory hallelewger! Ole Jake's mos' got ober de
+ribber. His feet is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> touchin' de water&mdash;but it's gettin' so cold, Dinah,
+honey&mdash;I can't feel de clasp of yer arms any mo'. I'se&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And with a last, long, fluttering sigh, as knightly and true a soul as ever
+dwelt in human breast took its light to a realm where there is indeed
+neither black nor white, nor bond nor free, but all are like unto the
+angels.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE HOT AXLE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The express train was flying from Cork to Queenstown; it was going like
+sixty&mdash;that is, about sixty miles an hour. No sight of Irish village to
+arrest our speed, no sign of a breakdown; and yet the train halted. We
+looked out of a window; saw a brakeman and a crowd of passengers gathering
+around the locomotive, and a dense smoke arising. What was the matter? <i>A
+hot axle!</i></p>
+
+<p>I thought then, as I think now, that is what is the matter with people
+everywhere. In this swift, "express" American life, we go too fast for our
+endurance. We think ourselves getting on splendidly, when, in the midst of
+our success, we come to a dead halt. What is the matter? The nerves or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+muscles or our brain give out; we make too many revolutions in an hour. <i>A
+hot axle!</i></p>
+
+<p>Men make the mistake of working according to their opportunities, and not
+according to their capacity of endurance. Can I be a merchant, and
+president of a bank, and a director in a life insurance company, and a
+school commission, and help edit a paper, and supervise the politics of our
+ward, and run for Congress? "I can!" the man says to himself. The store
+drives him; the bank drives him; the school drives him; politics drive him.
+He takes all the scoldings and frets and exasperations of each position.
+Some day, at the height of the business season, he does not come to the
+store. From the most important meeting of the bank directors he is absent.
+In the excitement of the most important political canvass he fails to be at
+the place appointed. What is the matter? His health has broken down; the
+train halts long before it gets to the station. <i>A hot axle!</i></p>
+
+<p>Literary men have great opportunities opening in this day. If they take all
+that open, they are dead men, or worse&mdash;<i>living</i> men that ought to be dead.
+The pen runs so easy when you have good ink and smooth paper, and an easy
+desk to write on, and the consciousness of an audience of one, two, or
+three hundred thousand readers. So great is the invitation to literary
+work,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> that the professional men of the day are overdone. They sit, faint
+and fagged out, on the verge of newspapers and books; each one does the
+work of three. And these men sit up late nights and choke down chunks of
+meat without mastication, and scold their wives through irritability, and
+maul innocent authors, and run the physical machinery with a liver
+miserably given out. The driving shaft has gone fifty times a second. They
+stop at no station. The steam-chest is hot and swollen. The brain and
+digestion begins to smoke. Stop, ye flying quills! "Down brakes!" <i>A hot
+axle!</i></p>
+
+<p>Some of our young people have read&mdash;till they are crazed&mdash;of learned
+blacksmiths who at the forge conquered thirty languages; and shoemakers
+who, pounding sole-leather, got to be philosophers; and of milliners who,
+while their customers were at the glass trying on their spring hats, wrote
+a volume of first-rate poems. The fact is, no blacksmith ought to be
+troubled with more than five languages; and, instead of shoemakers becoming
+philosophers, we would like to turn our surplus supply of philosophers into
+shoemakers; and the supply of poetry is so much greater than the demand,
+that we wish milliners would stick to their business. Extraordinary
+examples of work and endurance may do us much good. Because Napoleon slept
+only four hours a night, hundreds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> of students have tried the experiment;
+but, instead of Austerlitz and Saragossa, there came of it only a sick
+headache and a botch of a recitation.</p>
+
+<p>Let us not go beyond our endurance, cutting short our days and making a
+wreck of our life work, but labor earnestly, zealously, intelligently for
+success; and in the twilight of old age peace and happiness will be
+ours&mdash;not the shattered and praised remains of a career disastrously
+checked.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE CHILDREN.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h2>
+
+<h3>BY CHARLES DICKENS.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When the lessons and tasks are ended,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the school for the day is dismissed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the little ones gather around me<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To bid me "good-night" and be kissed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, the little white arms that encircle<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My neck in a tender embrace!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shedding sunshine and love on my face!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And when they are gone I sit dreaming<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of my childhood too lovely to last;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of love, that my heart will remember<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When it wakes to the pulse of the past.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere the world and its wickedness made me<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A partner of sorrow and sin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the glory of God was about me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the glory of gladness within.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, my heart grows weak as a woman's,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the fountain of feelings will flow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When I think of the paths steep and stony<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where the feet of the dear ones must go;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of the tempests of fate blowing wild;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, there's nothing on earth half so holy<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As the innocent heart of a child.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They are idols of hearts and of households,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They are angels of God in disguise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His glory still beams in their eyes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh, those truants from earth and from heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They have made me more manly and mild,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I know how Jesus could liken<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The kingdom of God to a child.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Seek not a life for the dear ones<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All radiant, as others have done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But that life may have just as much shadow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To temper the glare of the sun;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I would pray God to guard them from evil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But my prayer would bound back to myself;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, a seraph may pray for a sinner,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But a sinner must pray for himself.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The twig is so easily bended,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I have banished the rule and the rod;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have taught them the goodness of knowledge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They have taught me the goodness of God.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My heart is a dungeon of darkness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where I shut them from breaking a rule;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My frown is sufficient correction,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My love is the law of the school.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I shall leave the old house in the autumn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To traverse its threshold no more&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, how I shall sigh for the dear ones<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That meet me each morn at the door.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">I shall miss the good-nights and the kisses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the gush of their innocent glee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The group on the green and the flowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That are brought every morning to me.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I shall miss them at morn and eve,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their songs in the school and the street,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall miss the low hum of their voices,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the tramp of their delicate feet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When lessons and tasks are all ended,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And death says the school is dismissed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May the little ones gather around me<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To bid me "good-night" and be kissed.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Found in the desk of Charles Dickens after his death.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHARITY.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When you meet with one suspected<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of some secret deed of shame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And for this by all rejected<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As a thing of evil fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Guard thine every look and action,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Speak no word of heartless blame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the slanderer's vile detraction<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yet may soil thy goodly name.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When you meet with one pursuing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ways the lost have entered in,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Working out his own undoing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With his recklessness and sin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Think, if placed in his condition,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Would a kind word be in vain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or a look of cold suspicion<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Win thee back to truth again?<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There are spots that bear no flowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not because the soil is bad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the Summer's genial showers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Never made their bosoms glad.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better have an act that's kindly<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Treated sometimes with disdain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than, in judging others blindly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Doom the innocent to pain.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>NO OBJECTION TO CHILDREN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was a block of yellow-brown houses in South Boston, looking as much like
+a sheet of gingerbread as anything.</p>
+
+<p>An express-wagon had just backed up to No. 21 in that block, and the
+driver, unloosing ropes here and there, proceeded to unpack the luggage.</p>
+
+<p>"What have we here?" exclaimed Mrs. Bacon, the downstairs tenant. "A
+menagerie, I do believe. Come here, John."</p>
+
+<p>There was, indeed, on the very top of the load a gray horse that in the
+twilight looked very real till one noticed the rockers on which it stood.
+But there was a kennel with a live terrier's head at the window, a
+bird-cage with its fluttering tenant, a crib and high chair besides,
+suggesting that the folks in the other part might, in the language of Mrs.
+Bacon, "make music."</p>
+
+<p>Now, the downstairs tenants, Mr. and Mrs. Bacon, were precise, orderly
+people,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> living, like many other city people, in desert-island fashion, and
+only hoping that everybody else would mind their own business. It had been
+for weeks their great comfort that the other part was unoccupied, and now
+this load of household goods brimming over with pets and their belongings
+was an unwelcome sight.</p>
+
+<p>There were no young Bacons&mdash;no, indeed! Plants did not flourish in their
+shaded windows nor canary birds splash water from their tiny baths upon the
+clear glass. No dog barked a noisy welcome when his master returned at
+night. No cat purred in her mistress's lap. The housekeeping of the Bacons
+was a fight against dirt, dust, sunshine and noise; and somehow pets bring
+all these.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, John," said Mrs. Bacon as she turned from the window and pulled the
+shade over the sacred glass, "there's an end to peace and quiet. We must
+keep the entry doors locked; and don't you be whistling round to attract a
+child. Give them an inch and they'll take an ell. If folks must have
+rocking horses and what goes with them, they ought to move into the
+country, where they will not be pestering other people."</p>
+
+<p>But, to the surprise of the Bacons, they were not pestered, only by the
+patter of little feet overhead, or a woman's voice singing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> cradle-songs or
+joining in her child's laughter. Crying there was, too, sometimes, but it
+was so soon hushed in motherly caresses that it seemed a sort of rainbow
+grievance only.</p>
+
+<p>At night, when the father came home, there was quite a joyful noise
+upstairs, at which time John's face was a little wistful. But the new
+family did not intrude for ever so small a favor.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bacon took good care to keep out of sight whenever the new tenants
+were passing through the entry-way. One small pair of boots had
+considerable traveling to do up and down the stairs for a stroll on the
+sidewalk or to old Dorchester Heights, just beyond, for spoils of wild
+flowers.</p>
+
+<p>One day Little Boots came back from this favorite resort, and instead of
+climbing the stairs, as usual, strayed hesitatingly toward Mrs. Bacon's
+kitchen door.</p>
+
+<p>"Smells the gingerbread," soliloquized Mrs. Bacon, grimly. "Glad the door
+is locked." She glanced toward it to be sure; yes, it was locked, though
+the key had been transferred to another door. But shining through the
+keyhole was a very bright and sweet-looking star of an eye. Only a moment
+it twinkled, and then there was thrust in very gently the stem of a
+dandelion, and the small boots scampered away up the stairs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Little mischief!" exclaimed Mrs. Bacon, and she would have pushed the
+intruding stem outside, but her hands were in the dough. "If he wanted a
+piece of gingerbread, why didn't he say so? Mebbe he was afraid of me; cats
+run like all possessed when they see me. I can't have my key-holes choked
+up with dandelion stems&mdash;that's so. Soon's I get my hands out of this it
+will walk into the stove, that dandelion will." But the dandelion was too
+fresh and perfect, and brought back the old childhood days to Mrs. Bacon so
+clearly that she changed her mind. There was an old horseradish bottle on
+the pantry-shelf which, filled with water, received the dandelion. There,
+resting in the kitchen window, it smiled all day.</p>
+
+<p>There was quite a commotion upstairs that night, and John and his wife,
+drowsily hearing it, thanked their stars that they were not routed by
+children's ails. The next day Mrs. Bacon's watchful ear caught the sound of
+"Little Boots" on the stairs, and again the blue eyes twinkled at the
+keyhole. This time the door opened in response:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, child, what is it? Want some gingerbread?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, thank you, dear," said the little voice&mdash;a very hoarse little voice
+it was, and the throat was all wrapped in flannel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to know if you liked my f'ower?"</p>
+
+<p>"See?" Mrs. Bacon pointed to the glorified horseradish bottle.</p>
+
+<p>"Is your name Mrs. Bacon, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bacon&mdash;no 'dear' about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I like to call you 'dear.' Don't your little boy call you so?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Ally! Ally, child!" called the mother anxiously; "come back, darling;
+you'll get cold."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take him up," responded Mrs. Bacon; and taking with unwonted
+tenderness the three-years-old darling, she landed him safely upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the croup," explained the mother. "He got cold yesterday, out for
+dandelions&mdash;his favorite flower, ma'am. Calls 'em preserved sunshine; saw
+me put up fruit last fall&mdash;there's where he got the idea; though, as to
+telling where he gets all his ideas, that beats me. The doctor says he's
+that kind of a child the croup is likely to go hard with. Scares me to
+death to hear him cough."</p>
+
+<p>"Goose oil is good for croup," remarked Mrs. Bacon.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever try it?" asked the new neighbor, innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"Me? No use for it. Got a bottle, though. Have it if you like."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Alas! the doctor's prophecy was true. The fatal disease developed that very
+night.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Little boots are still and starry eyes shine afar off now. As he lay in his
+beautiful last sleep, a flower amid the white flowers, a woman's brown hand
+slipped a few dandelions tenderly&mdash;oh, so tenderly!&mdash;into the dainty cold
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"That is right, Mrs. Bacon, dear," said the poor mother. "'Preserved
+sunshine!' That's what he is to us."</p>
+
+<p>The new tenants have moved into the country, and No. 21, upper tenement, is
+again to let.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bacon hopes the landlord will add to his advertisement, "No objection
+to children."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>BANFORD'S BURGLAR-ALARM.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Another Daring Burglary!" read Mrs. Banford, as she picked up the morning:
+paper. "Lucullus," she said, turning to her husband, "this is the fourth
+outrage of the kind in this town within a week, and if you don't procure a
+burglar-alarm, or adopt some other means of security, I shall not remain in
+this house another night. Some morning we'll get up and find ourselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+murdered and the house robbed if we have to depend on the police for
+protection."</p>
+
+<p>Banford assured his wife that he would have the matter attended to at once.
+Then he left the house and didn't return until evening. When Mrs. B. asked
+him if he had given a second thought to the subject which she had broached
+in the morning, he drew a newspaper from his pocket, and said: "See here,
+Mirandy! There's no use o' foolin' away money on one o' those new-fangled
+burglar-alarms. Economy is wealth. Here's a capital idea suggested in this
+paper&mdash;cheap, simple and effective."</p>
+
+<p>And then he read the suggestion about hanging a tin pan on the
+chamber-door.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Mirandy! the man who conceived that brilliant notion is a
+heaven-born genius&mdash;a boon to mankind; and his name should go ringing down
+the corridors of time with those of such brilliant intellect as Watt,
+Morse, Edison, and other successful scientific investigators. You see, the
+least jar of the door will dislodge the pan, and the noise occasioned
+thereby will not only awaken the occupants of the room, but will also scare
+the burglar half to death, and perhaps the pan will strike him on the head
+and fracture his skull. It is a glorious scheme, and the fact that it was
+not utilized years ago is the most remarkable thing about it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," assented Mrs. B. in less sanguine tones, "it may be better than
+nothing, and it won't cost anything; and as Susan has gone out to spend the
+night with her sick sister, and we'll be all alone, I'll hunt up the pans
+now."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, each inside door was crowned with a tin pan and left slightly
+ajar. Banford also thoughtfully placed a six-shooter under his pillow and
+stood a base-ball bat within easy reach.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mirandy," he courageously observed, as they were preparing to retire,
+"if you are awakened by a noise during the night, don't scream and jump out
+of bed. Just lie still, or some o' the bullets I fire at the burglar may go
+through you and kill you. Let me wrestle with the intruder, and I'll soon
+make him regret that he had not postponed being born for a few centuries!"</p>
+
+<p>Then they turned down the gas with a feeling of increased security, and
+were soon asleep. About half-past midnight they were awakened by a noise
+that sounded like a sharp clap of thunder, followed by a wail that almost
+chilled the marrow in their bones.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness!" screamed Mrs. B., in a voice swollen with terror, as she dived
+under the bed-clothes. "We'll be murdered in a minute. Shoot him, Lucullus!
+Quick&mdash;shoot him!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Banford, after considerable nervous fumbling under the pillow, grasped his
+revolver with an unsteady hand and discharged its six barrels in rapid
+succession, but not with very gratifying results. One bullet shattered the
+mirror in the bureau; another plowed a furrow along the ceiling; another
+splintered the bed-post; a fourth perforated a portrait of his wife's
+mother; and the other two left their imprint on the walls.</p>
+
+<p>"D-d-don't be fuf-fuf-frightened, M-mirandy," said Banford, encouragingly,
+his articulation sounding as if it had "collided" with an Arctic wave: "I
+gug-guess I've kik-kik-killed him. He'll not kik-kik-come here&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture there was a noise in an adjoining room, as if a two-ton
+meteorite had crashed through a boiler-foundry, and Mrs. B. uttered a
+series of ear-piercing shrieks that would have scared the life out of any
+burglar.</p>
+
+<p>"M-mirandy," stammered the frightened and demoralized Banford, grasping the
+base-ball bat and swinging it around with such reckless promiscuousness
+that he struck his terror-stricken wife on the head, "Mum-mirandy, the
+house is fuf-full of midnight mum-marauders, and we'll be bub-bub-butchered
+in cold bub-bub-blood! Save yourself and don't mum-mind about me!" And
+leaping out of bed, he sprang through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> a window on to the roof of a back
+building, and accidentally rolled off into the yard, fifteen feet below,
+just as another burglar-alarm went off with a clamor almost as deafening
+and harrowing as an amateur orchestra. Mrs. B., thinking she had been hit
+by the burglar, emitted a fresh outburst of shrieks, while her husband lay
+groaning in the back yard, with a sprained ankle and a frightful gash in
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>A policeman had now been awakened by the uproar, and boldly mounting the
+front stoop, he pulled the door-bell out by the roots without evoking a
+response. Then he hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"If a foul murder has been committed," he mused, "the assassin has already
+made good his escape."</p>
+
+<p>This thought gave him courage, and he forced an entrance. In the entry he
+collided with a hat-rack, which he mistook for the outlaw, and almost
+demolished it with several whacks of his club. Then he made a careful
+reconnaissance, and dislodged one of the burglar-alarms.</p>
+
+<p>"Spare my life," he yelled to his imaginary assailant, "and I'll let you
+escape!"</p>
+
+<p>He thought he had been stabbed with a frying-pan. He rushed out of the
+house and secured the assistance of four of his fellow-officers, and a
+search of the building was resumed. Mrs. Banford was found in bed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>
+unconscious. Her husband was found in the yard in nearly a similar
+condition; and the burglar was found under the sofa, shivering with fear,
+and with his tail clasped tightly between his legs.</p>
+
+<p>The cause of the panic was soon explained. Mrs. Banford had overlooked the
+presence of her pet dog in the house, and this innocent animal, in running
+from one room to another, had dislodged the "cheap and effective"
+burglar-alarms.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>BETTER THINGS.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY GEORGE MACDONALD.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better to smell the violet cool, than sip the glowing wine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better to hark a hidden brook, than watch a diamond shine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better the love of a gentle heart, than beauty's favor proud;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better the rose's living seed, than roses in a crowd.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better to love in loneliness, than to bask in love all day;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better the fountain in the heart, than the fountain by the way.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better be fed by a mother's hand, than eat alone at will;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better to trust in God, than say: "My goods my storehouse fill."<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better to be a little wise, than in knowledge to abound;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better to teach a child, than toil to fill perfection's round.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better to sit at a master's feet, than thrill a listening State;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better suspect that thou art proud, than be sure that thou art great.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better to walk the real unseen, than watch the hour's event;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better the "Well done!" at the last, than the air with shouting rent.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better to have a quiet grief, than a hurrying delight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better the twilight of the dawn, than the noonday burning bright.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Better a death when work is done, than earth's most favored birth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Better a child in God's great house, than the king of all the earth.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Recitations for the Social Circle, by 
+James Clarence Harvey
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Recitations for the Social Circle, by
+James Clarence Harvey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Recitations for the Social Circle
+
+Author: James Clarence Harvey
+
+Release Date: January 15, 2012 [EBook #38579]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECITATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL CIRCLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Josephine Paolucci, Marilynda
+Fraser-Cunliffe and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RECITATIONS
+
+FOR THE SOCIAL CIRCLE.
+
+SELECTED AND ORIGINAL.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+BY
+
+JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+PUBLISHED BY
+THE CHRISTIAN HERALD.
+
+LOUIS KLOPSCH, Proprietor,
+BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK.
+
+
+Copyright, 1896.
+BY LOUIS KLOPSCH.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
+
+
+In reading and recitation, the general tendency is to overdo. The quiet
+reserve force, which can be made apparent in the voice, will reach the
+heart and stir the soul when gesture and ranting fail. "Be bold! Be not too
+bold" should be the watchwords of the reciter. Self-possession, with a
+nervousness arising from an earnest desire to please, is the keynote to
+success. Never gesticulate if you can help it. When a gesture asserts
+itself to such an extent that you have made it before you realize it, be
+sure it was effective and graceful.
+
+It is a noble ambition to wish to sway the hearts and minds of others by
+the subtle modulations of the voice, and only he who feels the force of
+what he utters can hope to accomplish his end. The thought of the author
+must be pursued and overtaken. The sentiments between the lines must be
+enlisted before the voice will lend itself, in all its glorious power, to
+the tones that thrill and the music that charms.
+
+It is not always necessary to search for something your audience has never
+heard. It is far better to reveal hidden thought and new life in selections
+which are familiar. The hackneyed recitation, if rendered better than ever
+before, will win more applause than a fresh bit carelessly studied.
+
+Above all, use judgment in selection. The stout lady of fifty-two should
+avoid "Marco Bozarris" and "The Elf Child," and the young lady just home
+from boarding-school should not attempt the ponderous utterances of a Roman
+gladiator.
+
+Care in selection; fidelity in study; wisdom in the choice of occasion;
+modesty in delivery; earnestness of manner and sincerity of feeling
+throughout, must win at last. If you make failures, trace them to a lack in
+some one or more of these requisites and, by experience, learn to avoid a
+recurrence. Orators, like poets, are "born not made," but even the born
+speaker will fail at times unless these laws are considered and observed.
+Always render an author's lines as he wrote them. The chances are ten to
+one that every word carries its burden of thought, even though you may not
+have discerned it. Err on the conservative side if in doubt.
+Over-enthusiasm is less easily pardoned.
+
+Never select dialect verses or stories unless you have the unusual gift
+necessary to give them the piquancy and zest which attends a good
+imitation. Ask a dozen friends for an honest opinion on the subject and
+draw an average from their criticisms to guide you in your choice of
+selections. Don't lose your temper over a severe criticism. Search
+carefully through your list of abilities and see if there is not, perhaps,
+some foundation for kindly suggestion. It is often a great assistance, in
+memorizing the work of another, to make a written copy, but attention
+should be given to the making of a perfect copy, properly punctuated.
+
+Use the eye in memorizing.
+
+Oftentimes a mental picture of a page will recall a line which for an
+instant seems about to escape you. Use the ear as well and study the effect
+of various modulations of voice as you rehearse in private.
+
+Above all, use the best of your intelligence, earnestly, in studying and
+applying the thousand little nothings that in the aggregate make the
+perfect reader.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                      PAGE.
+
+A Dream of the Universe. By Jean Paul Richter,                           95
+
+A Friend of the Fly,                                                    173
+
+After-Dinner Speech by a Frenchman,                                     287
+
+America for God. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                                   74
+
+An Affectionate Letter,                                                 198
+
+An Appeal for Liberty. By Joseph Story,                                 296
+
+An Hour of Horror,                                                      218
+
+Annie and Willie's Prayer. By Sophia P. Snow,                           275
+
+Answered Prayers, By Ella Wheeler Wilcox,                               175
+
+An Unaccountable Mystery. By Paul Denton,                                80
+
+A Rainy Day,                                                            260
+
+A Reasonable Request,                                                   194
+
+At the Stage Door. By James Clarence Harvey,                             16
+
+At the Stamp Window,                                                    110
+
+Becalmed. By Samuel K. Cowan,                                           182
+
+Banford's Burglar Alarm,                                                314
+
+Behind Time. By Freeman Hunt,                                            77
+
+Bessie Kendrick's Journey. By Mrs. Annie E. Preston,                    253
+
+Better Things,                                                          319
+
+Bicycle Ride. By James Clarence Harvey,                                 236
+
+By Special Request. By Frank Castles,                                    47
+
+Charity,                                                                308
+
+Cut Behind. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                                        14
+
+Daughter of the Desert. By James Clarence Harvey,                        65
+
+De Pint Wid Ole Pete,                                                   215
+
+Destiny of Our Country. By R. C. Winthrop,                              188
+
+Eloquence, the Study of. By Cicero,                                      11
+
+Emulation (Up to Date).  By James Clarence Harvey,                      187
+
+Extract from Blaine's Oration on James A. Garfield,                     208
+
+Fashionable,                                                            261
+
+Fast Mail and the Stage. By John H. Yates,                              230
+
+Frenchman and the Landlord. Anonymous,                                   18
+
+Gentle Alice Brown. By W. S. Gilbert,                                   149
+
+Get Acquainted With Yourself. By R. J. Burdette,                        119
+
+God in the Constitution. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                          176
+
+Good Old Way,                                                           207
+
+Good Reading. By John S. Hart, L.L.D.,                                   41
+
+Go Vay, Becky Miller, Go Vay,                                           220
+
+Guild's Signal. By Francis Bret Harte,                                   21
+
+His Last Court,                                                         104
+
+Hornets. By Bill Nye,                                                    70
+
+How "Old Mose" Counted Eggs,                                            272
+
+How Shall I Love You? By Will C. Ferril,                                212
+
+Imperfectus. By James Clarence Harvey,                                   83
+
+In Arabia. By James Berry Bensel,                                        37
+
+In the Bottom Drawer,                                                   185
+
+It is a Winter Night. By Richard Henry Stoddard,                        221
+
+I Wonder.  By James Clarence Harvey,                                    159
+
+Katrina's Visit to New York,                                            138
+
+Keenan's Charge. By George P. Lathrop,                                   97
+
+Kittens and Babies. By Lizzie M. Hadley,                                 80
+
+Land of Our Birth. By Lillie E. Barr,                                   239
+
+Legend of the Ivy. By James Clarence Harvey,                             34
+
+Let Us Give Thanks,                                                     258
+
+Literary Attractions of the Bible. By Dr. Hamilton,                      88
+
+Little Brown Curl,                                                      213
+
+Little Feet,                                                            259
+
+Little Jim. By George R. Sims,                                          118
+
+Little White Hearse. By J. W. Riley,                                    121
+
+Lullaby,                                                                114
+
+Maid of Orleans. By J. E. Sagebeer,                                     144
+
+Mark Twain and the Interviewer,                                          22
+
+Mother, Home and Heaven,                                                 56
+
+Mother's Doughnuts. By Charles F. Adams,                                 87
+
+Mother's Fool,                                                          217
+
+Mr. Winkle Puts on Skates. By Charles Dickens,                          281
+
+Mutation.  By James Clarence Harvey,                                    164
+
+My Mother's Bible. By George P. Morris,                                 286
+
+New Year Ledger. By Amelia E. Barr,                                      39
+
+No Objection to Children,                                               309
+
+Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,                                              51
+
+Old Uncle Jake,                                                         298
+
+Only a Song,                                                            235
+
+Our Own. By Margaret E. Sangster,                                        76
+
+Our Heroes Shall Live.  By Henry Ward Beecher,                          113
+
+Paul Revere's Ride. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,                       43
+
+Penning a Pig. By James A. Bailey,                                      115
+
+Praying for Papa,                                                       180
+
+Praying for Shoes. By Paul Hamilton Hayne,                               58
+
+Puzzled Dutchman,                                                       227
+
+Queen Vashti. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                                     131
+
+Rabbi and the Prince. By James Clarence Harvey,                         143
+
+Resignation. By Longfellow,                                             196
+
+Resurgam. By Eben E. Rexford,                                           262
+
+Roman Legend. By James Clarence Harvey,                                 170
+
+Rum's Devastation and Destiny. By William Sullivan,                      60
+
+Serenade. By Thomas Hood,                                               129
+
+She Cuts His Hair,                                                      294
+
+Shwate Kittie Kehoe.  By James Clarence Harvey,                         155
+
+Since She Went Home. By R. J. Burdette,                                  72
+
+Six Love Letters,                                                       165
+
+Speech of Patrick Henry,                                                160
+
+Story of the Little Rid Hin. By Mrs. Whitney,                           232
+
+Supporting the Guns,                                                     30
+
+The American Union. By Daniel Webster,                                   52
+
+The Black Horse and His Rider. By Charles Sheppard,                     290
+
+The Book Canvasser. By Max Adeler,                                      264
+
+The Children. By Charles Dickens,                                       306
+
+The Children We Keep,                                                    73
+
+The Christmas Baby.  By Will Carleton,                                   92
+
+The Country's Greatest Evil,                                            156
+
+The Crowded Street. By William Cullen Bryant,                           252
+
+The Dead Doll. By Margaret Vandegrift,                                  108
+
+The Doorstep. By E. C. Stedman,                                         270
+
+The Enchanted Shirt. By John Hay,                                       177
+
+The Fatal Glass. By Laura U. Case,                                      137
+
+The Fault of the Age. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox,                           263
+
+The Hot Axle. By T. DeWitt Talmage,                                     303
+
+The Minister's Grievances,                                              204
+
+The Misnomer. By Josie C. Malott,                                       269
+
+The Modern Belle,                                                       226
+
+The Nameless Guest. By James Clarence Harvey,                           112
+
+The Old Oaken Bucket. By Samuel Woodworth,                              279
+
+The Pilot. By John B. Gough,                                            135
+
+The Poppy Land Limited Express. By Edgar Wade Abbot,                     55
+
+The Prime of Life. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox,                               29
+
+There is a Tongue in Every Leaf,                                        257
+
+There'll Be Room in Heaven,                                             122
+
+The Retort Dis-courteous. By James Clarence Harvey,                     125
+
+The Teacher's Diadem,                                                   240
+
+The United States. By Daniel Webster,                                    35
+
+The Whirling Wheel. By Tudor Jenks,                                     288
+
+The Whistling Regiment. By James Clarence Harvey,                       199
+
+Tobe's Monument. By Elizabeth Kilham,                                   243
+
+Useful Precepts for Girls,                                              100
+
+W'en de Darky am A-whis'lin'.  By S. Q. Lapius,                         134
+
+We're Building Two a Day! By Rev. Alfred J. Hough,                      224
+
+What the Little Girl Said,                                              221
+
+Widder Budd,                                                            102
+
+Wind and Sea. By Bayard Taylor,                                          13
+
+Woman's Pocket. By James M. Bailey,                                      84
+
+Women of Mumbles Head. By Clement Scott,                                190
+
+Young America,                                                          153
+
+Zenobia's Defence. By William Ware,                                     126
+
+
+
+
+RECITATIONS FOR THE SOCIAL CIRCLE.
+
+
+
+
+THE STUDY OF ELOQUENCE.
+
+BY CICERO.
+
+
+I cannot conceive anything more excellent, than to be able, by language, to
+captivate the affections, to charm the understanding, and to impel or
+restrain the will of whole assemblies, at pleasure. Among every free
+people, especially in peaceful, settled governments, this single art has
+always eminently flourished, and always exercised the greatest sway. For
+what can be more surprising than that, amidst an infinite multitude, one
+man should appear, who shall be the only, or almost the only man capable of
+doing what Nature has put in every man's power? Or, can anything impart
+such exquisite pleasure to the ear and to the intellect, as a speech in
+which the wisdom and dignity of the sentiments are heightened by the utmost
+force and beauty of expression?
+
+Is there anything so commanding, so grand, as that the eloquence of one man
+should direct the inclinations of the people, the consciences of judges,
+and the majesty of senates? Nay, farther, can aught be esteemed so great,
+so generous, so public-spirited, as to assist the suppliant, to rear the
+prostrate, to communicate happiness, to avert danger, and to save a
+fellow-citizen from exile? Can anything be so necessary, as to keep those
+arms always in readiness, with which you may defend yourself, attack the
+profligate, and redress your own, or your country's wrongs?
+
+But let us consider this accomplishment as detached from public business,
+and from its wonderful efficacy in popular assemblies, at the bar, and in
+the senate; can anything be more agreeable, or more endearing in private
+life, than elegant language? For the great characteristic of our nature,
+and what eminently distinguishes us from brutes, is the faculty of social
+conversation, the power of expressing our thoughts and sentiments by words.
+To excel mankind, therefore, in the exercise of that very talent which
+gives them the preference to the brute creation, is what everybody must not
+only admire, but look upon as the just object of the most indefatigable
+pursuit.
+
+And now, to mention the chief point of all, what other power could have
+been of sufficient efficacy to bring together the vagrant individuals of
+the human race; to tame their savage manners, to reconcile them to social
+life; and, after cities were founded, to mark out laws, forms, and
+constitutions, for their government?--Let me, in a few words, sum up this
+almost boundless subject. I lay it down as a maxim, that upon the wisdom
+and abilities of an accomplished orator, not only his own dignity, but the
+welfare of vast numbers of individuals, and even of the whole state, must
+greatly depend.
+
+
+
+
+THE WIND AND THE SEA.
+
+BY BAYARD TAYLOR.
+
+
+    The Sea is a jovial comrade;
+      He laughs, wherever he goes,
+    And the merriment shines
+    In the dimpling lines
+      That wrinkle his hale repose.
+    He lays himself down at the feet of the sun
+      And shakes all over with glee,
+    And the broad-backed billows fall faint on the shore
+      In the mirth of the mighty sea.
+
+    But the wind is sad and restless,
+      And cursed with an inward pain;
+    You may hark as you will,
+    By valley or hill,
+      But you hear him still complain.
+    He wails on the barren mountain;
+      Shrieks on the wintry sea;
+    Sobs in the cedar and moans in the pine,
+      And shivers all over the aspen tree.
+
+    Welcome are both their voices,
+      And I know not which is best,
+    The laughter that slips
+    From the ocean's lips,
+      Or the comfortless wind's unrest.
+    There's a pang in all rejoicing,
+      A joy in the heart of pain,
+    And the wind that saddens, the sea that gladdens,
+      Are singing the self-same strain.
+
+
+
+
+CUT BEHIND.
+
+BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+The scene opens on a clear, crisp morning. Two boys are running to get on
+the back of a carriage, whose wheels are spinning along the road. One of
+the boys, with a quick spring, succeeds. The other leaps, but fails, and
+falls on the part of the body where it is most appropriate to fall. No
+sooner has he struck the ground than he shouts to the driver of the
+carriage, "Cut behind!"
+
+Human nature is the same in boy as in man--all running to gain the vehicle
+of success. Some are spry, and gain that for which they strive. Others are
+slow, and tumble down; they who fall crying out against those who mount,
+"Cut behind!"
+
+A political office rolls past. A multitude spring to their feet, and the
+race is on. Only one of all the number reaches that for which he runs. No
+sooner does he gain the prize, and begin to wipe the sweat from his brow,
+and think how grand a thing it is to ride in popular preferment, than the
+disappointed candidates cry out, "Incompetency! Stupidity! Fraud! Now let
+the newspapers of the other political party 'cut behind.'"
+
+There is a golden chariot of wealth rolling down the street. A thousand
+people are trying to catch it. They run, they jostle; they tread on each
+other. Push, and pull, and tug. Those talk most against riches who cannot
+get there. Clear the track for the racers! One of the thousand reaches the
+golden prize and mounts. Forthwith the air is full of cries, "Got it by
+fraud! Shoddy! Petroleum aristocracy! His father was a rag-picker! His
+mother was a washer-woman! I knew him when he blacked his own shoes! Pitch
+him off the back part of the golden chariot! Cut behind! cut behind!"
+
+In many eyes success is a crime. "I do not like you," said the snow-flake
+to the snow-bird. "Why?" said the snow-bird. "Because," said the
+snow-flake, "you are going _up_ and I am going _down_."
+
+We have to state that the man in the carriage, on the crisp morning, though
+he had a long lash-whip, with which he could have made the climbing boy
+yell most lustily, did not _cut behind_. He heard the shout in the rear,
+and said, "Good morning, my son. That is right; climb over and sit by me.
+Here are the reins; take hold and drive; was a boy myself once, and know
+what tickles youngsters."
+
+Thank God, there are so many in the world that never "cut behind," but are
+ready to give a fellow a ride whenever he wants it. There are hundreds of
+people whose chief joy it is to help others on. Now it is a smile, now a
+good word, now ten dollars. When such a kind man has ridden to the end of
+the earthly road, it will be pleasant to hang up the whip with which he
+drove the enterprises of a lifetime, and feel that with it he never "cut
+behind" at those who were struggling.
+
+
+
+
+AT THE STAGE DOOR.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    The curtain had fallen, the lights were dim,
+      The rain came down with a steady pour;
+    A white-haired man with a kindly face,
+      Peered through the panes of the old stage door.
+    "I'm getting too old to be drenched like that"
+      He muttered and turning met face to face,
+    The woman whose genius, an hour before,
+      Like a mighty power had filled the place.
+
+    "Yes, much too old," with a smile, she said,
+      And she laid her hand on his silver hair;
+    "You shall ride with me to your home to-night,
+      For that is my carriage standing there."
+    The old door-tender stood, doffing his hat
+      And holding the door, but she would not stir,
+    Though he said it was not for the "likes of him
+      To ride in a kerridge with such as her."
+
+    "Come, put out your lights," she said to him,
+      "I've something important I wish to say,
+    And I can't stand here in the draught you know--
+      I can tell you much better while on the way."
+    So into the carriage the old man crept,
+      Thanking her gratefully, o'er and o'er,
+    Till she bade him listen while she would tell
+      A story, concerning that old stage door.
+
+    "It was raining in torrents, ten years ago
+      This very night, and a friendless child
+    Stood, shivering there, by that old stage door,
+      Dreading her walk in a night so wild.
+    She was only one of the 'extra' girls,
+      But you gave her a nickle to take the car,
+    And said 'Heaven bless ye, my little one,
+      Ye can pay me back ef ye ever star.'
+
+    "So you cast your bread on the waters then,
+      And I pay you back, as my heart demands,
+    And we're even now--no! not quite," she said,
+      As she emptied her purse in his trembling hands.
+    "And if ever you're needy and want a friend,
+      You know where to come, for your little mite
+    Put hope in my heart and made me strive
+      To gain the success you have seen to-night."
+
+    Then the carriage stopped, at the old man's door,
+      And the gas-light shone on him, standing there:
+    And he stepped to the curb, as she rolled away,
+      While his thin lips murmured a fervent prayer.
+    He looked at the silver and bills and gold,
+      And he said: "She gives all this to me?
+    My bread has come back a thousandfold,
+      God bless her! God bless all such as she!"
+
+
+
+
+THE FRENCHMAN AND THE LANDLORD.
+
+ANONYMOUS.
+
+
+A shrewd and wealthy old landlord, away down in Maine, is noted for driving
+his "sharp bargains," by which he has amassed a large amount of property.
+He is the owner of a large number of dwelling-houses, and it is said of him
+that he is not over-scrupulous of his rental charges, whenever he can find
+a customer whom he knows to be responsible. His object is to lease his
+house for a term of years to the best tenants, and get the uttermost
+farthing in the shape of rent.
+
+A diminutive Frenchman called on him last winter, to hire a dwelling he
+owned in Portland, and which had long remained empty. References were
+given, and the landlord, ascertaining that the tenant was a man "after his
+own heart," immediately commenced to "Jew" him. He found that the tenement
+appeared to suit the Frenchman, and he placed an exorbitant price upon it;
+the leases were drawn and duly executed, and the tenant removed into his
+new quarters.
+
+Upon kindling fires in the house, it was found that the chimneys wouldn't
+"draw," and the building was filled with smoke. The window-sashes rattled
+in the wind at night, and the cold air rushed through a hundred crevices
+about the house until now unnoticed. The snow melted upon the roof, and the
+attics were drenched from the leakage. The rain pelted, and our Frenchman
+found a "natural" bathroom upon the second floor--but the lease was signed
+and the landlord chuckled.
+
+"I have been vat you sall call 'tuck in,' vis zis _maison_," muttered our
+victim to himself a week afterwards, "but _n'importe_, ve sal se vat ve
+_sal_ see."
+
+Next morning he arose bright and early, and passing down he encountered the
+landlord.
+
+"Ah ha!--_Bon jour, monsieur_," said he in his happiest manner.
+
+"Good day, sir. How do you like your house?"
+
+"Ah monsieur--elegant, beautiful, magnificent. _Eh bien_, monsieur, I have
+ze one regret!"
+
+"Ah! What is that?"
+
+"I sal live in zat house but tree little year."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I have find by vot you call ze lease, zat you have give me ze house but
+for tree year, and I ver mooch sorrow for zat."
+
+"But you can have it longer if you wish--"
+
+"Ah, monsieur, sal be ver mooch glad if I can have zat house _so long as I
+please_--eh--monsieur?"
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly, sir."
+
+"_Tres bien_, monsieur! I sal valk rite to your offees, and you sal give me
+vot you call ze lease for that _maison jes so long as I sal vant the
+house_. Eh, monsieur?"
+
+"Certainly, sir. You can stay there your lifetime, if you like."
+
+"Ah, monsieur--I have ver mooch tanks for zis accommodation."
+
+The old lease was destroyed and a new one was delivered in form to the
+French gentleman, giving him possession of the premises for "such a period
+as the lessee may desire the same, he paying the rent promptly, etc."
+
+The next morning our crafty landlord was passing the house just as the
+French-man's last load of furniture was being started from the door; an
+hour afterward, a messenger called on him with a legal tender, for the rent
+for eight days, accompanied with a note as follows:
+
+"Monsieur--I have been smoke--I have been drouned--I have been frees to
+death, in ze house vat I av hire of you for ze period as I may desire. I
+have stay in ze house _jes so long as I please_, and ze bearer of zis vill
+give you ze key! _Bon jour_, monsieur."
+
+It is needless to add that our landlord has never since been known to give
+up "a bird in the hand for one in the bush."
+
+
+
+
+GUILD'S SIGNAL.
+
+BY FRANCIS BRET HARTE, 1839.
+
+
+    Two low whistles, quaint and clear,
+    That was the signal the engineer--
+    That was the signal that Guild, 'tis said--
+    Gave to his wife at Providence,
+    As through the sleeping town, and thence
+        Out in the night,
+        On to the light,
+    Down past the farms, lying white, he sped!
+
+    As a husband's greeting, scant, no doubt,
+    Yet to the woman looking out,
+    Watching and waiting, no serenade,
+    Love-song, or midnight roundelay
+    Said what that whistle seemed to say;
+        "To my trust true,
+        So love to you!
+    Working or waiting.  Good night!" it said.
+
+    Brisk young bagmen, tourists fine,
+    Old commuters, along the line,
+    Brakesmen and porters, glanced ahead,
+    Smiled as the signal, sharp, intense,
+    Pierced through the shadows of Providence,--
+        "Nothing amiss--
+        Nothing!--it is
+    Only Guild calling his wife," they said.
+
+    Summer and winter, the old refrain
+    Rang o'er the billows of ripening grain,
+    Pierced through the budding boughs o'er head,
+    Flew down the track when the red leaves burned
+    Like living coals from the engine spurned!
+        Sang as it flew
+        "To our trust true.
+    First of all, duty! Good night!" it said.
+
+    And then, one night, it was heard no more
+    From Stonington over Rhode Island Shore,
+    And the folk in Providence smiled and said,
+    As they turned in their beds: "The engineer
+    Has once forgotten his midnight cheer."
+        _One_ only knew
+        To his trust true,
+    Guild lay under his engine, dead.
+
+
+
+
+MARK TWAIN AND THE INTERVIEWER.
+
+
+The nervous, dapper, "peart" young man took the chair I offered him, and
+said he was connected with "The Daily Thunderstorm," and added,--
+
+"Hoping it's no harm, I've come to interview you."
+
+"Come to what?"
+
+"_Interview_ you."
+
+"Ah! I see. Yes--yes. Um! Yes--yes."
+
+I was not feeling bright that morning. Indeed, my powers seemed a bit under
+a cloud. However, I went to the bookcase, and when I had been looking six
+or seven minutes, I found I was obliged to refer to the young man. I
+said,--
+
+"How do you spell it?"
+
+"Spell what?"
+
+"Interview."
+
+"Oh, my goodness? What do you want to spell it for?"
+
+"I don't want to spell it: I want to see what it means."
+
+"Well, this is astonishing, I must say. _I_ can tell you what it means, if
+you--if you"--
+
+"Oh, all right! That will answer, and much obliged to you, too."
+
+"In, _in_, ter, _ter_, _inter_"--
+
+"Then you spell it with an _I_?"
+
+"Why, certainly!"
+
+"Oh, that is what took me so long!"
+
+"Why, my _dear_ sir, what did _you_ propose to spell it with?"
+
+"Well, I--I--I hardly know. I had the Unabridged; and I was ciphering
+around in the back end, hoping I might tree her among the pictures. But
+it's a very old edition."
+
+"Why, my friend, they wouldn't have a _picture_ of it in even the latest
+e---- My dear sir, I beg your pardon, I mean no harm in the world; but you
+do not look as--as--intelligent as I had expected you would. No harm,--I
+mean no harm at all."
+
+"Oh, don't mention it! It has often been said, and by people who would not
+flatter, and who could have no inducement to flatter, that I am quite
+remarkable in that way. Yes--yes: they always speak of it with rapture."
+
+"I can easily imagine it. But about this interview. You know it is the
+custom, now, to interview any man who has become notorious."
+
+"Indeed! I had not heard of it before. It must be very interesting. What do
+you do it with?"
+
+"Ah, well--well--well--this is disheartening. It _ought_ to be done with a
+club, in some cases; but customarily it consists in the interviewer asking
+questions, and the interviewed answering them. It is all the rage now. Will
+you let me ask you certain questions calculated to bring out the salient
+points of your public and private history?"
+
+"Oh, with pleasure,--with pleasure. I have a very bad memory; but I hope
+you will not mind. That is to say, it is an irregular memory, singularly
+irregular. Sometimes it goes in a gallop, and then again it will be as much
+as a fortnight passing a given point. This is a great grief to me."
+
+"Oh! it is no matter, so you will try to do the best you can."
+
+"I will! I will put my whole mind on it."
+
+"Thanks! Are you ready to begin?"
+
+"Ready."
+
+_Question._ How old are you?
+
+_Answer._ Nineteen in June.
+
+_Q._ Indeed! I would have taken you to be thirty-five or six. Where were
+you born?
+
+_A._ In Missouri.
+
+_Q._ When did you begin to write?
+
+_A._ In 1836.
+
+_Q._ Why, how could that be, if you are only nineteen now?
+
+_A._ I don't know. It does seem curious, somehow.
+
+_Q._ It does indeed. Whom do you consider the most remarkable man you ever
+met?
+
+_A._ Aaron Burr.
+
+_Q._ But you never could have met Aaron Burr, if you are only nineteen
+years----
+
+_A._ Now, if you know more about me than I do, what do you ask me for?
+
+_Q._ Well, it was only a suggestion; nothing more. How did you happen to
+meet Burr?
+
+_A._ Well, I happened to be at his funeral one day; and he asked me to make
+less noise, and----
+
+_Q._ But, good heavens! If you were at his funeral, he must have been dead;
+and, if he was dead, how could he care whether you made a noise or not?
+
+_A._ I don't know. He was always a particular kind of a man that way.
+
+_Q._ Still, I don't understand it at all. You say he spoke to you, and that
+he was dead?
+
+_A._ I didn't say he was dead.
+
+_Q._ But wasn't he dead?
+
+_A._ Well, some said he was, some said he wasn't.
+
+_Q._ What do _you_ think?
+
+_A._ Oh, it was none of my business! It wasn't any of my funeral.
+
+_Q._ Did you--However we can never get this matter straight. Let me ask
+about something else. What was the date of your birth?
+
+_A._ Monday, October 31, 1693.
+
+_Q._ What! Impossible! That would make you a hundred and eighty years old.
+How do you account for that?
+
+_A._ I don't account for it at all.
+
+_Q._ But you said at first you were only nineteen, and now you make
+yourself out to be one hundred and eighty. It is an awful discrepancy.
+
+_A._ Why, have you noticed that? (_Shaking hands._) Many a time it has
+seemed to me like a discrepancy; but somehow I couldn't make up my mind.
+How quick you notice a thing!
+
+_Q._ Thank you for the compliment, as far as it goes. Had you, or have you,
+any brothers or sisters?
+
+_A._ Eh! I--I--I think so,--yes--but I don't remember.
+
+_Q._ Well, that is the most extraordinary statement I ever heard.
+
+_A._ Why, what makes you think that?
+
+_Q._ How could I think otherwise? Why, look here! Who is this a picture of
+on the wall? Isn't that a brother of yours?
+
+_A._ Oh, yes, yes, yes! Now you remind me of it, that _was_ a brother of
+mine. That's William, _Bill_ we called him. Poor old Bill!
+
+_Q._ Why, is he dead, then?
+
+_A._ Ah, well, I suppose so. We never could tell. There was a great mystery
+about it.
+
+_Q._ That is sad, very sad. He disappeared, then?
+
+_A._ Well, yes, in a sort of general way. We buried him.
+
+_Q._ _Buried_ him! Buried him without knowing whether he was dead or not?
+
+_A._ Oh, no! Not that. He was dead enough.
+
+_Q._ Well, I confess that I can't understand this. If you buried him, and
+you knew he was dead----
+
+_A._ No, no! We only thought he was.
+
+_Q._ Oh, I see! He came to life again?
+
+_A._ I bet he didn't.
+
+_Q._ Well. I never heard anything like this. _Somebody_ was dead. Somebody
+was buried. Now, where was the mystery?
+
+_A._ Ah, that's just it! That's it exactly! You see we were twins,--defunct
+and I; and we got mixed in the bathtub when we were only two weeks old, and
+one of us was drowned. But we didn't know which. Some think it was Bill;
+and some think it was me.
+
+_Q._ Well, that _is_ remarkable. What do _you_ think?
+
+_A._ Goodness knows! I would give whole worlds to know. This solemn, this
+awful mystery has cast a gloom over my whole life. But I will tell you a
+secret now, which I never have revealed to any creature before. One of us
+had a peculiar mark, a large mole on the back of his left hand; that was
+_me_. _That child was the one that was drowned._
+
+_Q._ Very well, then, I don't see that there is any mystery about it, after
+all.
+
+_A._ You don't; well, _I_ do. Anyway, I don't see how they could ever have
+been such a blundering lot as to go and bury the wrong child. But, 'sh!
+don't mention it where the family can hear of it. Heaven knows they have
+heart-breaking troubles enough without adding this.
+
+_Q._ Well, I believe I have got material enough for the present; and I am
+very much obliged to you for the pains you have taken. But I was a good
+deal interested in that account of Aaron Burr's funeral. Would you mind
+telling me what peculiar circumstance it was that made you think Burr was
+such a remarkable man?
+
+_A._ Oh, it was a mere trifle! Not one man in fifty would have noticed it
+at all. When the sermon was over, and the procession all ready to start for
+the cemetery, and the body all arranged nice in the hearse, he said he
+wanted to take a last look at the scenery; and so he _got up, and rode with
+the driver_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the young man reverently withdrew. He was very pleasant company; and I
+was sorry to see him go.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRIME OF LIFE.
+
+BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
+
+
+    I read the sentence or heard it spoken--
+      A stalwart phrase and with meaning rife--
+    And I said: "Now I know, by youth's sweet token,
+      That this is the time called the 'prime of life.'
+
+    "For my hopes soar over the loftiest mountain,
+      And the future glows red, like a fair sunrise;
+    And my spirits gush forth, like a spring-fed fountain,
+      And never a grief in the heart of me lies."
+
+    Yet later on, when with blood and muscle
+      Equipped I plunged in the world's hard strife,
+    When I loved its danger, and laughed at the tussle,
+      "Why _this_," I said, "is the prime of life."
+
+    And then, when the tide in my veins ran slower,
+      And youth's first follies had passed away,
+    When the fervent fires in my heart burned lower,
+      And over my body my brain had sway,
+
+    I said: "It is when, through the veiled ideal
+      The vigorous reason thrusts a knife
+    And rends the illusion, and shows us the real,
+      Oh! this is the time called 'prime of life.'"
+
+    Hut now when brain and body are troubled
+      (For one is tired and one is ill,
+    Yet my soul soars up with a strength redoubled
+      And sits on the throne of my broken will),
+    Now when on the ear of my listening spirit,
+      That is turned away from the earth's harsh strife,
+    The river of death sounds murmuring near it--
+      I know that _this_ "is the prime of life."
+
+
+
+
+SUPPORTING THE GUNS.
+
+
+Did you ever see a battery take position?
+
+It hasn't the thrill of a cavalry charge, nor the grimness of a line of
+bayonets moving slowly and determinedly on, but there is peculiar
+excitement about it that makes old veterans rise in the saddle and cheer.
+
+We have been fighting at the edge of the woods. Every cartridge-box has
+been emptied once and more, and a fourth of the brigade has melted away in
+dead and wounded and missing. Not a cheer is heard in the whole brigade. We
+know that we are being driven foot by foot, and that when we break back
+once more, the line will go to pieces and the enemy will pour through the
+gap.
+
+Here comes help!
+
+Down the crowded highway gallops a battery, withdrawn from some other
+position to save ours. The field fence is scattered while you could count
+thirty, and the guns rush for the hill behind us. Six horses to a piece,
+three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches where a farmer could not drive
+a wagon; through clumps of bushes, over logs a foot thick, every horse on
+the gallop, every rider lashing his team and yelling,--the sight behind us
+makes us forget the foe in front. The guns jump two feet high as the heavy
+wheels strike rock or log, but not a horse slackens his pace, not a
+cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, six caissons, sixty horses, eighty men,
+race for the brow of the hill as if he who reached it first was to be
+knighted.
+
+A moment ago the battery was a confused mob. We look again and the six guns
+are in position, the detached horses hurrying away, the ammunition-chests
+open, and along our line runs the command: "Give them one more volley and
+fall back to support the guns!" We have scarcely obeyed when boom! boom!
+boom! opens the battery, and jets of fire jump down and scorch the green
+trees under which we fought and despaired.
+
+The shattered old brigade has a chance to breathe for the first time in
+three hours as we form a line of battle behind the guns and lie down. What
+grim, cool fellows these cannoneers are. Every man is a perfect machine.
+Bullets plash dust in their faces, but they do not wince. Bullets sing over
+and around them, but they do not dodge. There goes one to the earth, shot
+through the head as he sponged his gun. The machinery loses just one
+beat,--misses just one cog in the wheel, and then works away again as
+before.
+
+Every gun is using short-fuse shell. The ground shakes and trembles--the
+roar shuts out all sounds from a battle-line three miles long, and the
+shells go shrieking into the swamp to cut trees short off--to mow great
+gaps in the bushes--to hunt out and shatter and mangle men until their
+corpses cannot be recognized as human. You would think a tornado was
+howling through the forest, followed by billows of fire, and yet men live
+through it--aye! press forward to capture the battery! We can hear their
+shouts as they form for the rush.
+
+Now the shells are changed for grape and canister, and the guns are served
+so fast that all reports blend into one mighty roar. The shriek of a shell
+is the wickedest sound in war, but nothing makes the flesh crawl like the
+demoniac singing, purring, whistling grape-shot and the serpent-like hiss
+of canister. Men's legs and arms are not shot through, but torn off. Heads
+are torn from bodies and bodies cut in two. A round shot or shell takes two
+men out of the ranks as it crashes through. Grape and canister mow a swath
+and pile the dead on top of each other.
+
+Through the smoke we see a swarm of men. It is not a battle-line, but a mob
+of men desperate enough to bathe their bayonets in the flame of the guns.
+The guns leap from the ground, almost, as they are depressed on the
+foe--and shrieks and screams and shouts blend into one awful and steady
+cry. Twenty men out of the battery are down, and the firing is interrupted.
+The foe accept it as a sign of wavering, and come rushing on. They are not
+ten feet away when the guns give them a last shot. That discharge picks
+living men off their feet and throws them into the swamp, a blackened,
+bloody mass.
+
+Up now, as the enemy are among the guns! There is a silence of ten seconds,
+and then the flash and roar of more than three thousand muskets, and a rush
+forward with bayonets. For what? Neither on the right, nor left, nor in
+front of us is a living foe! There are corpses around us which have been
+struck by three, four and even six bullets, and nowhere on this acre of
+ground is a wounded man! The wheels of the guns cannot move until the
+blockade of dead is removed. Men cannot pass from caisson to gun without
+climbing over winrows of dead. Every gun and wheel is smeared with blood,
+every foot of grass has its horrible stain.
+
+Historians write of the glory of war. Burial parties saw murder where
+historians saw glory.
+
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF THE IVY.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    In a quiet village of Germany, once dwelt a fair-haired maiden,
+    Whose eyes were as blue as the summer sky and whose hair with
+        gold was laden;
+    Her lips were as red as a rose-bud sweet, with teeth, like pearls,
+        behind them,
+    Her smiles were like dreams of bliss, complete, and her waving curls
+        enshrined them.
+    Fond lovers thronged to the maiden's side, but of all the youth around her,
+    One only had asked her to be his bride, and a willing listener found her,
+    "Some time, we'll marry," she often said, then burst into song or laughter,
+    And tripped away, while the lover's head hung low as he followed after.
+    Impatient growing, at last he said, "The springtime birds are mating,
+    Pray whisper, sweet, our day to wed; warm hearts grow cold from waiting."
+    "Not yet," she smiled, with a fond caress; but he answered, "Now or never,
+    I start for the Holy War unless I may call thee mine forever."
+    "For the Holy War? Farewell!" she cried, with never a thought of grieving.
+    His wish so often had been denied, she could not help believing
+    His heart would wait till her budding life had blown to its
+        full completeness.
+    She did not know that a wedded wife holds a spell in her youthful sweetness.
+    But alas! for the "Yes" too long delayed, he fought and he bravely perished;
+    And alas! for the heart of the tender maid, and the love it
+        fondly cherished;
+    Her smile grew sad for all hope was gone; life's sands were
+      swiftly fleeting,
+    And just at the break of a wintry dawn, her broken heart ceased beating;
+    And when, on her grave, at the early spring, bright flowers her friends were
+        throwing,
+    They knelt and there, just blossoming, they saw a strange plant growing,
+    Its tender fingers, at first, just seen, crept on through the grass
+        and clover,
+    Till, at last, with a mound of perfect green, it covered
+      the whole grave over;
+    And often the village youth would stand by the vine-clad mound,
+        in the gloaming,
+    And holding a maiden's willing hand, would tell that the strange
+        plant roaming
+    Was the maiden's soul, which could not rest and with fruitless,
+        fond endeavor,
+    Went seeking the heart it loved the best, but sought in vain, forever.
+
+
+
+
+THE UNITED STATES.
+
+BY DANIEL WEBSTER.
+
+
+And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility
+of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of
+groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let
+us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of Liberty
+and Union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote
+ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our
+action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of
+the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the
+country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny;
+let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men.
+
+Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now
+devolve upon us, for the preservation of this constitution, and the harmony
+and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our
+generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain,
+which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the
+states to this constitution, for ages to come.
+
+We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by
+judicature, and defended by the whole affections of the people. No
+monarchical throne presses these states together; no iron chain of military
+power encircles them; they live and stand upon a government popular in its
+form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality,
+and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever.
+
+In all its history it has been beneficent: it has trodden down no man's
+liberty; it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty and
+patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and
+honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by
+recent events, becomes vastly larger.
+
+This republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent.
+The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We
+realize, on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental
+edging of the buckler of Achilles--
+
+    "Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned
+    With his last hand, and poured the ocean round;
+    In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
+    And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."
+
+
+
+
+IN ARABIA.
+
+BY JAMES BERRY BENSEL, 1856.
+
+
+    "Choose thou between!" and to his enemy
+      The Arab chief a brawny hand displayed,
+    Wherein, like moonlight on a sullen sea,
+      Gleamed the gray scimitar's enamelled blade.
+
+    "Choose thou between death at my hand and thine!
+      Close in my power, my vengeance I may wreak,
+    Yet hesitate to strike. A hate like mine
+      Is noble still. Thou hast thy choosing--speak!"
+
+    And Ackbar stood. About him all the band
+      That hailed his captor chieftain, with grave eyes
+    His answer waited, while that heavy hand
+      Stretched like a bar between him and the skies.
+
+    Straight in the face before him Ackbar sent
+      A sneer of scorn, and raised his noble head;
+    "Strike!" and the desert monarch, as content,
+      Rehung the weapon at his girdle red.
+
+    Then Ackbar nearer crept and lifted high
+      His arms toward the heaven so far and blue
+    Wherein the sunset rays began to die,
+      While o'er the band, a deeper silence grew.
+
+    "Strike! I am ready! Did'st thou think to see
+      A son of Gheva spill upon the dust
+    His noble blood? Did'st hope to have my knee
+      Bend at thy feet, and with one mighty thrust,
+
+    "The life thou hatest flee before thee here?
+      Shame on thee! on thy race! Art thou the one
+    Who hast so long his vengeance counted dear?
+      My hate is greater; I did strike thy son,
+
+    "Thy one son, Noumid, dead before my face;
+      And by the swiftest courser of my stud
+    Sent to thy door his corpse. And one might trace
+      Their flight across the desert by his blood.
+
+    "Strike! for my hate is greater than thy own!"
+      But with a frown the Arab moved away,
+    Walked to a distant palm and stood alone
+      With eyes that looked where purple mountains lay.
+
+    This for an instant; then he turned again
+      Toward the place where Ackbar waited still,
+    Walking as one benumbed with bitter pain,
+      Or with a hateful mission to fulfil.
+
+    "Strike! for I hate thee!" Ackbar cried once more,
+      "Nay, but my hate I cannot find!" said now
+    His enemy.  "Thy freedom I restore,
+      Live, life were worse than death to such as thou."
+
+    So with his gift of life, the Bedouin slept
+      That night untroubled; but when dawn broke through
+    The purple East, and o'er his eyelids crept
+      The long, thin finger of the light, he drew
+
+    A heavy breath and woke. Above him shone
+      A lifted dagger--"Yea, he gave thee life,
+    But I give death!" came in fierce undertone,
+      And Ackbar died. It was dead Noumid's wife.
+
+
+
+
+The New Year Ledger.
+
+BY AMELIA E. BARR.
+
+
+    I said one year ago,
+      "I wonder, if I truly kept
+    A list of days when life burnt low,
+      Of days I smiled and days I wept,
+    If good or bad would highest mount
+    When I made up the year's account?"
+
+    I took a ledger fair and fine,
+      "And now," I said, "when days are glad,
+    I'll write with bright red ink the line,
+      And write with black when they are bad,
+    So that they'll stand before my sight
+    As clear apart as day and night.
+
+    "I will not heed the changing skies,
+      Nor if it shine nor if it rain;
+    But if there comes some sweet surprise,
+      Or friendship, love or honest gain,
+    Why, then it shall be understood
+    That day is written down as good.
+
+    "Or if to anyone I love
+      A blessing meets them on the way,
+    That will to me a pleasure prove:
+      So it shall be a happy day;
+    And if some day, I've cause to dread
+    Pass harmless by, I'll write it red.
+
+    "When hands and brain stand labor's test,
+      And I can do the thing I would,
+    Those days when I am at my best
+      Shall all be traced as very good.
+    And in 'red letter,' too, I'll write
+    Those rare, strong hours when right is might.
+
+    "When first I meet in some grand book
+      A noble soul that touches mine,
+    And with this vision I can look
+      Through some gate beautiful of time,
+    That day such happiness will shed
+    That golden-lined will seem the red.
+
+    "And when pure, holy thoughts have power
+      To touch my heart and dim my eyes,
+    And I in some diviner hour
+      Can hold sweet converse with the skies,
+    Ah! then my soul may safely write:
+    'This day has been most good and bright.'"
+
+    What do I see on looking back?
+      A red-lined book before me lies,
+    With here and there a thread of black,
+      That like a gloomy shadow flies,--
+    A shadow it must be confessed,
+    That often rose in my own breast.
+
+    And I have found it good to note
+      The blessing that is mine each day;
+    For happiness is vainly sought
+      In some dim future far away.
+    Just try my ledger for a year,
+      Then look with grateful wonder back,
+    And you will find, there is no fear,
+      The red days far exceed the black.
+
+
+
+
+GOOD READING THE GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT.
+
+BY JOHN S. HART, LL.D.
+
+
+There is one accomplishment, in particular, which I would earnestly
+recommend to you. Cultivate assiduously the ability to read well. I stop to
+particularize this, because it is a thing so very much neglected, and
+because it is such an elegant and charming accomplishment. Where one person
+is really interested by music, twenty are pleased by good reading. Where
+one person is capable of becoming a skillful musician, twenty may become
+good readers. Where there is one occasion suitable for the exercise of
+musical talent, there are twenty for that of good reading.
+
+The culture of the voice necessary for reading well, gives a delightful
+charm to the same voice in conversation. Good reading is the natural
+exponent and vehicle of all good things. It is the most effective of all
+commentaries upon the works of genius. It seems to bring dead authors to
+life again, and makes us sit down familiarly with the great and good of all
+ages.
+
+Did you ever notice what life and power the Holy Scriptures have when well
+read? Have you ever heard of the wonderful effects produced by Elizabeth
+Fry on the criminals of Newgate, by simply reading to them the parable of
+the Prodigal Son? Princes and peers of the realm, it is said, counted it a
+privilege to stand in the dismal corridors, among felons and murderers,
+merely to share with them the privilege of witnessing the marvelous pathos
+which genius, taste, and culture could infuse into that simple story.
+
+What a fascination there is in really good reading! What a power it gives
+one! In the hospital, in the chamber of the invalid, in the nursery, in the
+domestic and in the social circle, among chosen friends and companions, how
+it enables you to minister to the amusement, to the comfort, the pleasure
+of dear ones, as no other art or accomplishment can. No instrument of man's
+devising can reach the heart as does that most wonderful instrument, the
+human voice. It is God's special gift and endowment to his chosen
+creatures. Fold it not away in a napkin.
+
+If you would double the value of all your other acquisitions, if you would
+add immeasurably to your own enjoyment and to your power of promoting the
+enjoyment of others, cultivate, with incessant care, this divine gift. No
+music below the skies is equal to that of pure, silvery speech from the
+lips of a man or woman of high culture.
+
+
+
+
+PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.
+
+BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+    Listen, my children, and you shall hear,
+    Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
+    On the eighteenth of April, in seventy-five--
+    Hardly a man is now alive
+    Who remembers that famous day and year--
+
+    He said to his friend: "If the British march
+    By land or sea from the town to-night,
+    Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
+    Of the North Church tower as a signal light;
+    One, if by land, and two if by sea,
+    And I on the opposite shore will be,
+    Ready to ride and spread the alarm
+    Through every Middlesex village and farm,
+    For the country folk to be up and to arm."
+
+    Then he said "Good-night," and, with muffled oar,
+    Silently row'd to the Charlestown shore,
+    Just as the moon rose over the bay,
+    Where, swinging wide at her moorings, lay
+    The "Somerset," British man-of-war;
+    A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
+    Across the moon like a prison bar,
+    And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
+    By its own reflection in the tide.
+
+    Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street,
+    Wanders and watches with eager ears,
+    Till in the silence around him he hears
+    The muster of men at the barrack door,
+    The sound of arms and the tramp of feet,
+    And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
+    Marching down to their boats on the shore.
+
+    Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church
+    By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
+    To the belfry chamber overhead,
+    And startled the pigeons from their perch
+    On the sombre rafters, that round him made
+    Masses and moving shapes of shade,
+    By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
+    To the highest window in the wall,
+    Where he paused to listen and look down
+    A moment on the roofs of the town,
+    And the moonlight flowing over all.
+
+    Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
+    In their night encampment on the hill.
+    Wrapped in silence so deep and still
+    That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
+    The watchful night wind, as it went
+    Creeping along from tent to tent,
+    And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
+    A moment only he feels the spell
+    Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
+    Of the lonely belfry and the dead,
+    For, suddenly, all his thoughts are bent
+    On a shadowy something far away,
+    Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
+    A line of black that bends and floats
+    On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
+
+    Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
+    Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
+    On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
+    Now he patted his horse's side,
+    Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
+    Then, impetuous, stamped the earth
+    And turned and lighted his saddle-girth;
+    But mostly he watched, with eager search,
+    The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
+    As it rose above the graves on the hill,
+    Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
+    And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
+    A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
+    He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
+    But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight,
+    A second lamp in the belfry burns.
+
+    A hurry of hoofs in the village street,
+    A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
+    And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark,
+    Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
+    That was all; and yet, through the gloom and the light,
+    The fate of a nation was riding that night;
+    And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight
+    Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
+
+    He had left the village and mounted the steep,
+    And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
+    Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides,
+    And under the alders that skirt its edge,
+    Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
+    Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
+    It was twelve by the village clock
+    When he crossed the bridge into Medford town;
+    He heard the crowing of the cock
+    And the barking of the farmer's dog,
+    And felt the damp of the river's fog,
+    That rises after the sun goes down.
+
+    It was one by the village clock
+    When he galloped into Lexington.
+    He saw the gilded weathercock
+    Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
+    And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
+    Gaze at him with spectral glare,
+    As if they already stood aghast
+    At the bloody work they would look upon.
+
+    It was two by the village clock
+    When he came to the bridge in Concord town;
+    He heard the bleating of the flock,
+    And the twitter of birds among the trees,
+    And felt the breath of the morning breeze
+    Blowing over the meadows brown.
+    And one was safe and asleep in his bed
+    Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
+    Who that day would be lying dead,
+    Pierced by a British musket ball.
+    You know the rest; in the books you have read,
+    How the British regulars fired and fled;
+    How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
+    From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
+    Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
+    Then crossing the fields, to emerge again
+    Under the trees, at the turn of the road,
+    And only pausing to fire and load.
+
+    So through the night rode Paul Revere,
+    And so through the night went his cry of alarm
+    To every Middlesex village and farm,--
+    A cry of defiance and not of fear,
+    A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
+    And a word that shall echo for evermore!
+    For, borne on the night-wind of the past,
+    Through all our history to the last,
+    In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
+    The people will waken and listen to hear
+    The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed
+    And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
+
+
+
+
+BY SPECIAL REQUEST.
+
+BY FRANK CASTLES.
+
+_A Lady Standing with one Hand on a Chair in a Somewhat Amateurish
+Attitude._
+
+
+Our kind hostess has asked me to recite something, "by special request,"
+but I really don't know what to do. I have only a very small _repertoire_,
+and I'm afraid you know all my stock recitations. What shall I do?
+(_Pause._) I have it; I'll give you something entirely original. I'll tell
+you about my last experience of reciting, which really is the cause of my
+being so nervous to-night. I began reciting about a year ago; I took
+elocution lessons with Mr. ----; no, I won't tell you his name, I want to
+keep him all to myself. I studied the usual things with him--the "Mercy"
+speech from the "Merchant of Venice," and Juliet's "Balcony scene," but I
+somehow never could imagine my fat, red-faced, snub-nosed old master
+(there! I've told you who he was), I never could fancy him as an ideal
+Romeo; he looked much more like Polonius, or the Ghost before he was a
+ghost--I mean as he probably was in the flesh.
+
+My elocution master told me that Shakespeare was not my forte, so I studied
+some more modern pieces. He told me I was getting on very well--"one of my
+most promising pupils," but I found that he said that to every one.
+
+Well, it soon became known that I recited (one must have _some_ little
+vices, you know, just to show up one's virtues). I received an invitation
+from Lady Midas for a musical evening last Friday, and in a postscript, "We
+hope you will favor us with a recitation." Very flattering, wasn't it?
+
+I went there fully primed with three pieces--"The Lifeboat," by Sims, "The
+Lost Soul," and Calverley's "Waiting." I thought that I had hit on a
+perfectly original selection; but I was soon undeceived. There were a great
+many people at Lady Midas', quite fifty, I should think, or perhaps two
+hundred; but I'm very bad at guessing numbers. We had a lot of music. A
+young man, with red hair and little twinkling light eyes, sang a song by De
+Lara, but it did not sound as well as when I heard the composer sing it.
+Then two girls played a banjo duet; then--no, we had another song first,
+then a girl with big eyes and an ugly dress--brown nun's veiling with
+yellow lace, and beads, and ribbons, and sham flowers and all sorts of
+horrid things, so ugly, I'm sure it was made at home. Well--where was I?
+Oh, yes!--she stood up and recited, what do you think? Why, "Calverley's
+Waiting!" Oh! I was so cross when it came to the last verses; you remember
+how they go (_imitating_)--
+
+    "'Hush! hark! I see a hovering form!
+      From the dim distance slowly rolled;
+    It rocks like lilies in a storm,
+      And oh! its hues are green and gold.
+
+    'It comes, it comes! Ah! rest is sweet,
+      And there is rest, my babe, for us!'
+    She ceased, as at her very feet
+      Stopped the St. John's Wood omnibus."
+
+Well, when I heard that I felt inclined to cry. Just imagine how provoking;
+one of the pieces I had been practicing for weeks past. Oh, it _was_
+annoying! After that there was a violin solo, then another--no, then I had
+an ice, such a nice young man, just up from Aldershot, _very_ young, but
+_so_ amusing, and so full of somebody of "ours" who had won something, or
+lost something, I could not quite make out which.
+
+Then we came back to the drawing-room, and an elderly spinster, with curls,
+sang, "Oh that we two were Maying," and the young man from Aldershot said,
+"Thank goodness we aren't."
+
+Afterward I had another ice, not because I wanted it, not a bit, but the
+young man from Aldershot said he was _so_ thirsty.
+
+Then I saw a youth with long hair and badly-fitting clothes. I thought he
+was going to sing, but he wasn't; oh no! much worse! he recited. When I
+heard the first words I thought I should faint (_imitating_):
+
+    "Been out in the lifeboat often? Aye, aye, sir, oft enough.
+    When it's rougher than this? Lor' bless you, this ain't what _we_ calls
+        rough."
+
+How well I knew the lines! Wasn't it cruel? However, I had one hope
+left--my "Lost Soul," a beautiful poem, serious and sentimental. The
+aesthetic youth was so tedious that the young man from Aldershot asked me to
+come into the conservatory, and really I was so vexed and disappointed that
+I think I would have gone into the coal-cellar if he had asked me.
+
+We went into the conservatory and had a nice long talk, all about----well,
+it would take too long to tell you now, and besides it would not interest
+_you_.
+
+All at once mamma came in, and I felt rather frightened at first (I don't
+know why), but she was laughing and smiling. "O, Mary," she said, "that
+aesthetic young man has been so funny; they encored 'The Lifeboat,' so he
+recited a very comic piece of poetry, that sent us all into fits of
+laughter, it was called 'The Fried Sole,' a parody on 'The Lost Soul' that
+you used to recite."
+
+Alas! my last hope was wrecked; I could not read after that! I believe I
+burst into tears. Anyhow, mamma hurried me off in a cab, and I cried all
+the way home and--and--I forgot to say good-night to the young man from
+Aldershot. Wasn't it a pity?
+
+And you see that's why I don't like to recite anything to-night. (_Some one
+from the audience comes up and whispers to her_). No! really, have I? How
+stupid! I'm told that I've been reciting all this time. I am so sorry; will
+you ever forgive me? I do beg pardon; I'll never do it again! (_Runs out._)
+
+
+
+
+NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP.
+
+    [Found in the Knapsack of a Soldier of the Civil War
+    After He Had Been Slain in Battle.]
+
+
+    Near the camp-fire's flickering light,
+      In my blanket bed I lie,
+    Gazing through the shades of night
+      And the twinkling stars on high;
+    O'er me spirits in the air
+      Silent vigils seem to keep,
+    As I breathe my childhood's prayer,
+      "Now I lay me down to sleep."
+
+    Sadly sings the whip-poor-will
+      In the boughs of yonder tree;
+    Laughingly the dancing rill
+      Swells the midnight melody.
+    Foemen may be lurking near,
+      In the canyon dark and deep;
+    Low I breathe in Jesus' ear:
+      "I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep."
+
+    'Mid those stars one face I see--
+      One the Saviour turned away--
+    Mother, who in infancy
+      Taught my baby lips to pray;
+    Her sweet spirit hovers near
+      In this lonely mountain-brake.
+    Take me to her Saviour dear
+      "If I should die before I wake."
+
+    Fainter grows the flickering light,
+      As each ember slowly dies;
+    Plaintively the birds of night
+      Fill the air with sad'ning cries;
+    Over me they seem to cry:
+      "You may never more awake."
+    Low I lisp: "If I should die,
+      I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take."
+
+    Now I lay me down to sleep;
+    I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
+    If I should die before I wake,
+    I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.
+
+
+
+
+THE AMERICAN UNION.
+
+BY DANIEL WEBSTER.
+
+
+I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the
+prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our
+Federal Union. It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our
+consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly
+indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country.
+
+That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe
+school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered
+finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign
+influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and
+sprang forth with newness of life.
+
+Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and
+its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and
+wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not outrun
+its protection, or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain
+of national, social, and personal happiness.
+
+I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might
+lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances
+of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be
+broken asunder.
+
+I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see
+whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below;
+nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this
+government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how
+the union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the
+condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.
+
+While the union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread
+out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate
+the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise!
+God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind!
+
+When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in
+heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of
+a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a
+land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!
+
+Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous
+ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still
+full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
+lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured,
+bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this
+worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and
+union afterward; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living
+light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over
+the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment,
+dear to every true American heart, liberty and union now and forever, one
+and inseparable!
+
+
+
+
+THE POPPY LAND LIMITED EXPRESS.
+
+BY EDGAR WADE ABBOT.
+
+
+    The first train leaves at six p. m.
+      For the land where the poppy blows;
+    The mother dear is the engineer,
+      And the passenger laughs and crows.
+
+    The palace car is the mother's arms;
+      The whistle, a low, sweet strain:
+    The passenger winks, and nods, and blinks,
+      And goes to sleep in the train!
+
+    At eight p. m. the next train starts
+      For the poppy land afar,
+    The summons clear falls on the ear:
+      "All aboard for the sleeping-car!"
+
+    But what is the fare to poppy land?
+      I hope it is not too dear.
+    The fare is this, a hug and a kiss,
+      And it's paid to the engineer!
+
+    So I ask of Him who children took
+      On His knee in kindness great,
+    "Take charge, I pray, of the trains each day,
+      That leave at six and eight.
+
+    "Keep watch of the passengers," thus I pray,
+      "For to me they are very dear,
+    And special ward, O gracious Lord,
+      O'er the gentle engineer."
+
+
+
+
+MOTHER, HOME, AND HEAVEN.
+
+
+Mother, Home, and Heaven, says a writer, are three of the most beautiful
+words in the English language. And truly I think that they may be well
+called so--what word strikes so forcibly upon the heart as mother? Coming
+from childhood's sunny lips, it has a peculiar charm; for it speaks of one
+to whom they look and trust for protection.
+
+A mother is the truest friend we have; when trials heavy and sudden fall
+upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends, who
+rejoiced with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around
+us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and
+counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to
+our hearts.
+
+The kind voice of a mother has often been the means of reclaiming an erring
+one from the path of wickedness to a life of happiness and prosperity.
+
+The lonely convict, immured in his dreary cell, thinks of the innocent days
+of his childhood, and feels that though other friends forsake him, he has
+still a guardian angel watching over him; and that, however dark his sins
+may have been, they have all been forgiven and forgotten by her.
+
+Mother is indeed a sweet name, and her station is indeed a holy one; for in
+her hands are placed minds, to be moulded almost at her will; aye, fitted
+to shine--not much, it is true, on earth, compared, if taught aright, with
+the dazzling splendor which awaits them in heaven.
+
+Home! how often we hear persons speak of the home of their childhood. Their
+minds seem to delight in dwelling upon the recollections of joyous days
+spent beneath the parental roof, when their young and happy hearts were as
+light and free as the birds who made the woods resound with the melody of
+their cheerful voices. What a blessing it is, when weary with care, and
+burdened with sorrow, to have a home to which we can go, and there, in the
+midst of friends we love, forget our troubles and dwell in peace and
+quietness.
+
+Heaven! that land of quiet rest--toward which those, who, worn down and
+tired with the toils of earth, direct their frail barks over the troubled
+waters of life, and after a long and dangerous passage, find it--safe in
+the haven of eternal bliss. Heaven is the home that awaits us beyond the
+grave. There the friendships formed on earth, and which cruel death has
+severed, are never more to be broken: and parted friends shall meet again,
+never more to be separated.
+
+It is an inspiring hope that, when we separate here on earth at the
+summons of death's angel, and when a few more years have rolled over the
+heads of those remaining, if "faithful unto death," we shall meet again in
+Heaven, our eternal _home_, there to dwell in the presence of our Heavenly
+Father, and go no more out forever.
+
+
+
+
+PRAYING FOR SHOES.
+
+BY PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.
+
+_A True Incident._
+
+
+    On a dark November morning,
+      A lady walked slowly down
+    The thronged, tumultuous thoroughfare
+      Of an ancient seaport town.
+
+    Of a winning and gracious beauty,
+      The peace of her pure young face
+    Was soft as the gleam of an angel's dream
+      In the calms of a heavenly place.
+
+    Her eyes were fountains of pity,
+      And the sensitive mouth expressed
+    A longing to set the kind thoughts free
+      In music that filled her breast.
+
+    She met, by a bright shop window,
+      An urchin timid and thin,
+    Who, with limbs that shook and a yearning look,
+      Was mistily glancing in
+    At the rows and varied clusters
+      Of slippers and shoes outspread,
+    Some shimmering keen, but of sombre sheen,
+      Some purple and green and red.
+
+    His pale lips moved and murmured;
+      But of what, she could not hear.
+    And oft on his folded hands would fall
+      The round of a bitter tear.
+
+    "What troubles you, child?" she asked him,
+      In a voice like the May-wind sweet.
+    He turned, and while pointing dolefully
+      To his naked and bleeding feet,
+
+    "I was praying for shoes," he answered;
+      "Just look at the splendid show!
+    I was praying to God for a single pair,
+      The sharp stones hurt me so!"
+
+    She led him, in museful silence,
+      At once through the open door,
+    And his hope grew bright, like a fairy light,
+      That flickered and danced before!
+
+    And there he was washed and tended
+      And his small, brown feet were shod;
+    And he pondered there on his childish prayer,
+      And the marvelous answer of God.
+
+    Above them his keen gaze wandered,
+      How strangely from shop to shelf,
+    Till it almost seemed that he fondly dreamed
+      Of looking on God Himself.
+
+    The lady bent over, and whispered,
+      "Are you happier now, my lad?"
+    He started, and all his soul flashed forth
+      In a gratitude swift and glad.
+
+    "Happy?--Oh, yes!--I am happy!"
+      Then (wonder with reverence rife,
+    His eyes aglow, and his voice sunk low),
+      "Please tell me! Are you God's wife?"
+
+
+
+
+RUM'S DEVASTATION AND DESTINY.
+
+BY HON. WILLIAM SULLIVAN.
+
+     [In a discourse delivered before the Massachusetts
+     Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, on the
+     twenty-third of May, 1832, Hon. William Sullivan, one
+     of the vice-presidents of the society, gave an account
+     of the discovery of the art of distilling wine from
+     brandy, showing that it was made some five or six
+     hundred years ago, by an alchemist who was in search of
+     the means of acquiring "inexhaustible riches and
+     perpetual youth." After having spoken of the origin of
+     alcohol, the speaker imagines it to be "the office of
+     history to announce the future, instead of recording
+     the past," and assuming to stand beside the man who
+     made the discovery, delivered the following eloquent
+     address detailing the melancholy consequences of this
+     discovery, and forecasting the blessings which shall
+     result from the final overthrow of the rum fiend.]
+
+
+In your researches after that which you should, at once, have known to be
+impossible, by the laws of nature, you have opened a fountain of misery
+which shall flow for ages. You have not contented yourself with pressing
+out the juices of the fruits bestowed upon you, and converting these into
+strong drink which you needed not,--but you have taken this strong drink,
+and the harvest, which was given to you for food, and have drawn from these
+a liquid which is not food and which will not nourish nor sustain your
+earthly frame. This liquid shall be a curse upon you and your descendants.
+It shall be known wherever the arts of civilization are known. You shall
+call it the _elixir of life_. You shall believe it to be nutritious to the
+body and gladdening to the soul. The love of it shall grow with the use of
+it. It shall soothe the solitary hour and cheer the festive board. It shall
+charm away your griefs, and be the cause of your rejoicings. It shall be
+the inducement to communion and the bond of friendship. It shall be prized
+alike by the high and the low. It shall be the joy of princes as well as of
+the meanest of mortals. It shall be the stimulant to laborious toil, and
+the reward for labor done. It shall be bought and sold, and make the dealer
+therein rich. It shall yield abundant revenues to sovereignty. Hospitality
+shall be dishonored in not offering it to the guest, and the guest shall be
+disgraced in not receiving it at the hand of his host.
+
+But----it shall visit your limbs with palsy; it shall extinguish the pride
+of man; it shall make the husband hateful to the wife, and the wife
+loathsome to the husband; it shall annihilate the love of offspring; it
+shall make members of society a shame and a reproach to each other, and to
+all among whom they dwell. It shall steal from the virtuous and the
+honorable their good name, and shall make the strong and the vigorous to
+totter along the streets of cities. It shall pervert the law of habit,
+designed to strengthen you in the path of duty, and bind you in its iron
+chain. It shall disgrace the judge upon the bench, the minister in the
+sacred desk, and the senator in his exalted seat. It shall make your food
+tasteless, your mouth to burn as with a fever, and your stomach to tremble
+as with disease. It shall cause the besotted mother to overlay her newborn,
+unconscious that it dies beneath the pressure of her weight; the natural
+cravings of the infant shall make it strive to awaken her who has passed,
+unheeded, to her last long sleep. The son shall hide his face that he may
+not behold his father's depravity; and the father shall see the object of
+his fondest hopes turn to a foul and bloated carcass, that hurries to the
+grave. It shall turn the children of men into raving maniacs; and the
+broken ties of blood and affection shall find no relief but in the friendly
+coming of Death. As the seed which man commits to the earth comes forth
+into that which he converts into spirit, so shall this product of his own
+invention be as seed in his own heart, to bring forth violence, rapine and
+murder. It shall cause man to shut up his fellow-man in the solitude of the
+grated cell. The prisoner shall turn pale and tremble, in his loneliness,
+at the presence of his own thoughts; he shall come forth to die, in cold
+blood, by the hand of his fellow, with the spectacle of _religious homage
+on a scaffold_, and amid the gaze of curious thousands. Poverty shall be
+made squalid and odious, even so that Charity shall turn away her face in
+disgust. It shall attract the pestilence that walks, even at noon-day, in
+darkness, to the very vitals of the drunkard, as carrion invites the
+far-sighted birds of prey. The consumer of spirit shall be found dead in
+the highway, with the exhausted vessel by his side. Yea, the drunkard shall
+kindle a fire in his own bosom which shall not depart from him till he is
+turned to ashes. The dropsical drunkard shall die in his delirium, and the
+fluid which has gathered in his brain shall smell like spirit, and like
+spirit shall burn. A feeble frame, an imbecile mind, torturing pain and
+incurable madness shall be of the inheritance which drunkards bequeath, to
+run with their blood to innocent descendants.
+
+The wise men, who assemble in the halls; of legislation, shall be blind to
+this ruin, desolation, and misery. Nay, they shall license the sale of this
+poison, and shall require of dignified magistrates to certify how much
+thereof shall be sold for the "PUBLIC GOOD."
+
+This minister of woe and wretchedness shall roam over the earth at
+pleasure. It shall be found in every country of the Christian; it shall go
+into every city, into every village, and into every house. But it shall not
+visit the country of the heathen, nor spread woe and wretchedness among
+them, but by the hands of Christians.
+
+The light of reason shall at length break upon the benighted and afflicted
+world. The truth shall be told. It shall be believed. The causes of
+calamity shall be unveiled. The friends of the human race shall speak and
+be respected. Rational man shall be ashamed of his follies and his crimes,
+and humbled to the dust that he was so long ignorant of their origin.
+Governments shall be ashamed that they so long tolerated and sustained the
+most costly and cruel foe that man has ever encountered. Avarice itself
+shall be conscience-stricken and penitent. It shall remain where nature
+placed it for use; and it shall be odious in the sight of _Heaven_ and of
+_Earth_ to convert the fruits of the soil into poison.
+
+
+
+
+THE DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    An opulent lord of Ispahan,
+    In luxury, lolled on a silk divan,
+    Dreaming the idle hours away
+    In a cloud of smoke from his nargile.
+    Weary with nothing to do in life,
+      He thought, as he watched the smoky whirls,
+    "'Twill be diversion to choose a wife
+      From my peerless bevy of dancing-girls.
+    There are beauties fair from every land--
+    Lustrous eyes from Samarcand,
+    Dusky forms from the upper Nile,
+    Teeth that glisten when red lips smile,
+    Gypsy faces of olive hue,
+      Stolen from some wild wandering clan,
+    Fair complexions and eyes of blue,
+      From the sunny isles of Cardachan,
+    Regal beauties of queenly grace
+    And sinuous sirens of unknown race;
+    Some one among them will surely bless
+    Hours that grow heavy with idleness."
+    Then the slave that waited his lightest need,
+      Fell on his knee, by the silk divan,
+    And the swarthy, listening ear gave heed
+      To the will of the lord of Ispahan.
+
+    "Send hither my dancing-girls," he said,
+      "And set me a feast to please the eye
+    And tempt the palate, for this shall be
+    A wedding breakfast before us spread,
+      If the charm of beauty can satisfy
+    And one of their number pleaseth me.
+    I will wed no maiden of high degree
+      With the tips of her fingers henna-stained
+      And the dew of youth from her life-blood drained,
+    But a child of nature wild and free."
+
+    Then the slave bent low and said: "O Sire,
+      A woman lingers beside the gate;
+    Her eyes are aglow like coals of fire
+      And she mourns as one disconsolate;
+    And when we bid her to cease and go,
+      Each eye grows bright, like an evening star,
+    And she sayeth: 'The master will hear my woe,
+      For I come from the deserts of Khandakar.'"
+    "Bid her to enter," the master said,
+    And the frown from his forehead swiftly fled.
+    The hasty word on his lip way stayed
+      As he thought of his youth, in the land afar,
+    And the peerless eyes of a Bedouin maid,
+      In the desert places of Khandakar.
+    The woman entered and swift unwound
+    The veil that mantled her face around,
+    And in matchless beauty, she stood arrayed,
+    In the scant attire of a Bedouin maid.
+    The indolent lord of Ispahan
+    Started back on the silk divan,
+    For in form and feature, in very truth,
+    It seemed the love of his early youth.
+    The almond eyes and the midnight hair,
+      The rosebud mouth and the rounded chin--
+    Time had not touched them; they still were fair,
+      And the passion of yore grew strong within.
+    Then she made him the secret Bedouin sign,
+      Which only dishonor can fail to heed;
+    The solemn pact of the races nine,
+      To help each other in time of need.
+    But her eyes beheld no answering sign,
+      Though a crimson tide to his forehead ran,
+    And the trembling maiden could not divine
+      The will of the lord of Ispahan.
+    With the sound of a rippling mountain brook,
+    The voice of the woman her lips forsook;
+      And thus her tale of despair began
+      In the lordly palace of Ispahan:
+
+    "On a stallion black as the midnight skies,
+    From a desert I come, where my lover lies
+    At death's dark verge; and the hostile clan
+    That struck him down, are in Ispahan
+    With slaves to sell, in the open street;
+    And only because my steed was fleet
+    Am I now free; but here I bide,
+    For this morning the hard-rid stallion died.
+    Out of your opulence, one swift steed
+      Only a drop from the sea will be;
+    A grain of sand on the shore, to my need;
+      But the wealth of the whole, wide world to me.
+    My soul to the soul of my loved one cries,
+      At dawn or in darkness, whate'er betide,
+    And the pain of longing all peace denies,
+      To the heart that strains to my lover's side."
+    "You shall mourn no more, but sit with me
+    And rejoice in a scene of revelry;
+    For the pleasures of life are the rights of man,"
+    Said the indolent lord of Ispahan.
+
+    The curtains parted and noiseless feet
+      Of dusky slaves stole over the floor.
+    Their strong arms laden with burden sweet
+      Of fruits and flowers a goodly store.
+    Luscious peaches and apricots,
+    Plucked from the sunniest garden spots;
+    Syrian apples and cordials rare;
+    Succulent grapes that filled the air
+    With heavy sweetness, while rivers ran,
+    From beakers of wine from Astrakhan;
+    Cooling salvers of colored ice;
+    Almonds powdered with fragrant spice;
+    Smoking viands, on plates of gold,
+    And carven vessels of price untold,
+    Kindling the appetite afresh
+    For dainty morsels of fowl and flesh.
+    The musical notes of the mellow flute,
+      From a source remote, rose higher and higher,
+    With the quivering sounds from a hidden lute,
+      The plaintive sweep of the tender lyre.
+
+    Then a whirlwind of color filled the air--
+      A misty vapor of filmy lace,
+    With gleams of silk and of round arms bare,
+      In a mazy whirl of infinite grace;
+    And the lustrous glow of tresses blent
+    With the shimmer of pearls, from the Orient.
+    The half-sobbed, breathless, sweet refrain,
+      A swelling burst of sensuous sound,
+    Sank lower to swell and sink again,
+      Then died in silence most profound.
+    The panting beauties with cheeks aglow,
+      Scattered about on the rug-strewn floor,
+    Like bright-hued leaves when the chill winds blow,
+      Or tinted sea-shells along the shore.
+    But the lord of the palace turned and cried;
+      "Heavy and languid these maidens are."
+    And he said, to the Bedouin at his side:
+      "Teach them the dances of Khandakar."
+    Her dark eyes lit with the flash of fire,
+    And she said: "You will pity my need most dire?
+    You will give me steed to fly afar,
+    To my love in the deserts of Khandakar?"
+    "Half that I own shall be yours," he said,
+      "If the love of my youth that was under ban
+    Comes back to me like a soul from the dead
+      Bringing joy to the palace of Ispahan."
+
+    She sprang to the floor with an agile bound.
+    The music broke in a swirl of sound,
+    Her hair from its fillet became unbound.
+    And the dancing-girls that stood apart,
+    Gazed rapt and speechless, with hand to heart,
+      At the wild, untrammelled curves of grace
+      Of the dancing-girl from the desert race.
+    Not one of them half so fair to see;
+      Not one as lithe in the sinuous twist
+    Of twirling body and bending knee,
+      Of supple ankle and curving wrist.
+    The wilder the music, the wilder she;
+    It seemed like the song of a bird set free
+      To thrill in the heart of a cloud of mist
+    And live on its own mad ecstasy.
+      Spellbound and mute, on the silk divan,
+      Sat the lord of the palace of Ispahan.
+
+    But the thoughts of the master were drifting far
+    To his youth in the deserts of Khandakar;
+    To the time when another had danced as well,
+      And listened with tenderness in her eyes,
+    To the burning words his lips might tell,
+      With kisses freighting her soft replies.
+    And he had thought that her smile would bless
+      His roving life, in the land afar,
+    And cheer him in hours of loneliness,
+      In the tents of the deserts of Khandakar.
+    But the tribe had chosen the maid to wed
+      With the powerful chief of a hostile clan,
+    And the flattered woman had turned and fled
+      From the pleading voice of a stricken man;
+    Then out of the desert the lover sped,
+      To become a great lord of Ispahan.
+
+    And now this child, with the subtle grace
+      Of the mother that bore her, had come to him
+    With the desert's breath upon her face,
+      Rousing within him a purpose grim.
+    "By the beard of the Prophet! but you shall be
+    The light and the joy of my life to me!
+    As your mother was, you are to-day.
+      Your lover, perchance, hath lived his span;
+    You shall dry your maidenly tears and stay
+      As the wife of the lord of Ispahan."
+    That night, when the dusky shadows crept
+      Across the tiles of the banquet-room,
+    They found the form of a man who slept
+      On a silk divan, in the gathering gloom.
+    The window screens were wide to the air,
+      And the hedge, where the fragrant roses grew,
+    Was cleft and trodden to earth, just where
+      A frightened fugitive might pass through.
+
+    And the groom of the stables, heavy with wine,
+      Wakened not at the prancing tread
+    Of the milk-white steed and made no sign,
+      As the Bedouin maid from the palace fled.
+    And the indolent lord of Ispahan
+    Seemed resting still, on the silk divan;
+    But his heart was beating with love no more,
+      In his eyes no light of passion gleamed;
+    His listless fingers touched the floor,
+      Where the crimson tide of his life-blood streamed,
+    And he slept the last, long, dreamless sleep;
+      For the end had come to life's brief span;
+    And his jewelled dagger was handle deep,
+      In the heart of the lord of Ispahan.
+
+
+
+
+HORNETS.
+
+BY BILL NYE.
+
+
+Last fall I desired to add to my rare collection a large hornet's nest. I
+had an embalmed tarantula and her porcelain-lined nest, and I desired to
+add to these the gray and airy house of the hornet. I procured one of the
+large size, after cold weather, and hung it in my cabinet by a string. I
+forgot about it until spring. When warm weather came something reminded me
+of it; I think it was a hornet. He jogged my memory in some way, and called
+my attention to it. Memory is not located where I thought it was. It seemed
+as though when ever he touched me he awakened a memory,--a warm memory,
+with a red place all around it.
+
+Then some more hornets came, and began to rake up old personalities. I
+remember that one of them lit on my upper lip. He thought it was a rosebud.
+When he went away it looked like a gladiolus bulb. I wrapped a wet sheet
+around it to take out the warmth and reduce the swelling, so that I could
+go through the folding doors, and tell my wife about it. Hornets lit all
+over me, and walked around on my person. I did not dare to scrape them off,
+because they were so sensitive. You have to be very guarded in your conduct
+toward a hornet.
+
+I remember once while I was watching the busy little hornet gathering honey
+and June-bugs from the bosom of a rose, years ago, I stirred him up with a
+club, more as a practical joke than anything, and he came and lit in my
+sunny hair;--that was when I wore my own hair--and he walked around through
+my gleaming tresses quite a while, making tracks as large as a water-melon
+all over my head. If he hadn't run out of tracks my head would have looked
+like a load of summer squashes. I remember I had to thump my head against
+the smoke-house in order to smash him; and I had to comb him out with a
+fine comb, and wear a waste-paper basket two weeks for a hat. Much has
+been said of the hornet; but he has an odd, quaint way after all, that is
+forever new.
+
+
+
+
+SINCE SHE WENT HOME.
+
+BY R. J. BURDETTE.
+
+
+                Since she went home--
+    The evening shadows linger longer here,
+    The winter days fill so much of the year,
+    And even summer winds are chill and drear,
+                Since she went home.
+
+                Since she went home--
+    The robin's note has touched a minor strain,
+    The old glad songs breathe but a sad refrain,
+    And laughter sobs with hidden, bitter pain,
+                Since she went home.
+
+                Since she went home--
+    How still the empty room her presence blessed;
+    Untouched the pillow that her dear head pressed;
+    My lonely heart has nowhere for its rest,
+                Since she went home.
+
+                Since she went home--
+    The long, long days have crept away like years,
+    The sunlight has been dimmed with doubts and fears,
+    And the dark nights have rained in lonely tears,
+                Since she went home.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILDREN WE KEEP.
+
+
+    The children kept coming, one by one,
+      Till the boys were five and the girls were three,
+    And the big brown house was alive with fun
+      From the basement floor to the old roof-tree.
+    Like garden flowers the little ones grew,
+      Nurtured and trained with the tenderest care;
+    Warmed by love's sunshine, bathed in its dew,
+      They bloomed into beauty, like roses rare.
+
+    But one of the boys grew weary one day,
+      And leaning his head on his mother's breast,
+    He said, "I'm tired and cannot play;
+      Let me sit awhile on your knee and rest."
+    She cradled him close in her fond embrace,
+      She hushed him to sleep with her sweetest song,
+    And rapturous love still lighted his face
+      When his spirit had joined the heavenly throng.
+
+    Then the eldest girl, with her thoughtful eyes,
+      Who stood where the "brook and the river meet,"
+    Stole softly away into paradise
+      Ere "the river" had reached her slender feet.
+    While the father's eyes on the grave are bent,
+      The mother looked upward beyond the skies;
+    "Our treasures," she whispered, "were only lent,
+      Our darlings were angels in earth's disguise."
+
+    The years flew by and the children began
+      With longing to think of the world outside;
+    And as each, in his turn, became a man,
+      The boys proudly went from the father's side.
+    The girls were women so gentle and fair
+      That lovers were speedy to woo and win;
+    And with orange blossoms in braided hair,
+      The old home was left, the new home to begin.
+
+    So, one by one, the children have gone,--
+      The boys were five and the girls were three;
+    And the big brown house is gloomy and lone,
+      With but two old folks for its company.
+    They talk to each other about the past,
+      As they sit together in eventide,
+    And say, "All the children we keep at last
+      Are the boy and the girl who in childhood died."
+
+
+
+
+AMERICA FOR GOD.
+
+BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+But now what are the weapons by which, under our Omnipotent Leader, the
+real obstacles in the way of our country's evangelization, the ten thousand
+mile Sebastopols, are to be leveled? The first columbiad, with range enough
+to sweep from eternity to eternity, is the Bible, millions of its copies
+going out, millions on millions. Then there are all the Gospel batteries,
+manned by seventy thousand pastors and home missionaries, over the head of
+each one of whom is the shield of Divine protection, and in the right hand
+of each one the gleaming, two-edged sword of the Infinite Spirit! Hundreds
+of thousands of private soldiers for Christ, marching under the
+one-starred, blood-striped flag of Emanuel! On our side, the great and
+mighty theologians of the land the heavy artillery, and the hundreds of
+thousands of Christian children the infantry. They are marching on!
+Episcopacy, with the sublime roll of its liturgies; Methodism, with its
+battle-cry of "The sword of the Lord and John Wesley;" the Baptist Church,
+with its glorious navy sailing up our Oregons and Sacramentos and
+Mississippis; and Presbyterians, moving on with the battle-cry of "The
+sword of the Lord and John Knox." And then, after awhile will come the
+great tides of revival, sweeping over the land, the five hundred thousand
+conversions in 1857 eclipsed by the salvation of millions in a day, and the
+four American armies of the Lord's host marching toward each other, the
+Eastern army marching west, the Western army marching east, the Northern
+army marching south, the Southern army marching north; shoulder to
+shoulder! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! until they meet mid-continent, having taken
+America for God!
+
+The thunder of the bombardment is already in the air, and when the last
+bridge of opposition is taken, and the last portcullis of Satan is lifted,
+and the last gun spiked, and the last tower dismantled, and the last
+charger of iniquity shall have been hurled back upon its haunches, what a
+time of rejoicing!
+
+
+
+
+OUR OWN.
+
+BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
+
+
+    If I had known, in the morning,
+      How wearily all the day
+    The words unkind would trouble my mind
+      That I said when you went away,
+    I had been more careful, darling,
+      Nor given you needless pain;
+    But--we vex our own with look and tone
+      We might never take back again.
+
+    For though in the quiet evening
+      You may give me the kiss of peace,
+    Yet it well might be that never for me
+      The pain of the heart should cease;
+    How many go forth at morning
+      Who never come home at night,
+    And hearts have broken for harsh words spoken
+      That sorrow can ne'er set right.
+
+    We have careful thought for the stranger,
+      And smiles for the sometime guest,
+    But oft for our own the bitter tone,
+      Though we love our own the best.
+    Ah, lip with the curve impatient,
+      Ah, brow with the shade of scorn,
+    'T were a cruel fate were the night too late
+      To undue the work of morn.
+
+
+
+
+BEHIND TIME.
+
+BY FREEMAN HUNT.
+
+
+A railroad train was rushing along at almost lightning speed. A curve was
+just ahead, and beyond it was a station, at which the cars usually passed
+each other. The conductor was late, so late that the period during which
+the down train was to wait had nearly elapsed; but he hoped yet to pass the
+curve safely. Suddenly a locomotive dashed into sight right ahead. In an
+instant there was a collision. A shriek, a shock, and fifty souls were in
+eternity; and all because an engineer had been _behind time_.
+
+A great battle was going on. Column after column had been precipitated for
+eight mortal hours on the enemy posted along the ridge of a hill. The
+summer sun was sinking to the west; re-inforcements for the obstinate
+defenders were already in sight; it was necessary to carry the position
+with one final charge, or everything would be lost. A powerful corps had
+been summoned from across the country, and if it came up in season all
+would yet be well. The great conqueror, confident in its arrival, formed
+his reserve into an attacking column, and ordered them to charge the enemy.
+The whole world knows the result. Grouchy failed to appear; the imperial
+guard was beaten back; Waterloo was lost. Napoleon died a prisoner at St.
+Helena because one of his marshals was _behind time_.
+
+A leading firm in commercial circles had long struggled against bankruptcy.
+As it had enormous assets in California, it expected remittances by a
+certain day; and, if the sums promised arrived, its credit, its honor, and
+its future prosperity would be preserved. But week after week elapsed
+without bringing the gold. At last came the fatal day on which the firm had
+bills maturing to enormous amounts. The steamer was telegraphed at
+daybreak; but it was found, on inquiry, that she brought no funds, and the
+house failed. The next arrival brought nearly half a million to the
+insolvents, but it was too late; they were ruined because their agent, in
+remitting, had been _behind time_.
+
+A condemned man was led out for execution. He had taken human life, but
+under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was
+active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve; a
+favorable answer had been expected the night before; and, though it had not
+come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would yet arrive in season.
+Thus the morning passed without the appearance of the messenger. The last
+moment had come. The prisoner took his place on the drop, the cap was drawn
+over his eyes, the bolt was drawn, and a lifeless body swung revolving in
+the wind. Just at that moment a horse-man came into sight, galloping down
+hill, his steed covered with foam. He carried a packet in his right hand,
+which he waved rapidly to the crowd. He was the express rider with the
+reprieve. But he had come too late. A comparatively innocent man had died
+an ignominious death, because a watch had been five minutes too slow,
+making its bearer arrive _behind time_.
+
+It is continually so in life. The best-laid plans, the most important
+affairs, the fortunes of individuals, the weal of nations, honor,
+happiness, life itself, are daily sacrificed because somebody is "behind
+time." There are men who always fail in whatever they undertake, simply
+because they are "behind time." There are others who put off reformation
+year by year, till death seizes them, and they perish unrepentant, because
+forever "_behind time_."
+
+Five minutes in a crisis is worth years. It is but a little period, yet it
+has often saved a fortune or redeemed a people. If there is one virtue that
+should be cultivated more than another by him who would succeed in life, it
+is punctuality; if there is one error that should be avoided, it is being
+_behind time_.
+
+
+
+
+KITTENS AND BABIES.
+
+BY LIZZIE M. HADLEY.
+
+
+    There were two kittens, a black and a gray,
+      And grandmamma said, with a frown,
+    "It never will do to keep them both,
+      The black one we'd better drown."
+
+    "Don't cry, my dear," to tiny Bess,
+      "One kitten's enough to keep;
+    Now run to nurse, for 'tis growing late
+      And time you were fast asleep."
+
+    The morrow dawned, and rosy and sweet
+      Came little Bess from her nap.
+    The nurse said, "Go into mamma's room
+      And look in grandma's lap."
+
+    "Come here," said grandma, with a smile,
+      From the rocking-chair where she sat,
+    "God has sent you two little sisters;
+      Now! what do you think of that?"
+
+    Bess looked at the babies a moment,
+      With their wee heads, yellow and brown,
+    And then to grandma soberly said,
+      "_Which one are you going to drown_?"
+
+
+
+
+AN UNACCOUNTABLE MYSTERY.
+
+BY PAUL DENTON.
+
+
+Intemperance is the strangest and most unaccountable mystery with which we
+have to deal. Why, as a rule, the human soul is passionately jealous of its
+own happiness, and tirelessly selfish as to its own interest. It delights
+to seek the sunshine and the flowers this side the grave: ardently hopes
+for heaven in the life to come. It flashes its penetrating thought through
+the dark chambers of the earth; or lighted by the lurid flames of
+smouldering, volcanic fires, wings them through buried ovens. It lights up
+the ocean's bed, melting its mysteries into solution, detecting its coral
+richness, and causing its buried pearls, which have rested for long
+centuries beneath the black waves, to glow with their long-hoarded beauty.
+It holds converse with the glittering planets of the skies and compels them
+to tell it of their mountain ranges, their landscapes, and their utility.
+It toys with the mad lightnings which break from the darkness, and guides
+death and destruction through the earth, until it allures the impetuous
+element into docility and subserviency. It bids the panting waters breathe
+their hot, heavy breath upon the piston-rod and make the locomotive a
+beautiful thing of life, majestically thundering its way over continents,
+screaming forth the music of civilization in the midst of wild forests and
+the heat of burning deserts, beneath scorching, torrid suns. It leaps over
+burning plains and scalding streams; restless and daring, it lights its
+casket over arctic zones and seas; and perhaps tiring of such incumbrance,
+deserts it in the cold shade of the ice mountain and speeds on untrammeled
+and alone. Franklin followed the beckonings of his tireless spirit until
+worn out and weary, his body laid down on the cold ice and slept. Kane
+coaxed himself home to the old churchyard, and then bade his spirit drop
+the machine it had so sadly wrenched and fly through earth or the
+eternities, as God might will. Livingstone marched through the jungles and
+cheerless forests of uninviting Africa, but his limbs were too feeble to
+keep up with his hungry soul, which tore itself from its burden and left it
+to crumble beneath the burning sun. And thus the soul flies from zone to
+zone and from world to world, sipping the sweets of wisdom, as the bee
+sucks honey from the flowers; reading lessons from the leaflet on the tree,
+studying the language of the soft whispering zephyr, and of the hurricane
+which springs from nothing into devastating power; and it is ever restless
+in its researches, for it seeks its own happiness and improvement in its
+new discoveries, and in a better knowledge of God's creation. Speak to the
+human soul of liberty, and swell it with gratitude, and, beaming with
+smiles, it will follow whereever you lead. Speak to it of its immortality
+and of the divine grandeur of its faculties, and, warmed by your
+appreciation, it will strive harder for a fuller development and brighter
+existence. Lead it among the roses, and it will seldom fail to light your
+pathway with smiles and to remind you of its gratitude. It loves to be
+noticed; loves to be assisted; loves to be made happy; loves to be warned
+of danger, and yet, with reference to that which pierces it with the most
+bleeding wounds, which more than anything else bars from it the sunlight
+and robs it of happiness--Intemperance--IT IS AS HEEDLESS AS THE STONE.
+
+
+
+
+IMPERFECTUS.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    I wonder if ever a song was sung,
+      But the singer's heart sang sweeter!
+    I wonder if ever a rhyme was rung,
+      But the thought surpassed the meter!
+    I wonder if ever a sculptor wrought,
+    Till the cold stone echoed his ardent thought!
+    Or if ever a painter, with light and shade,
+    The dream of his inmost heart portrayed!
+
+    I wonder if ever a rose was found,
+      And there might not be a fairer!
+    Or if ever a glittering gem was ground,
+      And we dreamed not of a rarer!
+    Ah! never on earth do we find the best,
+    But it waits for us in a Land of Rest,
+    And a perfect thing we shall never behold,
+    Till we pass the portals of shining gold.
+
+
+
+
+A WOMAN'S POCKET.
+
+BY JAMES M. BAILEY.
+
+
+The most difficult thing to reach is a woman's pocket. This is especially
+the case if the dress is hung up in a closet, and the man is in a hurry. We
+think we are safe in saying that he always is in a hurry on such an
+occasion. The owner of the dress is in the sitting room serenely engrossed
+in a book. Having told him that the article which he is in quest of is in
+her dress pocket in the closet she has discharged her whole duty in the
+matter and can afford to feel serene. He goes at the task with a dim
+consciousness that he has been there before, but says nothing. On opening
+the closet door and finding himself confronted with a number of dresses,
+all turned inside out and presenting a most formidable front, he hastens
+back to ask "Which dress?" and being told the brown one, and also asked if
+_she_ has so _many_ dresses that there need be any great effort to find the
+right one, he returns to the closet with alacrity, and soon has his hands
+on the brown dress. It is inside out like the rest,--a fact he does not
+notice, however, until he has made several ineffectual attempts to get his
+hand into it. Then he turns it around very carefully and passes over the
+pocket several times without knowing it. A nervous movement of his hands,
+and an appearance of perspiration on his forehead are perceptible. He now
+dives one hand in at the back, and feeling around, finds a place, and
+proceeds to explore it, when he discovers that he is following up the
+inside of a lining. The nervousness increases, also the perspiration. He
+twitches the dress on the hook, and suddenly the pocket, white, plump and
+exasperating, comes to view. Then he sighs the relief he feels and is
+mentally grateful he did not allow himself to use any offensive
+expressions. It is all right now. There is the pocket in plain view--not
+the inside but the outside--and all he has to do is to put his hand right
+around in the inside and take out the article. That is all. He can't help
+but smile to think how near he was to getting mad. Then he puts his hand
+around to the other side. He does not feel the opening. He pushes a little
+further--now he has got it; he shoves the hand down, and is very much
+surprised to see it appear opposite his knees. He had made a mistake. He
+tries again; again he feels the entrance and glides down it only to appear
+again as before. This makes him open his eyes and straighten his face. He
+feels of the outside of the pocket, pinches it curiously, lifts it up,
+shakes it, and, after peering closely about the roots of it, he says, "How
+funny!" and commences again. He does it calmly this time, because hurrying
+only makes matters worse. He holds up breadth after breadth, goes over them
+carefully, gets his hand first into a lining, then into the air again
+(where it always surprises him when it appears), and finally into a pocket,
+and is about to cry out with triumph, when he discovers that it is the
+pocket to another dress. He is mad now; the closet air almost stifles him;
+he is so nervous he can hardly contain himself, and the pocket looks at him
+so exasperatingly that he cannot help but "plug" it with his clenched fist,
+and immediately does it. Being somewhat relieved by this performance he has
+a chance to look about him, and sees that he has put his foot through a
+band-box and into the crown of his wife's bonnet; has broken the brim of
+his Panama hat which was hanging in the same closet, and torn about a yard
+of bugle trimming from a new cloak. All this trouble is due directly to his
+wife's infatuation in hanging up her dresses inside out, so he immediately
+starts after her, and impetuously urging her to the closet, excitedly and
+almost profanely intimates his doubts of their being a pocket in the dress,
+anyway. The cause of the unhappy disaster quietly inserts her hand inside
+the robe, and directly brings it forth with the sought for article in its
+clasp. He doesn't know why, but this makes him madder than anything else.
+
+
+
+
+MOTHER'S DOUGHNUTS.
+
+BY CHARLES F. ADAMS.
+
+_El Dorado, 1851._
+
+
+    I've just been down ter Thompson's, boys,
+      'N feelin' kind o' blue,
+    I thought I'd look in at "The Ranch,"
+      Ter find out what wuz new;
+    When I seed this sign a-hangin'
+      On a shanty by the lake:
+    "Here's whar yer get your doughnuts
+      Like yer mother used ter make."
+
+    I've seen a grizzly show his teeth,
+      I've seen Kentucky Pete
+    Draw out his shooter, 'n advise
+      A "tenderfoot" ter treat;
+    But nuthin' ever tuk me down,
+      'N made my benders shake,
+    Like that sign about the doughnuts
+      That my mother used ter make.
+
+    A sort o' mist shut out the ranch,
+      'N standin' thar instead,
+    I seen an old, white farm-house,
+      With its doors all painted red.
+    A whiff came through the open door--
+      Wuz I sleepin' or awake?
+    The smell wuz that of doughnuts
+      Like my mother used ter make.
+
+    The bees wuz hummin' round the porch
+      Whar honeysuckles grew;
+    A yellow dish of apple-sass
+      Wuz settin' thar in view.
+    'N on the table, by the stove,
+      An old-time "Johnny-cake,"
+    'N a platter full of doughnuts
+      Like my mother used ter make.
+
+    A patient form I seemed ter see,
+      In tidy dress of black,
+    I almost thought I heard the words,
+      "When will my boy come back?"
+    'N then--the old sign creaked:
+      But now it was the boss who spake:
+    'Here's whar yer gets yer doughnuts
+      Like yer mother used ter make.
+
+    Well, boys, that kind o' broke me up,
+      'N ez I've "struck pay gravel,"
+    I ruther think I'll pack my kit,
+      Vamoose the ranch, 'n travel.
+    I'll make the old folks jubilant,
+      'N if I don't mistake,
+    I'll try some o' them doughnuts
+      Like my mother used ter make.
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY ATTRACTIONS OF THE BIBLE.
+
+BY DR. HAMILTON.
+
+
+God made the present earth as the Home of Man; but had he meant it as a
+mere lodging, a world less beautiful would have served the purpose. There
+was no need for the carpet of verdure, or the ceiling of blue; no need for
+the mountains, and cataracts, and forests; no need for the rainbow, no need
+for the flowers. A big, round island, half of it arable, and half of it
+pasture, with a clump of trees in one corner, and a magazine of fuel in
+another, might have held and fed ten millions of people; and a hundred
+islands, all made in the same pattern, big and round, might have held and
+fed the population of the globe.
+
+But man is something more than the animal which wants lodging and food. He
+has a spiritual nature, full of keen perceptions and deep sympathies. He
+has an eye for the sublime and the beautiful, and his kind Creator has
+provided man's abode with affluent materials for these nobler tastes. He
+has built Mont Blanc, and molten the lake in which its image sleeps. He has
+intoned Niagara's thunder, and has breathed the zephyr which sweeps its
+spray. He has shagged the steep with its cedars, and be-sprent the meadow
+with its king-cups and daisies. He has made it a world of fragrance and
+music,--a world of brightness and symmetry,--a world where the grand and
+the graceful, the awful and lovely, rejoice together. In fashioning the
+Home of Man, the Creator had an eye to something more than convenience, and
+built, not a barrack, but a palace--not a Union work-house, but an
+Alhambra; something which should not only be very comfortable, but very
+splendid and very fair; something which should inspire the soul of its
+inhabitant, and even draw forth the "very good" of complacent Deity.
+
+God also made the Bible as the guide and oracle of man; but had He meant it
+as the mere lesson-book of duty, a volume less various and less attractive
+would have answered every end. But in giving that Bible, its divine Author
+had regard to the mind of man. He knew that man has more curiosity than
+piety, more taste than sanctity; and that more persons are anxious to hear
+some new, or read some beauteous thing, than to read or hear about God and
+the great salvation. He knew that few would ever ask, "What must I do to be
+saved?" till they came in contact with the Bible itself; and, therefore, He
+made the Bible not only an instructive book, but an attractive one,--not
+only true, but enticing. He filled it with marvelous incident and engaging
+history; with sunny pictures from Old World scenery, and affecting
+anecdotes from the patriarch times. He replenished it with stately argument
+and thrilling verse, and sprinkled it over with sententious wisdom and
+proverbial pungency. He made it a book of lofty thoughts and noble
+images,--a book of heavenly doctrine, but withal of earthly adaptation. In
+preparing a guide to immortality, Infinite Wisdom gave, not a dictionary,
+nor a grammar, but a Bible--a book which, in trying to reach the heart of
+man, should captivate his taste; and which, in transforming his affection,
+should also expand his intellect. The pearl is of great price; but even the
+casket is of exquisite beauty. The sword is of ethereal temper, and nothing
+cuts so keen as its double edge; but there are jewels on the hilt, an
+exquisite inlaying on the scabbard. The shekels are of the purest ore; but
+even the scrip which contains them is of a texture more curious than any
+which the artists of earth can fashion. The apples are gold; but even the
+basket is silver.
+
+The Bible contains no ornamental passages, nothing written for mere
+display; its steadfast purpose is, "Glory to God in the highest," and the
+truest blessedness of man; it abounds in passages of the purest beauty and
+stateliest grandeur, all the grander and all the more beautiful because
+they are casual and unsought. The fire which flashes from the iron hoof of
+the Tartar steed as he scours the midnight path is grander than the
+artificial firework; for it is the casual effect of speed and power. The
+clang of ocean as he booms his billows on the rock, and the echoing caves
+give chorus, is more soul-filling and sublime than all the music of the
+orchestra, for it is the music of that main so mighty that there is a
+grandeur in all it does,--in its sleep a melody, and in its march a stately
+psalm. And in the bow which paints the melting cloud there is a beauty
+which the stained glass or gorgeous drapery emulates in vain; for it is the
+glory which gilds beneficence, the brightness which bespeaks a double boon,
+the flush which cannot but come forth when both the sun and shower are
+there. The style of Scripture has all this glory. It has the gracefulness
+of a high utility; it has the majesty of intrinsic power; it has the charm
+of its own sanctity: it never labors, never strives, but, instinct with
+great realities and bent on blessed ends, it has all the translucent beauty
+and unstudied power which you might expect from its lofty object and
+all-wise Author.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS BABY.
+
+BY WILL CARLETON.
+
+    "Tha'rt welcome, little bonny brid.
+    But shouldn't ha' come just when tha' did:
+                        Teimes are bad."
+
+                    _English Ballad._
+
+
+    Hoot! ye little rascal! ye come it on me this way,
+    Crowdin' yerself amongst us this blusterin' winter's day,
+    Knowin' that we already have three of ye, an' seven,
+    An' tryin' to make yerself out a Christmas present o' Heaven?
+
+    Ten of ye have we now, Sir, for this world to abuse;
+    An' Bobbie he have no waistcoat, an' Nellie she have no shoes,
+    An' Sammie he have no shirt, Sir (I tell it to his shame),
+    An' the one that was just before ye we ain't had time to name!
+
+    An, all o' the banks be smashin', an' on us poor folk fall;
+    An' Boss he whittles the wages when work's to be had at all;
+    An' Tom he have cut his foot off, an' lies in a woful plight,
+    An' all of us wonders at mornin' as what we shall eat at night;
+
+    An' but for your father an' Sandy a-findin' somewhat to do,
+    An' but for the preacher's woman, who often helps us through,
+    An' but for your poor dear mother a-doin' twice her part,
+    Ye'd 'a seen us all in heaven afore _ye_ was ready to start!
+
+    An' now _ye_ have come, ye rascal! so healthy an' fat an' sound,
+    A-weighin', I'll wager a dollar, the full of a dozen pound!
+    With yer mother's eyes a flashin', yer father's flesh an' build,
+    An' a big mouth an' stomach all ready for to be filled!
+
+    No, no! don't cry, my baby! hush up, my pretty one!
+    Don't get my chaff in yer eye, boy--I only was just in fun.
+    Ye'll like us when ye know us, although we're cur'us folks;
+    But we don't get much victual, and half our livin' is jokes!
+
+    Why, boy, did ye take me in earnest? come, sit upon my knee;
+    I'll tell ye a secret, youngster, I'll name ye after me.
+    Ye shall have all yer brothers an' sisters with ye to play,
+    An' ye shall have yer carriage, an' ride out every day!
+
+    Why, boy, do ye think ye'll suffer? I'm gettin' a trifle old,
+    But it'll be many years yet before I lose my hold;
+    An' if I should fall on the road, boy, still, them's yer brothers, there,
+    An' not a rogue of 'em ever would see ye harmed a hair!
+
+    Say! when ye come from heaven, my little name-sake dear,
+    Did ye see, 'mongst the little girls there, a face like this one here?
+    That was yer little sister--she died a year ago,
+    An' all of us cried like babies when they laid her under the snow!
+
+    Hang it! if all the rich men I ever see or knew
+    Came here with all their traps, boy, an' offered 'em for you,
+    I'd show 'em to the door, Sir, so quick they'd think it odd,
+    Before I'd sell to another my Christmas gift from God!
+
+
+
+
+A DREAM OF THE UNIVERSE.
+
+BY JEAN PAUL RICHTER.
+
+
+Into the great vestibule of heaven, God called up a man from dreams,
+saying, "Come thou hither, and see the glory of my house." And, to the
+servants that stood around His throne, He said, "Take him, and undress him
+from his robes of flesh; cleanse his vision, and put a new breath into his
+nostrils; only touch not with any change his human heart,--the heart that
+weeps and trembles."
+
+It was done; and, with a mighty angel for his guide, the man stood ready
+for his infinite voyage; and from the terraces of heaven, without sound or
+farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. Sometimes, with
+solemn flight of angel wings, they fled through Saharas of
+darkness,--through wildernesses of death, that divided the world of life;
+sometimes they swept over frontiers that were quickening under the
+prophetic motions from God.
+
+Then, from a distance that is counted only in heaven, light dawned for a
+time through a sleepy film; by unutterable pace the light swept to them;
+they by unutterable pace to the light. In a moment, the rushing of planets
+was upon them; in a moment, the blazing of suns was around them.
+
+Then came eternities of twilight, that revealed, but were not revealed. On
+the right hand and on the left, towered mighty constellations, that by
+self-repetition and answers from afar, that by counter-positions, built up
+triumphal gates, whose architraves, whose archways--horizontal,
+upright--rested, rose--at altitudes by spans that seemed ghostly from
+infinitude. Without measure were the architraves, past number were the
+archways, beyond memory the gates.
+
+Within were stairs that scaled the eternities below; above was
+below,--below was above, to the man stripped of gravitating body; depth was
+swallowed up in height insurmountable; height was swallowed up in depth
+unfathomable. Suddenly, as thus they rode from infinite to infinite;
+suddenly, as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds, a mighty cry arose that
+systems more mysterious, that worlds more billowy, other heights and other
+depths, were coming--were nearing--were at hand.
+
+Then the man sighed, and stopped, and shuddered, and wept. His overladen
+heart uttered itself in tears; and he said, "Angel, I will go no farther;
+for the spirit of man acheth with this infinity. Insufferable is the glory
+of God. Let me lie down in the grave, and hide me from the persecutions of
+the Infinite; for end, I see, there is none."
+
+And from all the listening stars that shone around, issued a choral cry,
+"The man speaks truly; end there is none that ever yet we heard of." "End
+is there none?" the angel solemnly demanded: "Is there indeed no end, and
+is this the sorrow that kills you?" But no voice answered that he might
+answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands toward the
+heaven of heavens, saying, "End is there none to the universe of God! Lo,
+also there is no beginning!"
+
+
+
+
+KEENAN'S CHARGE.
+
+BY GEORGE P. LATHROP.
+
+(_Chancellorsville, May, 1863._)
+
+
+    The sun had set;
+    The leaves with dew were wet;
+    Down fell a bloody dusk
+    On the woods, that second of May,
+    Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey,
+    Tore through, with angry tusk.
+
+    "They've trapped us, boys!"--
+    Rose from our flank a voice.
+    With a rush of steel and smoke
+    On came the Rebels straight,
+    Eager as love and wild as hate:
+    And our line reeled and broke;
+    Broke and fled.
+    No one staid--but the dead!
+    With curses, shrieks and cries,
+    Horses and wagons and men
+    Tumbled back through the shuddering glen,
+    And above us the fading skies.
+
+    There's one hope, still,--
+    Those batteries parked on the hill!
+    "Battery, wheel!" (mid the roar)
+    "Pass pieces; fix prolonge to fire
+    Retiring. Trot!" In the panic dire
+    A bugle rings "Trot"--and no more.
+
+    The horses plunged,
+    The cannon lurched and lunged,
+    To join the hopeless rout.
+    But suddenly rode a form
+    Calmly in front of the human storm,
+    With a stern, commanding shout:
+
+    "Align those guns!"
+    (We knew it was Pleasonton's)
+    The cannoneers bent to obey,
+    And worked with a will, at his word:
+    And the black guns moved as if _they_ had heard.
+    But ah, the dread delay!
+
+    "To wait is crime;
+    O God, for ten minutes' time!"
+    The general looked around.
+    There Keenan sat, like a stone,
+    With his three hundred horse alone--
+    Less shaken than the ground.
+
+    "Major, your men?"
+    "Are soldiers, General." "Then,
+    Charge, Major! Do your best:
+    Hold the enemy back, at all cost,
+    Till my guns are placed;--else the army is lost.
+    You die to save the rest!"
+
+    By the shrouded gleam of the western skies,
+    Brave Keenan looked in Pleasonton's eyes
+    For an instant,--clear, and cool, and still;
+    Then, with a smile, he said: "I will."
+    "Cavalry, charge!" Not a man of them shrank.
+    Their sharp, full cheer, from rank on rank,
+    Rose joyously, with a willing breath,
+    Rose like a greeting hail to death.
+    Then forward they sprang, and spurred and clashed;
+    Shouted the officers, crimson-sashed;
+    Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow,
+    In their faded coats of the blue and yellow;
+    And above in the air with an instinct true,
+    Like a bird of war their pennon flew.
+
+    With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds,
+    And blades that shine like sunlit reeds,
+    And strong brown faces bravely pale
+    For fear their proud attempt shall fail,
+    Three hundred Pennsylvanians close
+    On twice ten thousand gallant foes.
+
+    Line after line the troopers came
+    To the edge of the wood that was ringed with flame;
+    Rode in and sabered and shot--and fell;
+    Nor came one back his wounds to tell.
+    And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall
+    In the gloom, like a martyr awaiting his fall,
+    While the circle-stroke of his saber, swung
+    Round his head like a halo there, luminous hung.
+    Line after line, ay, whole platoons,
+    Struck dead in their saddles, of brave dragoons
+    By the maddened horses were onward borne
+    And into the vortex flung, trampled and torn;
+    As Keenan fought with his men, side by side.
+    So they rode, till there were no more to ride.
+
+    But over them, lying there, shattered and mute,
+    What deep echo rolls?--'Tis a death-salute
+    From the cannon in place; for heroes, you braved
+    Your fate not in vain: the army was saved!
+
+    Over them now,--year following year,
+    Over their graves the pine-cones fall,
+    And the whip-poor-will chants his spectre-call;
+    But they stir not again; they raise no cheer:
+    They have ceased. But their glory shall never cease,
+    Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace.
+    The rush of their charge is resounding still
+    That saved the army at Chancellorsville.
+
+
+
+
+USEFUL PRECEPTS FOR GIRLS.
+
+
+First catch your lover.
+
+Hold him when you have him.
+
+Don't let go of him to catch every new one that comes along.
+
+Try to get very well acquainted with him before you take him for life.
+
+Unless you intend to support him, find out whether he earns enough to
+support you.
+
+Don't make up your mind he is an angel. Don't palm yourself off on him for
+one either.
+
+Don't let him spend his salary on you; that right should be reserved until
+after marriage.
+
+If you have any conscientious scruples about marrying a man with a mother,
+say so in time that he may either get rid of her to oblige you, or get rid
+of you to oblige her, as he thinks best.
+
+If you object to secret societies and tobacco, it is better to come with
+your objections now than to reserve them for curtain lectures hereafter.
+
+If your adorer happens to fancy a certain shade of hair, don't color bleach
+yours to oblige him. Remember your hair belongs to you and he doesn't.
+
+Be very sure it is the man you are in love with, and not the clothes he
+wears. Fortune and fashion are both so fickle it is foolish to take a
+stylish suit for better or worse.
+
+If you intend to keep three servants after marriage, settle the matter
+beforehand. The man who is making love to you may expect you to do your own
+washing.
+
+Don't try to hurry up a proposal by carrying on a flirtation with some
+other fellow. Different men are made of different material, and the one you
+want might go off in a fit of jealousy and forget to come back.
+
+If you have a love letter to write, do not copy it out of a "letter
+writer." If your young man ever happened to consult the same book he would
+know your sentiments were borrowed.
+
+Don't marry a man to oblige any third person in existence. It is your right
+to suit yourself in the matter. But remember at the same time that love is
+blind, and a little friendly advice from one whose advice is worth having
+may insure you a lifetime of happiness, or prevent one of misery.
+
+In love affairs always keep your eyes wide open, so that when the right man
+comes along you may see him.
+
+When you see him you will recognize him and the recognition will be mutual.
+
+If you have no fault to find with him personally, financially,
+conscientiously, socially, morally, politically, religiously, or in any
+other way, he is probably perfect enough to suit you, and you can afford
+to--
+
+Believe in him; hope in him; love him; marry him!
+
+
+
+
+WIDDER BUDD.
+
+
+    I'm fifty, I'm fair, and without a gray hair,
+      An' I feel just ez young as a girl.
+    When I think o' Zerubbabel Lee, I declare
+      It sets me all into a whirl.
+    Last night he waz here, an' I told him to "clear"--
+      An' my! How supprised he did look:
+    Perhaps I wuz rash, but he's after my _cash_--
+      I see through his plans like a book.
+
+    Some offers I've had that I cannot call bad;
+      There was Deacon Philander Breezee;
+    I'd a sartin sed _Yes_, when he wanted a kiss,
+      Ef he hadn't so flustrated me.
+    It took me so quick that it felt like a kick--
+      I flew all to pieces at once;
+    Sez I, "You kin go--I'm not wanting a beau;"
+      I acted, I know, like a dunce.
+
+    Sez he, ez he rose, "I hev come to propose."
+      I stopped him afore he began:
+    Sez I, "You kin go, an' see Hepzibah Stow--
+      _I won't be tied down to a man_."
+    "Mariar," ses he, "Widder Tompkins an' me
+      Kin strike up a bargain, I know;
+    An', seein' ez we can't decide to agree,
+      I guess that I hed better go."
+
+    He picked up his hat from the chair where it sat,
+      An' solemnly started away.
+    Sez I, with a look that I'm _sure_ he mistook,
+      "You're perfectly welcome to stay."
+    My face got ez red ez our old waggin-shed--
+      I thought for the land I should melt.
+    Sez he, "I am done. Good night, leetle one,"
+      I _wish_ he'd a known how I felt.
+
+    To-day, Isaac Beers, with his snickers and sneers,
+      Whose face is ez ugly ez sin,
+    Dropped in just to see about buyin' my steers,
+      An' tickled the mole on my chin.
+    Sez I, "You jest quit; I don't like you a bit;
+      You can't come your sawder on me.
+    You'd better behave till Jane's cold in her grave,
+      Your manners is ruther too free."
+
+    When dear David died (sniff--sniff), ez I sot by his side (sniff--sniff);
+      He ketched up my hand in his own (sniff--sniff);
+    He squeezed it awhile (sniff--sniff), an' he sez with a smile
+        (sniff--sniff),
+      "You'll soon be a widder alone (sniff--sniff--sniff),
+    An' when I am gone (sniff--sniff) don't you fuss an' take on (sniff--sniff)
+      Like old Widder Dorothy Day (sniff--sniff).
+    Look out for your tin (sniff--sniff) if you marry agin (sniff--sniff),
+      Nor throw your affections away (sniff--sniff--sniff)."
+
+    My children hev grown, an' have homes o' their own--
+      They're doin' ez well ez they can (_wipes her eyes and nose_):
+    An' I'm gettin' sick o' this livin' alone--
+      I wouldn't mind havin' a man.
+    Fur David hez gone to the mansion above--
+      His body is cold in the ground,
+    Ef you know of a man who would marry for love,
+      Jest find him an' send him around.
+
+
+
+
+HIS LAST COURT.
+
+
+Old Judge Grepson, a justice of the peace, was never known to smile. He
+came to Arkansas years ago, and year after year, by the will of the voters,
+he held his place as magistrate. The lawyers who practiced in his court
+never joked with him, because every one soon learned that the old man never
+engaged in levity. Every morning, no matter how bad the weather might be,
+the old man took his place behind the bar which, with his own hands, he had
+made, and every evening, just at a certain time, he closed his books and
+went home. No one ever engaged him in private conversation, because he
+would talk to no one. No one ever went to his home, a little cottage among
+the trees in the city's outskirts, because he had never shown a disposition
+to make welcome the visits of those who even lived in the immediate
+vicinity. His office was not given him through the influence of
+"electioneering," because he never asked any man for his vote. He was first
+elected because, having been once summoned in a case of arbitration, he
+exhibited the executive side of such a legal mind that the people nominated
+and elected him. He soon gained the name of the "hard justice," and every
+lawyer in Arkansas referred to his decision. His rulings were never
+reversed by the higher courts. He showed no sentiment in decision. He stood
+upon the platform of a law which he made a study, and no one disputed him.
+
+One day, a woman, charged with misdemeanor, was arraigned before him. "The
+old man seems more than ever unsteady," remarked a lawyer as the magistrate
+took his seat. "I don't see how a man so old can stand the vexation of a
+court much longer."
+
+"I am not well to-day," said the Judge, turning to the lawyers, "and any
+cases that you may have you will please dispatch them to the best, and let
+me add, quickest of your ability."
+
+Every one saw that the old man was unusually feeble, and no one thought of
+a scheme to prolong a discussion, for all the lawyers had learned to
+reverence him.
+
+"Is this the woman?" asked the Judge. "Who is defending her?"
+
+"I have no defence, your Honor," the woman replied. "In fact, I do not
+think I need any, for I am here to confess my guilt. No man can defend me,"
+and she looked at the magistrate with a curious gaze. "I have been arrested
+on a charge of disturbing the peace, and I am willing to submit my case. I
+am dying of consumption, Judge, and I know that any ruling made by the law
+can have but little effect on me;" and she coughed a hollow, hacking cough,
+and drew around her an old black shawl that she wore. The expression on the
+face of the magistrate remained unchanged, but his eyelids dropped and he
+did not raise them when the woman continued:
+
+"As I say, no man can defend me. I am too near that awful separation of
+soul and body. Years ago I was a child of brightest promise. I lived with
+my parents in Kentucky. Wayward and light-hearted, I was admired by all the
+gay society known in the neighborhood. A man came and professed his love
+for me. I don't say this, Judge, to excite your sympathy. I have many and
+many a time been drawn before courts, but I never before spoke of my past
+life."
+
+She coughed again and caught a flow of blood on a handkerchief which she
+pressed to her lips. "I speak of it now because I know that this is the
+last court on earth before which I will be arraigned. I was fifteen years
+old when I fell in love with the man. My father said he was bad, but I
+loved him. He came again and again, and when my father said that he should
+come no more I ran away and married him. My father said I should never come
+home again. I had always been his pride and had loved him dearly, but he
+said that I must never again come to his home,--my home, the home of my
+youth and happiness. How I longed to see him. How I yearned to put my head
+on his breast. My husband became addicted to drink. He abused me. I wrote
+to my father, asking him to let me come home, but the answer that came was
+'I don't know you!' My husband died--yes, cursed God and died! Homeless and
+wretched, and with my little boy I went out into the world. My child died,
+and I bowed down and wept over a pauper's grave. I wrote to my father
+again, but he answered: 'I know not those who disobey my commandments!' I
+turned away from that letter, hardened. I spurned my teachings. Now I am
+here."
+
+Several lawyers rushed forward. A crimson stream flowed from her lips. They
+leaned her lifeless head back against the chair. The old magistrate had not
+raised his eyes; "Great God!" said a lawyer, "he is dead!"
+
+The woman was his daughter.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEAD DOLL.
+
+BY MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.
+
+
+    You needn't be trying to comfort me--I tell you my dolly is dead!
+    There's no use in saying she isn't with a crack like that in her head;
+    It's just like you said it wouldn't hurt much to have my tooth out,
+        that day,
+    And then, when the man 'most pulled my head off, you hadn't a word to say.
+
+    And I guess you must think I'm a baby, when you say you can mend it
+        with glue,
+    As if I didn't know better than that! Why, just suppose it was you?
+    You might make her look all mended--but what do I care for looks?
+    Why glue's for chairs and tables, and toys, and the backs of books!
+
+    My dolly! my own little daughter! Oh, but it's the awfullest crack!
+    It just makes me sick to think of the sound when her poor head went whack
+    Against that horrible brass thing that holds up that little shelf.
+    Now, Nursey, what makes you remind me? I know that I did it myself?
+
+    I think you must be crazy--you'll get her another head!
+    What good would forty heads do her? I tell you my dolly is dead!
+    And to think I hadn't quite finished her elegant new Spring hat!
+    And I took a sweet ribbon of her's last night to tie on that horrid cat!
+
+    When my mamma gave me that ribbon--I was playing out in the yard--
+    She said to me most expressly, "Here's a ribbon for Hildegarde."
+    And I went and put it on Tabby, and Hildegarde saw me do it;
+    But I said to myself, "Oh, never mind, I don't believe she knew it!"
+
+    But I know that she knew it now, and I just believe I do,
+    That her poor little heart was broken, and so her head broke too.
+    Oh, my baby! my little baby! I wish my head had been hit!
+    For I've hit it over and over, and it hasn't cracked a bit.
+
+    But since the darling is dead, she'll want to be buried, of course;
+    We will take my little wagon, Nurse, and you shall be the horse;
+    And I'll walk behind and cry; and we'll put her in this, you see--
+    This dear little box--and we'll bury her there out under the maple tree.
+
+    And papa will make me a tombstone, like the one he made for my bird;
+    And he'll put what I tell him on it--yes, every single word!
+    I shall say, "Here lies Hildegarde, a beautiful doll, who is dead;
+    She died of a broken heart, and a dreadful crack in her head."
+
+
+
+
+AT THE STAMP WINDOW.
+
+
+Just before twelve o'clock yesterday fore-noon there were thirteen men and
+one woman at the stamp window of the post-office. Most of the men had
+letters to post for the out-going trains. The woman had something tied up
+in a blue match-box. She got there first, and she held the position with
+her head in the window and both elbows on the shelf.
+
+"Is there such a place in this country as Cleveland?" she began.
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"Do you send mail there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, a woman living next door asked me to mail this box for her. I guess
+it's directed all right. She said it ought to go for a cent."
+
+"Takes two cents," said the clerk, after weighing it. "If there is writing
+inside it will be twelve cents."
+
+"Mercy on me, but how you do charge!"
+
+Here the thirteen men began to push up and hustle around and talk about one
+old match-box delaying two dozen business letters, but the woman had lots
+of time.
+
+"Then it will be two cents, eh?"
+
+"If there is no writing inside."
+
+"Well, there may be. I know she is a great hand to write. She's sending
+some flower seeds to her sister, and I presume she has told her how to
+plant 'm."
+
+"Two threes!" called out one of the crowd, as he tried to get to the
+window.
+
+"Hurry up!" cried another.
+
+"There ought to be a separate window here for women," growled a third.
+
+"Then it will take twelve cents?" she calmly queried, as she fumbled around
+for her purse.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I'd better pay it, I guess."
+
+From one pocket she took two coppers. From her reticule she took a three
+cent piece. From her purse she fished out a nickel; and it was only after a
+hunt of eighty seconds that she got the twelve cents together. She then
+consumed four minutes in licking on the stamps, asking where to post the
+box, and wondering if there really was any writing inside,--but woman
+proposes and man disposes. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of business was
+being detained by a twelve-cent woman, and a tidal wave suddenly took her
+away from the window. In sixty seconds the thirteen men had been waited on
+and gone their ways, and the woman returned to the window, handed in the
+box, and said:
+
+"Them stamps are licked on kind o' crooked, but it won't make any
+difference, will it?"
+
+
+
+
+THE NAMELESS GUEST.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    I wonder if ever the Angel of Death
+      Comes down from the great Unknown,
+    And soars away, on the wings of night,
+      Unburdened and alone!
+    I wonder if ever the angels' eyes,
+     Are filled with pitying tears,
+    As they grant to the souls, unfit for flight,
+      A few more weary years!
+
+    For it seems, at times, when the world is still,
+      And the soft night winds are whist,
+    As though some spirit were hovering near,
+      In folds of dream-like mist,
+    And I feel, though mortals are nowhere near,
+      That I am not quite alone,
+    And, with dreary thoughts of dying and death,
+      My heart grows cold as stone.
+
+    But whether 'tis death that hovers near,
+      And knocks at the door of my heart,
+    Or whether 'tis some bright angel, come
+      To be of my life a part,
+    I cannot tell, and I long in vain,
+      The secret strange to know,
+    While the moments of mirth and grief and pain,
+      Move on in their ceaseless flow.
+
+    And at night, when I kneel to a Higher Power
+      And ask His tender care,
+    One yearning cry of a wayward life
+      Is the burden of my prayer,
+    That I may bend, with willing lips,
+      To kiss the chastening rod,
+    And learn the way, through the golden gate,
+      To the great white throne of God.
+
+
+
+
+OUR HEROES SHALL LIVE.
+
+BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.
+
+
+This brief extract from a splendid oration should be spoken in clear,
+defined tones, rather high pitch, the utterance slow, with a rather long
+pause after each question:
+
+Oh, tell me not that they are dead--that generous host, that airy army of
+invisible heroes. They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are
+they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal
+language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon
+society, and inspire the people with nobler motives, and more heroic
+patriotism?
+
+Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. It _was_ your son, but
+now he is the nation's. He made your household bright: now his example
+inspires a thousand households. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now
+brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed,
+appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, and given to
+all. Before he was yours: he _is_ ours. He has died from the family, that
+he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgotten or neglected:
+and it shall by and by be confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an
+ancient hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his
+whole life.
+
+
+
+
+LULLABY.
+
+
+    "Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green;
+    Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen."
+    Rockaby, lullaby, all the day long,
+    Down to the land of the lullaby song.
+    Babyland never again will be thine,
+    Land of all mystery, holy, divine,
+            Motherland, otherland,
+            Wonderland, underland,
+    Land of a time ne'er again to be seen;
+            Flowerland, bowerland,
+            Airyland, fairyland,
+    Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green.
+
+    Rockaby, baby, thy mother will keep
+    Gentle watch over thine azure-eyed sleep;
+    Baby can't feel what the mother-heart knows,
+    Throbbing its fear o'er your quiet repose.
+    Mother-heart knows how baby must fight
+    Wearily on through the fast coming night;
+            Battle unending,
+            Honor defending,
+    Baby must wage with the power unseen.
+            Sleep now, O baby, dear!
+            God and thy mother near;
+    Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green.
+
+    Rockaby, baby, the days will grow long;
+    Silent the voice of the mother-love song,
+    Bowed with sore burdens the man-life must own,
+    Sorrows that baby must bear all alone.
+    Wonderland never can come back again;
+    Thought will come soon--and with reason comes pain,
+            Sorrowland, motherland,
+            Drearyland, wearyland,
+    Baby and heavenland lying between.
+            Smile, then, in motherland,
+            Dream in the otherland,
+    Rockaby, baby, thy cradle is green.
+
+
+
+
+PENNING A PIG.
+
+JAMES M. BAILEY.
+
+
+Two families in Slawson had a somewhat singular experience several weeks
+ago. These families live in a double house, and each had a pen with two
+pigs. Last Friday the woman in one part discovered that her two pigs were
+free from their pen, and looking after geological specimens at the foot of
+the yard. She also discovered at the same time that the gate to a cabbage
+yard adjoining was open, and that the pigs might at any moment become
+ravished by a view of the glories within.
+
+Her husband being away she hurriedly secured the gate, and then set about
+to return the truants by the following ingenious plan: Taking a shovelful
+of corn, she approached as close to the animals as possible, and, holding
+the tempting morsel near enough for them to learn its inviting character,
+she screwed her face into an expression of winning sweetness, and backed
+slowly toward the pen.
+
+It was a beautiful illustration of woman's faith, and we regret to write
+that it did not work. The pigs took one snuff at the contents of the
+shovel, just to show that they took some interest in the matter, and, being
+convinced thereby that there was nothing injurious in the experiment, fell
+to rooting about again with renewed fervor.
+
+The nearer the woman came to the pen the straighter her face grew, and
+presently lost every vestige of solicitude, and assumed instead an
+expression of medium ferocity. What she may have done will never be known,
+as at this juncture her husband made his appearance on the back stoop, and,
+her eye resting upon him, she commenced to apostrophize him in the language
+married people alone are adepts at.
+
+After requesting somebody to show him the idiot who had left those hogs out
+that he might punch his head, he drove straight at the truants, and missed
+them, of course. Then he drove at them again with a clothes pole, and
+missed them again, although he made another pole by hitting that on a
+stone. Any one who has helped to drive one or two pigs will readily
+understand the number of articles that passed through the air, and the
+style of conversation the man kept up during the chase.
+
+Finally, he got one of the animals in a corner, and, being by this time
+utterly regardless of personal appearance or consequences, threw himself
+upon the brute, neatly scraping the fence with the top of his head, and
+falling upon the pig in such a way as to hold in abeyance every one of its
+muscles except those in the throat. These were at once put into active
+operation, and the man for a moment thought he had captured a planing-mill.
+Then he raised slowly, keeping a tight hold of the animal, and getting on
+his feet with a pig in his arms, struck out for the pen, preceded by his
+wife and the other woman, and closely and anxiously observed by all the
+neighbors for a half-mile around.
+
+In this way the procession laboriously moved. The pig, having worked its
+head within two inches of the man's ear, was pouring therein a tale of
+unparalleled distress, which, if not calculated to melt the stoutest heart,
+actually threatened to split open the stoutest head. The man was utterly
+powerless to remedy the horror, having both hands engaged, and could only
+twist his ear a little out of range, and scream at the top of his voice his
+plans for the future of "them hogs."
+
+On reaching the pen, and while in the act of dumping the howling viper over
+the side, the woman next door made an unfortunate discovery. _His_ hogs
+were in the pen; the truants were _hers_. The man, who was still holding
+the pig, and might have, with reason, taken a prominent part in the debate,
+contented himself by merely expressing a hope that he might be blessed, and
+then trudged around to the other pen, where he arrived after much unlooked
+for tribulation, and again hoisted the howling monster up to the top, when
+the woman next door made another and still more remarkable discovery. Her
+pigs were in their pen.
+
+"What's that?" screamed the man, who was so fixed he could not very well
+see into the pen, and was obliged to lift his voice to make himself heard
+above the din.
+
+"Them ain't my pigs," screamed the woman.
+
+"Why ain't they?" he yelled.
+
+"Cause my pigs are here," she shrieked back.
+
+It is needless to say that the strange animals were urged out of that
+garden without the use of subterfuge.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE JIM.
+
+BY GEORGE R. SIMS.
+
+
+          Our little Jim
+          Was such a limb
+    His mother scarce could manage him.
+          His eyes were blue,
+          And looked you through,
+          And seemed to say,
+          "I'll have my way!"
+          His age was six,
+          His saucy tricks
+          But made you smile,
+          Though all the while
+          You said, "You limb,
+          You wicked Jim,
+                Be quiet, do!"
+
+          Poor little Jim!
+          Our eyes are dim
+    When soft and low we speak of him.
+          No clattering shoe
+          Goes running through
+          The silent room,
+          Now wrapped in gloom.
+          So still he lies,
+          With fast-shut eyes,
+          No need to say,
+          Alas! to-day,
+          "You little limb,
+          You baby Jim,
+                Be quiet, do!"
+
+
+
+
+GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOURSELF.
+
+BY R. J. BURDETTE.
+
+
+Telemachus, it will do you ever so much good if every once in a while you
+will go away by yourself for an hour or two and get real well acquainted
+with yourself. As a man thinketh, so he is. And you will never "know
+thyself" thoroughly unless now and then you get alone and sit down and talk
+to yourself, cross-examine yourself; learn what you know; what are your
+ambitions, your aims, your hopes,--what is your real character; because, my
+dear boy, your reputation may be one thing and your character quite
+another. Sometimes it does happen, in this faulty old world, that a really
+good man, a man whose character is above reproach, may bear the reputation
+of a rascal; and once in a while--two or three times in a while, in fact--a
+rascal wears the stolen reputation of an honest man. Go away now and then,
+my boy, and sit down all by yourself and think. Think of nothing under the
+sun only yourself. Yes, I know, my son, there are men who never think of
+anything else, and God never made more useless men; but that is because
+they do all their thinking about themselves publicly and loud. They never
+think alone.
+
+You will be honest with yourself when you are alone, my boy. A man is apt
+to be honest with himself in the dark. He does not pose in heroic postures
+when he has no audience. When he stands face to face with himself, with no
+human eye to watch him, and no human ear to listen to his confession, and
+only his Maker, who knows every secret motive and thought of his life to
+see and to listen, a man has to be honest. How could he be a hypocrite
+then?
+
+Get away from the crowd a little while every day, my boy. Stand one side
+and let the world run by, while you get acquainted with yourself, and see
+what kind of a fellow you are. Ask yourself hard questions about yourself.
+Find out all you can about yourself. Ascertain from original sources if you
+are really the manner of man people say you are. Find out if you are
+always honest; if you always tell the square, perfect truth in business
+deals; if your life is as good and upright at eleven o'clock at night as it
+is at noon; if you are as sound a temperance man on a fishing expedition as
+you are at a Sabbath-school picnic; if you are as good a boy when you go to
+Chicago as you are at home; if, in short, you really are the manner of
+young man your father hopes you are, your mother says you are, and your
+sweetheart believes you are. Get on intimate terms with yourself, my boy,
+and, believe me, every time you come out from one of those private
+interviews you will be a better, stronger, purer man. Don't forget this,
+Telemachus, and it will do you good.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE WHITE HEARSE.
+
+BY J. W. RILEY.
+
+
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by--
+      The man on the coal cart jerked his lines,
+    And smutted the lid of either eye,
+      And turned and stared at the business signs;
+    And the street-car driver stopped and beat
+    His hands on his shoulders and gazed up street
+    Till his eye on the long track reached the sky--
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by.
+
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by--
+      A stranger petted a ragged child
+    In the crowded walk, and she knew not why,
+      But he gave her a coin for the way she smiled;
+    And a bootblack thrilled with a pleasure strange
+    As a customer put back his change
+    With a kindly hand and a grateful sigh--
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by.
+
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by--
+      A man looked out of a window dim,
+    And his cheeks were wet and his heart was dry--
+      For a dead child even were dear to him!
+    And he thought of his empty life and said:
+    "Loveless alive and loveless dead,
+    Nor wife nor child in earth or sky!"--
+    As the little white hearse went glimmering by.
+
+
+
+
+THERE'LL BE ROOM IN HEAVEN.
+
+
+She was a little old woman, very plainly dressed in black bombazine that
+had seen much careful wear; her bonnet was very old-fashioned, and people
+stared at her tottering up the aisle of the church, evidently bent on
+securing one of the best seats, for a great man preached that day. The
+house was filled with splendidly dressed people who had heard of the fame
+of the preacher, of his learning, his intellect and goodness, and they
+wondered at the presumption of the poor old woman. She must have been in
+her dotage, for she picked out the pew of the richest and proudest member
+of the church and took a seat. The three ladies who were seated there
+beckoned to the sexton, who bent over the intruder and whispered something,
+but she was hard of hearing, and smiled a little withered smile, as she
+said, gently: "Oh, I'm quite comfortable here, quite comfortable."
+
+"But you are not wanted here," said the sexton, pompously; "there is not
+room. Come with me, my good woman; I will see that you have a seat."
+
+"Not room," said the old woman, looking at her shrunken proportions, and
+then at the fine ladies. "Why, I'm not crowded a bit. I rode ten miles to
+hear the sermon to-day, because--"
+
+But here the sexton took her by the arm, shook her roughly in a polite
+underhand way, and then she took the hint. Her faded old eyes filled with
+tears, her chin quivered; but she rose meekly and left the pew. Turning
+quietly to the ladies, who were spreading their rich dresses over the space
+she left vacant, she said gently: "I hope, my dears, there'll be room in
+heaven for us all." Then she followed the pompous sexton to the rear of the
+church where, in the last pew, she was seated between a threadbare girl and
+a shabby old man.
+
+"She must be crazy," said one of the ladies in the pew which she had first
+occupied. "What can an ignorant old woman like her want to hear Dr. ----
+preach for? She would not be able to understand a word he said."
+
+"Those people are so persistent! The idea of her forcing herself into our
+pew! Isn't that voluntary lovely? There's Dr. ---- coming out of the
+vestry. Is he not grand?"
+
+"Splendid! What a stately man! You know he has promised to dine with us
+while he is here."
+
+He was a commanding looking man, and as the organ voluntary stopped, and he
+looked over the great crowd of worshipers gathered in the vast church, he
+seemed to scan every face. His hand was on the Bible when suddenly he
+leaned over the reading desk and beckoned to the sexton, who obsequiously
+mounted the steps to receive a mysterious message. And then the three
+ladies in the grand pew were electrified to see him take his way the whole
+length of the church to return with the old woman, when he placed her in
+the front pew of all, its other occupants making willing room for her. The
+great preacher looked at her with a smile of recognition, and then the
+services proceeded, and he preached a sermon that struck fire from every
+heart.
+
+"Who was she?" asked the ladies who could not make room for her, as they
+passed the sexton at the door.
+
+"The preacher's mother," was the reply.
+
+
+
+
+THE RETORT DIS-COURTEOUS.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    Mr. Michael McGlynn, of Dublin town,
+      And Dinny O'Doyle, of Kildare,
+    Through the streets of the city, went up and down,
+      A remarkably guileless pair.
+    Said Michael to Dinny: "Me darlin' bhoy,
+      Since the roise o' the mornin' sun,
+    Niver a dhrop or a boite have Oi,
+      Oi think I could ate a bun."
+
+    Said Dinny to Michael: "Av coorse: av coorse!
+      To ate is the woise man's part;
+    Oi have a sinsation loike that mesilf,
+      Oi think Oi could touch a tart."
+    So the kindred souls of this guileless pair,
+      An eating house speedily found,
+    And before them a jar on the table sat,
+      Full of horseradish, freshly ground.
+
+    With a tablespoon, Mr. Michael McGlynn
+      Took all that his mouth would hold,
+    Then gasped for breath, while his head turned hot
+      And his spine turned icy cold.
+    The tears on his cheeks came rolling down,
+      But he had no breath to swear,
+    So he simply clutched at the tablecloth,
+      And tore at his red, red hair.
+
+    Amazed and surprised, Mr. Dinny O'Doyle
+      Said: "Michael, me darlin' bhoy,
+    Phwat's troublin' yer sowl? Phwat's wrong wid ye now?
+      Phwat's the raison ye've tears in yer oi?"
+
+    "Oh, nothin," said Michael; "my grandfather doid
+      Some twenty-foive years ago,
+    Oi chanced to remember the fine owld man,
+      An' Oi couldn't help croiyin', ye know.
+
+    "But, Dinny O'Doyle, doant mind it at all;
+      How wake an' how choildish Oi same,"
+    Then he passed the horseradish and spoon and all;
+      "Have some of this nice oice crame!"
+    So Dinny dipped into the treacherous jar,
+      And the tears quickly sprang to his eyes,
+    While Michael McGlynn, who had got back his breath,
+      Affected a strange surprise.
+
+    "Phy, Dinny, me bhoy, ye're croiyin' yersilf,"
+      He said with a chuckle and grin;
+    "Phwat's troublin' _yer_ sowl? Phwat's wrong wid _ye_ now?
+      Is it wapin' ye are for a sin?"
+    "Is it askin' ye are, phwat's makin' me croiy?"
+      Said Dinny, "Oi'll spake as Oi'm bid,
+    Oi'm croiyin' bekase Mr. Michael McGlynn,
+      Didn't doi when his grandfather did."
+
+
+
+
+ZENOBIA'S DEFENCE.
+
+BY WILLIAM WARE.
+
+     [Zenobia became Queen of Palmyra A. D. 267, after the
+     murder of her husband, Odenatus. She was a woman of
+     great energy and assumed the title of Queen of the
+     East. She was deprived of her dominion by Aurelian A.
+     D. 272, and died in retirement near Rome.]
+
+
+I am charged with pride and ambition. The charge is true, and I glory in
+its truth. Whoever achieved anything great in letters, arts, or arms, who
+was not ambitious? Caesar was not more ambitious than Cicero. It was but in
+another way. All greatness is born of ambition. Let the ambition be a noble
+one, and who shall blame it? I confess I did once aspire to be queen, not
+only of Palmyra, but of the East. That I am. I now aspire to remain so. Is
+it not an honorable ambition? Does it not become a descendant of the
+Ptolemies and of Cleopatra? I am applauded by you all for what I have
+already done. You would not it should have been less.
+
+But why pause here? Is _so_ much ambition praiseworthy, and _more_
+criminal? Is it fixed in nature that the limits of this empire should be
+Egypt on the one hand, the Hellespont and the Euxine on the other? Were not
+Suez and Armenia more natural limits? Or hath empire no natural limit, but
+is broad as the genius that can devise, and the power that can win? Rome
+has the West. Let Palmyra possess the East. Not that nature prescribes this
+and no more. The gods prospering, I mean that the Mediterranean shall not
+hem me in upon the west, or Persia on the east. Longinus is right,--I would
+that the world were mine. I feel, within, the will and the power to bless
+it, were it so.
+
+Are not my people happy? I look upon the past and the present, upon my
+nearer and remoter subjects, and ask, nor fear the answer, Whom have I
+wronged? What province have I oppressed, what city pillaged, what region
+drained with taxes? Whose life have I unjustly taken, or whose estates have
+I coveted or robbed? Whose honor have I wantonly assailed? Whose rights,
+though of the weakest and poorest, have I violated? I dwell, where I would
+ever dwell, in the hearts of my people. It is written in your faces, that I
+reign not more over you than within you. The foundation of my throne is not
+more power than love.
+
+Suppose, now, my ambition should add another province to our realm. Would
+that be an evil? The kingdoms already bound to us by the joint acts of
+ourselves and the late royal Odenatus, we found discordant and at war. They
+are now united and at peace. One harmonious whole has grown out of hostile
+and sundered parts. At my hands they receive a common justice and equal
+benefits. The channels of their commerce have I opened, and dug them deep
+and sure. Prosperity and plenty are in all their borders. The streets of
+our capital bear testimony to the distant and various industry which here
+seeks its market.
+
+This is no vain boasting: receive it not so, good friends. It is but the
+truth. He who traduces himself sins in the same way as he who traduces
+another. He who is unjust to himself, or less than just, breaks a law, as
+well as he who hurts his neighbor. I tell you what I am, and what I have
+done, that your trust for the future may not rest upon ignorant grounds. If
+I am more than just to myself, rebuke me. If I have over-stepped the
+modesty that became me, I am open to your censure, and I will bear it.
+
+But I have spoken that you may know your queen, not only by her acts, but
+by her admitted principles. I tell you, then, that I am ambitious, that I
+crave dominion, and while I live will reign. Sprung from a line of kings, a
+throne is my natural seat. I love it. But I strive, too--you can bear me
+witness that I do--that it shall be, while I sit upon it, an honored,
+unpolluted seat. If I can, I will hang a yet brighter glory around it.
+
+
+
+
+A SERENADE.[1]
+
+BY THOMAS HOOD.
+
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!"
+      Thus I heard a father cry.
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      The brat will never shut an eye;
+    Hither come, some power divine!
+    Close his lids or open mine!
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      What the mischief makes him cry?
+        Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Still he stares--I wonder why;
+    Why are not the sons of earth
+    Blind, like puppies, from their birth?
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!"
+      Thus I heard the father cry;
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Mary, you must come and try!
+    Hush, oh, hush, for mercy's sake--
+    The more I sing, the more you wake!
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Fie, you little creature, fie!
+        Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Is no poppy-syrup nigh?
+    Give him some, or give him all,
+    I am nodding to his fall!
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Two such nights and I shall die!
+        Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      He'll be bruised, and so shall I--
+    How can I from bedposts keep,
+    When I'm walking in my sleep?
+
+        "Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Sleep his very looks deny;
+        Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
+      Nature soon will stupefy--
+    My nerves relax--my eyes grow dim--
+    Who's that fallen, me or him?"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] This poem can be made very effective as a humorous recitation by the
+performer imitating a sleepy father vainly endeavoring to quiet a restless
+child. A doll, or something to represent one, should be held in the arms.
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN VASHTI.
+
+BY T. DEWITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+We stand amid the palaces of Shushan. The pinnacles are aflame with the
+morning light. The columns rise festooned and wreathed, the wealth of
+empires flashing from the grooves; the ceilings adorned with images of bird
+and beast, and scenes of prowess and conquest. The walls are hung with
+shields, and emblazoned until it seems that the whole round of splendors is
+exhausted. Each arch is a mighty leap of architectural achievement,--golden
+stars, shining down on glowing arabesque; hangings of embroidered work, in
+which mingle the blueness of the sky, the greenness of the grass and the
+whiteness of the sea foam; tapestries hung on silver rings, wedding
+together the pillars of marble. Pavilions reach out in every
+direction,--these for repose, filled with luxuriant couches, in which weary
+limbs sink until all fatigue is submerged; these for carousal, where kings
+drink down a kingdom at one swallow.
+
+Amazing spectacle! Light of silver dripping down over stairs of ivory on
+shields of gold; floors of stained marble, sunset red and night black, and
+inlaid with gleaming pearl. Why, it seems as if a heavenly vision of
+amethyst, and jacinth, and topaz, and chrysoprasus had descended and
+alighted upon Shushan. It seems as if a billow of celestial glory had
+dashed clear over heaven's battlements upon this metropolis of Persia.
+
+In connection with this palace there is a garden, where the mighty men of
+foreign lands are seated at a banquet. Under the spread of oak, and linden,
+and acacia, the tables are arranged. The breath of honey-suckle and
+frankincense fills the air. Fountains leap up into the light, the spray
+struck through with rainbows falling in crystalline baptism upon flowering
+shrubs--then rolling down through channels of marble, and widening out here
+and there into pools swirling with the finny tribes of foreign aquariums,
+bordered with scarlet anemones, hypericums, and many colored ranunculus;
+meats of rarest bird and beast smoking up amid wreaths of aromatics; the
+vases filled with apricots and almonds; the basket piled up with apricots,
+and dates, and figs, and oranges, and pomegranates; melons tastefully
+twined with leaves of acacia; the bright waters of Eulaeus filling the urns,
+and sweating outside the rim in flashing beads amid the traceries; wine
+from the royal vats of Ispahan and Shiraz, in bottles of tinged shell, and
+lily-shaped cups of silver, and flagons and tankards of solid gold.
+
+The music rises higher, and the revelry breaks out into wilder transport,
+and the wine has flushed the cheek and touched the brain, and louder than
+all other voices are the hiccough of the inebriates, the gabble of fools,
+and the song of the drunkards.
+
+In another part of the palace Queen Vashti is entertaining the princesses
+of Persia at a banquet. Drunken Ahasuerus says to his servants: "Go out and
+fetch Vashti from that banquet with the women, and bring her to this
+banquet with the men, and let me display her beauty." The servants
+immediately start to obey the king's command, but there was a rule in
+Oriental society that no woman might appear in public without having her
+face veiled. Yet here was a mandate that no one dare dispute, demanding
+that Vashti come in unveiled before the multitude. However, there was in
+Vashti's soul a principle more regal than Ahasuerus, more brilliant than
+the gold of Shushan, of more wealth than the revenue of Persia, which
+commanded her to disobey the order of the King; and so all the
+righteousness and holiness and modesty of her nature rises up into one
+sublime refusal. She says: "I will not go into the banquet unveiled." Of
+course, Ahasuerus was infuriated; and Vashti, robbed of her position and
+her estate, is driven forth in poverty and ruin to suffer the scorn of a
+nation, and yet to receive the applause of after generations, who shall
+rise up to admire this martyr to kingly insolence.
+
+The last vestige of that feast is gone; the last garland has faded; the
+last arch has fallen; the last tankard has been destroyed, and Shushan is a
+ruin; but as long as the world stands there will be multitudes of men and
+women, familiar with the Bible, who will come into this picture-gallery of
+God and admire the divine portrait of Vashti, the Queen; Vashti, the
+veiled; Vashti, the sacrifice; Vashti, the silent.
+
+
+
+
+W'EN DE DARKY AM A-WHIS'LIN' IN DE CO'N.
+
+BY S. Q. LAPIUS.
+
+
+    W'en de jewdraps 'gins to glisten,
+      An' de east am growin' red,
+    An' de catbird am a-singin' in de trees;
+    W'en de swallers an' de martins
+      Am a-quar'lin' in de shed,
+    An' de hollyhocks am callin' to de bees;
+    W'en de gray mule 'gins to whinny
+      An' de porker 'gins to squeal,
+    Den it's time to be a-wo'kin' in de mo'n,
+    Kase de sun am climbin' higher
+      An' de han's am in de field--
+    An' de darky am a whis'lin' in de c'on.
+
+    W'en de fog hab lef' de valley,
+      An' de blue am in de sky,
+    An' de bees am wo'kin' in de medder lot;
+    W'en de hollyhocks am drowsin',
+      An' de sun am ridin' high,
+    An' de dusty country road am blazin' hot;
+    Den de darky 'gins to listen--
+
+      As de catbird quits his song--
+    Fo' de soundin' ob de welcome dinner-ho'n,
+    Kase his knees am growin' wabbly,
+      An' de rows am growin' long--
+    An' he's hoin' an' a-whis'lin' in de co'n!
+
+    W'en de fiery sun am smilin'
+      An' a-sinkin' in de wes',
+    An' de shadders creep along de dusty road;
+    W'en de martins am a-chatter'n'
+      An' dey hurry home to res',
+    An' de longes' row ob all am nea'ly hoed;
+    W'en de bullfrog 'gins to holler,
+      An' de cowbell down de lane
+    'Gins to tinkle in a way dat's mos' fo'lo'n,
+    Den amid de gloomy echoes
+      Comes dat soul-refreshin' strain--
+    Ob de darky as he whis'les in de co'n!
+
+
+
+
+THE PILOT.
+
+BY JOHN B. GOUGH.
+
+
+John Maynard was well known in the lake district as a God-fearing, honest,
+and intelligent man. He was pilot on a steamboat from Detroit to Buffalo.
+One summer afternoon--at that time those steamers seldom carried
+boats--smoke was seen ascending from below; and the captain called out,
+"Simpson, go below and see what the matter is down there."
+
+Simpson came up with his face as pale as ashes, and said, "Captain, the
+ship is on fire!"
+
+Then "Fire! fire! fire!" on shipboard.
+
+All hands were called up; buckets of water were dashed on the fire, but in
+vain. There were large quantities of rosin and tar on board, and it was
+found useless to attempt to save the ship. The passengers rushed forward
+and inquired of the pilot, "How far are we from Buffalo?"
+
+"Seven miles."
+
+"How long before we can reach there?"
+
+"Three-quarters of an hour at our present rate of steam."
+
+"Is there any danger?"
+
+"Danger! Here, see the smoke bursting out!--go forward, if you would save
+your lives!"
+
+Passengers and crew--men, women and children--crowded the forward part of
+the ship. John Maynard stood at the helm. The flames burst forth in a sheet
+of fire; clouds of smoke arose.
+
+The captain cried out through his trumpet, "John Maynard!"
+
+"Ay, ay, sir!"
+
+"Are you at the helm?"
+
+"Ay, ay, sir!"
+
+"How does she head?"
+
+"Southeast by east, sir."
+
+"Head her southeast and run her on shore," said the captain. Nearer,
+nearer, yet nearer she approached the shore. Again the captain cried out,
+"John Maynard!"
+
+The response came feebly this time, "Ay, ay, sir!"
+
+"Can you hold on five minutes longer, John?" he said.
+
+"By God's help, I will!"
+
+The old man's hair was scorched from the scalp; one hand was disabled; his
+knee upon the stanchion, his teeth set, his other hand upon the wheel, he
+stood firm as a rock. He beached the ship; every man, woman, and child was
+saved, as John Maynard dropped, and his spirit took its flight to God.
+
+
+
+
+THE FATAL GLASS.
+
+BY LAURA U. CASE.
+
+
+    He raised the cup to his pure, sweet lips--
+      Lips fresh from a mother's kisses;
+    Merry the banquet hall that night,
+    For youth and beauty were there, and bright
+      The glittering lamps shone o'er them;
+    And one had sung with a voice divine,
+    A song in praise of the ruby wine,
+      That graced the feast before them.
+    Little he dreamed as he lightly quaffed
+    The sparkling wine, that the first rare draught
+      Was a link in the chain to bind him,
+    And drag his soul, like a servile slave,
+    Down slippery steps to a shameful grave,
+      From a throne where love enshrined him.
+
+    She raised the cup to her tainted lips--
+      Lips foul with the vilest curses--
+    In a loathsome haunt of sin and shame,
+    Where Christian charity seldom came,
+      With its holy words to teach them
+    Of the pastures green and waters sweet--
+    Of her who wept at the Master's feet,
+      Whose boundless love could reach them.
+    Is love so dear, and life so cheap,
+    That one poor soul, like a wandering sheep,
+      Alone on the bleak, cold mountain,
+    Should gladly turn from a life accursed,
+    To drown the past and quench the thirst
+      In draughts from a poisonous fountain?
+
+    He raised the cup to his trembling lips--
+      Lips wrinkled by age and hunger;
+    The meagre pittance he'd begged for food,
+    Brightened the palm of the man who stood
+      At his bar with his wines around him.
+    He drank, and turned on tottering feet
+    To the bitter storm and the cold, dark street,
+      Where a corpse in the morn they found him.
+    And oh! could those speechless lips have told
+    Of the want and sorrow, hunger and cold
+      He had known, or the answer given,
+    When his trembling soul for entrance plead
+    At the crystal gates, where One has said,
+      "No drunkard shall enter Heaven!"
+
+
+
+
+KATRINA'S VISIT TO NEW YORK.
+
+
+Vell, von morning I says to Hans (Hans vos mein husband): "Hans, I tinks I
+goes down to New York, und see some sights in dot village."
+
+Und Hans he say: "Vell Katrina, you vork hard pooty mooch, I tinks it vould
+petter be dot you goes und rest yourself some." So I gets meinself ready
+righd avay quick und in two days I vos de shteam cars on vistling avay for
+New York. Ve vent so fast I tinks mein head vould shplit sometimes. De
+poles for dot delegraph vires goes by like dey vos mad und running a races
+demselves mit to see vich could go de fastest mit de oder. De engine
+vistled like sometimes it vos hurt bad, und screeched mit de pain, und de
+horses by dem fields vould run as dey vas scared.
+
+I vas pooty mooch as ten hours ven ve rushed into some houses so big enough
+as all our village, und de cars begin to shtop vith so many leetle jerks I
+dinks me I shall lose all de dinner vot I eat vile I vas coming all de vay
+apoudt.
+
+Vell, ven dem cars got shtopped, de peoples all got oudt und I picked mein
+traps oup und got oudt too. I had shust shtepped de blatform on, ven so
+mooch as ein hundert men, mit vips in dere hands, und dere fingers all in
+de air oup, asked me all at vonce, "Vere I go?" Und every one of dem
+fellers vanted me to go mit him to his hotel. But I tells em I guess not; I
+vas going mit my brudder-mit-law, vot keeps ein pakeshop on de Powery, vere
+it didn't cost me notings. So I got me in dot shtreet cars, und pays de man
+mit brass buttons on his coat to let me oudt mit de shtreet vere dot Yawcup
+Schneider leeves. Oh, my! vot lots of houses! De shtreets vos all ofer
+filled mit dem. Und so many peoples I tinks me dere must be a fire, or a
+barade, or some oxcitement vot gets de whole city in von blaces. It dakes
+me so mooch time to look at everytings I forgot me ven to got oudt und
+rides apast de blaces I vants to shtop to, und has to valk again pack mit
+dree or four shquares. But I vind me dot brudder-mit-law who vos make me so
+velcome as nefer vos.
+
+Vell, dot vos Saturday mit de afternoon. I vas tired mit dot day's travel
+und I goes me pooty quick to bed und ven I vakes in de morning de sun vas
+high oup in de shky. But I gets me oup und puts on mein new silk vrock und
+tinks me I shall go to some fine churches und hear ein grosse breacher. Der
+pells vas ringing so schveet I dinks I nefer pefore hear such music. Ven I
+got de shtreet on de beoples vos all going quiet und nice to dere blaces
+mit worship, und I makes oup my mind to go in von of dem churches so soon
+as von comes along. Pooty soon I comes to de von mit ein shteeples high oup
+in de shky und I goes in mit de beoples und sits me down on ein seat all
+covered mit a leetle mattress. De big organ vas blaying so soft it seemed
+likes as if some angels must be dere to make dot music.
+
+Pooty soon de breacher man shtood in de bulbit oup und read de hymn oudt,
+und all de beoples sing until de churches vos filled mit de shweetness.
+Den de breacher man pray, und read de Pible, und den he say dot de bulbit
+would be occupied by de Rev. Villiam R. Shtover mit Leavenworth, Kansas.
+
+Den dot man gommence to breach und he read mit his dext, "Und Simon's
+vife's mudder lay sick mit a fever." He talks for so mooch as ein half hour
+already ven de beoples sings again und goes homes. I tells mein
+brudder-mit-law it vos so nice I tinks me I goes again mit some oder
+churches. So vot you tinks? I goes mit anoder churches dot afternoon und
+dot same Villiam R. Shtover vos dere und breach dot same sermon ofer again
+mit dot same dext, "Und Simon's vife's mudder lay sick mit a fever." I
+tinks to my ownself--dot vos too bad, und I goes home und dells Yawcup, und
+he says, "Nefer mind, Katrina, to-night ve goes somevhere else to
+churches." So ven de night vas come und de lamps vos all lighted mit de
+shtreets, me und mein brudder-mit-law, ve goes over to dot Brooklyn town to
+hear dot Heinrich Vard Peecher.
+
+My but dot vos ein grosse church, und so many beobles vas dere, ve vas
+crowded mit de vall back. Ven de singing vas all done, a man vot vos
+sitting mit a leetle chair got oup und say dot de Rev. Heinrich Vard
+Peecher vas to de Vhite Mountains gone mit dot hay fever, but dot de
+bulbit vould be occupied on this occasion by de Rev. Villiam R. Shtover mit
+Leavenworth, Kansas. Und dot Villiam R. Shtover he gots mit dot bulbit oup
+und breaches dot same sermon mit dot same dext, "Und Simon's vife's mudder
+lay sick mit a fever."
+
+Dot vos too bad again und I gets mad. I vos so mad I vish dot he got dot
+fever himself.
+
+Vell, von dot man vas troo Yawcup says to me, "Come, Katrina, ve'll go down
+to dot ferry und take de boat vot goes to New York!" Ven ve vas on dot boat
+de fog vas so tick dot you couldn't see your hands pehind your pack. De
+vistles vas plowing, und dem pells vos ringing, und von man shtepped up mit
+Yawcup und say "Vot vor dem pells pe ringing so mooch?"
+
+Und ven I looked around dere shtood dot Villiam R. Shtover mit Leavenworth,
+Kansas--und I said pooty quick: "Vot vor dem pells vas ringing? Vy for
+Simon's vife's mudder, vot must be died, for I hear dree times to-day
+already dot she vas sick mit ein fever."
+
+
+
+
+THE RABBI AND THE PRINCE.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+_Versified from the Talmud._
+
+
+    A monarch sat in serious thought, alone,
+    But little reck'd he of his robe and throne;
+    Naught valuing the glory of control,
+    He sought to solve the future of his soul.
+    "Why should I bow the proud, imperious knee,
+    To mighty powers no mortal eye can see?"
+    So mused he long and turned this question o'er,
+    Then, with impatient tread, he paced the floor,
+    Till maddened by conflicting trains of thought
+    And speculation vague, which came to naught,
+    With feverish haste he clutched a tasseled cord
+    As desperate hands, in battle, clutch a sword.
+    "Summon Jehoshua," the monarch cried.
+    The white-haired Rabbi soon was at his side.
+
+    *....*....*....*
+
+    "I bow no more to powers I cannot see;
+    Thy faith and learning shall be naught to me,
+    Unless, before the setting of the sun,
+    Mine eyes behold the uncreated one."
+
+    *....*....*....*
+
+    The Rabbi led him to the open air.
+    The oriental sun with furious glare
+    Sent down its rays, like beams of molten gold.
+    The aged teacher, pointing, said: "Behold."
+    "I cannot," said the Prince, "my dazzled eyes
+    Refuse their service, turned upon the skies."
+
+    *....*....*....*
+
+    "Son of the dust," the Rabbi gently said
+    And bowed, with reverence, his hoary head,
+    "This one creation, thou canst not behold,
+    Though by thy lofty state and pride made bold.
+
+    How canst thou then behold the God of Light,
+    Before whose face the sunbeams are as night?
+    Thine eyes before this trifling labor fall,
+    Canst gaze on him who hath created all?
+    Son of the dust, repentance can atone;
+    Return and worship God, who rules alone."
+
+
+
+
+THE MAID OF ORLEANS.
+
+BY J. E. SAGEBEER.
+
+
+It was just at the dawn of day, when the first rays of morning were
+breaking over Europe and dispelling the darkness of the Middle Ages. France
+and England were engaged in a desperate struggle, the one for existence,
+the other for a throne. All the western part of France had avowed the
+English cause, and the English king had been proclaimed at Paris, at Rouen
+and at Bordeaux, while the strongly fortified city of Orleans, the key to
+the French possessions, was besieged. The thunder and lightning of the
+battlefield are bad enough, but the starvation and pestilence of a besieged
+city are infinitely worse. The supplies of Orleans were exhausted; the
+garrison was reduced to a few desperate men, and the women and children had
+been abandoned to the English. But far away on the border of Germany, in
+the little village of Domremy, the Nazareth of France, God was raising up
+a deliverer for Orleans, a savior for the nation.
+
+The out-door life of a peasant girl had given to Joan of Arc a
+well-developed form, while the beauties of her soul and the spiritual
+tendencies of her nature must have given to her face that womanly beauty
+that never fails to win respect and love. Her standard was a banner of
+snowy silk; her weapon a sword, that from the day she first drew it from
+its scabbard until she finally laid it down upon the grave of St. Denis,
+was never stained with blood; and her inspiration was a self-sacrificing
+devotion to the will of God, to the rights of France and her king. Without
+a single opposing shot she passed under the very battlements of the
+besieging English, and entered Orleans with soldiers for empty forts and
+food for starving people.
+
+It needed no eloquent speech to incite the men of Orleans to deeds of valor
+and of vengeance. The ruins of their homes choked the streets; the
+desolated city was one open sepulchre, while the cries of half-starved
+children and the wails of heartbroken mothers, stirred them to such a mad
+frenzy of enthusiasm, that now, since a leader had come, they would have
+rushed headlong and thoughtlessly against the English forts as into a trap
+of death.
+
+And now the attack was planned and the lines were formed; and then as the
+crumbling walls of the city echoed back the wild shouts of the Orleanites,
+the maid of Domremy, waving her sword aloft and followed by her snowy
+banner, led her Frenchmen on to slaughter and to victory. Then from the
+English archers came flight after flight of swift-winged arrows, while the
+wild catapults threw clouds of death-laden stones crashing among the
+French. Broadsword and battle-axe clashed on shield and helmet, while the
+wild horses, mad with rage and pain, rushed with fierce yells upon the foe;
+but ever above the din and noise of battle, above death shouts and saber
+strokes, though the dust and smoke obscured her banner, ever could be heard
+the clear, ringing voice of their leader, shouting for victory and for
+France. An arrow pierced her bosom, but drawing it out with her own hand
+and throwing it aside, she showed the French her blood-stained corselet,
+and once more urged them on. As when the Archangel Michael, leading the
+heavenly cohorts, forced the rebellious angels to the very brink of hell,
+then hurled them over and so saved the throne of heaven, so did the maid of
+Orleans, leading on frenzied Frenchmen, press back the English step by
+step, and slaughtered rank by rank, till the whole army turned and fled,
+and Orleans was free and France was safe.
+
+And now her work was done. Would that some kindly voice had bade her now
+go home to tend the sheep and roll their white wool on her distaff! But she
+who had raised the siege of Orleans and led the way to Rheims, could not
+escape a jealous fate. The Duke of Burgundy had laid siege to Compiegne.
+Joan of Arc went to the rescue and was repulsed, and while bravely fighting
+in the rear of her retreating troops, fell prisoner to the recreant French
+and was sold by them to the English. For one long year she languished in
+her prison tower. Her keepers insulted her and called her a witch; and when
+in desperation she sprang from the tower and was taken up insensible, they
+loaded her poor body with chains, and two guards stayed in her cell day and
+night.
+
+Her trial came, but her doom was already sealed. The Bishop of Beauvais,
+with a hundred doctors of theology, were her judges. Without a particle of
+evidence against her, they convicted her of sorcery and sentenced her to be
+burnt at the stake. A howl of fiendish joy went up from the blood-thirsty
+court of Paris,--a howl of fiendish joy that made its way to every
+battlefield where she had fought; it rang against the rescued walls of
+Orleans and was echoed to the royal court at Rheims; it reached to the
+bottomless pit and made the imps of Satan dance with glee; it echoed
+through the halls of heaven and made the angels weep; but there was no
+rescuer for the helpless girl. Even the gladiator, forced into the fight,
+against his will, when fallen in the arena, his sword broken and the
+enemy's knee upon his breast, might yet hope for "thumbs down," and mercy
+from the hard-hearted Roman spectators. But not a single hand was raised to
+save the maid of Domremy, the saviour of Orleans.
+
+Had she not faithfully done her work? Had she not bled for them? Had she
+not saved the kingdom? And in all chivalrous France was there not a
+champion to take up the gauntlet in defence of a helpless girl? When she
+led their armies, their spears blazed in heaven's sunlight; now they would
+quench them in her blood. With scarcely time to think of death, she was
+hurried away to the public square and chained to the stake, and when the
+fagots were fired, more painful than the circling flames, she heard the
+mocking laugh of the angry crowd. Higher and higher rose the flames, until,
+pressing the cross to her heart, her unconscious head sank upon her bosom,
+and her pure spirit went up amid the smoke and soared away to heaven.
+
+
+
+
+GENTLE ALICE BROWN.
+
+BY W. S. GILBERT.
+
+     [This is one of the Bab-Ballads, on which the very
+     successful comic opera "Pinafore" was founded.]
+
+
+    It was a robber's daughter, and her name was Alice Brown,
+    Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;
+    Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing;
+    But it isn't of her parents that I'm going for to sing.
+
+    As Alice was a sitting at her window-sill one day,
+    A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way;
+    She cast her eyes upon, and he looked so good and true,
+    That she thought: "I could be happy with a gentleman like you!"
+
+    And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen,
+    She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten;
+    A sorter in the Custom-house, it was his daily road
+    (The Custom-house was fifteen minutes' walk from her abode).
+
+    But Alice was a pious girl, who knew it wasn't wise
+    To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes;
+    So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed,
+    The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed.
+
+    "Oh, holy father," Alice said, "'twould grieve you, would it not,
+    To discover that I was a most disreputable lot?
+    Of all unhappy sinners I'm the most unhappy one!"
+    The padre said: "Whatever have you been and gone and done?"
+
+    "I have helped mamma to steal a little kiddy from its dad,
+    I've assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad,
+    I've planned a little burglary and forged a little check,
+    And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!"
+
+    The worthy pastor heaved a sigh, and dropped a silent tear,
+    And said: "You mustn't judge yourself too heavily, my dear;
+    It's wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece;
+    But sins like these one expiates at half a crown apiece.
+
+    "Girls will be girls--you're very young, and flighty in your mind;
+    Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find:
+    We mustn't be too hard upon these little girlish tricks--
+    Let's see--five crimes at half-a-crown--exactly twelve-and-six."
+
+    "Oh, father!" little Alice cried, "your kindness makes me weep,
+    You do these little things for me so singularly cheap--
+    Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget;
+    But, oh! there is another crime I haven't mentioned yet!
+
+    "A pleasant looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes,
+    I've noticed at my window, as I've sat acatching flies;
+    He passes by it every day as certain as can be--
+    I blush to say I've winked at him, and he has winked at me!"
+
+    "For shame!" said father Paul, "my erring daughter! On my word
+    This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard.
+    Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand
+    To a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band!
+
+    "This dreadful piece of news will pain your worthy parent so!
+    They are the most remunerative customers I know;
+    For many, many years they've kept starvation from my doors;
+    I never knew so criminal a family as yours!
+
+    "The common country folk in this insipid neighborhood
+    Have nothing to confess, they're so ridiculously good;
+    And if you marry any one respectable at all.
+    Why, you'll reform, and what will then become of Father Paul?"
+
+    The worthy priest, he up and drew his cowl upon his crown,
+    And started off in haste to tell the news to Robber Brown--
+    To tell him how his daughter, who was now for marriage fit,
+    Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it.
+
+    Good Robber Brown he muffled up his anger pretty well;
+    He said: "I have a notion, and that notion I will tell;
+    I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits,
+    And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits.
+
+    "I've studied human nature, and I know a thing or two:
+    Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do--
+    A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall
+    When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small."
+
+    He traced that gallant sorter to a still suburban square;
+    He watched his opportunity, and seized him unaware;
+    He took a life-preserver and he hit him on the head,
+    And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed.
+
+    And pretty little Alice grew more settled in her mind,
+    She never more was guilty of a weakness of the kind,
+    Until at length good Robber Brown bestowed her pretty hand
+    On the promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band.
+
+
+
+
+YOUNG AMERICA.
+
+
+The central figure was a bareheaded woman with a broom in her hand. She
+stood on the back step, and was crying:
+
+"George!"
+
+There was no response, but anybody who had been on the other side of the
+close-boarded fence at the foot of the garden might have observed two boys
+intently engaged in building a mud pie.
+
+"That's your mother hollerin' Georgie," said one of the two, placing his
+eye to a knothole and glancing through to the stoop.
+
+"I don't care," said the other.
+
+"Ain't you going in?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Georgie!" came another call, short and sharp; "do you hear me?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Where is she now?" inquired Georgie, putting in the filling of the pie.
+
+"On the stoop," replied his friend at the knothole.
+
+"What's she doin'?"
+
+"Ain't doin' nothin'."
+
+"George Augustus!"
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"You needn't think you can hide from me, young man, for I can see you, and
+if you don't come in here at once, I'll come out there in a way that you'll
+know it."
+
+Now this was an eminently natural statement, but hardly plausible as her
+eyes would have had to pierce an inch board fence to see Georgie; and even
+were this possible, it would have required a glance in that special
+direction, and not over the top of a pear tree in an almost opposite way.
+Even the boy at the knothole could hardly repress a smile.
+
+"What's she doin' now?" inquired Georgie.
+
+"She stands there yet."
+
+"I won't speak to you again, George Augustus," came the voice. "Your father
+will be home in a few minutes, and I shall tell him all about what you have
+done."
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"Ain't you afraid?" asked the conscientious young man, drawing his eye from
+the knothole to rest it.
+
+"No! she won't tell pa; she never does, she only says it to scare me."
+
+Thus enlightened and reassured, the guard covered the knothole again.
+
+"Ain't you acoming in here, young man?" again demanded the woman, "or do
+you want me to come out there to you with a stick? I won't speak to you
+again, sir!"
+
+"Is she comin'?" asked the baker.
+
+"No."
+
+"Which way is she lookin'?"
+
+"She's lookin' over in the other yard."
+
+"Do you hear me, I say?" came the call again.
+
+No answer.
+
+"George Augustus! do you hear your mother?"
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"Oh, you just wait, young man, till your father comes home, and he'll make
+you hear, I'll warrant ye."
+
+"She's gone in now," announced the faithful sentinel, withdrawing from his
+post.
+
+"All right! take hold of this crust and pull it down on that side, and
+that'll be another pie done," said the remorse-stricken George Augustus.
+
+
+
+
+SHWATE KITTIE KEHOE.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+              Shwate Kittie Kehoe,
+              Can ye tell, I do' know.
+    Phwat the mischief's about ye that bothers me so?
+              For there's that in yer eye.
+              That I wish I may die
+    If it doesn't pursue me wherever I go.
+                            Och hone!
+                                Shwate Kitty Kehoe.
+
+              It's a livin' disgrace
+              That yer shwate purty face
+    Should be dhrivin' me sinses all over the place!
+              I go this way an' that,
+              Loike a man fur a hat,
+    Wid the wind up an alley-way, runnin' a race.
+                            Och hone!
+                                Shwate Kittie Kehoe.
+
+              Oh! Faith, but I'm sad,
+              Fur to know that I'm mad,
+    That only intinsifies all that is bad;
+              But phwat can I do,
+              Whin a shwate smile from you
+    Turns everythin' rosy and makes me sowl glad?
+                            Och hone!
+                                Shwate Kittie Kehoe.
+
+              Shwate Kittie Kehoe,
+              I beg of ye, go
+    To the outermost inds of the earth, I do' know;
+              If ye'll only do this,
+              Jist lave me wan kiss,
+    An' I'll die whin yer sthartin', Shwate Kittie Kehoe.
+                            Och hone! Och hone!
+                                Shwate Kittie Kehoe.
+
+
+
+
+THE COUNTRY'S GREATEST EVIL.
+
+     [A short speech by Vice-President Henry Wilson,
+     delivered at the National Temperance Convention, in
+     Chicago, June, 1875.]
+
+
+Forty years of experience and observation have taught me that the greatest
+evil of our country, next, at any rate, to the one that has gone down in
+fire and blood to rise no more, is the evil of intemperance. Every day's
+experience, every hour of reflection, teaches me that it is the duty of
+patriotism, the duty of humanity, the duty of Christianity, to live
+Christian lives, and to exert temperance influence among the people.
+
+There was a time, when I was younger than I am now, when I hoped to live
+long enough to see the cause which my heart loves and my judgment approves
+stronger than it is to-day. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that the
+present is a rather dark and troubled night for that cause, and it is
+because it so seems to me that I believe it to be the duty of every honest,
+conscientious, self-sacrificing man of our country to speak and to work for
+the cause in every legitimate and proper way. And my reliance for the
+advancement of the cause of temperance is the same reliance which I have
+for the spread of the Gospel of our Divine Lord and Master.
+
+The heart, the conscience and the reason must be appealed to continually;
+and Christian men and women must remember that the heart of Christianity is
+temperance. If it costs a sacrifice, give it. What is sacrifice to doing
+good and lifting toward heaven our fellow-men? We have got to rely on
+appeals and addresses made to the heart of this nation, to the conscience
+of the people and the reason of the country. We have got to train up our
+children in the cause from infancy. We must teach it in the schools and
+everywhere by word, and above all by example; and it seems to me that
+Christian ministers, in this dark hour of our country, when they see so
+much intemperance, and what looks to some of us like a reaction, should
+make the voice of the pulpits of this land heard.
+
+Members of Christian churches should remember that they have something to
+do in this cause. If anything stands in the way of Christianity it is the
+drunkenness in our land. A word for temperance at this time is the
+strongest blow against the kingdom of Satan and for the cause of our Lord
+and Master.
+
+Suppose you have been disappointed. Suppose that many of your laws have
+failed. We know that we are right. We personally feel and see it. The
+evidence is around and about us that we cannot be mistaken in living total
+abstinence lives and recommending such a course to our neighbors.
+
+When it costs something to stand by the temperance cause, then is the hour
+to stand by it. If I could be heard to-day by the people of the land, by
+the patriotic young men of this country, full of life, vigor and hope, I
+would say that it is among the first, the highest, and the grandest duties,
+which the country, God, and the love of humanity impose, to work for the
+cause of _total abstinence_.
+
+
+
+
+I WONDER.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    I wonder if, under the grass-grown sod,
+      The weary human heart finds rest!
+    If the soul, with its woes, when it flies to God,
+      Leaves all its pain, in the earth's cold breast!
+    Or whether we feel, as we do to-day,
+    That joy holds sorrow in hand, alway.
+
+    I wonder if, after the kiss of death,
+      The love that was sweet, in days of yore.
+    Departs with the last, faint, fleeting breath,
+      Or deeper grows than ever before!
+    I wonder if, there in the great Unknown,
+    Fond hearts grow weary when left alone!
+
+    I think of the daily life I lead,
+      Its broken dreams and its fitful starts,
+    The hopeless hunger, the heart's sore need,
+      The joy that gladdens, the wrong that parts,
+    And wonder whether the coming years
+    Will bring contentment, or toil and tears.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH OF PATRICK HENRY.
+
+     [Delivered before the Convention of Delegates of
+     Virginia, March 23, 1775.]
+
+
+Mr. President: It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We
+are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of
+that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise
+men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed
+to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears,
+hear not, the things which so nearly concern our temporal salvation? For my
+part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the
+whole truth,--to know the worst, and to provide for it!
+
+I have but one lamp, by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of
+experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And,
+judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of
+the British ministry, for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with
+which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House? Is it
+that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
+Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet! Suffer not
+yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss! Ask yourselves how this gracious
+reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which
+cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a
+work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be
+reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love?
+
+Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and
+subjugation,--the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen,
+sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to
+submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has
+Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this
+accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant
+for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and
+rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long
+forging. And what have we to oppose to them?--Shall we try argument? Sir,
+we have been trying that, for the last ten years. Have we anything new to
+offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light
+of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.
+
+Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we
+find which have not already been exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you,
+sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done every thing that could be
+done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we
+have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before
+the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical
+hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted, our
+remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult, our
+supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned, with
+contempt, from the foot of the throne.
+
+In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
+reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be
+free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for
+which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the
+noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have
+pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest
+shall be obtained,--we must fight; I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An
+appeal to arms, and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left us!
+
+They tell us, sir, that we are weak,--unable to cope with so formidable an
+adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the
+next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British
+guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by
+irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual
+resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom
+of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are
+not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature
+hath placed in our power.
+
+Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a
+country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our
+enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles
+alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and
+who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is
+not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
+Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it
+is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in
+submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard
+on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat
+it, sir, let it come!
+
+It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry: Peace,
+peace!--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale
+that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding
+arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What
+is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace
+so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
+Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give
+me liberty, or give me death!
+
+
+
+
+MUTATION.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    Upon the shores of No-man's-land,
+      I met an angel, one whose wings
+    Shed beams of light on either hand,
+      As radiant as the sunrise brings.
+    And happy souls, with eager tread,
+      Passed up and down the sandy slope;
+    "Oh, tell me your fair name!" I said;
+    She turned and smiled, and answered: "Hope."
+
+    Along the shores of No-man's-land,
+      The angel walked, with folded wings,
+    And shadows fell on every hand,
+      The burden that the night-wind brings.
+    With head turned backward, sad and slow
+      She paced the sands, her eyelids wet,
+    "Hope mourns," I said, and soft and low,
+    The angel sighed: "I am Regret."
+
+
+
+
+SIX LOVE LETTERS
+
+
+"Are there any more of those letters?"
+
+When her father asked this question in an awful tone, Lucilla Richmond
+could not say No, and dared not say Yes, but as an intermediate course
+burst into tears and sobbed behind her handkerchief.
+
+"Bring them to me, Lucilla," said her father, as if she had answered him,
+as indeed she had; and the girl, trembling and weeping, arose to obey him.
+
+Then Mrs. Richmond, her daughter's own self grown older, came behind her
+husband's chair and patted him on the shoulder. "Please don't be hard with
+her, my dear," she said, coaxingly. "He's a nice young man, and it's all
+our fault, after all, as much as hers."
+
+"Perhaps you approve of the whole affair, ma'am," said Mr. Richmond.
+
+"I--no--that is I only--" gasped the little woman; and hearing Lucilla
+coming, she sank into a chair, blaming herself dreadfully for not having
+been present at all her daughter's music lessons during the past year.
+
+"It was inexcusable in a poor music teacher, who should have known his
+place," Mr. Richmond declared; and he clutched the little perfumed billet
+which had fallen into his hands, as he might a scorpion, and waited for the
+others with a look upon his face which told of no softening. At last six
+little white envelopes, tied together with blue ribbons, were laid at his
+elbow by his trembling daughter.
+
+"Lock these up until I return home this evening," he said to his wife; "I
+will read them then. Meanwhile Lucilla is not to see this music teacher on
+any pretence whatever."
+
+Mr. Richmond put on his hat and departed, and Lucilla and her mother took
+the opportunity of falling into each other's arms.
+
+"It is so naughty of you," said Mrs. Richmond. "But oh, dear, I can't blame
+you. It was exactly so with your father, and my father objected because of
+his poverty. He used to be very romantic himself in those old times. Such
+letters as he wrote to me. I have them in my desk yet. He said he'd die if
+I refused him."
+
+"So does Fred," said Lucilla.
+
+"And that life would be worthless without me, and about my being
+beautiful,--I'm sure he ought to sympathize a little," said Mrs. Richmond.
+
+She went into her own room to put the letters into her desk; and as she
+placed them into one of the pigeon holes, she saw in another a bundle,
+tied exactly as these were, and drew them out. These letters were to a
+Lucilla also, one who had received them twenty years before. A strange idea
+came into Mrs. Richmond's mind.
+
+When she left the desk she looked guilty and frightened. The dinner hour
+arrived, and with it came her husband, angered and more determined than
+ever. The meal was passed in silence; then, having adjourned to the parlor,
+Mr. Richmond seated himself in a great arm-chair, and demanded, in a voice
+of thunder: "Those absurd letters, if you please."
+
+"Six letters--six shameful pieces of deception, Lucilla," said the
+indignant parent. "I am shocked that a child of mine should practice such
+duplicity. Hem! let me see. Number one, I believe. June, and this is
+December. Half a year you have deceived us then, Lucilla. Let me see--ah!
+'From the first moment I adored you,' bah! Nonsense. People don't fall in
+love in that absurd manner. 'With your smiles for a goal, I would win both
+fame and fortune, poor as I am!' Fiddlesticks, Lucilla. A man who has
+common sense would always wait until he had a fair commencement before he
+proposed to a girl. Praising your beauty, eh? 'The loveliest creature I
+ever saw!' Exaggeration, my dear. You are not plain, but such flattery is
+absurd. 'Must hear from you or die!' Dear, dear, dear--how absurd!" And Mr.
+Richmond dropped the first letter and picked another. "The same stuff," he
+commented. "I hope you do not believe a word he says. Ah! now in number
+three he calls you 'an angel!' He's romantic, upon my soul! And what is
+this? 'Those who forbid me to see you can find no fault with me but my
+poverty. I am honest--I am earnest in my efforts. I am by birth a
+gentleman, and I love you from the depths of my soul. Do not let them sell
+you for gold, Lucilla.' Great heavens, what impertinence to your parents!"
+
+"I don't remember Fred saying anything of that kind," said poor little
+Lucilla. "He never knew you would object."
+
+Mr. Richmond shook his head, frowned and then read on until the last sheet
+lay under his hand. Then with an ejaculation of rage, he sprang to his
+feet.
+
+"Infamous!" he cried! "I'll go to him this instant--I'll horsewhip him,
+I'll--I'll murder him! As for you, by Jove, I'll send you to a convent.
+Elope--elope with a music teacher! Here, John, call a cab, I----"
+
+"Oh, papa! you are crazy!" said Lucilla. "Frederick never proposed such a
+thing. Let me see the letter. Oh, that is not Fred's--upon my word it is
+not. Do look, papa, it is dated twenty years back, and Frederick's name is
+not Charles! Papa, these are your letters to mamma, written long ago.
+Mother's name is Lucilla, you know."
+
+Mr. Richmond sat down in his arm-chair in silence, very red in the face.
+
+"How did this occur?" he said, sternly; and little Mrs. Richmond,
+retreating into a corner, with her handkerchief to her eyes, sobbed:
+
+"I did it on purpose! You know, Charles, it's so long ago, and I thought
+you might not exactly remember how you fell in love with me at first sight;
+how papa and mamma objected, and how, at last, we ran away together; and it
+seemed to me if we could bring it back all plainly to you as it was then,
+we might let Lucilla marry the man she loves, who is good, if he is not
+rich. I do not need to be brought back any plainer myself; women have more
+time to remember, you know. And we've been very happy--have we not?"
+
+And certainly Mr. Richmond could not deny that. The little ruse was
+favorable to the young music teacher, who had really only been sentimental,
+and had not gone one half so far as an elopement; and in due course of time
+the two were married with all the pomp and grandeur befitting the nuptials
+of a wealthy merchant's daughter, with the perfect approbation of Lucilla's
+father.
+
+
+
+
+A ROMAN LEGEND.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    Hour by hour, with skillful pencil, wrought the artist, sad and lone,
+    Day by day, he labored nobly, though to all the world unknown;
+    He was brave, the youthful artist, but his soul grew weak and faint,
+    As he strove to place before him, the fair features of a saint;
+    Worn and weary, he strove vainly, for the touch of Heavenly grace,
+    Till, one day, a radiant sunbeam fell upon the up-turned face,
+    And the very air was flooded with a presence strangely sweet,
+    For the soul, within the sunbeam, seemed to make the work complete;
+    Swift as thought the artist's pencil deftly touched the features fair,
+    Night came down, but one bright sunbeam left its soul imprisoned there;
+    And around his dingy garret gazed the artist, wondering,
+    For the work sublime illumed it like the palace of a king;
+    And within the artist nature flamed his first fond love divine,
+    Which bewildered all his senses, as with rare, old, ruby wine.
+    Yearningly, he cried: "I love thee," to the radiant saintly face,
+    But the never-ceasing answer was a look of Heavenly grace.
+    Out into the world he wandered, questioning, searching everywhere,
+    And the stars above, full often, heard his soul burst forth in prayer:
+    "God in Heaven, in mercy, hear me! Hear thy suppliant's pleading cry,
+    Lead, oh lead! my footsteps to her. Grant but this, or let me die."
+    Friends forsook and want pursued him, still he struggled on alone,
+    Till, at last, outworn and trembling, reason tottered on its throne,
+    And he seemed the helpless plaything of some mad, relentless fate,
+    Till the Sisterhood of Mercy found him lying at their gate;
+    Made him welcome, gave him shelter and with ever-patient care
+    Bathed his brow and brushed the tangled, matted tresses of his hair.
+    Long he lingered on the borders of the holy-land of death,
+    One fair Sister, by his bedside, counting low each fluttering breath.
+    Softly fell the evening shadows, shutting out the golden glow,
+    Of a gorgeous, lingering sunset, gilding all the earth below,
+    When, upon his pillow turning, swift came to him hope's bright gleams,
+    For the anxious face above him was the loved one of his dreams.
+    But her life was one of mercy, and the band across her brow,
+    Gave the spotless testimony of a maiden's holy vow.
+    "Is this Heaven? Are you an angel?" swift he questioned her, the while
+    She smoothed back his wavy tresses, only answering with a smile;
+    "Tell me truly, couldst thou love me, since thou wouldst not let me die?"
+    But she pointed to the band about her brow and breathed a sigh.
+    In her hours of patient watching, she had learned the bitter truth,
+    That the Sisterhood of Mercy has its anguish and its ruth;
+    Nevermore she came, well-knowing, from temptation se must fly,
+    For his eager, tender questions in her heart had found reply.
+    Every morning he would question: "Will she come to me to-day?"
+    And the tender, truthful Sisters shook their heads and turned away,
+    For adown his classic features passed the shadow of his pain,
+    As he closed his eyes and murmured: "She will never come again."
+    In his dreams, one night, he fancied she had bent above his bed,
+    And his loving arms reached upward, but the vision sweet had fled.
+    Hopeless, in his great heart-hunger, through a storm of wind and rain,
+    To his picture turned the artist, bowing low with grief and pain;
+    Open wide he threw the shutters of his garret casement high,
+    Heeding not the vivid lightning, as it flashed athwart the sky.
+    On his lowly couch reclining, soon in weariness he slept,
+    While the storm clouds o'er him thundering, long and loud their vigils kept.
+    Wilder grew the night and fiercer blew the winds, until at last,
+    Like a bird of prey or demon, through the shattered casement, passed
+    The old shutter, rending, tearing every wondrous touch and trace
+    Of the artist's patient labor, from the radiant, saintly face;
+    And the jagged bands of lightning, as they flashed along the floor,
+    Lit the crushed and crumpled canvas, worthless now forevermore.
+    And the artist, slowly rising, groped his way across the room,
+    Feeling, knowing he had lost her, though enshrouded in the gloom.
+    Then besought his couch and murmured: "It is well, God knoweth best."
+    And the sunbeams of the morning found a weary soul--at rest.
+
+
+
+
+A FRIEND OF THE FLY.
+
+
+With a fly-screen under one arm and a bundle of sticky fly-paper under the
+other, an honest agent entered a grocery store one day in the summer and
+said: "Why don't you keep 'em out?"
+
+"Who vash dot?" asked the grocery-man.
+
+"Why, the pesky flies. You've got 'em by the thousand in here, and the fly
+season has only begun. Shall I put fly-screens in the doors?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To keep the flies out."
+
+"Why should I keep der flies oudt? Flies like some shance to go aroundt und
+see der city de same ash agents. If a fly ish kept out on der street all
+der time he might ash vhell be a horse."
+
+"Yes, but they are a great nuisance. I'll put you up a screen door there
+for three dollars."
+
+"Not any for me. If a fly vhants to come in here, und he behaves himself in
+a respectable manner, I have notings to say. If he don't behave, I bounce
+him oudt pooty queek, und don't he forget her!"
+
+"Well, try this fly-paper. Every sheet will catch five hundred flies."
+
+"Who vhants to catch 'em?"
+
+"I do--you--everybody."
+
+"I don't see it like dot. If I put dot fly-paper on der counter somebody
+comes along und wipes his nose mit it, or somebody leans his elbow on her
+und vhalks off mit him. It would be shust like my boy Shake to come in und
+lick all der molasses off, to play a shoke on his fadder."
+
+"Say, I'll put down a sheet, and if it doesn't catch twenty flies in five
+minutes I'll say no more."
+
+"If you catch twenty flies I have to pry 'em loose mit a stick und let 'em
+go, und dot vhas too much work. No, my agent friendt; flies must have a
+shance to get along und take some comfort. I vhas poor once myself, und I
+know all about it."
+
+"I'll give you seven sheets for ten cents."
+
+"Oxactly, but I won't do it. It looks to me like shmall beesness for a big
+agent like you to go around mit some confidence games to shwindle flies. A
+fly vhas born to be a fly, und to come into my shtore ash often ash he
+likes. When he comes I shall treat him like a shentleman. I gif him a fair
+show. I don't keep an axe to knock him in der headt, und I don't put some
+molasses all oafer a sheet of paper und coax him to come und be all stuck
+up mit his feet till he can't fly away. You can pass along--I'm no such
+person like dot."
+
+
+
+
+ANSWERED PRAYERS.
+
+BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
+
+
+    I prayed for riches, and achieved success,--
+      All that I touched turned into gold. Alas!
+    My cares were greater, and my peace was less
+      When that wish came to pass.
+
+    I prayed for glory; and I heard my name
+      Sung by sweet children and by hoary men.
+    But ah! the hurts, the hurts that come with fame!
+      I was not happy then.
+
+    I prayed for love, and had my soul's desire;
+      Through quivering heart and body and through brain
+    There swept the flame of its devouring fire;
+      And there the scars remain.
+
+    I prayed for a contented mind. At length
+      Great light upon my darkened spirit burst.
+    Great peace fell on me, also, and great strength.
+      Oh! had that prayer been first!
+
+
+
+
+GOD IN THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION.
+
+BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+Not only because of the kindness of God to this nation in the past should
+such a reverential insertion be made, but because of the fact that we are
+going to want Divine interposition still further in our national history.
+This gold and silver question will never be settled until God settles it.
+This question of tariff and free trade will never be settled until God
+settles it. This question between the East and the West, which is getting
+hotter and hotter, and looks toward a Republic of the Pacific, will not be
+settled until God settles it. We needed God in the one hundred and twenty
+years of our past national life, and we will need Him still more in the
+next one hundred and twenty years. Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates
+of our glorious Constitution, and let the King of Glory come in! Make one
+line of that immortal document radiant with Omnipotence! Spell at least one
+word with Thrones! At the beginning, or at the close, or in the centre,
+recognize Him from whom as a nation we have received all the blessing of
+the past and upon whom we are dependent for the future. Print that one
+word "God," or "Lord," or "Eternal Father," or "Ruler of Nations,"
+somewhere between the first word and the last. The Great Expounder of the
+Constitution sleeps at Marshfield, Massachusetts, the Atlantic Ocean still
+humming near his pillow of dust its prolonged lullaby; but is there not
+some one now living, who, in the white marble palace of the nation on
+yonder hill, not ten minutes away, will become the Irradiator of the
+Constitution by causing to be added the most tremendous word of our English
+vocabulary, the name of that Being before whom all nations must bow or go
+into defeat and annihilation,--"God?"
+
+
+
+
+THE ENCHANTED SHIRT.
+
+BY JOHN HAY.
+
+
+    The king was sick. His cheek was red,
+      And his eye was clear and bright;
+    He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
+      And peacefully snored at night.
+
+    But he said he was sick--and a king should know;
+      And doctors came by the score;
+    They did not cure him. He cut off their heads,
+      And sent to the schools for more.
+
+    At last two famous doctors came,
+      And one was poor as a rat;
+    He had passed his life in studious toil
+      And never found time to grow fat.
+
+    The other had never looked in a book;
+      His patients gave him no trouble;
+    If they recovered, they paid him well,
+      If they died, their heirs paid double.
+
+    Together they looked at the royal tongue,
+      As the king on his couch reclined;
+    In succession they thumped his august chest,
+      But no trace of disease could find.
+
+    The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
+      "Hang him up!" roared the king, in a gale,
+    In a ten-knot gale of royal range;
+      The other grew a shadow pale;
+
+    But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
+      And thus his prescription ran:
+    "The king will be well if he sleeps one night
+      In the shirt of a happy man."
+
+    Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
+      And fast their horses ran,
+    And many they saw, and to many they spake,
+      But they found no happy man.
+
+    They found poor men who would fain be rich,
+      And rich who thought they were poor;
+    And men who twisted their waists in stays,
+      And women that short hose wore.
+
+    They saw two men by the roadside sit,
+      And both bemoaned their lot;
+    For one had buried his wife he said,
+      And the other one had not.
+
+    At last they came to a village gate;
+      A beggar lay whistling there;
+    He whistled and sang and laughed, and rolled
+      On the grass in the soft June air.
+
+    The weary couriers paused and looked
+      At the scamp so blithe and gay,
+    And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend,
+      Yon seem to be happy to-day."
+
+    "Oh yes, fair sirs," the rascal laughed,
+      And his voice rang free and glad;
+    "An idle man has so much to do
+      That he never has time to be sad."
+
+    "This is our man," the courier said,
+      "Our luck has led us aright.
+    I will give you a hundred ducats, friend,
+      For the loan of your shirt to-night."
+
+    The merry blackguard lay back on the grass
+      And laughed till his face was black;
+    "I would do it, God wot," and he roared with fun,
+      "But I haven't a shirt to my back."
+
+    Each day to the king the reports came in
+      Of his unsuccessful spies,
+    And the sad panorama of human woes
+      Passed daily under his eyes.
+
+    And he grew ashamed of his useless life,
+      And his maladies hatched in gloom;
+    He opened the windows, and let in the air
+      Of the free heaven into his room;
+
+    And out he went in the world, and toiled
+      In his own appointed way,
+    And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
+      And the king was well and gay.
+
+
+
+
+PRAYING FOR PAPA.
+
+
+A man who had been walking for some time in the downward path, came out of
+his house and started down town for a night of carousal with some old
+companions he had promised to meet. His young wife had besought him with
+imploring eyes to spend the evening with her, and had reminded him of the
+time when evenings passed in her company were all too short. His little
+daughter had clung about his knees and coaxed in her pretty, wilful way for
+"papa" to tell her some bedtime stories, but habit was stronger than love
+for wife and child, and he eluded their tender questioning by the special
+sophistries the father of evil advances at such times from his credit fund,
+and went his way.
+
+But when he was a few blocks distant from his home, he found that in
+changing his coat he had forgotten to remove his wallet, and he could not
+go out on a drinking bout without money, even though he knew his family
+needed it, and his wife was economizing every day more and more in order to
+make up his deficits, and he hurried back and crept softly past the windows
+of the little house, in order that he might steal in and obtain it without
+running the gauntlet of either questions or caresses.
+
+But something stayed his feet; there was a fire in the grate within--for
+the night was chilly--and it lit up the little parlor and brought out in
+startling effects the pictures on the wall. But these were as nothing to
+the pictures on the hearth. There, in the soft glow of the fire-light knelt
+his child at the mother's feet, its small hands clasped in prayer, its fair
+head bowed; and as its rosy lips whispered each word with distinctness, the
+father listened, spell-bound to the spot:
+
+    "Now I lay me down to sleep,
+    I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
+    If I should die before I wake,
+    I pray the Lord my soul to take."
+
+Sweet petition! The man himself, who stood there with bearded lips shut
+tightly together, had said that prayer once at his mother's knee. Where was
+that mother now? The sunset gates had long ago unbarred to let her through.
+But the child had not finished; he heard her say "God bless mamma, papa,
+and my ownself"--and there was a pause, and she lifted her troubled blue
+eyes to her mother's face.
+
+"God bless papa," prompted the mother, softly.
+
+"God bless papa," lisped the little one.
+
+"And--please send papa home sober"--he could not hear the mother as she
+said this, but the child followed in a clear, inspired tone:
+
+"God--bless--papa--and--please--send--him--home--sober. Amen."
+
+Mother and child sprang to their feet in alarm when the door opened so
+suddenly, but they were not afraid when they saw who it was, returned so
+soon. That night, when little Mamie was being tucked up in bed after such a
+romp with papa, she said in the sleepiest and most contented of voices:
+
+"Mamma, God answers most as quick as the telegraph, doesn't he?"
+
+
+
+
+BECALMED.
+
+BY SAMUEL, K. COWAN.
+
+
+    It was as calm as calm could be;
+      A death-still night in June;
+    A silver sail on a silver sea,
+      Under a silver moon.
+
+    Not the least low air the still sea stirred;
+      But all on the dreaming deep
+    The white ship lay, like a white sea-bird,
+      With folded wings, asleep.
+
+    For a long, long month, not a breath of air;
+      For a month, not a drop of rain;
+    And the gaunt crew watched in wild despair,
+      With a fever in throat and brain.
+
+    And they saw the shore, like a dim cloud, stand
+      On the far horizon-sea;
+    It was only a day's short sail to the land,
+      And the haven where they would be.
+
+    Too faint to row--no signal brought
+      An answer, far or nigh.
+    Father, have mercy; leave them not
+      Alone, on the deep, to die.
+
+    And the gaunt crew prayed on the decks above;
+      And the women prayed below:
+    "One drop of rain, for Heaven's great love!
+      Oh, Heaven, for a breeze to blow!"
+
+    But never a shower from the cloud would burst,
+      And never a breeze would come:
+    O God, to think that man can thirst
+      And starve in sight of home!
+
+    But out to sea with the drifting tide
+      The vessel drifted away--
+    Till the far-off shore, like the dim cloud, died;
+      And the wild crew ceased to pray!
+
+    Like fiends they glared, with their eyes aglow;
+      Like beasts with hunger wild:
+    But a mother prayed, in the cabin below,
+      By the bed of her little child.
+
+    It slept, and lo! in its sleep it smiled,--
+      A babe of summers three:
+    "O Father, save my little child,
+      Whatever comes to me!"
+
+    Calm gleamed the sea, calm gleamed the sky,
+      No cloud--no sail in view;
+    And they cast them lots, for who should die
+      To feed the starving crew!
+
+    Like beasts they glared, with hunger wild,
+      And their red-glazed eyes aglow,
+    And the death-lot fell on the little child
+      That slept in the cabin below!
+
+    And the mother shrieked in wild despair:
+      "O God, my child--my son.
+    They will take his life, it is hard to bear;
+      Yet, Father, Thy will be done."
+
+    And she waked the child from its happy sleep,
+      And she kneeled by the cradle bed;
+    "We thirst, my child, on the lonely deep;
+      We are dying, my child, for bread.
+
+    "On the lone, lone sea no sail--no breeze;
+      Not a drop of rain in the sky;
+    We thirst--we starve--on the lonely seas;
+      And thou, my child, must die!"
+
+    She wept: what tears her wild soul shed
+      Not I, but Heaven knows best.
+    And the child rose up from its cradle bed,
+      And crossed its hands on its breast:
+
+    "Father," he lisped, "so good, so kind,
+      Have pity on mother's pain:
+    For mother's sake, a little wind;
+      Father, a little rain!"
+
+    And she heard them shout for the child from the deck,
+      And she knelt on the cabin stairs:
+    "The child!" they cry, "the child--stand back--
+      And a curse on your idiot prayers!"
+
+    And the mother rose in her wild despair,
+      And she bared her throat to the knife:
+    "Strike--strike me--me; but spare, oh, spare
+      My child, my dear son's life!"
+
+    O God, it was a ghastly sight,--
+      Red eyes, like flaming brands,
+    And a hundred belt-knives flashing bright
+      In the clutch of skeleton hands!
+
+    "Me--me--strike--strike, ye fiends of death!"
+      But soft--through the ghastly air
+    Whose falling tear was that? whose breath
+      Waves through the mother's hair?
+
+    A flutter of sail--a ripple of seas--
+      A speck on the cabin pane;
+    O God; it's a breeze--a breeze--
+      And a drop of blessed rain!
+
+    And the mother rushed to the cabin below,
+      And she wept on the babe's bright hair.
+    "The sweet rain falls the sweet winds blow;
+      Father has heard thy prayer!"
+
+    Bu the child had fallen asleep again,
+      And lo! in its sleep it smiled.
+    "Thank God," she cried, "for His wind and His rain!
+      Thank God, for my little child!"
+
+
+
+
+IN THE BOTTOM DRAWER.
+
+
+I saw wife pull out the bottom drawer of the old family bureau this
+evening, and went softly out, and wandered up and down, until I knew that
+she had shut it up and gone to her sewing. We have some things laid away in
+that drawer which the gold of kings could not buy, and yet they are relics
+which grieve us until both our hearts are sore. I haven't dared look at
+them for a year, but I remember each article.
+
+There are two worn shoes, a little chip hat with part of the brim gone,
+some stockings, pants, a coat, two or three spools, bits of broken
+crockery, a whip and several toys. Wife--poor thing--goes to that drawer
+every day of her life, and prays over it, and lets her tears fall upon the
+precious articles; but I dare not go.
+
+Sometimes we speak of little Jack, but not often. It has been a long time,
+but somehow we can't get over grieving. He was such a burst of sunshine
+into our lives that his going away has been like covering our every-day
+existence with a pall. Sometimes, when we sit alone of an evening, I
+writing and she sewing, a child on the street will call out as our boy used
+to, and we will both start up with beating hearts and a wild hope, only to
+find the darkness more of a burden than ever.
+
+It is so still and quiet now. I look up at the window where his blue eyes
+used to sparkle at my coming, but he is not there. I listen for his
+pattering feet, his merry shout, and his ringing laugh; but there is no
+sound. There is no one to climb over my knees, no one to search my pockets
+and tease for presents: and I never find the chairs turned over, the broom
+down, or ropes tied to the door-knobs.
+
+I want some one to tease me for my knife; to ride on my shoulder; to lose
+my axe; to follow me to the gate when I go, and be there to meet me when I
+come; to call "good-night" from the little bed, now empty. And wife, she
+misses him still more; there are no little feet to wash, no prayers to say;
+no voice teasing for lumps of sugar, or sobbing with the pain of a hurt
+toe; and she would give her own life, almost, to awake at midnight, and
+look across to the crib and see our boy there as he used to be.
+
+So we preserve our relics; and when we are dead we hope that strangers will
+handle them tenderly, even if they shed no tears over them.
+
+
+
+
+EMULATION (UP TO DATE).
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+
+    "He who would thrive must rise at five,"
+        The old folks used to say,
+    And so, of course, to thrive the more,
+    Tis better still to rise at four,
+        And make a longer day.
+
+    Still smarter he who wakes at three,
+        And hurries out of bed;
+    And he who would this man outdo
+    Must rise when clocks are striking two,
+        To earn his daily bread.
+
+    To rise and run at stroke of one,
+        Advantage still may keep;
+    But he who would them all forestall
+    Must never go to bed at all,
+        And die for lack of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+DESTINY OF OUR COUNTRY.
+
+BY R. C. WINTHROP.
+
+
+Here, then, sir, I bring these remarks to a close. I have explained, to the
+best of my ability, the views which I entertain of the great questions of
+the day. Those views may be misrepresented hereafter, as they have been
+heretofore; but they cannot be misunderstood by any one who desires, or who
+is even willing, to understand them.
+
+Most gladly would I have found myself agreeing more entirely with some of
+the friends whom I see around me, and with more than one of those
+elsewhere, with whom I have always been proud to be associated, and whose
+lead, on almost all occasions, I have rejoiced to follow.
+
+Our tie, however, I am persuaded, still remains to us all--a common
+devotion to the Union of these States, and a common determination to
+sacrifice everything but principle to its preservation. Our
+responsibilities are indeed great. This vast republic, stretching from sea
+to sea, and rapidly outgrowing everything but our affections, looks
+anxiously to us, this day, to take care that it receives no detriment.
+
+Nor is it too much to say, that the eyes and the hearts of the friends of
+constitutional freedom throughout the world are at this moment turned
+eagerly here,--more eagerly than ever before,--to behold an example of
+successful republican institutions, and to see them come out safely and
+triumphantly from the fiery trial to which they are now subjected!
+
+I have the firmest faith that these eyes and these hearts will not be
+disappointed. I have the strongest belief that the visions and phantoms of
+disunion which now appall us will soon be remembered only like the clouds
+of some April morning, or "the dissolving views" of some evening spectacle.
+
+I have the fullest conviction that this glorious republic is destined to
+outlast all, all, at either end of the Union, who may be plotting against
+its peace, or predicting its downfall.
+
+    "Fond, impious man! think'st thou yon sanguine cloud
+      Raised by thy breath, can quench the orb of day?
+    To morrow, it repairs its golden flood,
+      And warms the nations with redoubled ray!"
+
+Let us proceed in the settlement of the unfortunate controversies in which
+we find ourselves involved, in a spirit of mutual conciliation and
+concession:--let us invoke fervently upon our efforts the blessings of that
+Almighty Being who is "the author of peace and lover of concord:"--and we
+shall still find order springing out of confusion, harmony evoked from
+discord, and peace, union and liberty, once more reassured to our land!
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMEN OF MUMBLES HEAD.
+
+BY CLEMENT SCOTT.
+
+
+    Bring, novelist, your note-book! bring, dramatist, your pen!
+    And I'll tell you a simple story of what women do for men.
+    It's only a tale of a lifeboat, of the dying and the dead,
+    Of the terrible storm and shipwreck that happened off Mumbles Head!
+    Maybe you have traveled in Wales, sir, and know it north and south;
+    Maybe you are friends with the "natives" that dwell at Oystermouth;
+    It happens, no doubt, that from Bristol you've crossed in a casual way,
+    And have sailed your yacht in the summer in the blue of Swansea Bay.
+
+    Well! it isn't like that in the winter, when the lighthouse stands alone,
+    In the teeth of Atlantic breakers that foam on its face of stone;
+    It wasn't like that when the hurricane blew, and the storm-bell tolled,
+        or when
+    There was news of a wreck, and the lifeboat launched, and a desperate
+        cry for men.
+    When in the world did the coxswain shirk? a brave old salt was he!
+    Proud to the bone of as four strong lads as ever had tasted the sea,
+    Welshmen all to the lungs and loins, who, about that coast, 'twas said,
+    Had saved some hundred lives apiece--at a shilling or so a head!
+
+    So the father launched the lifeboat, in the teeth of the tempest's roar,
+    And he stood like a man at the rudder, with an eye on his boys at the oar.
+    Out to the wreck went the father! out to the wreck went the sons!
+    Leaving the weeping of women, and booming of signal guns;
+    Leaving the mother who loved them, and the girls that the sailors love,
+    Going to death for duty, and trusting to God above!
+    Do you murmur a prayer, my brothers, when cozy and safe in bed,
+    For men like these, who are ready to die for a wreck off Mumbles Head?
+
+    It didn't go well with the lifeboat! 'twas a terrible storm that blew!
+    And it snapped the rope in a second that was flung to the drowning crew;
+    And then the anchor parted--'twas a tussle to keep afloat!
+    But the father stuck to the rudder, and the boys to the brave old boat.
+    Then at last on the poor doomed lifeboat a wave broke mountains high!
+    "God help us now!" said the father. "It's over, my lads! Good-bye!"
+    Half of the crew swam shoreward, half to the sheltered caves,
+    But father and sons were fighting death in the foam of the angry waves.
+
+    Up at a lighthouse window two women beheld the storm,
+    And saw in the boiling breakers a figure,--a fighting form;
+    It might be a gray-haired father, then the women held their breath;
+    It might be a fair-haired brother, who was having a round with death,
+    It might be a lover, a husband, whose kisses were on the lips
+    Of the women whose love is the life of men going down to the sea in ships.
+    They had seen the launch of the lifeboat, they had seen the worst, and more,
+    Then, kissing each other, these women went down from the lighthouse,
+        straight to shore.
+
+    There by the rocks on the breakers these sisters, hand in hand,
+    Beheld once more that desperate man who struggled to reach the land.
+    'Twas only aid he wanted to help him across the wave,
+    But what are a couple of women with only a man to save?
+    What are a couple of women? well, more than three craven men
+    Who stood by the shore with chattering teeth, refusing to stir--and then
+    Off went the women's shawls, sir; in a second they're torn and rent,
+    Then knotting them into a rope of love, straight into the sea they went!
+
+    "Come back!" cried the lighthouse-keeper, "For God's sake, girls,
+        come back!"
+    As they caught the waves on their foreheads, resisting the fierce attack.
+    "Come back!" moaned the gray-haired mother, as she stood by the angry sea,
+    "If the waves take you, my darlings, there's nobody left to me!"
+    "Come back!" said the three strong soldiers, who still stood faint and pale,
+    "You will drown if you face the breakers! you will fall
+        if you brave the gale!"
+    "_Come back!_" said the girls, "we will not! go tell it to all the town,
+    We'll lose our lives, God willing, before that man shall drown!"
+
+    "Give one more knot to the shawls, Bess! give one strong clutch
+        of your hand!
+    Just follow me, brave, to the shingle, and we'll bring him safe to land!
+    Wait for the next wave, darling! only a minute  more,
+    And I'll have him safe in my arms, dear, and we'll drag him to the shore."
+    Up to the arms in the water, fighting it breast to breast,
+    They caught and saved a brother alive. God bless them! you know the rest--
+    Well, many a heart beat stronger, and many a tear was shed,
+    And many a hearty cheer was raised for "The Women of Mumbles Head!"
+
+
+
+
+A REASONABLE REQUEST.
+
+MR. DARNELLE ASKS HIS FIANCEE A FAVOR, AFTER THEIR ENGAGEMENT.
+
+
+"It is so sudden, Mr. Darnelle."
+
+"I know it is," responded the young man gently.
+
+He stood before her with his weight resting easily on one foot, his left
+elbow on the mantel-piece, his right arm behind him, and his whole attitude
+one of careless, unstudied ease and grace, acquired only by long and
+patient practice.
+
+"I know it is," he repeated. "Measured by ordinary standards and by the
+cold conventionalities of society, it is indeed sudden. We have known each
+other only twenty-four hours. Until 8.25 o'clock last night neither of us
+had ever heard of the other. Yet with the heart one day is as one hundred
+years. Could we have known one another better, darling," he went on, with a
+tremor in his cultivated B flat baritone voice, "if we had attended the
+theatre, the concert, the church and the oyster parlor together for a dozen
+seasons? Does not your heart beat responsive to mine?"
+
+"I will not pretend to deny, Mr. Darnelle," replied the young lady, with a
+rich blush mantling her cheek and brow, "that your avowal moves me
+strangely."
+
+"I know it--I feel it," he responded eagerly. "Love is not the slow,
+vegetable-like growth of years. It does not move in its course with the
+measured, leisurely step of a man working by the day. It springs up like a
+mushr--like an electric flash. It takes instant possession. It does not
+need to be jerked in, as it were. It needs not the agonized coaxing of--of
+a young man's first chin whiskers, my darling. It is here! You will forgive
+my presumption, will you not, and speak the words that tremble on your
+lips--the words that will fill my cup of joy to overflowing?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The evening had passed like a beautiful dream. Mr. Darnelle, admonished by
+the clock that it was time to go, had risen reluctantly to his feet, and
+stood holding the hand of his beautiful betrothed.
+
+"My love," he said, in eager passionate accents, "now that you have blessed
+my life with a measureless, ineffable joy, and made all my future radiant
+with golden hope, you will not think I am asking too much if I plead for
+just one favor?"
+
+"What is it?" shyly responded the lovely maiden.
+
+"Will you please tell me your first name?"
+
+
+
+
+RESIGNATION.
+
+BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+    There is no flock, however watched and tended,
+      But one dead lamb is there!
+    There is no fireside howso'er defended,
+      But has one vacant chair!
+
+    The air is full of farewells to the dying;
+      And mournings for the dead;
+    The heart of Rachel, for her children crying.
+      Will not be comforted!
+
+    Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
+      Not from the ground arise,
+    But oftentimes celestial benedictions
+      Assume this dark disguise.
+
+    We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
+      Amid these earthly damps
+    What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
+      May be heaven's distant lamps.
+
+    There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
+      This life of mortal breath
+    Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
+      Whose portal we call Death.
+
+    She is not dead,--the child of our affection,--
+      But gone unto that school
+    Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
+      And Christ himself doth rule.
+
+    In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
+      By guardian angels led,
+    Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
+      She lives, whom we call dead.
+
+    Day after day we think what she is doing
+      In those bright realms of air;
+    Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
+      Behold her grown more fair.
+
+    Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
+      The bond which nature gives,
+    Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
+      May reach her where she lives.
+
+    Not as a child shall we again behold her;
+      For when with raptures wild
+    In our embraces we again enfold her,
+      She will not be a child;
+
+    But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
+      Clothed with celestial grace;
+    And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
+      Shall we behold her face.
+
+    And though at times impetuous with emotion
+      And anguish long suppressed,
+    The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
+      That cannot be at rest,--
+
+    We will be patient and assuage the feeling
+      We may not wholly stay;
+    By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
+      The grief that must have way.
+
+
+
+
+AN AFFECTIONATE LETTER.
+
+_Tipperary, Ireland, September the ten._
+
+
+MY DEAR NEPHEW:
+
+I have not heard anything of you sens the last time I wrote ye. I have
+moved from the place where I now live, or I should have written to you
+before. I did not know where a letter might find you first, but I now take
+my pen in hand to drop you a few lines, to inform you of the death of your
+own living uncle, Kilpatrick. He died very suddenly after a long illness of
+six months. Poor man, he suffered a great deal. He lay a long time in
+convulsions, perfectly quiet and speechless, and all the time talking
+incoherently and inquiring for water.
+
+I'm much at a loss to tell you what his death was occasioned by, but the
+doctor thinks it was caused by his last sickness, for he was not well ten
+days during his confinement.
+
+His age ye know jist as well as I can tell ye; he was 25 years old last
+March, lacking fifteen months; and if he had lived till this time he would
+be just six months dead.
+
+N. B. Take notis. I inclose to you a tin pound note, which ye father sends
+to ye unbeknown to me. Your mother often speaks of ye; she would like to
+send ye the brindle cow, and I would inclose her to ye but for the horns.
+
+I would beg of ye not to break the sale of this letter until two or three
+days after ye read it, for thin ye will be better prepared for the
+sorrowful news.
+
+PATRICK O'BRANIGAN.
+
+To Michael Glancy, No. -- Broad Street, United States of Ameriky, State of
+Massachusetts, in Boston.
+
+
+
+
+THE WHISTLING REGIMENT.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+     [In the recitation which follows, the effect can be
+     heightened by an accompaniment of the piano and by the
+     whistling of strains from Annie Laurie, adapting the
+     style to the sentiment of the verses.
+
+     The melody should be played very softly, except where
+     the battle is alluded to, and the whistling should be
+     so timed that the last strain of Annie Laurie may end
+     with the words, "would lay me down and die." The beat
+     of the drums can be introduced with good effect, but it
+     is better to omit it unless it can be done skilfully.
+     It is well to state before reciting, that the escape
+     described is not entirely imaginary as many prisoners
+     made their way through underground passages from rebel
+     prisons, during the Civil War. An asterisk (*) at the
+     end of a line denotes where the whistling should
+     commence, and a dagger (*t) where it should
+     cease.]
+
+
+    When the North and South had parted, and the boom of the signal gun
+    Had wakened the Northern heroes, for the great deeds to be done,
+    When the nation's cry for soldiers had echoed o'er hill and dale,
+    When hot youth flushed with courage, while the mother's cheeks turned pale,
+    In the woods of old New England, as the day sank down the west,
+    A loved one stood beside me, her brown head on my breast.
+    From the earliest hours of childhood our paths had been as one,
+    Her heart was in my keeping, though I knew not when 'twas won;
+    We had learned to love each other, in a half unspoken way,
+    But it ripened to full completeness when the parting came, that day;
+    Not a tear in the eyes of azure, but a deep and fervent prayer,
+    That seemed to say: "God bless you, and guard you, everywhere."
+    At the call for volunteers, her face was like drifted snow,
+    She read in my eyes a question and her loyal heart said, "Go."
+    As the roll of the drums drew nearer, through the leaves of the
+        rustling trees,*
+    The strains of Annie Laurie were borne to us, on the breeze.
+    Then I drew her pale face nearer and said: "Brave heart and true,
+    Your tender love and prayers shall bring me back to you."
+    And I called her _my_ Annie Laurie and whispered to her that I
+    For her sweet sake was willing--to lay me down and die.
+    And I said: "Through the days of danger, that little song shall be
+    Like a pass word from this hillside, to bring your love to me."[*t]
+    Oh! many a time, at nightfall, in the very shades of death,
+    When the picket lines were pacing their rounds with bated breath,*
+
+    The lips of strong men trembled and brave breasts heaved a sigh,
+    When some one whistled softly, "I'd lay me down and die."[*t]
+    The tender little ballad our watchword soon became,
+    And in place of Annie Laurie, each had a loved one's name.
+    In the very front of battle, where the bullets thickest fly,*
+    The boys from old New England oftimes went rushing by,
+    And the rebel lines before us gave way where'er we went,
+    For the gray coats fled in terror from the "whistling regiment."
+    Amidst the roar of the cannon, and the shriek of the shells on high,
+    Yon could hear the brave boys whistling: "I'd lay me down and die."[*t]
+    But, Alas! Though truth is mighty and right will at last prevail,
+    There are times when the best and bravest, by the wrong outnumbered, fail;
+    And thus, one day, in a skirmish, but a half-hour's fight at most,
+    A score of the whistling soldiers were caught by the rebel host.
+    With hands fast tied behind us, we were dragged to a prison pen,
+    Where, hollow-eyed and starving, lay a thousand loyal men.
+    No roof but the vault of Heaven, no bed save the beaten sod,
+    Shut in from the world around us, by a wall where the sentries trod.
+    For a time our Annie Laurie brought cheer to that prison pen;
+    A hope to the hearts of the living; a smile to the dying men.
+    But the spark of Hope burned dimly, when each day's setting sun
+    Dropped the pall of night o'er a comrade, whose sands of life were run.
+    One night, in a dismal corner, where the shadows darkest fell,
+    We huddled close together to hear a soldier tell
+    The tales of dear New England and of loved ones waiting there,
+    When, Hark! a soft, low whistle, pierced through the heavy air,*
+    And the strain was Annie Laurie. Each caught the other's eye,
+    And with trembling lips we answered, "I'd lay me down and die."
+    From the earth, near the wall behind us, a hand came struggling through,
+    With a crumpled bit of paper for the captive boys in blue.
+    And the name! My God! 'Twas Annie, my Annie, true and brave,
+    From the hills of old New England she had followed me to save.[*t]
+    "Not a word or a sign, but follow, where'er you may be led,
+    Bring four of your comrades with you," was all hat the writing said.
+    Only eight were left of the twenty and lots were quickly thrown,
+    Then our trembling fingers widened the space where the hand had shown.
+    With a stealthy glance at the sentries, the prisoners gathered round,
+    And the five whom fate had chosen stole silent underground,
+    On, on, through the damp earth creeping, we followed our dusky guide,
+    Till under a bank o'erhanging we came to the river side:
+    "Straight over," a low voice whispered, "where you see yon beacon light,"
+    And ere we could say, "God bless you," he vanished into the night.
+    Through the fog and damp of the river, when the moon was hid from sight,
+    With a fond, old, faithful negro, brave Annie had crossed each night;
+    And the long, dark, narrow passage had grown till we heard close by
+    The notes of the dear old pass-word: "I'd lay me down and die."
+    With oarlocks muffled and silent, we pushed out into the stream,
+    When a shot rang out on the stillness. We could see by the musket gleam,
+    A single sentry firing, but the balls passed harmless by,
+    For the stars had hid their faces and clouds swept o'er the sky.
+    O God! How that beacon burning, brought joy to my heart that night,*
+    For I knew whose hand had kindled that fire to guide our flight.
+    The new-born hope of freedom filled every arm with strength,
+    And we pulled at the oars like giants till the shore was reached at length.
+    We sprang from the skiff, half-fainting, once more in the land of the free,
+    And the lips of my love were waiting to welcome and comfort me.
+    In my wasted arms I held her, while the weary boys close by
+    Breathed low, "For Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down and die."[*t]
+
+
+
+
+THE MINISTER'S GRIEVANCES.
+
+
+"Brethren," said the aged minister, as he stood up before the church
+meeting on New Year's Eve, "I am afraid we will have to part. I have
+labored among you now for fifteen years, and I feel that that is almost
+enough, under the peculiar circumstances in which I am placed. Not that I
+am exactly dissatisfied; but a clergyman who has been preaching to sinners
+for fifteen years for five hundred dollars a year, naturally feels that he
+is not doing a great work when Deacon Jones, acting as an officer of the
+church, pays his last quarter's salary in a promissory note at six months,
+and then, acting as an individual, offers to discount it for him at ten per
+cent if he will take it part out in clover seed and pumpkins.
+
+"I feel somehow as if it would take about eighty-four years of severe
+preaching to prepare the deacon for existence in a felicitous hereafter.
+Let me say, also, that while I am deeply grateful to the congregation for
+the donation party they gave me on Christmas, I have calculated that it
+would be far more profitable for me to shut my house and take to the woods
+than endure another one. I will not refer to the impulsive generosity which
+persuaded Sister Potter to come with a present of eight clothes pins; I
+will not insinuate anything against Brother Ferguson, who brought with him
+a quarter of a peck of dried apples of the crop of 1872; I shall not allude
+to the benevolence of Sister Tynhirst, who came with a pen-wiper and a tin
+horse for the baby; I shall refrain from commenting upon the impression
+made by Brother Hill, who brought four phosphorescent mackerel, possibly
+with an idea that they might be useful in dissipating the gloom in my
+cellar. I omit reference to Deacon Jones' present of an elbow of stove-pipe
+and a bundle of tooth-picks, and I admit that when Sister Peabody brought
+me sweetened sausage-meat, and salted and peppered mince-meat for pies, she
+did right in not forcing her own family to suffer from her mistake in
+mixing the material. But I do think I may fairly remark respecting the case
+of Sister Walsingham, that after careful thought I am unable to perceive
+how she considered that a present of a box of hair-pins to my wife
+justified her in consuming half a pumpkin pie, six buttered muffins, two
+platefuls of oysters, and a large variety of miscellaneous food, previous
+to jamming herself full of preserves, and proceeding to the parlor to join
+in singing 'There is rest for the weary!' Such a destruction of the
+necessaries of life doubtless contributes admirably to the stimulation of
+commerce, but it is far too large a commercial operation to rest solely
+upon the basis of a ten-cent box of hair-pins.
+
+"As for matters in the church, I do not care to discuss them at length. I
+might say much about the manner in which the congregation were asked to
+contribute clothing to our mission in Senegambia; we received nothing but
+four neckties and a brass breast-pin, excepting a second-hand carriage-whip
+that Deacon Jones gave us. I might allude to the frivolous manner in which
+Brother Atkinson, our tenor, converses with Sister Priestly, our soprano,
+during my sermons, and last Sunday he kissed her when he thought I was not
+looking; I might allude to the absent-mindedness which has permitted
+Brother Brown twice lately to put half a dollar on the collection-plate and
+take off two quarters and a ten-cent piece in change; and I might dwell
+upon the circumstance that while Brother Toombs, the undertaker, sings 'I
+would not live alway' with professional enthusiasm that is pardonable, I do
+not see why he should throw such unction into the hymn 'I am unworthy
+though I give my all,' when he is in arrears for two years' pew-rent, and
+is always busy examining the carpet-pattern when the plate goes round. I
+also----"
+
+But there Brother Toombs turned off the gas suddenly, and the meeting
+adjourned full of indignation at the good pastor. His resignation was
+accepted unanimously.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOOD OLD WAY.
+
+
+    John Mann had a wife who was kind and true,--
+      A wife who loved him well;
+    She cared for the house and their only child;
+      But if I the truth must tell,
+    She fretted and pined because John was poor
+      And his business was slow to pay;
+    But he only said, when she talked of change,
+      "We'll stick to the good old way!"
+
+    She saw her neighbors were growing rich
+      And dwelling in houses grand;
+    That she was living in poverty,
+      With wealth upon every hand;
+    And she urged her husband to speculate,
+      To risk his earnings at play;
+    But he only said, "My dearest wife,
+      We'll stick to the good old way."
+
+    For he knew that the money that's quickly got
+      Is the money that's quickly lost;
+    And the money that stays is the money earned
+      At honest endeavor's cost.
+    So he plodded along in his honest style,
+      And he bettered himself each day,
+    And he only said to his fretful wife,
+      "We'll stick to the good old way."
+
+    And at last there came a terrible crash,
+      When beggary, want, and shame
+    Came down on the homes of their wealthy friends,
+      While John's remained the same;
+    For he had no debts and he gave no trust,
+      "My motto is this," he'd say,--
+    "It's a charm against panics of every kind,--
+      'Tis stick to the good old way!"
+
+    And his wife looked round on the little house
+      That was every nail their own,
+    And she asked forgiveness of honest John
+      For the peevish mistrust she had shown;
+    But he only said, as her tearful face
+      Upon his shoulder lay,
+    "The good old way is the best way, wife;
+      We'll stick to the good old way."
+
+
+
+
+EXTRACT FROM BLAINE'S ORATION ON JAMES A. GARFIELD.
+
+     [Delivered in the City of Washington, Monday, February
+     27, 1882.]
+
+
+On the morning of Saturday, July 2, the President was a contented and happy
+man--not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On his
+way to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious
+enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and
+keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful and
+congratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial his
+administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor
+and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting him at
+his inauguration had been safely passed; that trouble lay behind him and
+not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now
+recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted and at times
+almost unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most
+cheerful associations of his young manhood and to exchange greetings with
+those whose deepening interest had followed every step of his upward
+progress from the day he entered upon his college course until he had
+attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his countrymen.
+
+Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this
+world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well have been a
+happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of
+danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One
+moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully
+out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to
+weary weeks of torture, to silence and the grave.
+
+Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the
+very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he
+was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its
+aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death--and he did
+not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed,
+he could give up life hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days
+of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because
+silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage he looked into his open
+grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes whose lips may
+tell--what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what
+sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of
+sweet household ties! Behind him a proud expectant nation; a great host of
+sustaining friends; a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich
+honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life
+lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's days of
+frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into
+closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a
+father's love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet
+all demands. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was
+not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound and
+universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre
+of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love
+and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the
+winepress alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing
+tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's
+bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the
+Divine decree.
+
+As the end drew near his early craving for the sea returned. The stately
+mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he
+begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling
+air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love
+of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the
+sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving
+billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face
+tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze he looked out wistfully upon the
+ocean's changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light;
+on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the
+noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on
+the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying
+eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know.
+Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great
+waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow
+the breath of the eternal morning.
+
+
+
+
+HOW SHALL I LOVE YOU?
+
+WILL C. FERRIL.
+
+
+    How shall I love you? I dream all day
+    Dear, of a tenderer, sweeter way;
+    Songs that I sing to you, words that I say,
+    Prayers that are voiceless on lips that would pray;
+    These may not tell of the love of my life;
+    How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?
+
+    How shall I love you? Love is the bread
+    Of life to a woman--the white and the red
+    Of all the world's roses, the light that is shed
+    On all the world's pathways, till life shall be dead!
+    The star in the storm and the strength in the strife;
+    How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?
+
+    Is there a burden your heart must bear?
+    I shall kneel lowly and lift it, dear!
+    Is there a thorn in the crown that you wear?
+    Let it hide in my heart till a rose blossom there!
+    For grief or for glory--for death or for life,
+    So shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE BROWN CURL.
+
+
+    A quaint old box with a lid of blue,
+      All faded and worn with age;
+    A soft little curl of a brownish hue,
+      A yellow and half-written page.
+
+    The letters, with never a pause nor dot,
+      In a school-boy's hand are cast;
+    The lines and the curl I may hold to-day,
+      But the love of the boy is past.
+
+    It faded away with our childish dreams,
+      Died out like the morning mist,
+    And I look with a smile on the silken curl
+      That once I had tenderly kissed.
+
+    One night in the summer--so long ago--
+      We played by the parlor door,
+    And the moonlight fell, like a silver veil,
+      Spreading itself on the floor.
+
+    And the children ran on the graveled walk
+      At play in their noisy glee;
+    But the maddest, merriest fun just then
+      Was nothing to John and me.
+
+    For he was a stately boy of twelve,
+      And I was not quite eleven--
+    We thought as we sat by the parlor door
+      We had found the gate to heaven.
+
+    That night when I lay on my snowy bed,
+      Like many a foolish girl,
+    I kissed and held to my little heart
+      This letter and silken curl.
+
+    I slept and dreamed of the time when I
+      Should wake to a fairy life;
+    And sleeping, blushed, when I thought that John
+      Had called me his little wife.
+
+    I have loved since then with a woman's heart,
+      Have known all a woman's bliss,
+    But never a dream of the after life
+      Was ever so sweet as this.
+
+    The years went by with their silver feet,
+      And often I laughed with John
+    At the vows we made by the parlor door
+      When the moon and stars looked on.
+
+    Ah? boyish vows were broken and lost,
+      And a girl's first dream will end,
+    But I dearly loved his beautiful wife,
+      While he was my husband's friend.
+
+    When at last I went to my childhood's home
+      Far over the bounding wave,
+    I missed my friend, for the violets grew
+      And blossomed over his grave.
+
+    To-day as I opened the old blue box,
+      And looked on this soft brown curl,
+    And read of the love John left for me
+      When I was a little girl,
+
+    There came to my heart a throb of pain,
+      And my eyes grew moist with tears,
+    For the childish love and the dear, dear friend,
+      And the long-lost buried years.
+
+
+
+
+DE PINT WID OLE PETE.
+
+
+Upon the hurricane deck of one of our gunboats, an elderly looking darkey,
+with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted
+on his bundle, toasting his shins against the chimney, and apparently
+plunged into a state of profound meditation. Finding, upon inquiry, that he
+belonged to the Ninth Illinois, one of the most gallantly behaved and heavy
+losing regiments at the Fort Donelson battle, I began to interrogate him
+upon the subject.
+
+"Were you in the fight?"
+
+"Had a little taste of it, sa."
+
+"Stood your ground, did you?"
+
+"No, sa, I runs."
+
+"Run at the first fire, did you?"
+
+"Yes, sa; and would hab run soona, had I know'd it was comin'."
+
+"Why, that wasn't very creditable to your courage."
+
+"Massa, dat isn't my line, sa; cookin's my profeshun."
+
+"Well, but have you no regard for your reputation?"
+
+"Yah, yah! reputation's nuffin to me by de side ob life."
+
+"Do you consider _your_ life worth more than other people's?"
+
+"It is worth more to me, sa."
+
+"Then you must value it very highly?"
+
+"Yes, sa, I does; more dan all dis world, more dan a million ob dollars,
+sa; for what would dat be wuth to a man wid the bref out ob him?
+Self-preserbation am de fust law wid me."
+
+"But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?"
+
+"Because different men set different values upon deir lives; mine is not in
+the market."
+
+"But if you lost it, you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you
+died for your country."
+
+"What satisfaction would dat be to me when de power ob feelin' was gone?"
+
+"Then patriotism and honor are nothing to you?"
+
+"Nuffin whatever, sa; I regard them as among the vanities."
+
+"If our soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the
+government without resistance."
+
+"Yes, sa; dar would hab been no help for it."
+
+"Do you think any of your company would have missed you, if you had been
+killed?"
+
+"Maybe not, sa; a dead white man ain't much to dese sogers, let alone a
+dead nigga; but I'd a missed myself, and dat was de pint wid me."
+
+
+
+
+MOTHER'S FOOL.
+
+
+    "'Tis plain to see," said a farmer's wife,
+    "These boys will make their mark in life;
+    They were never made to handle a hoe,
+    And at once to a college ought to go;
+    There's Fred, he's little better than a fool,
+    But John and Henry must go to school."
+
+    "Well, really, wife," quote Farmer Brown,
+    As he sat his mug of cider down,
+    "Fred does more work in a day for me
+    Than both his brothers do in three.
+    Book larnin' will never plant one's corn,
+    Nor hoe potatoes, sure's your born,
+    Nor mend a rod of broken fence--
+    For my part give me common sense."
+
+    But his wife was bound the roast to rule,
+    And John and Henry were sent to school,
+    While Fred, of course, was left behind
+    Because his mother said he had no mind.
+
+    Five years at school the students spent;
+    Then into business each one went.
+    John learned to play the flute and fiddle,
+    And parted his hair, of course, in the middle;
+    While his brother looked rather higher than he,
+    And hung out a sign, "H. Brown, M. D."
+
+    Meanwhile, at home, their brother Fred
+    Had taken a notion into his head;
+    But he quietly trimmed his apple trees,
+    And weeded onions and planted peas,
+    While somehow or other, by hook or crook,
+    He managed to read full many a book.
+    Until at last his father said
+    He was getting "book larnin'" into his head;
+    "But for all that," added Farmer Brown,
+    "He's the smartest boy there is in town."
+
+    The war broke out and Captain Fred
+    A hundred men to battle led,
+    And when the rebel flag came down,
+    Went marching home as General Brown.
+    But he went to work on the farm again,
+    And planted corn and sowed his grain;
+    He shingled the barn and mended the fence,
+    Till people declared he had common sense.
+
+    Now, common sense was very rare,
+    And the State House needed a portion there;
+    So the "family dunce" moved into town--
+    The people called him Governor Brown;
+    And his brothers, who went to the city school,
+    Came home to live with "mother's fool."
+
+
+
+
+AN HOUR OF HORROR.
+
+
+It was close upon the hour of midnight.
+
+A man sat alone in an upper room in a tumble-down tenement--a man whose
+face showed by his furrowed brow, glaring eyes and pallid lips the effects
+of a terrible mental struggle going on within him.
+
+Before him were several pages of manuscript, and his nervous hand
+convulsively clutching a pen, was rapidly adding to them.
+
+Close to his right hand and frequently touched by it as he plied his pen,
+was a gleaming, glittering object--ivory, silver and steel--a loaded
+revolver.
+
+The window beside him was open, and through it the cool breeze entered and
+fanned his fevered brow. The night without was calm and placid. Nature was
+lovely, bathed in the light of the summer moon; but the man was oblivious
+of the beauties of the night. He glanced at the clock now and then, and
+observing the long hand climbing up the incline toward the figure twelve,
+he redoubled his labor at his manuscript.
+
+Anon he glanced at the revolver on the desk beside him. He touched its
+ivory handle as if faltering in his resolution; and then went on with his
+writing.
+
+Hark!
+
+What sound is that that is borne upon the breeze of the summer night? A
+long, low wail, like the cry of a woman in mortal anguish.
+
+The man started like a guilty soul, dashed the dews of perspiration from
+his clammy brow, and uttered an incoherent exclamation.
+
+Again! again, that moaning, uncanny cry!
+
+The man heard it and groaned aloud. He dashed aside the last page of his
+manuscript, and glanced again at the clock. The hands marked the hour of
+midnight. He grasped the revolver with a resolute air and exclaimed through
+his clenched teeth:
+
+"It must be done!"
+
+And, going to the window, he fired twice. * * * There was a scattering
+sound in the backyard, and the next day a gray cat was found dead close to
+the woodshed. The story and the deed were done.
+
+
+
+
+GO VAY, BECKY MILLER, GO VAY!
+
+
+    I don'd lofe you now von schmall little bit,
+    My dream vas blayed oudt, so blease git up und git;
+    Your false-heardted vays I can't got along mit--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    Vas all der young vomans so false-heardted like you,
+    Mit a face nice und bright, but a heart black und plue,
+    Und all der vhile schworing you lofed me so drue--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    Vy, vonce I t'ought you vas a shtar vay up high;
+    I liked you so better as gogonut bie:
+    But oh, Becky Miller, you hafe profed von big lie--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    You dook all de bresents vat I did bresent,
+    Yes, gobbled up efery virst thing vot I sent;
+    All der vhile mit anoder young rooster you vent--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    Vhen first I found oudt you vas such a big lie,
+    I didn't know vedder to schmudder or die;
+    Bud now, by der chingo, I don't efen cry--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+    Don'd dry make belief you vas sorry aboudt,
+    I don'd belief a dings vot coomes oudt by your moudt;
+    Und besides I don'd care, for you vas blayed oudt--
+              Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
+
+
+
+
+IT IS A WINTER NIGHT.
+
+BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
+
+
+      It is a winter night,
+      And the stilly earth is white,
+    With the blowing of the lilies of the snow;
+      Once it was as red,
+      With the roses summer shed;
+    But the roses fled with summer, long ago.
+
+      We sang a merry tune,
+      In the jolly days of June,
+    As we danced adown the garden in the light,
+      But now December's come,
+      And our hearts are dark and dumb,
+    As we huddle o'er the embers here to-night.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT THE LITTLE GIRL SAID.
+
+
+"Ma's upstairs changing her dress," said the freckle-faced little girl,
+tying her doll's bonnet strings and casting her eye about for a tidy large
+enough to serve as a shawl for that double-jointed young person.
+
+"Oh, your mother needn't dress up for me," replied the female agent of the
+missionary society, taking a self-satisfied view of herself in the mirror.
+"Run up and tell her to come down just as she is in her every-day clothes,
+and not stand on ceremony."
+
+"Oh, but she hasn't got on her every-day clothes. Ma was all dressed up in
+her new brown silk dress, 'cause she expected Miss Dimmond to-day. Miss
+Dimmond always comes over here to show off her nice things, and ma doesn't
+mean to get left. When ma saw you coming she said, 'the dickens!' and I
+guess she was mad about something. Ma said if you saw her new dress, she'd
+have to hear all about the poor heathen, who don't have silk, and you'd ask
+her for money to buy hymn books to send 'em. Say, do the nigger ladies use
+hymn-book leaves to do their hair up on and make it frizzy? Ma says she
+guesses that's all the good the books do 'em, if they ever get any books. I
+wish my doll was a heathen."
+
+"Why, you wicked little girl! what do you want of a heathen doll?" inquired
+the missionary lady, taking a mental inventory of the new things in the
+parlor to get material for a homily on worldly extravagance.
+
+"So folks would send her lots of nice things to wear, and feel sorry to
+have her going about naked. Then she'd have hair to frizz, and I want a
+doll with truly hair and eyes that roll up like Deacon Silderback's when
+he says amen on Sunday. I ain't a wicked girl, either, 'cause Uncle
+Dick--you know Uncle Dick, he's been out West and swears awful and smokes
+in the house--he says I'm a holy terror, and he hopes I'll be an angel
+pretty soon. Ma'll be down in a minute, so you needn't take your cloak off.
+She said she'd box my ears if I asked you to. Ma's putting on that old
+dress she had last year, 'cause she didn't want you to think she was able
+to give much this time, and she needed a muff worse than the queen of the
+cannon-ball islands needed religion. Uncle Dick says you oughter get to the
+islands, 'cause you'd be safe there, and the natives would be sorry they
+was such sinners anybody would send you to 'em. He says he never seen a
+heathen hungry enough to eat you, 'less 'twas a blind one, an' you'd set a
+blind pagan's teeth on edge so he'd never hanker after any more missionary.
+Uncle Dick's awful funny, and makes ma and pa die laughing sometimes."
+
+"Your Uncle Richard is a bad, depraved wretch, and ought to have remained
+out West, where his style is appreciated. He sets a horrid example for
+little girls like you."
+
+"Oh, I think he's nice. He showed me how to slide down the banisters, and
+he's teaching me to whistle when ma ain't around. That's a pretty cloak
+you've got, ain't it? Do you buy all your clothes with missionary money?
+Ma says you do."
+
+Just then the freckle-faced girl's ma came into the parlor and kissed the
+missionary lady on the cheek and said she was delighted to see her, and
+they proceeded to have a real sociable chat. The little girl's ma cannot
+understand why a person who professes to be so charitable as the missionary
+agent does should go right over to Miss Dimmond's and say such ill-natured
+things as she did, and she thinks the missionary is a double-faced gossip.
+
+
+
+
+"WE'RE BUILDING TWO A DAY!"
+
+BY REV. ALFRED J. HOUGH.
+
+     [During the Freethinkers' Convention, at Watkins, N.
+     Y., in response to statements that the churches
+     throughout the land were losing all aggressive power, a
+     message was received from Chaplain McCabe, of the
+     Methodist Episcopal Church Extension Board saying in
+     substance and speaking only of his own denomination,
+     "All hail the power of Jesus' name; we're building two
+     a day!"]
+
+
+    The infidels, a motley band,
+      In council, met and said:
+    "The churches die all through the land,
+      The last will soon be dead."
+    When suddenly a message came,
+      It filled them with dismay:
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    "We're building two a day," and still,
+      In stately forests stored,
+    Are shingle, rafter, beam, and sill,
+      For churches of the Lord;
+    And underpinning for the same,
+      In quarries piled away;
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    The miners rend the hills apart,
+      Earth's bosom is explored,
+    And streams from her metallic heart
+      In graceful molds are poured,
+    For bells to sound our Saviour's fame
+      From towers,--and, swinging, say,
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    The King of saints to war has gone,
+      And matchless are His deeds;
+    His sacramental hosts move on,
+      And follow where He leads;
+    While infidels His church defame,
+      Her corner-stones we lay;
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're laying two a day."
+
+    The Christless few the cross would hide,
+      The light of life shut out,
+    And leave the world to wander wide
+      Through sunless realms of doubt.
+    The pulpits lose their ancient fame,
+      Grown obsolete, they say;
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    "Extend," along the line is heard,
+      "Thy walls, O Zion, fair!"
+    And Methodism heeds the word,
+      And answers everywhere.
+
+    A new church greets the morning's flame,
+      Another evening's gray.
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building two a day."
+
+    When infidels in council meet
+      Next year, with boastings vain,
+    To chronicle the Lord's defeat,
+      And count His churches slain,
+    Oh then may we with joy proclaim,
+      If we His call obey:
+    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
+      We're building THREE a day."
+
+
+
+
+THE MODERN BELLE.
+
+
+    The daughter sits in the parlor,
+      And rocks in her easy-chair;
+    She is dressed in silks and satins,
+      And jewels are in her hair;
+    She winks, and giggles, and simpers,
+      And simpers, and giggles, and winks;
+    And though she talks but little,
+      It's vastly more than she thinks.
+
+    Her father goes clad in russet--
+      All brown and seedy at that;
+    His coat is out at the elbows,
+      And he wears a shocking bad hat.
+    He is hoarding and saving his dollars,
+      So carefully, day by day,
+    While she on her whims and fancies
+      Is squandering them all away.
+
+    She lies in bed of a morning
+      Until the hour of noon,
+    Then comes down, snapping and snarling
+      Because she's called too soon.
+    Her hair is still in papers,
+      Her cheeks still bedaubed with paint--
+    Remains of last night's blushes
+      Before she attempted to faint.
+
+    Her feet are so very little,
+      Her hands so snowy white,
+    Her jewels so very heavy,
+      And her head so very light;
+    Her color is made of cosmetics--
+      Though this she'll never own;
+    Her body is mostly cotton,
+      And her heart is wholly stone.
+
+    She falls in love with a fellow
+      Who swells with a foreign air;
+    He marries her for her money,
+      She marries him for his hair--
+    One of the very best matches;
+      Both are well mated in life;
+    She's got a fool for a husband,
+      And he's got a fool for a wife.
+
+
+
+
+THE PUZZLED DUTCHMAN.
+
+ANONYMOUS.
+
+_A Humorous Recitation._
+
+
+One who does not believe in immersion for baptism was holding a protracted
+meeting, and one night preached on the subject of baptism. In the course of
+his remarks he said that some believe it necessary to go down in the water,
+and come up out of it, to be baptized. But this he claimed to be fallacy,
+for the preposition "into" of the Scriptures should be rendered
+differently, as it does not mean into at all times. "Moses," he said, "we
+are told, went up into the mountain; and the Saviour was taken up into a
+high mountain, etc. Now we do not suppose either went into a mountain but
+went unto it. So with going down into the water; it means simply going down
+close by or near to the water, and being baptized in the ordinary way, by
+sprinkling or pouring." He carried this idea out fully, and in due season
+closed his discourse, when an invitation was given for any one so disposed
+to rise and express his thoughts. Quite a number of his brethren arose and
+said they were glad they had been present on this occasion, that they were
+well pleased with the sound sermon they had just heard, and felt their
+souls greatly blessed. Finally, a corpulent gentleman of Teutonic
+extraction, a stranger to all, arose and broke the silence that was almost
+painful, as follows:
+
+"Mister Breacher, I is so glad I vash here to-night, for I has had
+explained to my mint some dings dat I never could pelief pefore. Oh, I is
+so glad dat into does not mean into at all, but shust close py or near to,
+for now I can pelief many dings vot I could not pelief pefore. We reat, Mr.
+Breacher, dat Taniel vos cast into de ten of lions, and came out alife.
+Now I neffer could pelief dat, for wilt peasts would shust eat him right
+off; but now it is fery clear to my mint. He vash shust close py or near
+to, and tid not get into de ten at all. Oh, I ish so glad I vash here
+to-night. Again we reat dat de Heprew children vas cast into de firish
+furnace, and dat always look like a beeg story too, for they would have
+been purnt up; but it ish all blain to my mint now, for dey was shust cast
+py or close to de firish furnace. Oh, I vas so glad I vos here to-night.
+And den, Mister Breacher, it ish said dat Jonah vash cast into de sea, and
+taken into de whale's pelly. Now I neffer could pelief dat. It alwish
+seemed to me to be a beeg fish story, but it ish all blain to my mint now.
+He vash not into de whale's pelly at all, but shump onto his pack and rode
+ashore. Oh, I vash so glad I vash here to-night.
+
+"And now, Mister Breacher, if you will shust exblain two more bassages of
+Scriptures, I shall be oh so happy dat I vas here to-night! One of dem ish
+vere it saish de vicked shall be cast into a lake dat burns mit fire and
+primstone alwish. Oh, Mister Breacher, shall I be cast into dat lake if I
+am vicked, or shust close py or near to--shust near enough to be
+comfortable? Oh, I hope you tell me I shall be cast only shust py a good
+veys off, and I vill pe so glad I vash here to-night. Do oder bassage is
+dat vich saish blessed are they who do these commandments, dat dey may
+have right to de dree of life, and enter in droo de gates of the city, and
+not shust close py or near to--shust near enough to see vat I have
+lost--and I shall pe so glad I vash here to-night."
+
+
+
+
+THE FAST MAIL AND THE STAGE.
+
+BY JOHN H. YATES.
+
+
+    Lay by the weekly, Betsey, it's old like you and I,
+    And read the morning's daily, with its pages scarcely dry.
+    While you and I were sleepin', they were printing them to-day,
+    In the city by the ocean, several hundred miles away.
+
+    "How'd I get it?" Bless you, Betsey, you needn't doubt and laugh;
+    It didn't drop down from the clouds nor come by telegraph;
+    I got it by the lightning mail we've read about you know,
+    The mail that Jonathan got up about a month ago.
+
+    We farmers livin' 'round the hill went to the town to-day
+    To see the fast mail catch the bags that hung beside the way;
+    Quick as a flash from thundering clouds, whose tempest swept the sky,
+    The bags were caught on board the train as it went roarin' by.
+
+    We are seein' many changes in our fast declinin' years;
+    Strange rumors now are soundin' in our hard-of-hearin' ears.
+    Ere the sleep that knows no wakin' comes to waft us o'er the stream,
+    Some great power may be takin' all the self-conceit from steam.
+
+    Well do we remember, Betsey, when the post-man carried mails,
+    Ridin' horseback through the forest 'long the lonely Indian trails,
+    How impatiently we waited--we were earnest lovers then--
+    For our letters comin' slowly, many miles through wood and glen.
+
+    Many times, you know, we missed them--for the post-man never came--
+    Then, not knowin' what had happened, we did each the other blame;
+    Long those lover quarrels lasted, but the God who melts the proud
+    Brought our strayin' hearts together and let sunshine through the cloud.
+
+    Then at last the tidings reached us that the faithful post-man fell
+    Before the forest savage with his wild terrific yell,
+    And your letters lay and moldered, while the sweet birds sang above,
+    And I was savin' bitter things about a woman's love.
+
+    Long and tedious were the journeys--few and far between, the mails,
+    In the days when we were courtin'--when we thrashed with wooden flails;
+    Now the white winged cars are flyin' long the shores of inland seas.
+    And younger lovers read _their_ letters 'mid luxury and ease.
+
+    We have witnessed many changes in our three-score years and ten;
+    We no longer sit and wonder at the discoveries of men;
+    In the shadow of life's evenin' we rejoice that our dear boys
+    Are not called to meet the hardships that embittered half our joys.
+
+    Like the old mail through the forest, youthful years go slowly by;
+    Like the fast mail of the present, manhood's years how swift they fly;
+    We are sitting in the shadows; soon shall break life's brittle cord--
+    Soon shall come the welcome summons by the fast mail of the Lord.
+
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE LITTLE RID HIN.
+
+BY MRS. WHITNEY.
+
+
+Well, thin, there was once't upon a time, away off in the ould country,
+livin' all her lane in the woods, in a wee bit iv a house be herself, a
+little rid hin. Nice an' quiet she was, and niver did no kind o' harrum in
+her life. An' there lived out over the hill, in a din o' the rocks, a
+crafty ould felly iv a fox. An' this same ould villain iv a fox, he laid
+awake o' nights, and he prowled around shly iv a day-time, thinkin' always
+so busy how he'd git the little rid hin, an' carry her home an' bile her up
+for his shupper. But the wise little rid hin niver went intil her bit iv a
+house, but she locked the door afther her and pit the kay in her pocket. So
+the ould rashkill iv a fox, he watched, an' he prowled, an' he laid awake
+nights, till he came all to skin an' bone, an' sorra a ha'porth o' the
+little rid hin could he git at. But at lasht there came a shcame intil his
+wicked ould head, an' he tuk a big bag one mornin', over his shouldher, an'
+he says till his mother, says he, "Mother, have the pot all bilin' agin' I
+come home, for I'll bring the little rid hin to-night for our shupper." An'
+away he wint, over the hill, an' came crapin' shly an' soft through the
+woods to where the little rid hin lived in her shnug bit iv a house. An'
+shure, jist at the very minute that he got along, out comes the little rid
+hin out iv the door, to pick up shticks to bile her tay-kettle. "Begorra,
+now, but I'll have yees," says the shly ould fox, an' in he shlips,
+unbeknownst, intil the house, an' hides behind the door. An' in comes the
+little rid hin, a minute afther, with her apron full of shticks, an' shuts
+too the door an' locks it, an' pits the kay in her pocket. An' thin she
+turns round,--an' there stands the baste iv a fox in the corner. Well,
+thin, what did she do, but jist dhrop down her shticks, and fly up in a
+great fright and flutter to the big bame acrass the inside o' the roof,
+where the fox couldn't git at her!
+
+"Ah, ha!" says the fox, "I'll soon bring you out o' that!" An' he began to
+whirrul round, an' round, an' round, fashter, an' fashter, an' fashter, on
+the floor, afther his big, bushy tail, till the little rid hin got so dizzy
+wid lookin', that she jist tumbled down aff the bame, and the fox whipped
+her up and popped her intil his bag, and stharted off home in a minute. An'
+he wint up the wood and down the wood, half the day long, with the little
+rid hin shut up shmotherin' in the bag. Sorra a know she knowed where she
+was at all, at all. She thought she was all biled an' ate up, an' finished
+shure! But, by an' by, she remimbered herself, an' pit her hand in her
+pocket, an' tuk out her little bright scissors, and shnipped a big hole in
+the bag behind, an' out she leapt, an' picked up a big shtone an' popped it
+intil the bag, an' rin aff home, an' locked the door.
+
+An' the fox he tugged away up over the hill, with the big stone at his back
+thumpin' his shouldhers, thinkin' to himself how heavy the little rid hin
+was, an' what a fine shupper he'd have. An' whin he came in sight iv his
+din in the rocks' and shpied his ould mother awatchin' for him at the door,
+he says, "Mother! have ye the pot bilin'?" An' the ould mother says,
+"Sure, an' it is; an' have ye the little rid hin?" "Yes, jist here in me
+bag. Open the lid o' the pot till I pit her in," says he.
+
+An' the ould mother fox she lifted the lid o' the pot, an' the rashkill
+untied the bag, and hild it over the pot o' bilin' wather, an' shuk in the
+big, heavy shtone. An' the bilin' wather shplashed up all over the rogue iv
+a fox, an' his mother, an' schalded them both to death. An' the little rid
+hin lived safe in her house foriver afther.
+
+
+
+
+ONLY A SONG.
+
+
+    It was only a simple ballad,
+      Sung to a careless throng;
+    There were none that knew the singer,
+      And few that heeded the song;
+    Yet the singer's voice was tender
+      And sweet as with love untold;
+    Surely those hearts were hardened
+      That it left so proud and cold.
+
+    She sang of the wondrous glory
+      That touches the woods in spring,
+    Of the strange, soul-stirring voices
+      When "the hills break forth and sing;"
+    Of the happy birds low warbling
+      The requiem of the day,
+    And the quiet hush of the valleys
+      In the dusk of the gloaming gray.
+
+    And one in a distant corner--
+      A woman worn with strife--
+    Heard in that song a message
+      From the spring-time of her life.
+    Fair forms rose up before her
+      From the mist of vanished years;
+    She sat in a happy blindness,
+      Her eyes were veiled in tears.
+
+    Then, when the song was ended,
+      And hushed the last sweet tone,
+    The listener rose up softly
+      And went on her way alone
+    Once more to her life of labor
+      She passed; but her heart was strong;
+    And she prayed, "God bless the singer!
+      And oh, thank God for the song!"
+
+
+
+
+THE BICYCLE RIDE.
+
+BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
+
+     [Whether bicycle riding on Sunday be sinful or not,
+     depends entirely upon the spirit in which it is done
+     and the associations of the ride.]
+
+
+    You have read of the ride of Paul Revere,
+    And of Gilpin's ride, so fraught with fear;
+    Skipper Ireson's ride in a cart,
+    And the ride where Sheridan played a part;
+    Calendar's ride on a brazen hack,
+    And Islam's prophet on Al Borak;
+    The fateful ride to Aix from Ghent,
+    And a dozen others of like portent,
+    But you never have heard of a bicycle spin
+    Which was piously ended, though started in sin.
+
+    Tom was a country parson's son,
+    Fresh from college and full of fun,
+    Fond of flirting with bright-eyed girls,
+    Raving, in verse, over golden curls,
+    Sowing a wild oat, here and there,
+    In a way that made the parson stare
+    And chide him sternly, when face to face,
+    While, in private, he laughed at the young scape-grace.
+    But the wildest passion the boy could feel
+    Was the love he bore for his shining wheel.
+
+    He rode it by night and he rode it by day,
+    If he went two rods or ten miles away;
+    And Deacon Smith was heard to remark
+    That he met that "pesky thing in the dark
+    And it went right by with a glint and a gleam
+    And a wild 'hoot-toot' that made him scream;
+    In spite of the fact that he knew right well
+    That evil spirits were all in--well--
+    He wouldn't meet that thing again
+    For a corn-crib full of good, ripe grain."
+
+    One Sunday morning, the sun was bright,
+    The bird's throats bursting with glad delight,
+    The parson-mounted his plump old bay
+    And jogged to the church, two miles away,
+    While Tom wheeled round, ten miles or more
+    And hid his wheel by the chancel door,
+    And he thought, as he sat in the parson's pew,
+    "I wonder what makes dad look so blue,"
+    Till it came like a flash to his active mind,
+    He left his sermon and specs behind.
+
+    Now the parson was old and his eyes were dim
+    And he couldn't have read a line or a hymn,
+    Without his specs for a mint of gold,
+    And his head turned hot while his toes turned cold,
+    And right in the midst of his mental shock,
+    The parson deceived his trusting flock,
+    And gave them eternal life and a crown
+    From the book he was holding upside down.
+    Tom, the rascal, five minutes before,
+    Like an arrow had shot from the chancel door.
+
+    The horses he frightened I never can tell,
+    Nor how the old church folk were shocked, as well,
+    And they said they feared that the parson's lad
+    "Was a-gettin' wild" and would go to the bad,
+    For 'twas wicked enough to set folks in a craze
+    Without "ridin' sech races on Sabbath days,"
+    And they thought the length of the parson's prayer
+    Had something to do with his fatherly care.
+    While the truth of it was, which he afterwards dropped,
+    He didn't know what he could do when he stopped.
+
+    Of course you know how the story will end,
+    The prayer was finished and duly "Amen'd,"
+    When Tom, all dust, to the pulpit flew
+    And laid down the specs and the sermon too.
+    Then the parson preached in a timid way,
+    Of sinful pleasure on Sabbath-day,
+    And he added a postscript, not in the text.
+    Saying that, when they were sore perplexed,
+    Each must decide as he chanced to feel.
+    And Tom chuckled: "Sundays, I'll ride my wheel."
+
+
+
+
+THE LAND OF OUR BIRTH.
+
+BY LILLIE E. BARR.
+
+
+    O! where is the land that each mortal loves best,
+      The land that is dearest and fairest on earth?
+    It is North, it is South, it is East, it is West;
+      For this beautiful land is the land of our birth.
+
+    'Tis the home of our childhood; the fragrance and dew
+      Of our innocent days are all linked with the spot;
+    And its fields were so green, and its mountains so blue,
+      That our hearts must be cold ere that land is forgot.
+
+    We have wandered, perchance, far away from the place,
+      But how often we see it in thought and in dreams!
+    Feel its winds, as of old, blowing cool on our face,
+      Hear the songs of its birds, and the plash of its
+    streams.
+
+    We may build grander homes than the home of our youth,
+      On far loftier objects our eyes may be cast;
+    But we never forget all its love and its truth;
+      It has charms that will hallow it unto the last.
+
+    We may learn other tongues, but that language is best
+      That we lisped with our mothers in infancy's days--
+    The language she sung when she rocked us to rest,
+      And gave us good counsel and comfort and praise.
+
+    We may love other lands, but wherever we be
+      The land that is greenest and fairest on earth
+    Is the one that, perhaps, we may never more see--
+      The home of our fathers--the land of our birth.
+
+    May its daughters and sons grow in beauty and worth!
+      May the blessing of God give it freedom and rest!
+    Be it northward, or southward, or eastward, or west,
+      The land of our birth is of all lands the best.
+
+
+
+
+THE TEACHER'S DIADEM.
+
+
+    Sitting 'mid the gathering shadows, weary with the Sabbath's care;
+    Weary with the Sabbath's burdens, that she dearly loves to bear;
+    For she sees a shining pathway, and she gladly presses on;
+    'Tis the first Great Teacher's footprints--it will lead where He has gone;
+    With a hand that's never faltered, with a love that's ne'er grown dim,
+    Long and faithfully she's labored, to His fold the lambs to bring.
+
+    But to-night her soul grows heavy; through the closed lids fall the tears,
+    As the children pass before her, that she's taught these many years;
+    And she cries in bitter anguish: "Shall not one to me be given,
+    To shine upon my coronet amid the hosts of heaven!
+    Hear my prayer to-night, my Saviour, in Thy glorious home above;
+    Give to me some little token--some approval of Thy love."
+
+    Ere the words were scarcely uttered, banishing the evening gloom,
+    Came a soft and shining radiance, bright'ning all within the room;
+    And an angel in white raiment, brighter than the morning sun,
+    Stood before her, pointing upward, while he softly whispered, "Come."
+    As he paused, she heard the rustle of his starry  pinions bright,
+    And she quickly rose and followed, out into the stilly night;
+
+    Up above the dim blue ether; up above the silver stars;
+    On, beyond the golden portals; through the open pearly doors;
+    Far across the sea of crystal, to the shining sapphire Throne,
+    Where she heard amid the chorus, "Welcome, child; thy work's well done."
+    Surely 'tis her Saviour speaking; 'tis His hands, aye, 'tis His feet;
+    And she cries: "Enough! I've seen Him; all my joys are now complete."
+
+    All forgot earth's care and sorrow; all forgot the starry crown;
+    'Twas enough e'en to be near Him; to behold Him on His Throne.
+    "Not enough," the Saviour answered; "thou wouldst know through
+        all these years,
+    If in vain has been thy teaching, all thy labor and thy prayers;
+    That from thee the end was hidden, did thy faith in me grow less?
+    Thou hast asked some little token, I will grant thee thy request."
+
+    From out a golden casket, inlaid with many a gem,
+    He took--glist'ning with countless jewels--a regal diadem;
+    Bright a name shone in each jewel, names of many scholars dear,
+    Who she thought had passed unheeded all her earnest thought and care.
+    "But," she asked, "how came these names here--names I never saw before?"
+    And the Saviour smiling answered, "'Tis the fruit thy teachings bore;
+
+    "'Tis the seed thy love hath planted, tended by my faithful hand;
+    Though unseen by thee, it's budded, blossoming in many lands.
+    Here are names from darkened Egypt, names from Afric's desert sands;
+    Names from isles amid the ocean, names from India's sunny strands;
+    Some from Greenland's frozen mountains, some from burning tropic plains;
+    From where'er man's found a dwelling, here you'll find some chosen name.
+    When thine earthly mission's ended, that in love to thee was given,
+    This is the crown of thy rejoicing, that awaits thee here in heaven."
+
+    Suddenly the bright light faded; all was dark within the room;
+    And she sat amid the shadows of the Sabbath evening gloom;
+    But a peaceful, holy incense rested on her soul like dew;
+    Though the end from her was hidden, to her Master she'd be true;
+    Sowing seed at morn and even, pausing not to count the gain;
+    If her bread was on the waters, God would give it back again;
+    If the harvest she had toiled for other hands than hers should reap,
+    He'd repay her for her labor, who had bade her, "Feed my sheep."
+
+
+
+
+TOBE'S MONUMENT.
+
+BY ELIZABETH KILHAM.
+
+
+It was "after taps," a sultry, Southern-summer night. On the extreme edge
+of the encampment, on the side nearest the enemy, a sentinel paused in his
+walk, and peered cautiously out into the darkness. "Pshaw!" he said; "it's
+nothing but a dog." He was resuming his walk, when the supposed quadruped
+rose suddenly, and walked along on two feet in a manner so unmistakably
+human, that the sentinel lowered his musket once more, and shouted, "Halt!
+Advance, and give the counter-sign!" A faint, childish voice said, "Ain't
+got none, massa."
+
+"Well, there now!" said the sentinel, "if it ain't just a little darkey,
+and I guess I've frightened him half to death. Come here, snowball."
+
+The child crept up, and said, tremblingly: "'Deed, massa, I ain't got
+nuffin ter gib yer."
+
+"Well, who asked you to give me anything?"
+
+"Yer don ax me fer gib yer suffin jes' now; and I ain't got nuffin 'cep' my
+close what I got on."
+
+"Well, you needn't fret; I don't want 'em. Corporal of the guard! Post
+two."
+
+The corporal hastened to "post two," and found the sentinel with his hand
+on the shoulder of a little black boy, who, between fear, fatigue, and
+hunger, was unable to give any account of himself. "I'll take him to
+Captain Leigh," the corporal said; "he's officer of the day. Maybe he'll be
+able to get something out of him."
+
+The captain stood in front of his tent, looking out into the night, when
+the corporal and his charge approached.
+
+"Captain," said he, "here's a boy just come into the lines."
+
+"Very well; you can leave him here."
+
+At the first sound of the captain's voice the boy drew nearer to him, as
+knowing instinctively that he had found a friend.
+
+"You can go into that tent and sleep till morning," said the captain.
+
+"What is your name!" was Captain Leigh's first question the next morning.
+
+"Name Tobe."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Dat's all, Mass Cap'n."
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Dunno, Massa Cap'n. Nobody nebber done tole me dat ar."
+
+"Where have you come from?"
+
+"Come fum de back o' Richmon', Mass Cap'n."
+
+"What did you come here for?"
+
+"All de res' ob 'em runned away; an' ole mass he wor so mad, I wor jes'
+feared o' my life. 'Sides, I t'ought I mought fin' my mammy ef I got 'mong
+der Unions."
+
+"Where is your mother?"
+
+"Dunno, Mass Cap'n. Ole mass done sol' her down in Georgy las'
+corn-shuckin', an' I ain't nebber heerd ob her sence. But I t'ought mebby
+she mought ha' runned 'way too, an' I'd fin' her wid der Unions."
+
+"Well, now, what are you going to do?"
+
+"Dunno, Mass Cap'n. I'd like ter stay 'long wid you."
+
+"What can you do?"
+
+"Kin wait on yer, Mass Cap'n; kin shine up boots, an'"--brightening up as
+his eyes, wandering round caught sight of the horses--"kin clean de hosses
+right smart." * * *
+
+"If I keep you with me you must be a good boy, and do as I tell you."
+
+"'Deed I will, Mass Cap'n. I'se do ebery work yer say, sho's yer born."
+
+So when the troops left Harrison's Landing, Tobe went too, in charge of the
+captain's horse and baggage; and, when the steamer was fairly under way, he
+brightened into a new creature as every revolution of the wheel placed a
+greater distance between himself and "old massa." * * *
+
+It proved that Tobe had told the truth about his skill in taking care of
+horses. Captain Leigh's horse had never looked so well as now, and the
+captain was delighted. Tobe turned out, moreover, to be a very good boy.
+But the army is not a very good place for boys. So one day Captain Leigh
+said:--
+
+"Tobe, how would you like to go North?"
+
+"Whar's it at, Mass Cap'n?"
+
+"I mean my home at the North."
+
+"When is yer gwine, Mass Cap'n?"
+
+"I am not going at all now."
+
+"Does yer mean ter sen' me away from yer, Mass Cap'n?"
+
+Captain Leigh was touched, and answered him very gently,--
+
+"Yes, I want to send you away from me now, because it will be better for
+you. But, when the war is over, I shall go home, and then you can stay with
+me always if you are a good boy."
+
+"I allus does jes' de t'ings yer tell me, Mass Cap'n."
+
+"I know you do. And, just because you do what I tell you so well I want to
+send you to my home, to run errands for my wife, and do what work she will
+give you in the house. And I have three little children--two little girls
+and a baby boy. I want you to go with them when they go out to play and
+take care of them. My home is in a very pleasant place in the country.
+Don't you think you would like to go there?"
+
+"Ef yer goes too, Mass Cap'n."
+
+"But, my boy, I can't possibly go now."
+
+"I'se do jes de t'ing yer say, Mass Cap'n. Ef yer tells me to go, I'se go.
+An' I'se jest do ebery word the missus say, an' I look af'r de chillens de
+bes' I knows, ontel yer comes dar. On'y please come right soon, Mass
+Cap'n."
+
+And, as the captain left the tent, Tobe laid his head upon his arm and
+cried as if his heart would break.
+
+Captain Leigh found a brother officer who was expecting to go home on a
+furlough, and who readily agreed to take charge of the boy in whom his
+friend was so deeply interested.
+
+But that night came news that made everybody give up the idea of a
+"furlough," or "going home." The Richmond government, being determined to
+"make the North feel the war as she had not felt it," had organized the
+"grand raid."
+
+An order came for Captain Leigh's regiment to march at daylight.
+
+"Tobe," said the captain, "you can go in one of the baggage-wagons. Strap
+up my blanket and poncho, and take them along; and these boots, take
+particular care of them, for it's not often I can get a pair of cavalry
+boots to fit as they do."
+
+"Yer needn't be feared, Mass Cap'n; I'se take care of 'em de bes' I knows."
+
+The main body of the raiders were reported on the line of the South
+Mountains, making for Gettysburg. Scouting expeditions were sent out from
+the Northern army in all directions, and a body of troops, including
+Captain Leigh's regiment, was ordered to proceed by the shortest route to
+Gettysburg and head the rebels off. One of the baggage-wagons broke down.
+The driver of another wagon stopped to help his comrade. The troops passed
+on, and the two wagons were left alone on the mountain. In one of them was
+Tobe with the captain's boots, over which he kept constant watch. The men
+worked busily at the wagon and Tobe sat watching them. Suddenly a tramping
+of horses' feet was heard, and a party of cavalry came round a turn in the
+road.
+
+"That's good," said one of the men; "there's some of the boys. If they'll
+wait a few minutes we can go along with 'em."
+
+"'Tain't none of our boys," said the other, after a keen glance; "them's
+rebs."
+
+At the word, Tobe slid down in the bottom of the wagon under some blankets,
+and lay silent and motionless with the boots clasped in his arms.
+
+As the soldiers advanced the officer said, apparently in reply to a
+question, "No, let the men go; we can't do anything with prisoners here.
+But we'll look through the wagon, and, if the Yanks have anything we want,
+'all's fair in war.'"
+
+They reined their horses by the wagon, and, after a few short, sharp
+questions, proceeded to break open trunks and bags, and appropriate their
+contents.
+
+The soldiers were about finishing their examination, when one of them said,
+"What's that under the seat of that wagon?"
+
+"Oh! nothing but a torn blanket," said another. "'Tain't worth taking. We
+have got all we want."
+
+"There may be something under it, though."
+
+He pushed aside the blanket with his sabre, and there lay Tobe endeavoring,
+but unsuccessfully, to hide the boots under him.
+
+"Ah!" said the officer, "this is worth while. Here's just what I wanted.
+Come, boy, hand over those boots, quick."
+
+"'Deed, massa," said Tobe, "I can't gib 'em ter yer. Dey 'longs ter Mass
+Cap'n, an' he tole me take keer ob 'em mos' partic'lar."
+
+"Can't help that. I've got to have them, so pass them along."
+
+"Please, Massa," began Tobe; but the rebel cut him short.
+
+"Will you give me those boots? If you don't do it, and in double-quick
+time, too, I'll put a ball through your black skin. I won't ask you again.
+Now, will you give them up?" and he pulled out his pistol.
+
+"'Deed, massa, I can't, case Massa Cap'n"--
+
+There was a sharp click, a flash, a long, sobbing moan, and Tobe lay
+motionless, the boots still clasped in his arms, and great drops of blood
+slowly gathering upon them.
+
+"Enemy in sight," shouted a picket riding up.
+
+The officer hastily gave an order, and the rebels dashed off at a furious
+speed a few moments before a party of Union cavalry, with Captain Leigh at
+their head, appeared, riding from the opposite direction.
+
+A few words sufficed for explanation. Captain Leigh laid his hand on Tobe's
+shoulder, and spoke his name. At the sound of the voice he loved so well,
+his eyes opened, and he said faintly, "Mass Cap'n, I done de bes' I knowed.
+I keep de boots.'"
+
+"O Tobe!" groaned the captain, "I wish you had given them up. I would have
+lost everything rather than have had this."
+
+"Mass Cap'n."
+
+"Yes, Tobe, what is it?"
+
+"De little chillens, Mass Cap'n; I meaned ter wait on 'em right smart. Tell
+'em"--His voice grew fainter, and his eyes closed.
+
+"Yes, my boy: what shall I tell them?"
+
+"Tell 'em I didn't lose de boots; I kep 'em de bes'--I knowed."
+
+There was a faint sigh, a flutter of the eyelids, and the little life that
+had been so truly "de bes' he knowed" (ah! if we could all say that!) was
+ended.
+
+Very reverently Captain Leigh lifted the boots, all wet and stained with
+blood. "I will never wear those boots again," he said; "but I will never
+part with them. They shall be Tobe's monument."
+
+In the hall of Captain Leigh's house is a deep niche, and in it, on a
+marble slab covered with a glass case, stands a pair of cavalry boots with
+dark stains upon them, and on the edge of the slab, in golden letters, is
+the inscription:
+
+    "In memory of Tobe,
+    Faithful unto death."
+
+
+
+
+THE CROWDED STREET.
+
+BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
+
+
+    Let me move slowly through the street,
+      Filled with an ever-shifting train,
+    Amid the sound of steps that beat
+      The murmuring walks like autumn rain.
+
+    How fast the flitting figures come!
+      The mild, the fierce, the stony face--
+    Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
+      Where secret tears have left their trace.
+
+    They pass to toil, to strife, to rest--
+      To halls in which the feast is spread--
+    To chambers where the funeral guest
+      In silence sits beside the dead.
+
+    And some to happy homes repair,
+      Where children pressing cheek to cheek,
+    With mute caresses shall declare
+      The tenderness they cannot speak.
+
+    And some, who walk in calmness here,
+      Shall shudder as they reach the door
+    Where one who made their dwelling dear,
+      Its flower, its light, is seen no more.
+
+    Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
+      And dreams of greatness in thine eye!
+    Go'st thou to build an early name,
+      Or early in the task to die?
+
+    Keen son of trade, with eager brow!
+      Who is now fluttering in thy snare?
+    Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,
+      Or melt the glittering spires in air?
+
+    Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
+      The dance till daylight gleam again?
+    Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?
+      Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?
+
+    Some, famine-struck, shall think how long
+      The cold, dark hours, how slow the light;
+    And some, who flaunt amid the throng,
+      Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.
+
+    Each where his tasks or pleasures call,
+      They pass, and heed each other not.
+    There is who heeds, who holds them all
+      In His large love and boundless thought.
+
+    These struggling tides of life, that seem
+      In wayward, aimless course to tend,
+    Are eddies of the mighty stream
+      That rolls to its appointed end.
+
+
+
+
+BESSIE KENDRICK'S JOURNEY.
+
+BY MRS. ANNIE A. PRESTON.
+
+
+"Cars stop twenty minutes!" called out Conductor Richardson at Allen's
+Junction. Then, as the train came to a dead halt, he jumped down upon the
+depot platform, ran along to the front of the long line of passenger cars,
+to where the engine was standing, and, swinging himself up into the cab,
+said to the engineer:
+
+"Frank; I want you to come back to the first passenger coach, and see a
+little girl that I don't know hardly what to make of."
+
+Frank nodded, and, without speaking, deliberately wiped his oily hands in a
+bunch of waste, took a look at his grim, dusty face in a narrow little
+mirror that hung beside the steam gauge, pulled off his short frock, put on
+a coat, changed his little black, greasy cap for a soft felt, taking these
+"dress-up" articles from the tender-box, where an engineer has something
+stowed away for all emergencies, and went back to the cars as requested.
+
+He entered the car and made his way to the seat where the conductor sat
+talking to a bright-looking little girl, about nine years old, oddly
+dressed in a woman's shawl and bonnet.
+
+Several of the passengers were grouped around the seat, evidently much
+interested in the child, who wore a sad, prematurely old countenance, but
+seemed to be neither timid nor confused.
+
+"Here is the engineer," said the conductor, kindly, as Frank approached.
+
+She held up her hand to him, with a winsome smile breaking over her pinched
+little face, and said:
+
+"My papa was an engineer before he became sick and went to live on a farm
+in Montana. He is dead, and my mamma is dead. She died first, before Willie
+and Susie. My papa used to tell me that after he should be dead there would
+be no one to take care of me, and then I must get on the cars and go to
+his old home in Vermont. And he said, 'cause I hadn't any ticket, I must
+ask for the engineer and tell him I am James Kendrick's little girl, and
+that he used to run on the M. & S. road."
+
+The pleading blue eyes were now suffused with tears; but she did not cry
+after the manner of childhood in general.
+
+Engineer Frank stooped down and kissed her very tenderly; and then, as he
+brushed the tears from his own eyes, said:
+
+"Well, my dear, so you are little Bessie Kendrick. I rather think a
+merciful Providence guided you on board this train."
+
+Then, turning around to the group of passengers, he went on:
+
+"I knew Jim Kendrick well. He was a man out of ten thousand. When I first
+came to Indiana, before I got acclimated, I was sick a great part of the
+time, so that I could not work, and I got homesick and discouraged. Could
+not keep my board bill paid up, to say nothing of my doctor's bill, and I
+didn't much care whether I lived or died.
+
+"One day, when the pay car came along and the men were getting their
+monthly pay, and there wasn't a cent coming to me, for I hadn't worked an
+hour for the last month, I felt so 'blue' that I sat down on a pile of
+railroad ties and leaned my elbows on my knees, with my head in my hands,
+and cried like a boy, out of sheer homesickness and discouragement.
+
+"Pretty soon one came along and said, in a voice that seemed like sweet
+music in my ears, for I hadn't found much real sympathy, although the boys
+were all good to me in their way: 'You've been having a rough time of it,
+and you must let me help you out.'
+
+"I looked up, and there stood Jim Kendrick, with his month's pay in his
+hand. He took out from the roll of bills a twenty-dollar note and held it
+out to me.
+
+"I knew he had a sickly wife and two or three children, and that he had a
+hard time of it himself to pull through from month to month, so I said,
+half-ashamed of the tears that were still streaming down my face, 'Indeed,
+I cannot take the money; you must need it yourself.'
+
+"'Indeed, you will take it, man,' said Jim. 'You will be all right in a few
+days, and then you can pay it back. Now come home with me to supper and see
+the babies. It will do you good.'
+
+"I took the note and accepted the invitation, and after that went to his
+house frequently, until he moved away, and I gradually lost sight of him.
+
+"I had returned the loan, but it was impossible to repay the good that
+little act of kindness did me, and I guess Jim Kendrick's little girl here
+won't want for anything if I can prevent it."
+
+Then turning to the child, whose bright eyes were wide open now, the
+engineer said to her:
+
+"I'll take you home with me when we get up to Wayne. My wife will fix you
+up, and we'll find out whether these Vermont folks want you or not. If they
+do, Mary or I shall go with you. But, if they don't care much about having
+you, you shall stay with us and be our girl, for we have none of our own.
+You look very much like your father, God bless him."
+
+Just then the eastern train whistled, Engineer Frank vanished out of the
+car door and went forward to the engine, wiping the tears with his coat
+sleeve, while the conductor and passengers could not suppress the tears
+this little episode evoked during the twenty minutes' stop at Allen's
+Junction.
+
+
+
+
+THERE IS A TONGUE IN EVERY LEAF.
+
+
+    There is a tongue in every leaf,
+        A voice in every rill--
+    A voice that speaketh everywhere,
+    In flood, and fire, through earth and air!
+        A tongue that's never still!
+
+    'Tis the Great Spirit, wide diffused
+        Through everything we see,
+    That with our spirits communeth
+    Of things mysterious--life and death,
+        Time and eternity!
+
+    I see Him in the blazing sun,
+        And in the thunder-cloud;
+    I hear Him in the mighty roar
+    That rusheth through the forest hoar
+        When winds are raging loud.
+
+    I feel Him in the silent dews,
+        By grateful earth betray'd;
+    I feel Him in the gentle showers,
+    The soft south wind, the breath of flowers,
+        The sunshine and the shade.
+
+    I see Him, hear Him, everywhere,
+        In all things--darkness, light,
+    Silence and sound; but, most of all,
+    When slumber's dusty curtains fall,
+        I' the silent hour of night.
+
+
+
+
+LET US GIVE THANKS.
+
+BY ELLEN ISABELLA TUPPER.
+
+
+    For all that God in mercy sends:
+    For health and children, home and friends,
+    For comfort in the time of need,
+    For every kindly word and deed,
+    For happy thoughts and holy talk,
+    For guidance in our daily walk--
+        For everything give thanks!
+
+    For beauty in this world of ours,
+    For verdant grass and lovely flowers,
+    For song of birds, for hum of bees,
+    For the refreshing summer breeze,
+    For hill and plain, for streams and wood,
+    For the great ocean's mighty flood--
+        In everything give thanks!
+
+    For the sweet sleep which comes with night,
+    For the returning morning's light,
+    For the bright sun that shines on high,
+    For the stars glittering in the sky;
+    For these and everything we see,
+    O Lord! our hearts we lift to Thee
+        For everything give thanks!
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE FEET.
+
+
+    Up from all the city's by-ways,
+      From the breathless, sickening heat,
+    To the wide-swung gate of heaven,
+      Eager throng the little feet.
+
+    Not a challenge has the warder
+      For these souls so sinless white;
+    Round each brow the Saviour's blessing
+      Circles like a crown of light.
+
+    See, the Lord Himself stands waiting,
+      Wide His loving arms are spread;
+    On his heart of hearts is pillowed
+      Every weary baby's head.
+
+    But below, with tear-wet faces,
+      And with hearts all empty grown,
+    Stand the mourning men and women,
+      Vainly calling back their own.
+
+    Upward floats the voice of mourning--
+      "Jesus, Master, dost thou care?"
+    Aye, He feels each drop of anguish--
+      "He doth all our sorrows bear."
+
+    Wipe thine eyes, O heavy laden;
+      Look beyond the clouds and see,
+    With your dear one on His bosom,
+      Jesus stands and calls to thee.
+
+    Waits with yearning, all unfathomed--
+      Love you cannot understand,
+    Lures you upward with the beckoning
+      Of your buried baby's hand.
+
+
+
+
+A RAINY DAY.
+
+
+    Patter, patter, patter,
+      On the window-pane;
+    Drip, drip, drip,
+      Comes the heavy rain.
+
+    Now the little birdies
+      Fly away to bed,
+    And each tender blossom
+      Droops its pretty head.
+
+    But the little rootlets,
+      In the earth below,
+    Open wide their tiny mouths
+      Where the rain-drops flow;
+
+    And the thirsty grasses
+      Soon grow fresh and green,
+    With the pretty daisies
+      Springing up between.
+
+
+
+
+FASHIONABLE.
+
+
+    A fashionable woman
+      In a fashionable pew;
+    A fashionable bonnet
+      Of a fashionable hue;
+    A fashionable mantle
+      And a fashionable gown;
+    A fashionable Christian
+      In a fashionable town;
+    A fashionable prayer-book.
+      And a fashionable choir;
+    A fashionable chapel
+      With a fashionable spire;
+    A fashionable preacher
+      With a fashionable speech;
+    A fashionable sermon
+      With a fashionable reach;
+    A fashionable welcome
+      At the fashionable door;
+    A fashionable penny
+      For the fashionable poor;
+    A fashionable heaven
+      And a fashionable hell;
+    A fashionable Bible
+      For this fashionable belle;
+    A fashionable kneeling
+      And a fashionable nod;
+    A fashionable everything,
+      But no fashionable God.
+
+
+
+
+RESURGAM.
+
+BY EBEN E. REXFORD.
+
+
+    "There is no God," he said, and turned away
+      From those who sought to lead him to the light;
+    "Here is a violet, growing for a day,
+      When winter comes, and all the world is white,
+    It will be dead. And I am like the flower,
+      To-day, here am I, and to-morrow, dust.
+    Is life worth living for its little hour
+      Of empty pleasure, if decay we must?"
+
+    The autumn came, and under fallen leaves
+      The little violet was hid away.
+    "Dead! dead!" cried he. "Alas, all nature grieves
+      For what she loves is destined to decay.
+    Soon like the violet, in soft, damp earth
+      I shall be hidden, and above my head
+    A stone will tell the record of my birth
+      And of my nothingness when I am dead."
+
+    Spring came, and from the mold the little flower
+      He had thought dead, sprung up to sweetest bloom.
+    He saw it, and his heart was touched that hour,
+      And grasped the earth-old mystery of the tomb.
+    "God of the flower," he said, with reverent voice,
+      "The violet lives again, and why not I?
+    At last my blind eyes see, and I rejoice.
+      The soul within me was not born to die!"
+
+
+
+
+THE FAULT OF THE AGE.
+
+BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
+
+
+    The fault of the age is a mad endeavor
+      To leap to heights that were made to climb;
+    By a burst of strength or a thought that is clever
+      We plan to outwit and forestall Time.
+
+    We scorn to wait for the thing worth having;
+      We want high noon at the day's dim dawn,
+    We find no pleasure in toiling and saving
+      As our forefathers did in the good times gone.
+
+    We force our roses before their season
+      To bloom and blossom that we may wear;
+    And then we wonder and ask the reason
+      Why perfect buds are so few and rare.
+
+    We crave the gain, but despise the getting;
+      We want wealth, not as reward, but dower;
+    And the strength that is wasted in useless fretting
+      Would fell a forest or build a tower.
+
+    To covet the prize, yet to shrink from the winning;
+      To thirst for glory, yet fear the fight--
+    Why, what can it lead to at last but sinning,
+      To mental languor and moral blight?
+
+    Better the old slow way of striving
+      And counting small gains when the year is done,
+    Than to use our forces all in contriving
+      And to grasp for pleasures we have not won.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOOK CANVASSER.
+
+BY MAX ADELER.
+
+
+He came into my office with a portfolio under his arm. Placing it upon the
+table, removing a ruined hat, and wiping his nose upon a ragged
+handkerchief that had been so long out of the wash that it was positively
+gloomy, he said: "Mr. ----, I'm canvassing for the National Portrait
+Gallery; splendid work; comes in numbers, fifty cents apiece; contains
+pictures of all the great American heroes from the earliest times down to
+the present day. Everybody subscribing for it, and I want to see if I can't
+take your name.
+
+"Now, just cast your eyes over that," he said, opening his book and
+pointing to an engraving, "That's--lemme see--yes, that's Columbus, perhaps
+you've heard sumfin' about him? The publisher was telling me to-day before
+I started out that he discovered--No; was it Columbus that dis--Oh! yes.
+Columbus, he discovered America--was the first man here. He came over in a
+ship, the publisher said, and it took fire, and he stayed on deck because
+his father told him to, if I remember right, and when the old thing busted
+to pieces he was killed. Handsome picture, ain't it? Taken from a
+photograph, all of 'em are; done especially for this work. His clothes are
+kinder odd but they say that's the way they dressed in them days. Look at
+this one. Now isn't that splendid? William Penn, one of the early settlers.
+I was reading t'other day about him. When he first arrived he got a lot of
+Indians up a tree, and when they shook some apples down, he set one on top
+of his son's head, and shot an arrow plump through it and never fazed him.
+They say it struck them Indians cold; he was such a terrific shooter. Fine
+countenance, hasn't he? Face shaved clean; he didn't wear a mustache, I
+believe, but he seems to have let himself out on hair. Now, my view is,
+that every man ought to have a picture of that Patriarch so's to see how
+the fust settlers looked and what kind of weskets they yoused to wear. See
+his legs; too! Trousers a little short maybe, as if he was going to wade in
+a creek; but he's all there. Got some kind of a paper in his hand, I see.
+Subscription list, I reckon. Now, how does that strike you? There's
+something nice. That I think, is--is--that's a--a--yes, to be sure,
+Washington--you recollect him, of course? Some people call him Father of
+his Country, George--Washington. He had no middle name, I believe. He lived
+about two hundred years ago and he was a fighter. I heard the publisher
+telling a man about him crossing the Delaware River up yer at Trenton, and
+seems to me, if I recollect right, I've read about it myself. He was
+courting some girl on the Jersey side, and he used to swim over at nights
+to see her when the old man was asleep. The girl's family were down on him,
+I reckon. He looks like a man to do that, don't he? He's got it in his eye.
+If it'd been me I'd gone over on a bridge, but he probably wanted to show
+off afore her; some men are so reckless, you know. Now, if you'll conclude
+to take this I'll get the publisher to write out some more stories about
+him, and bring 'em round to you, so's you can study up on him. I know he
+did ever so many other things, but I've forgot 'em; my memory's so awful
+poor.
+
+"Less see! Who have we next? Ah! Franklin! Benjamin Franklin! He was one of
+the old original pioneers, I think. I disremember exactly what he is
+celebrated for, but I think it was a flying a--oh! yes, flying a kite,
+that's it. The publisher mentioned it. He was out one day flying a kite,
+you know, like boys do now-a-days, and while she was a flickering up in the
+sky, and he was giving her more string, an apple fell off a tree and hit
+him on the head;--then he discovered the attraction of gravitation, I think
+they call it. Smart, wasn't it? Now, if you or me'd a been hit, it'd just a
+made us mad like as not and set us a ravin'. But men are so different. One
+man's meat's another man's pison. See what a double chin he's got. No beard
+on him, either, though a goatee would have been becoming to such a round
+face. He hasn't got on a sword and I reckon he was no soldier;--fit some
+when he was a boy, maybe, or went out with the home-guard, but not a
+regular warrior. I ain't one, myself, and I think all the better of him for
+it. Ah, here we are! Look at that! Smith and Pocahontas! John Smith! Isn't
+that gorgeous? See, how she kneels over him, and sticks out her hands while
+he lays on the ground, and that big fellow with a club tries to hammer him
+up. Talk about woman's love! There it is for you. Modocs, I believe, Anyway
+some Indians out West there, somewheres; and the publisher tells me that
+Captain Shackanasty, or whatever his name is there, was going to bang old
+Smith over the head with a log of wood, and this here girl she was sweet on
+Smith, it appears, and she broke loose, and jumped forward and says to the
+man with the stick, 'Why don't you let John alone? Me and him are going to
+marry, and if you kill him I'll never speak to you as long as I live,' or
+words like them, and so the man he give it up, and both of them hunted up a
+preacher and were married and lived happy ever afterward. Beautiful story,
+isn't it? A good wife she made him, too, I'll bet, if she was a little
+copper-colored. And don't she look just lovely in that picture? But Smith
+appears kinder sick, evidently thinks his goose is cooked, and I don't
+wonder, with that Modoc swooping down on him with such a discouraging club.
+And now we come to--to ah--to--Putnam--General Putnam:--he fought in the
+war, too; and one day a lot of 'em caught him when he was off his guard,
+and they tied him flat on his back on a horse and then licked the horse
+like the very mischief. And what does that horse do but go pitching down
+about four hundred stone steps in front of the house, with General Putnam
+lying there nearly skeered to death. Leastways the publisher said somehow
+that way, and I oncet read about it myself. But he came out safe, and I
+reckon sold the horse and made a pretty good thing of it. What surprises me
+is he didn't break his neck, but maybe it was a mule, for they're pretty
+sure footed, you know. Surprising what some of these men have gone through,
+ain't it? Turn over a couple of leaves. That's General Jackson. My father
+shook hands with him once. He was a fighter, I know. He fit down in New
+Orleans. Broke up the rebel Legislature, and then when the Ku Kluxes got
+after him he fought 'em behind cotton breastworks and licked 'em 'til they
+couldn't stand. They say he was terrific when he got real mad. Hit straight
+from the shoulder and fetched his man every time. Andrew, his fust name
+was; and look how his hair stands up. And then, here's John Adams and
+Daniel Boone and two or three pirates, and a whole lot more pictures, so
+you see it's cheap as dirt. Lemme have your name, won't you?"
+
+
+
+
+THE MISNOMER.
+
+BY JOSIE C. MALOTT.
+
+
+    It sounds rather queer, I must freely confess,
+    To hear a man ask kind heaven to bless
+    Himself and his neighbor, when over the way
+    His drinking saloon stands open all day.
+
+    _You_ may call it a "drug store," but doesn't God know?
+    Can you hide from _His_ eye the sorrow and woe--
+    The pain and the anguish, the grief and the shame
+    That comes from the house with a high-sounding name?
+
+    Such ill gotten wealth will surely take wing
+    And leave naught behind but the deadliest sting;
+    And oh, the account must be settled some day,
+    For the drug store saloon kept over the way.
+
+    Can you face the just Judge and the souls you have wrecked?
+    Oh, pause ere too late and note the effect.
+    Do you know you're destroying both body and soul
+    Of the men whose honor and manhood you've stole?
+
+    Does the hard accusation arouse you to fright?
+    Have you never looked at yourself in the light
+    Of a thief, nay, worse, a murderer, too?
+    God brands you as such, and you know it is true!
+
+    They're the deadliest poisons you have for sale--
+    The liquors you keep--yet you always fail
+    To mark them as such, and the men who drink
+    Can have what they want if they bring you the "chink."
+
+    _Don't_ call such a place a _drug store_, pray;
+    But "drinking saloon," and you'd better say
+    On the sign o'er the door in letters clear,
+    "Ye abandon all hope who enter here!"
+
+
+
+
+THE DOORSTEP.
+
+BY E. C. STEDMAN.
+
+
+    The conference-meeting through at last,
+      We boys around the vestry waited
+    To see the girls come tripping past
+      Like snowbirds willing to be mated.
+
+    Not braver he that leaps the wall
+      By level musket-flashes litten,
+    Than I, who stepped before them all,
+      Who longed to see me get the mitten.
+
+    But no; she blushed and took my arm!
+      We let the old folks have the highway,
+    And started toward the Maple Farm
+      Along a kind of lover's by-way.
+
+    I can't remember what we said,
+      'Twas nothing worth a song or story;
+    Yet that rude path by which we sped
+      Seemed all transformed and in a glory.
+
+    The snow was crisp beneath our feet,
+      The moon was full, the fields were gleaming;
+    By hood and tippet sheltered sweet,
+      Her face with youth and health was beaming.
+
+    The little hand outside her muff--
+      O sculptor, if you could but mould it!
+    So lightly touched my jacket-cuff,
+      To keep it warm I had to hold it.
+
+    To have her with me there alone,--
+      'Twas love and fear and triumph blended.
+    At last we reached the foot-worn stone
+      Where that delicious journey ended.
+
+    The old folks, too, were almost home;
+      Her dimpled hand the latches fingered,
+    We heard the voices nearer come,
+      Yet on the doorstep still we lingered.
+
+    She took her ringlets from her hood,
+      And with a "Thank you, Ned," dissembled;
+    But yet I knew she understood
+      With what a daring wish I trembled.
+
+    A cloud past kindly overhead,
+      The moon was slyly peeping through it,
+    Yet hid its face, as if it said,
+      "Come, now or never! do it! _do it_!"
+
+    My lips till then had only known
+      The kiss of mother and of sister,
+    But somehow full upon her own
+      Sweet, rosy, darling mouth--I kissed her!
+
+    Perhaps 'twas boyish love, yet still,
+      O, listless woman! weary lover!
+    To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill
+      I'd give--but who can live youth over?
+
+
+
+
+HOW "OLD MOSE" COUNTED EGGS.
+
+
+Old Mose, who sold eggs and chickens on the streets of Austin for a living,
+is as honest an old negro as ever lived, but he has got the habit of
+chatting familiarly with his customers, hence he frequently makes mistakes
+in counting out the eggs they buy. He carries his wares around in a small
+cart drawn by a diminutive donkey. He stopped in front of the residence of
+Mrs. Samuel Burton. The old lady herself came out to the gate to make the
+purchases.
+
+"Have you any eggs this morning, Uncle Mose?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, indeed I has. Jest got in ten dozen from the kentry."
+
+"Are they fresh?"
+
+"I gua'ntee 'em. I knows dey am fresh jest the same as ef I had led 'em
+myself."
+
+"I'll take nine dozen. You can just count them into this basket."
+
+"All right, mum." He counts, "One, two, free, foah, five, six, seben,
+eight, nine, ten. You kin rely on dem bein fresh. How's your son coming on
+at de school? He mus' be mos' grown."
+
+"Yes, Uncle Mose, he is a clerk in a bank at Galveston."
+
+"Why, how ole am de boy?"
+
+"He is eighteen."
+
+"You don't tole me so. Eighteen and getting a salary already, eighteen
+(counting), nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-free,
+twenty-foah, twenty-five, and how's yore gal comin' on? She was mos' growed
+up de las' time I seed her."
+
+"She is married and living in Dallas."
+
+"Wall, I declar'. How de time scoots away! An' yo' say she has childruns?
+Why, how ole am de gal? She mus' be jess about--"
+
+"Thirty-three."
+
+"Am dat so?" (counting), "firty-free, firty-foah, firty-five, firty-six,
+firty-seben, firty-eight, firty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two,
+forty-free. Hit am so singular dat you has sich old childruns. I can't
+b'leeve you has granchildruns. You don't look more den forty yeahs ole
+yerseff."
+
+"Nonsense, old man, I see you want to flatter me. When a person gets to be
+fifty-three years old----"
+
+"Fifty-free? I jess dun gwinter beleeve hit, fifty-free, fifty-foah,
+fifty-five, fifty-six--I want you to pay tenshun when I counts de eggs, so
+dar'll be no mistake--fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-tree,
+sixty-foah--Whew. Dat am a warm day. Dis am de time ob yeah when I feels
+I'se gettin' old myself. I ain't long fer dis world. You comes from an old
+family. When your fodder died he was sebenty years ole."
+
+"Seventy-two."
+
+"Dat's old, suah. Sebenty-two, sebenty-free, sebenty-foah, sebenty-five,
+sebenty-six, sebenty-seben, sebenty-eight, sebenty-nine--and your mudder?
+She was one ob the noblest looking ladies I ebber see. You reminds me ob
+her so much. She libbed to mos' a hundred. I bleeves she was done pass a
+centurion when she died."
+
+"No, Uncle Mose, she was only ninety-six when she died."
+
+"Den she warn't no chicken when she died. I know dat--ninety-six,
+ninety-seben, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, one, two, free, foah,
+five, six, seben, eight--dar 108 nice fresh eggs--jess nine dozen, and here
+am one moah egg in case I has discounted myself."
+
+Old Mose went on his way rejoicing. A few days afterward Mrs. Burton said
+to her husband:
+
+"I am afraid we will have to discharge Matilda. I am satisfied she steals
+the milk and eggs. I am positive about the eggs, for I bought them day
+before yesterday, and now about half of them are gone. I stood right there
+and heard Old Mose count them myself and there were nine dozen."
+
+
+
+
+ANNIE AND WILLIE'S PRAYER.
+
+BY MRS. SOPHIA P. SNOW.
+
+
+    'Twas the eve before Christmas, "Good-night" had been said,
+    And Annie and Willie had crept into bed;
+    There were tears on their pillows, and tears in their eyes,
+    And each little bosom was heaving with sighs,
+    For to-night their stern father's command had been given
+    That they should retire precisely at seven
+    Instead of at eight--for they troubled him more
+    With questions unheard of than ever before:
+    He had told them he thought this delusion a sin,
+    No such a creature as "Santa Claus" ever had been.
+    And he hoped, after this, he should never more hear
+    How he scrambled down chimneys with presents each year.
+    And this was the reason that two little heads
+    So restlessly tossed on their soft, downy beds.
+    Eight, nine, and the clock on the steeple tolled ten,
+    Not a word had been spoken by either till then,
+    When Willie's sad face from the blanket did peep,
+    And whispered, "Dear Annie, is 'ou fast as'eep?"
+    "Why no, brother Willie," a sweet voice replies,
+    "I've long tried in vain, but I can't shut my eyes,
+    For somehow it makes me so sorry because
+    Dear papa has said there is no 'Santa Claus,'
+    Now we know there is, and it can't be denied,
+    For he came every year before mamma died;
+    But, then, I've been thinking that she used to pray,
+    And God would hear everything mamma would say,
+    And maybe she asked him to send Santa Claus here
+    With the sack full of presents he brought every year."
+    "Well, why tan't we p'ay dest as mamma did den,
+    And ask Dod to send him with p'esents aden?"
+    "I've been thinking so too," and without a word more
+    Four little bare feet bounded out on the floor,
+    And four little knees the carpet pressed,
+    And two tiny hands were clasped close to each breast.
+
+    "Now Willie, you know we must firmly believe
+    That the presents we asked for we're sure to receive;
+    You must wait very still till I say the 'Amen,'
+    And by that you will know that your turn has come then."
+
+    "Dear Jesus, look down on my brother and me,
+    And grant us the favor we are asking of thee.
+    I want a wax dolly, a tea-set and ring,
+    And an ebony work-box that shuts with a spring.
+    Bless papa, dear Jesus, and cause him to see
+    That Santa Claus loves us as much as does he;
+    Don't let him get fretful and angry again
+    At dear brother Willie and Annie. Amen."
+
+    "Please, Desus, 'et Santa Taus tum down to-night,
+    And b'ing us some p'esents before it is light;
+    I want he should div' me a nice 'ittie s'ed,
+    With bright shinin' 'unners, and all painted red;
+    A box full of tandy, a book, and a toy,
+    Amen, and then Desus, I'll be a dood boy."
+
+    Their prayers being ended, they raised up their heads,
+    And with hearts light and cheerful, again sought their beds.
+    They were lost soon in slumber, both peaceful and deep,
+    And with fairies in dreamland were roaming in sleep.
+
+    Eight, nine, and the little French clock had struck ten,
+    Ere the father had thought of his children again:
+    He seems now to hear Annie's half-suppressed sighs,
+    And to see the big tears stand in Willie's blue eyes.
+    "I was harsh with my darlings," he mentally said,
+    "And should not have sent them so early to bed;
+    But then I was troubled; my feelings found vent,
+    For bank stock to-day has gone down ten per cent
+    But of course they've forgotten their troubles ere this,
+    And that I denied them the thrice-asked-for kiss:
+    But, just to make sure, I'll go up to their door,
+    For I never spoke harsh to my darlings before."
+    So saying, he softly ascended the stairs,
+    And arrived at the door to hear both of their prayers;
+    His Annie's "Bless papa" drew forth the big tears,
+    And Willie's grave promise fell sweet on his ears.
+    "Strange--strange--I'd forgotten," said he with a sigh,
+    "How I longed when a child to have Christmas draw nigh."
+    "I'll atone for my harshness," he inwardly said,
+    "By answering their prayers ere I sleep in my bed."
+    Then he turned to the stairs and softly went down,
+    Threw off velvet slippers and silk dressing-gown,
+    Donned hat, coat, and boots, and was out in the street--
+    A millionaire facing the cold driving sleet!
+
+    Nor stopped he until he had bought every thing,
+    From the box full of candy to the tiny gold ring;
+    Indeed, he kept adding so much to his store,
+    That the various presents outnumbered a score.
+    Then homeward he turned, when his holiday load,
+    With Aunt Mary's help, in the nursery was stowed.
+    Miss Dolly was seated beneath a pine tree,
+    By the side of a table spread out for her tea;
+    A work-box well filled in the centre was laid
+    And on it the ring for which Annie had prayed.
+    A soldier in uniform stood by a sled
+    "With bright shining runners, and all painted red."
+    There were balls, dogs, and horses, books pleasing to see,
+    And birds of all colors were perched in the tree!
+    While Santa Claus, laughing, stood up in the top,
+    As if getting ready more presents to drop.
+    And as the fond father the picture surveyed,
+    He thought for his trouble he had amply been paid,
+    And he said to himself, as he brushed off a tear,
+    "I'm happier to-night than I've been for a year;
+    I've enjoyed more true pleasure than ever before,
+    What care I if bank stock falls ten per cent more
+    Hereafter I'll make it a rule, I believe,
+    To have Santa Claus visit us each Christmas Eve."
+    So thinking, he gently extinguished the light,
+    And, tripping down stairs, retired for the night.
+
+    As soon as the beams of the bright morning sun
+    Put the darkness to flight, and the stars one by one.
+    Four little blue eyes out of sleep opened wide,
+    And at the same moment the presents espied;
+    Then out of their beds they sprang with a bound,
+    And the very gifts prayed for were all of them found.
+    They laughed and they cried, in their innocent glee,
+    And shouted for papa to come quick and see
+    What presents old Santa Claus brought in the night
+    (Just the things that they wanted), and left before light;
+    "And now," added Annie, in a voice soft and low,
+    "You'll believe there's a 'Santa Claus,' papa, I know;"
+    While dear little Willie climbed up on his knee,
+    Determined no secret between them should be,
+    And told in soft whispers how Annie had said
+    That their dear blessed mamma, so long ago dead,
+    Used to kneel down by the side of her chair,
+    And that God up in heaven had answered her prayer.
+    "Den we dot up and prayed dust well as we tould,
+    And Dod answered our prayers: now wasn't He dood?"
+    "I should say that He was if He sent you all these,
+    And knew just what presents my children would please.
+    (Well, well, let him think so, the dear little elf,
+    'Twould be cruel to tell him I did it myself.)"
+
+    Blind father! who caused your stern heart to relent,
+    And the hasty words spoken so soon to repent?
+    'Twas the Being who bade you steal softly up stairs,
+    And made you His agent to answer their prayers.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.
+
+BY SAMUEL WOODWORTH.
+
+
+    How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
+      When fond recollection presents them to view!
+    The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,
+      And every loved spot which my infancy knew;
+    The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it,
+      The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;
+    The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,
+      And e'en the rude bucket, which hung in the well.
+    The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
+    The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.
+
+    That moss-covered bucket I hail as a treasure;
+      For often, at noon, when returned from the field,
+    I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
+      The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
+    How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing!
+      And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;
+    Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing,
+      And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well.
+    The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
+    The moss-covered bucket arose from the well.
+
+    How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
+      As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips!
+    Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
+      Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.
+    And now, far removed from the loved situation,
+      The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
+    As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,
+      And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well;
+    The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
+    The moss-covered bucket, which hangs in the well.
+
+
+
+
+MR. WINKLE PUTS ON SKATES.
+
+BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+"Now," said Wardle, after a substantial lunch, "what say you to an hour on
+the ice? We shall have plenty of time."
+
+"Capital!" said Mr. Benjamin Allen.
+
+"Prime!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer.
+
+"You skate, of course, Winkle?" said Wardle.
+
+"Ye-yes; O yes," replied Mr. Winkle. "I--I--am rather out of practice!"
+
+"O, do skate, Mr. Winkle," said Arabella. "I like to see it so much."
+
+"O, it is so graceful," said another young lady. A third young lady said it
+was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was "swanlike."
+
+"I should be very happy, I'm sure," said Mr. Winkle, reddening; "but I have
+no skates."
+
+This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had a couple of pairs, and
+the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more down stairs;
+whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely
+uncomfortable.
+
+Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and
+Mr. Weller having shoveled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it
+during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a dexterity
+which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvelous, and described circles with his
+left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without
+once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing
+devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman and the
+ladies; which reached a pitch of positive enthusiasm when old Wardle and
+Benjamin Allen, assisted by the aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic
+evolutions which they called a reel.
+
+All this time Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had
+been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his skates
+on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated
+and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather
+less about skates than a Hindoo. At length, however, with the assistance of
+Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled on, and
+Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet.
+
+"Now, then, sir," said Sam, in an encouraging tone, "off with you, and show
+'em how to do it."
+
+"Stop, Sam, stop!" said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold
+of Sam's arm with the grasp of a drowning man. "How slippery it is, Sam!"
+
+"Not an uncommon thing upon ice, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Hold up, sir!"
+
+This last observation of Mr. Weller's bore reference to a demonstration Mr.
+Winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in the
+air, and dash the back of his head on the ice.
+
+"These--these--are very awkward skates," said Mr. Winkle, staggering.
+
+"Now, Winkle," cried Mr. Pickwick, quite unconscious that there was
+anything the matter. "Come; the ladies are all anxiety."
+
+"Yes, yes," replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly smile. "I'm coming."
+
+"Just going to begin," said Sam, endeavoring to disengage himself. "Now,
+sir, start off!"
+
+"Just hold me at first, Sam, will you?" said Mr. Winkle. "There--that's
+right. I shall soon get in the way of it, Sam. Not too fast, Sam--not too
+fast!"
+
+Mr. Winkle stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being
+assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller in a very singular and un-swanlike
+manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite
+bank--"Sam!"
+
+"Sir!" shouted back Mr. Weller.
+
+"Here! I want you."
+
+"Let go, sir," said Sam. "Don't you hear the governor calling? Let go,
+sir."
+
+With a violent effort Mr. Weller disengaged himself from the grasp of the
+agonized Pickwickian, and in so doing administered a considerable impetus
+to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy which no degree of dexterity or
+practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore swiftly down
+into the centre of the reel at the very moment when Mr. Bob Sawyer was
+performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty.
+
+Mr. Winkle struck Wildly against him, and with a loud crash they both fell
+heavily down. Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his
+feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind in skates.
+He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but anguish
+was depicted on every lineament of his countenance.
+
+"Are you hurt?" inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety.
+
+"Not much," said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard.
+
+"I wish you'd let me bleed you," said Mr. Benjamin, with great eagerness.
+
+"No, thank you," replied Mr. Winkle, hurriedly.
+
+"I really think you had better," said Allen.
+
+"Thank you," replied Mr. Winkle; "I'd rather not."
+
+"What do you think, Mr. Pickwick?" inquired Bob Sawyer.
+
+Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He beckoned to Mr. Weller and said,
+in a stern voice, "Take his skates off!"
+
+"No; but really I had scarcely begun," remonstrated Mr. Winkle.
+
+"Take his skates off!" repeated Mr. Pickwick, firmly.
+
+The command was not to be resisted. Mr. Winkle allowed Sam to obey it, in
+silence.
+
+"Lift him up," said Mr. Pickwick. Sam assisted him to rise.
+
+Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and, beckoning
+his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him and uttered in a
+low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words:
+
+"You're a humbug, sir!"
+
+"A what?" said Mr. Winkle, starting.
+
+"A humbug, sir! I will speak plainer, if you wish it. An impostor, sir!"
+
+With these words Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel and rejoined his
+friends.
+
+
+
+
+MY MOTHER'S BIBLE.
+
+BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.
+
+
+    This book is all that's left me now!
+      Tears will unbidden start,--
+    With faltering lip and throbbing brow
+      I press it to my heart.
+    For many generations past,
+      Here is our family tree:
+    My mother's hand this Bible clasped;
+      She, dying, gave it me.
+
+    Ah! well do I remember those
+      Whose names these records bear,
+    Who round the hearthstone used to close
+      After the evening prayer,
+    And speak of what these pages said,
+      In tones my heart would thrill!
+    Though they are with the silent dead,
+      Here are they living still!
+
+    My father read this holy book
+      To brothers, sisters, dear;
+    How calm was my poor mother's look,
+      Who leaned God's word to hear.
+    Her angel-face--I see it yet!
+      What thronging memories come!
+    Again that little group is met
+      Within the halls of home!
+
+    Thou truest friend man ever knew,
+      Thy constancy I've tried;
+    Where all were false I found thee true,
+      My counsellor and guide.
+    The mines of earth no treasure give
+      That could this volume buy:
+    In teaching me the way to live,
+      It taught me how to die.
+
+
+
+
+AFTER-DINNER SPEECH BY A FRENCHMAN.
+
+
+"Milors and Gentlemans--You excellent chairman, M. le Baron de
+Mount-Stuart, he have say to me, 'Make de toast.' Den I say to him dat I
+have no toast to make; but he nudge my elbow ver soft, and say dat dere is
+von toast dat nobody but von Frenchman can make proper; and, derefore, wid
+your kind permission, I vill make de toast. 'De brevete is de sole of de
+feet,' as you great philosophere, Dr. Johnson, do say, in dat amusing
+little vork of his, de Pronouncing Dictionaire; and, derefore, I vill not
+say ver moch to de point.
+
+"Ah! mes amis! ven I hear to myself de flowing speech, de oration
+magnifique of your Lor' Maire, Monsieur Gobbledown, I feel dat it is von
+great privilege for von etranger to sit at de same table, and to eat de
+same food, as dat grand, dat majestique man, who are de tereur of de
+voleurs and de brigands of de metropolis, and who is also, I for to
+suppose, a halterman and de chief of you common scoundrel. Milors and
+gentlemans, I feel that I can perspire to no greatare honueur dan to be von
+common scoundrelman myself; but, helas! dat plaisir are not for me, as I
+are not freeman of your great cite, not von liveryman servant of von you
+compagnies joint-stock. But I must not forget de toast.
+
+"Milors and Gentlemans! De immortal Shakispeare he have write, 'De ting of
+beauty are de joy for nevermore.' It is de ladies who are de toast. Vat is
+more entrancing dan de charmante smile, de soft voice, de vinking eye of de
+beautiful lady! It is de ladies who do sweeten the cares of life. It is de
+ladies who are de guiding stars of our existence. It is de ladies who do
+cheer but not inebriate, and, derefore, vid all homage to dere sex, de
+toast dat I have to propose is, 'De Ladies! Heaven bless dem all!'"
+
+
+
+
+THE WHIRLING WHEEL.
+
+BY TUDOR JENKS.
+
+
+    Oh! the regular round is a kind of a grind!
+    We rise in the morning only to find
+    That Monday's but Tuesday, and Wednesday's the same,
+    And Thursday's a change in nothing but name;
+    A Friday and Saturday wind up the week;
+    On Sunday we rest, and attempt to look meek.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Works for our weal.
+
+    And although the dull round is a kind of a grind,
+    It has compensations that we may find.
+    Famine and slaughter and sieges no more
+    Are likely to leave their cards at the door.
+    Let others delight in adventurous lives--
+    We read their sore trials at home to our wives.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Works for our weal.
+
+    The regular round, though a kind of a grind,
+    Brings thoughts of contentment to quiet the mind:
+    The babies sleep soundly in snug little beds;
+    There's a tight little roof o'er the ringletted heads;
+    The wife's welcome comes with the set of the sun,
+    And the worker may rest, for the day's work is done.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Works for our weal.
+
+    Oh! the regular round is a kind of a grind,
+    But the world's scenes are shifted by workmen behind.
+    The star who struts central may show no more art
+    Than the sturdy "first citizen" filling his part.
+    When the king to our plaudits has graciously bowed,
+    The crowd sees the king, while the king sees the crowd.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Works for our weal.
+
+    When the great mill has stopped, and the work is complete,
+    And the workers receive the reward that is meet,
+    Who can tell what the Master shall say is the best?
+    We but know that the worker who's aided the rest,
+    Who has kept his wheel turning from morning to night,
+    Who has not wronged his fellow, is not far from right.
+                    So set a firm shoulder
+                    And push on the wheel!
+                    The mill that we're grinding
+                    Shall work out our weal.
+
+
+
+
+THE BLACK HORSE AND HIS RIDER.
+
+BY CHARLES SHEPPARD.
+
+
+It was the seventh of October, 1777. Horatio Gates stood before his tent,
+gazing steadfastly upon the two armies now arrayed in order of battle. It
+was a clear, bracing day, mellow with the richness of autumn. The sky was
+cloudless; the foliage of the wood scarce tinged with purple and gold; the
+buckwheat in yonder fields frostened into snowy ripeness. But the tread of
+legions shook the ground; from every bush shot the glimmer of the rifle
+barrel; on every hillside blazed the sharpened bayonet.
+
+Gates was sad and thoughtful as he watched the evolutions of the two
+armies. But all at once a smoke arose, a thunder shook the ground, and a
+chorus of shouts and groans yelled along the darkened air. The play of
+death had begun. The two flags, this of the stars, that of the red cross,
+tossed amid the smoke of battle, while the sky was clouded with leaden
+folds, and the earth throbbed with the pulsations of a mighty heart.
+
+Suddenly, Gates and his officers were startled. Along the height on which
+they stood came a rider, upon a black horse, rushing toward the distant
+battle. There was something in the appearance of this horse and his rider
+that struck them with surprise. Look! he draws his sword, the sharp blade
+quivers through the air--he points to the distant battle, and, lo! he is
+gone; gone through those clouds, while his shout echoes over the plains.
+Wherever the fight is the thickest, there, through intervals of cannon
+smoke, you may see riding madly forward that strange soldier, mounted on
+his steed black as death. Look at him, as with face red with British blood
+he waves his sword and shouts to his legions. Now you may see him fighting
+in that cannon's glare, and the next moment he is away off yonder, leading
+the forlorn hope up that steep cliff. Is it not a magnificent sight to see
+that strange soldier and that noble black horse, dashing like a meteor,
+down the long columns of battle? Let us look for a moment into those dense
+war clouds. Over this thick hedge bursts a band of American militiamen,
+their rude farmer coats stained with blood, while scattering their arms by
+the way, they flee before that company of redcoat hirelings, who come
+rushing forward, their solid front of bayonets gleaming in the battle
+light. In this moment of their flight, a horse comes crashing over the
+plains. The unknown rider reins his steed back on his haunches right in the
+path of a broad-shouldered militiaman. "Now! cowards! advance another step
+and I'll strike you to the heart!" shouts the unknown, extending a pistol
+in either hand. "What! are you Americans, men, and fly before British
+soldiers? Back again, and face them once more, or I myself will ride you
+down." This appeal was not without its effect. The militiaman turns; his
+comrades, as if by one impulse, follow his example. In one line, but thirty
+men in all, they confront thirty sharp bayonets. The British advance. "Now,
+upon the rebels, charge!" shouts the red-coat officer. They spring forward
+at the same bound. Look! their bayonets almost touch the muzzles of their
+rifles. At this moment the voice of the unknown rider is heard: "Now let
+them have it! Fire!" A sound is heard, a smoke is seen, twenty Britons are
+down, some writhing in death, some crawling along the soil, and some
+speechless as stone. The remaining ten start back. "Club your rifles and
+charge them home!" shouts the unknown. That black horse springs forward,
+followed by the militiamen. Then a confused conflict--a cry for quarter,
+and a vision of twenty farmers grouped around the rider of the black horse,
+greeting him with cheers.
+
+Thus it was all the day long. Wherever that black horse and his rider went,
+there followed victory. At last, toward the setting of the sun, the crisis
+of the conflict came. That fortress yonder, on Bemiss' Heights, must be
+won, or the American cause is lost! That cliff is too steep--that death is
+too certain. The officers cannot persuade the men to advance. The Americans
+have lost the field. Even Morgan, that iron man among iron men, leans on
+his rifle and despairs of the field. But look yonder! In this moment when
+all is dismay and horror, here crashing on, comes the black horse and his
+rider. That rider bends upon his steed, his frenzied face covered with
+sweat and dust and blood; he lays his hand upon that bold rifleman's
+shoulder, and, as though living fire had been poured into his veins, he
+seized his rifle and started toward the rock. And now look! now hold your
+breath, as that Black Steed crashes up that steep cliff. That steed
+quivers! he totters! he falls! No! No! Still on, still up the cliff, still
+on toward the fortress. The rider turns his face and shouts, "Come on, men
+of Quebec! come on!" That call is needless. Already the bold riflemen are
+on the rock. Now British cannon pour your fires, and lay your dead in tens
+and twenties on the rock. Now, red-coat hirelings, shout your battle-cry if
+you can! For look! there, in the gate of the fortress, as the smoke clears
+away, stands the Black Horse and his rider. That steed falls dead, pierced
+by an hundred balls; but his rider, as the British cry for quarter, lifts
+up his voice and shouts afar to Horatio Gates waiting yonder in his tent,
+"Saratoga is won!" As that cry goes up to heaven, he falls with his leg
+shattered by a cannon-ball. Who was the rider of the black horse? Do you
+not guess his name? Then bend down and gaze on that shattered limb, and you
+shall see that it bears the mark of a former wound. That wound was received
+in the storming of Quebec. That rider of the Black Horse was Benedict
+Arnold.
+
+
+
+
+SHE CUT HIS HAIR.
+
+
+You can always tell a boy whose mother cuts his hair. Not because the edges
+of it look as if it had been chewed off by an absent-minded horse; but you
+can tell it by the way he stops on the streets and wriggles his shoulders.
+When a fond mother has to cut her boy's hair she is careful to guard
+against any annoyance and muss by laying a sheet on the carpet. It has
+never yet occurred to her to set him over a bare floor and put the sheet
+around his neck. Then she draws the front hair over his eyes, and leaves it
+there while she cuts that which is at the back; the hair which lies over
+his eyes appears to be surcharged with electric needles, and that which is
+silently dropping down over his shirtband appears to be on fire. She has
+unconsciously continued to push his head forward until his nose presses his
+breast, and is too busily engaged to notice the snuffling sound that is
+becoming alarmingly frequent. In the meantime he is seized with an
+irresistible desire to blow his nose, but recollects that his handkerchief
+is in the other room. Then a fly lights on his nose, and does it so
+unexpectedly that he involuntarily dodges and catches the points of the
+shears in his left ear. At this he commences to cry and wish he was a man.
+But his mother doesn't notice him. She merely hits him on the other ear to
+inspire him with confidence and goes on with the work. When she is through
+she holds his jacket-collar back from his neck, and with her mouth blows
+the short bits of hair from the top of his head down his back. He calls
+her attention to this fact, but she looks for a new place on his head and
+hits him there, and asks him why he didn't use a handkerchief. Then he
+takes his awfully disfigured head to the mirror and looks at it, and, young
+as he is, shudders as he thinks of what the boys on the street will say.
+
+
+
+
+AN APPEAL FOR LIBERTY.
+
+BY JOSEPH STORY.
+
+
+I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors--by the dear
+ashes which repose in this precious soil--by all you are, and all you hope
+to be--resist every object of disunion, resist every encroachment upon your
+liberties, resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your
+public schools, or extinguish your system of public instruction.
+
+I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman, the love of
+your off-spring; teach them, as they climb your knees, or lean on your
+bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their
+baptismal vows, to be true to their country, and never to forget or forsake
+her.
+
+I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you are; whose
+inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, which brings nothing
+but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if necessary in
+defence of the liberties of your country.
+
+I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers, and your
+benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in sorrow to the grave, with
+the recollection that you have lived in vain. May not your last sun sink in
+the west upon a nation of slaves.
+
+No; I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter
+visions. We, who are now assembled here, must soon be gathered to the
+congregation of other days. The time of our departure is at hand, to make
+way for our children upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and
+theirs. May he who, at the distance of another century, shall stand here to
+celebrate this day, still look round upon a free, happy, and virtuous
+people. May he have reason to exult as we do. May he, with all the
+enthusiasm of truth as well as of poetry, exclaim, that here is still his
+country.
+
+
+
+
+OLD UNCLE JAKE.
+
+
+He was bowed by many a year of service; he was white-woolled, thick-lipped,
+and a true son of Africa, yet a grand and knightly soul animated that dusky
+breast--a soul that many a scion of the blood royal might envy.
+
+The children loved him, the neighbors respected him, his own color looked
+up to him as a superior being, and they whose goods and chattels he had
+formerly been, were sure to heed his counsels in all important family
+matters. Aye, he had an honorable record. If his skin was black, his soul
+was white as the whitest and from lusty boyhood to the present there had
+been no need of "stripes" for Uncle Jake.
+
+He had been the playmate of "young marster," the boon companion in all
+'possum hunts and fishing frolics, and when each had arrived at man's
+estate the goodfellowship contracted in youth knew no surcease.
+
+When the tocsin of war resounded through the South, and the call for
+volunteers was made, "marster" was one of the first to buckle on his armor
+and hasten to the front--doing so with greater heart as Uncle Jake was left
+in charge of those dearer than life to him.
+
+And royally did the poor unlettered African fulfil the trust committed to
+his keeping. He took upon himself the burden of all plantation matters and
+sooner than one hair on the heads of "missus or chillun" should be injured,
+he would have sacrificed his life freely any day. And when the war was over
+he positively refused to join in the hegira of his brethren, preferring
+rather to live on in the same old place that had witnessed his birth and
+the strength of his manhood's prime.
+
+In grateful recognition of his long servitude a comfortable cottage was
+built for him in a secluded nook of the plantation, in which, with his
+faithful old wife, he lived a peaceful and contented life, tilling the few
+acres which had been granted him and doing all sorts of odd jobs out of the
+pure love he bore old marse.
+
+But Uncle Jake was getting old now--more and more heavily the weight of
+years fell upon him--the whiter grew his locks until at last the time came
+when he could no longer pursue his accustomed duties, and all reluctant and
+unwilling he took to his bed never to rise again.
+
+For weeks and months he lingered on the "Border Land," attended by loving
+hands, and his slightest wish was gratified; indeed, so long he hovered
+between life and death, that those who loved him best began to cherish a
+faint hope that he would be spared to them.
+
+But the fiat had gone forth--Uncle Jake must die.
+
+One evening, just as the setting sun was flooding the fair landscape with
+his golden beams, a tearful group were assembled at his bedside, who had
+been hastily summoned thither to bid farewell to one who had been so true a
+friend to them all.
+
+There were marster and missus and their children and Jake's own wife and
+children, with a few of his fellow servants, all united in a democracy of
+grief that knew no distinction of caste in the supreme moment.
+
+No sound was heard save a half-suppressed sob now and then--the tick-tick
+of the clock on the rude mantel and the labored breathing of the dying man.
+
+For hours he had lain in a sort of stupor, broken only at intervals by
+delirious mutterings, when suddenly his eyes, in which was a preternatural
+brightness, opened and fixed themselves long and earnestly in turn upon
+each one of the faces bent so sorrowfully over him.
+
+Then in a feeble, fluttering voice, like the last effort of an expiring
+taper, he addressed his master, who was tenderly wiping the moisture from
+his brow:
+
+"Ole marse, I'se been a good and faithful servant to yer all dese years,
+has I not?"
+
+"Yes, Jake."
+
+"Ebber since we was boys togedder I'se lubed yer, and stuck to yer through
+thick and thin, and now dat Jake is goin' home yer doan' treasure up
+nothin' agin me, do yer, marse?"
+
+"No, no, Jake."
+
+"Old missus, come nearer, honey, Jake's eyes is gettin' mighty dim now, and
+he kan't see yer. Yer'll nebber forgit how Jake tuk keer of yer an' de
+chilluns when ole marster gone to de war? An' yer'll be kind to my wife and
+chilluns for my sake, won't yer?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Jake, I'll be kind to them, and I will never forget your
+fidelity, old friend."
+
+"T'ank de Lawd! I kin die happy now, when I'se know dat yer an' master will
+'member me an' be kind to dem I'se leaving behind. An' de chillun--whar's
+de chillun? I'se wants ter tell 'em all goodby an' say a las' few words to
+dem, too."
+
+And in his eagerness, with a strength born of death, the old man half arose
+upon his elbow and laid a trembling hand upon the head of each of the
+awe-struck children.
+
+"God bless yer, chillun, one an' all. I lubs my own little picaninnies, but
+I lubs old marster's just as well. I doan' want none o' yer to forgit how
+Uncle Jake has trotted yer on his knee an' toted yer on his back an' keep'
+a watchful eye on yer, les' yet git into mischief by yer pranks. Promise
+me, chillun, dat you'll nebber forgit dese ting. It pleases Uncle Jake to
+think yer'll 'member him arter he's gone from yer sight for ebber."
+
+As well as they were able for their tears, the little ones gave the
+required promise, and greatly pleased, the old man sank back exhausted upon
+his pillow.
+
+After lying a few minutes with closed eyes, as if in sleep, he suddenly
+whispered:
+
+"Dinah, whar is you? I wants yer to cum closer ter me, honey, an' put yer
+arms around my neck an' lay yer cheek ter mine like yer used ter do when we
+was courtin' down in de huckleberry patch. I wants ter die in yer arms, ole
+wife. Yer is black, an' de white folks mought not be able ter see any booty
+in yer, but Jake knows what a true an' lovin' wife you'se bin ter him, an'
+he can see de booty dat's hidden out o' sight. I'se gwine ter cross ober
+der great wide ribber dey call Death, into a kentry whar' dere'll nebber be
+any mo' black skins--whar' I'll wear de white robe and de golden crown, an'
+I'se got ter wait fur yer dere. Dinah, my lub! my lub! Hark, honey! doan'
+yer hear de bells ob heaven a-ringing? An' doan' yer see de pearly gates
+a-openin' to let ole black Jake go frew? I'se a comin', holy angels--I'se a
+comin', blessed Lawd! Glory hallelewger! Ole Jake's mos' got ober de
+ribber. His feet is touchin' de water--but it's gettin' so cold, Dinah,
+honey--I can't feel de clasp of yer arms any mo'. I'se--"
+
+And with a last, long, fluttering sigh, as knightly and true a soul as ever
+dwelt in human breast took its light to a realm where there is indeed
+neither black nor white, nor bond nor free, but all are like unto the
+angels.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOT AXLE.
+
+BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
+
+
+The express train was flying from Cork to Queenstown; it was going like
+sixty--that is, about sixty miles an hour. No sight of Irish village to
+arrest our speed, no sign of a breakdown; and yet the train halted. We
+looked out of a window; saw a brakeman and a crowd of passengers gathering
+around the locomotive, and a dense smoke arising. What was the matter? _A
+hot axle!_
+
+I thought then, as I think now, that is what is the matter with people
+everywhere. In this swift, "express" American life, we go too fast for our
+endurance. We think ourselves getting on splendidly, when, in the midst of
+our success, we come to a dead halt. What is the matter? The nerves or
+muscles or our brain give out; we make too many revolutions in an hour. _A
+hot axle!_
+
+Men make the mistake of working according to their opportunities, and not
+according to their capacity of endurance. Can I be a merchant, and
+president of a bank, and a director in a life insurance company, and a
+school commission, and help edit a paper, and supervise the politics of our
+ward, and run for Congress? "I can!" the man says to himself. The store
+drives him; the bank drives him; the school drives him; politics drive him.
+He takes all the scoldings and frets and exasperations of each position.
+Some day, at the height of the business season, he does not come to the
+store. From the most important meeting of the bank directors he is absent.
+In the excitement of the most important political canvass he fails to be at
+the place appointed. What is the matter? His health has broken down; the
+train halts long before it gets to the station. _A hot axle!_
+
+Literary men have great opportunities opening in this day. If they take all
+that open, they are dead men, or worse--_living_ men that ought to be dead.
+The pen runs so easy when you have good ink and smooth paper, and an easy
+desk to write on, and the consciousness of an audience of one, two, or
+three hundred thousand readers. So great is the invitation to literary
+work, that the professional men of the day are overdone. They sit, faint
+and fagged out, on the verge of newspapers and books; each one does the
+work of three. And these men sit up late nights and choke down chunks of
+meat without mastication, and scold their wives through irritability, and
+maul innocent authors, and run the physical machinery with a liver
+miserably given out. The driving shaft has gone fifty times a second. They
+stop at no station. The steam-chest is hot and swollen. The brain and
+digestion begins to smoke. Stop, ye flying quills! "Down brakes!" _A hot
+axle!_
+
+Some of our young people have read--till they are crazed--of learned
+blacksmiths who at the forge conquered thirty languages; and shoemakers
+who, pounding sole-leather, got to be philosophers; and of milliners who,
+while their customers were at the glass trying on their spring hats, wrote
+a volume of first-rate poems. The fact is, no blacksmith ought to be
+troubled with more than five languages; and, instead of shoemakers becoming
+philosophers, we would like to turn our surplus supply of philosophers into
+shoemakers; and the supply of poetry is so much greater than the demand,
+that we wish milliners would stick to their business. Extraordinary
+examples of work and endurance may do us much good. Because Napoleon slept
+only four hours a night, hundreds of students have tried the experiment;
+but, instead of Austerlitz and Saragossa, there came of it only a sick
+headache and a botch of a recitation.
+
+Let us not go beyond our endurance, cutting short our days and making a
+wreck of our life work, but labor earnestly, zealously, intelligently for
+success; and in the twilight of old age peace and happiness will be
+ours--not the shattered and praised remains of a career disastrously
+checked.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILDREN.[2]
+
+BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+    When the lessons and tasks are ended,
+      And the school for the day is dismissed,
+    And the little ones gather around me
+      To bid me "good-night" and be kissed;
+    Oh, the little white arms that encircle
+      My neck in a tender embrace!
+    Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
+      Shedding sunshine and love on my face!
+
+    And when they are gone I sit dreaming
+      Of my childhood too lovely to last;
+    Of love, that my heart will remember
+      When it wakes to the pulse of the past.
+    Ere the world and its wickedness made me
+      A partner of sorrow and sin,
+    When the glory of God was about me,
+      And the glory of gladness within.
+
+    Oh, my heart grows weak as a woman's,
+      And the fountain of feelings will flow,
+    When I think of the paths steep and stony
+      Where the feet of the dear ones must go;
+    Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,
+      Of the tempests of fate blowing wild;
+    Oh, there's nothing on earth half so holy
+      As the innocent heart of a child.
+
+    They are idols of hearts and of households,
+      They are angels of God in disguise,
+    His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,
+      His glory still beams in their eyes;
+    Oh, those truants from earth and from heaven,
+      They have made me more manly and mild,
+    And I know how Jesus could liken
+      The kingdom of God to a child.
+
+    Seek not a life for the dear ones
+      All radiant, as others have done,
+    But that life may have just as much shadow
+      To temper the glare of the sun;
+    I would pray God to guard them from evil,
+      But my prayer would bound back to myself;
+    Ah, a seraph may pray for a sinner,
+      But a sinner must pray for himself.
+
+    The twig is so easily bended,
+      I have banished the rule and the rod;
+    I have taught them the goodness of knowledge,
+      They have taught me the goodness of God.
+    My heart is a dungeon of darkness,
+      Where I shut them from breaking a rule;
+    My frown is sufficient correction,
+      My love is the law of the school.
+
+    I shall leave the old house in the autumn,
+      To traverse its threshold no more--
+    Ah, how I shall sigh for the dear ones
+      That meet me each morn at the door.
+    I shall miss the good-nights and the kisses,
+      And the gush of their innocent glee,
+    The group on the green and the flowers
+      That are brought every morning to me.
+
+    I shall miss them at morn and eve,
+      Their songs in the school and the street,
+    Shall miss the low hum of their voices,
+      And the tramp of their delicate feet.
+    When lessons and tasks are all ended,
+      And death says the school is dismissed,
+    May the little ones gather around me
+      To bid me "good-night" and be kissed.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Found in the desk of Charles Dickens after his death.
+
+
+
+
+CHARITY.
+
+
+    When you meet with one suspected
+      Of some secret deed of shame,
+    And for this by all rejected
+      As a thing of evil fame,
+    Guard thine every look and action,
+      Speak no word of heartless blame,
+    For the slanderer's vile detraction
+      Yet may soil thy goodly name.
+
+    When you meet with one pursuing
+      Ways the lost have entered in,
+    Working out his own undoing
+      With his recklessness and sin;
+    Think, if placed in his condition,
+      Would a kind word be in vain,
+    Or a look of cold suspicion
+      Win thee back to truth again?
+
+    There are spots that bear no flowers,
+      Not because the soil is bad,
+    But the Summer's genial showers
+      Never made their bosoms glad.
+    Better have an act that's kindly
+      Treated sometimes with disdain,
+    Than, in judging others blindly,
+      Doom the innocent to pain.
+
+
+
+
+NO OBJECTION TO CHILDREN.
+
+
+It was a block of yellow-brown houses in South Boston, looking as much like
+a sheet of gingerbread as anything.
+
+An express-wagon had just backed up to No. 21 in that block, and the
+driver, unloosing ropes here and there, proceeded to unpack the luggage.
+
+"What have we here?" exclaimed Mrs. Bacon, the downstairs tenant. "A
+menagerie, I do believe. Come here, John."
+
+There was, indeed, on the very top of the load a gray horse that in the
+twilight looked very real till one noticed the rockers on which it stood.
+But there was a kennel with a live terrier's head at the window, a
+bird-cage with its fluttering tenant, a crib and high chair besides,
+suggesting that the folks in the other part might, in the language of Mrs.
+Bacon, "make music."
+
+Now, the downstairs tenants, Mr. and Mrs. Bacon, were precise, orderly
+people, living, like many other city people, in desert-island fashion, and
+only hoping that everybody else would mind their own business. It had been
+for weeks their great comfort that the other part was unoccupied, and now
+this load of household goods brimming over with pets and their belongings
+was an unwelcome sight.
+
+There were no young Bacons--no, indeed! Plants did not flourish in their
+shaded windows nor canary birds splash water from their tiny baths upon the
+clear glass. No dog barked a noisy welcome when his master returned at
+night. No cat purred in her mistress's lap. The housekeeping of the Bacons
+was a fight against dirt, dust, sunshine and noise; and somehow pets bring
+all these.
+
+"Well, John," said Mrs. Bacon as she turned from the window and pulled the
+shade over the sacred glass, "there's an end to peace and quiet. We must
+keep the entry doors locked; and don't you be whistling round to attract a
+child. Give them an inch and they'll take an ell. If folks must have
+rocking horses and what goes with them, they ought to move into the
+country, where they will not be pestering other people."
+
+But, to the surprise of the Bacons, they were not pestered, only by the
+patter of little feet overhead, or a woman's voice singing cradle-songs or
+joining in her child's laughter. Crying there was, too, sometimes, but it
+was so soon hushed in motherly caresses that it seemed a sort of rainbow
+grievance only.
+
+At night, when the father came home, there was quite a joyful noise
+upstairs, at which time John's face was a little wistful. But the new
+family did not intrude for ever so small a favor.
+
+Mrs. Bacon took good care to keep out of sight whenever the new tenants
+were passing through the entry-way. One small pair of boots had
+considerable traveling to do up and down the stairs for a stroll on the
+sidewalk or to old Dorchester Heights, just beyond, for spoils of wild
+flowers.
+
+One day Little Boots came back from this favorite resort, and instead of
+climbing the stairs, as usual, strayed hesitatingly toward Mrs. Bacon's
+kitchen door.
+
+"Smells the gingerbread," soliloquized Mrs. Bacon, grimly. "Glad the door
+is locked." She glanced toward it to be sure; yes, it was locked, though
+the key had been transferred to another door. But shining through the
+keyhole was a very bright and sweet-looking star of an eye. Only a moment
+it twinkled, and then there was thrust in very gently the stem of a
+dandelion, and the small boots scampered away up the stairs.
+
+"Little mischief!" exclaimed Mrs. Bacon, and she would have pushed the
+intruding stem outside, but her hands were in the dough. "If he wanted a
+piece of gingerbread, why didn't he say so? Mebbe he was afraid of me; cats
+run like all possessed when they see me. I can't have my key-holes choked
+up with dandelion stems--that's so. Soon's I get my hands out of this it
+will walk into the stove, that dandelion will." But the dandelion was too
+fresh and perfect, and brought back the old childhood days to Mrs. Bacon so
+clearly that she changed her mind. There was an old horseradish bottle on
+the pantry-shelf which, filled with water, received the dandelion. There,
+resting in the kitchen window, it smiled all day.
+
+There was quite a commotion upstairs that night, and John and his wife,
+drowsily hearing it, thanked their stars that they were not routed by
+children's ails. The next day Mrs. Bacon's watchful ear caught the sound of
+"Little Boots" on the stairs, and again the blue eyes twinkled at the
+keyhole. This time the door opened in response:
+
+"Well, child, what is it? Want some gingerbread?"
+
+"Oh no, thank you, dear," said the little voice--a very hoarse little voice
+it was, and the throat was all wrapped in flannel.
+
+"I wanted to know if you liked my f'ower?"
+
+"See?" Mrs. Bacon pointed to the glorified horseradish bottle.
+
+"Is your name Mrs. Bacon, dear?"
+
+"Bacon--no 'dear' about it."
+
+"I like to call you 'dear.' Don't your little boy call you so?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ally! Ally, child!" called the mother anxiously; "come back, darling;
+you'll get cold."
+
+"I'll take him up," responded Mrs. Bacon; and taking with unwonted
+tenderness the three-years-old darling, she landed him safely upstairs.
+
+"It's the croup," explained the mother. "He got cold yesterday, out for
+dandelions--his favorite flower, ma'am. Calls 'em preserved sunshine; saw
+me put up fruit last fall--there's where he got the idea; though, as to
+telling where he gets all his ideas, that beats me. The doctor says he's
+that kind of a child the croup is likely to go hard with. Scares me to
+death to hear him cough."
+
+"Goose oil is good for croup," remarked Mrs. Bacon.
+
+"Did you ever try it?" asked the new neighbor, innocently.
+
+"Me? No use for it. Got a bottle, though. Have it if you like."
+
+Alas! the doctor's prophecy was true. The fatal disease developed that very
+night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little boots are still and starry eyes shine afar off now. As he lay in his
+beautiful last sleep, a flower amid the white flowers, a woman's brown hand
+slipped a few dandelions tenderly--oh, so tenderly!--into the dainty cold
+fingers.
+
+"That is right, Mrs. Bacon, dear," said the poor mother. "'Preserved
+sunshine!' That's what he is to us."
+
+The new tenants have moved into the country, and No. 21, upper tenement, is
+again to let.
+
+Mrs. Bacon hopes the landlord will add to his advertisement, "No objection
+to children."
+
+
+
+
+BANFORD'S BURGLAR-ALARM.
+
+
+"Another Daring Burglary!" read Mrs. Banford, as she picked up the morning:
+paper. "Lucullus," she said, turning to her husband, "this is the fourth
+outrage of the kind in this town within a week, and if you don't procure a
+burglar-alarm, or adopt some other means of security, I shall not remain in
+this house another night. Some morning we'll get up and find ourselves
+murdered and the house robbed if we have to depend on the police for
+protection."
+
+Banford assured his wife that he would have the matter attended to at once.
+Then he left the house and didn't return until evening. When Mrs. B. asked
+him if he had given a second thought to the subject which she had broached
+in the morning, he drew a newspaper from his pocket, and said: "See here,
+Mirandy! There's no use o' foolin' away money on one o' those new-fangled
+burglar-alarms. Economy is wealth. Here's a capital idea suggested in this
+paper--cheap, simple and effective."
+
+And then he read the suggestion about hanging a tin pan on the
+chamber-door.
+
+"I tell you, Mirandy! the man who conceived that brilliant notion is a
+heaven-born genius--a boon to mankind; and his name should go ringing down
+the corridors of time with those of such brilliant intellect as Watt,
+Morse, Edison, and other successful scientific investigators. You see, the
+least jar of the door will dislodge the pan, and the noise occasioned
+thereby will not only awaken the occupants of the room, but will also scare
+the burglar half to death, and perhaps the pan will strike him on the head
+and fracture his skull. It is a glorious scheme, and the fact that it was
+not utilized years ago is the most remarkable thing about it."
+
+"Well," assented Mrs. B. in less sanguine tones, "it may be better than
+nothing, and it won't cost anything; and as Susan has gone out to spend the
+night with her sick sister, and we'll be all alone, I'll hunt up the pans
+now."
+
+Accordingly, each inside door was crowned with a tin pan and left slightly
+ajar. Banford also thoughtfully placed a six-shooter under his pillow and
+stood a base-ball bat within easy reach.
+
+"Now, Mirandy," he courageously observed, as they were preparing to retire,
+"if you are awakened by a noise during the night, don't scream and jump out
+of bed. Just lie still, or some o' the bullets I fire at the burglar may go
+through you and kill you. Let me wrestle with the intruder, and I'll soon
+make him regret that he had not postponed being born for a few centuries!"
+
+Then they turned down the gas with a feeling of increased security, and
+were soon asleep. About half-past midnight they were awakened by a noise
+that sounded like a sharp clap of thunder, followed by a wail that almost
+chilled the marrow in their bones.
+
+"Goodness!" screamed Mrs. B., in a voice swollen with terror, as she dived
+under the bed-clothes. "We'll be murdered in a minute. Shoot him, Lucullus!
+Quick--shoot him!"
+
+Banford, after considerable nervous fumbling under the pillow, grasped his
+revolver with an unsteady hand and discharged its six barrels in rapid
+succession, but not with very gratifying results. One bullet shattered the
+mirror in the bureau; another plowed a furrow along the ceiling; another
+splintered the bed-post; a fourth perforated a portrait of his wife's
+mother; and the other two left their imprint on the walls.
+
+"D-d-don't be fuf-fuf-frightened, M-mirandy," said Banford, encouragingly,
+his articulation sounding as if it had "collided" with an Arctic wave: "I
+gug-guess I've kik-kik-killed him. He'll not kik-kik-come here--"
+
+At this juncture there was a noise in an adjoining room, as if a two-ton
+meteorite had crashed through a boiler-foundry, and Mrs. B. uttered a
+series of ear-piercing shrieks that would have scared the life out of any
+burglar.
+
+"M-mirandy," stammered the frightened and demoralized Banford, grasping the
+base-ball bat and swinging it around with such reckless promiscuousness
+that he struck his terror-stricken wife on the head, "Mum-mirandy, the
+house is fuf-full of midnight mum-marauders, and we'll be bub-bub-butchered
+in cold bub-bub-blood! Save yourself and don't mum-mind about me!" And
+leaping out of bed, he sprang through a window on to the roof of a back
+building, and accidentally rolled off into the yard, fifteen feet below,
+just as another burglar-alarm went off with a clamor almost as deafening
+and harrowing as an amateur orchestra. Mrs. B., thinking she had been hit
+by the burglar, emitted a fresh outburst of shrieks, while her husband lay
+groaning in the back yard, with a sprained ankle and a frightful gash in
+his head.
+
+A policeman had now been awakened by the uproar, and boldly mounting the
+front stoop, he pulled the door-bell out by the roots without evoking a
+response. Then he hesitated.
+
+"If a foul murder has been committed," he mused, "the assassin has already
+made good his escape."
+
+This thought gave him courage, and he forced an entrance. In the entry he
+collided with a hat-rack, which he mistook for the outlaw, and almost
+demolished it with several whacks of his club. Then he made a careful
+reconnaissance, and dislodged one of the burglar-alarms.
+
+"Spare my life," he yelled to his imaginary assailant, "and I'll let you
+escape!"
+
+He thought he had been stabbed with a frying-pan. He rushed out of the
+house and secured the assistance of four of his fellow-officers, and a
+search of the building was resumed. Mrs. Banford was found in bed
+unconscious. Her husband was found in the yard in nearly a similar
+condition; and the burglar was found under the sofa, shivering with fear,
+and with his tail clasped tightly between his legs.
+
+The cause of the panic was soon explained. Mrs. Banford had overlooked the
+presence of her pet dog in the house, and this innocent animal, in running
+from one room to another, had dislodged the "cheap and effective"
+burglar-alarms.
+
+
+
+
+BETTER THINGS.
+
+BY GEORGE MACDONALD.
+
+
+    Better to smell the violet cool, than sip the glowing wine;
+    Better to hark a hidden brook, than watch a diamond shine.
+
+    Better the love of a gentle heart, than beauty's favor proud;
+    Better the rose's living seed, than roses in a crowd.
+
+    Better to love in loneliness, than to bask in love all day;
+    Better the fountain in the heart, than the fountain by the way.
+
+    Better be fed by a mother's hand, than eat alone at will;
+    Better to trust in God, than say: "My goods my storehouse fill."
+
+    Better to be a little wise, than in knowledge to abound;
+    Better to teach a child, than toil to fill perfection's round.
+
+    Better to sit at a master's feet, than thrill a listening State;
+    Better suspect that thou art proud, than be sure that thou art great.
+
+    Better to walk the real unseen, than watch the hour's event;
+    Better the "Well done!" at the last, than the air with shouting rent.
+
+    Better to have a quiet grief, than a hurrying delight;
+    Better the twilight of the dawn, than the noonday burning bright.
+
+    Better a death when work is done, than earth's most favored birth;
+    Better a child in God's great house, than the king of all the earth.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Recitations for the Social Circle, by
+James Clarence Harvey
+
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