the clash of chains over neighboring roofs, proclaimed the glad news. 11. At times he contented himself with taking possession of my own roof, where his favorite pastime was to pull off the tiles, and throw them down the chimney. The only way to get him down from "that bad eminence" was by the offer of a glass of gin and water. This was a treat he, like many of his human brethren, could not resist. It cost him a pang, to be sure he knew that he would be seized by the tail, and consigned 10 again to captivity, if he descended to obtain the refreshment; but the temptation was generally too strong. 12. At times, however, he would rush off at once to neighboring premises. He seemed to know that his career of freedom would be short, and therefore, on these excursions, endeavored-and I must do him the justice to say generally with success to eat the greatest quantity of fruit, and do the greatest amount of mischief, in the shortest given time. In upsetting anything, his talents came out very strong. Once I caught him on my dinner-table, busily employed in mixing the vinegar with the mustard-an operation which he effected with the air of a philosopher performing a chemical experiment. 11 13. The end of Babby John was tragic, though strictly in keeping with the tenor 12 of his life. I gave him to a pastry cook; and after a week's residence in his new quarters, one night he broke loose, entered into the shop, and the next morning, was found stiff and stark on the floor, having, to say the truth, eaten himself to death with tarts. His white, closed eyelids showed ghastly in his swarthy visage, and his little black hands were clasped, in the pangs of indigestion, over his distended 13 stomach. 1. THE old sexton soon got better, and was about again. He was not able to work; but, one day, there was a grave to be made, and he came to overlook the man who dug it. He was in a talkative mood;1 and Nelly, at first standing by his side, and afterwards sitting on the grass at his feet, with her thoughtful face raised towards him, began to converse with him. 2. "You were telling me," she said, "about your gardening. Do you ever plant things here?" 3. "In the churchyard?" returned the sexton. "Not I." 4. "I have seen some flowers and little shrubs about," the child rejoined; "there are some over there, you see. I thought they were of your rearing; though, indeed, they grow but poorly." 5. "They grow as Heaven wills," said the old man; "and it kindly ordains 2 that they never shall flourish here." 6. "I don't understand you." 7. "Why, this it is," said the sexton; "they mark the graves of those who had very tender, loving friends." 8. "I was sure they did!" the child exclaimed. "I am very glad to know they do!" 9. "Ay," returned the old man; "but stay. Look at them. See how they hang their heads, and droop, and wither. Do you guess the reason?" 10. "No," the child replied. 11. "Because the memory of those who lie below passes away so soon. At first they tend them, morning, noon, and night; they soon begin to come less frequently; from once a week, to once a month; then at long and uncertain intervals; 3 then not at all. Such tokens seldom flourish long. I have known the briefest summer flowers outlive them." 12. "I grieve to hear it," said the child. 13. "Ah! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them," returned the old man, shaking his head; "but I say otherwise. 'It's a pretty custom you have in this part of the country,' they say to me sometimes, 'to plant the graves; but it's melancholy to see these things all withering or dead.' I crave their pardon, and tell them that — as I take it—'tis a good sign for the happiness of the living. And so it is. It's nature." 14. "Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in graves," said the child, in an earnest voice. 15. "Perhaps so," replied the old man, doubtfully. "It may be." 16. "Whether it be as I believe it is, or not," thought the child within herself, "I'll make this place my garden. It will be no harm, at least, to work here day by day; and pleasant thoughts wil come of it, I'm sure." I MÔÔD. Temper or state of mind. 2 QR-DAINS'. Orders. 3 IN'TER-VALS. Spaces of time. XXXII. — KILLED AT THE FORD. LONGFELLOW. [Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807 He has resided in Cambridge, Massachusetts, since 1836, having been professor of modern languages from that year till 1854. Of living poets, writing in English, he is the most popular and widely known. His poetry is marked by tenderness of feeling, purity of sentiment, elevation of thought, and healthy moral tone. The following poem commemorates one of the many sad incidents of the recent civil war in our country. A young man, perhaps the only son of a widowed mother, is shot by a rebel scout. The mother, on hearing the news, dies suddenly of a broken heart; and the poet imagines her to have been struck and slain by the same fatal bullet as her child.] 1. HE is dead, the beautiful youth, The heart of honor, the tongue of truth, Whose voice was blithe1 as a bugle-call, Whom all eyes followed with one consent, The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word, Hushed all murmurs of discontent. 2. Only last night, as we rode along, He was humming the words of some old song- And another he bore at the point of his sword." 3. Sudden and swift a whistling ball 4. We lifted him to his saddle again And through the mire and the mist and the rain, And laid him as if asleep on his bed; Two white roses on his cheeks, And one, just over his heart, blood red. 5. And I saw in a vision how far and fleet And a bell was tolled in that far-off town 1 BLITHE, Joyous. 2 FATAL. Deadly |