"Did you try the Methodist ?" I said.

"Now you're shouting!" he said with some enthusiasm. "Nice road, eh? Fast time and plenty of passengers. Engines carry a power of steam, and don't you forget it; steam-gauge shows a hundred, and enough all the time. Lively road; when the conductor shouts 'all aboard,' you can hear him at the next station. Every train-light shines like a head-light. Stop-over checks are given on all through tickets; passenger can drop off the train as often as he likes, do the station two or three days, and hop on the next revival train that comes thundering along. Good wholesouled companionable conductors; ain't a road in the country where the passengers feel more at home. No passes; every passenger pays full traffic rates for his ticket. Wesleyanhouse air-brakes on all trains, too; pretty safe road, but I didn't ride over it yesterday."

"Perhaps you tried the Baptist ?" I guessed once more.

"Ah, ha!" said the brakeman," she's a daisy, isn't she? River road; beautiful curves; sweep around anything to keep close to the river, but it's all steel rail and rock ballast, single track all the way, and not a side track from the round house to the terminus. Takes a heap of water to run it, though; double tanks at every station, and there isn't an engine in the shops that can pull a pound or run a mile with less than two gauges. But it runs through a lovely country; those river roads always do; river on one side and hills on the other, and it's a steady climb up the grade all the way till the run ends where the fountain-head of the river begins. Yes, sir; I'll take the river road every time for a lovely trip; sure connections and a good time, and no prairie dust blowing in at the windows. And yesterday, when the conductor came around for the tickets with a little basket punch, I didn't ask him to pass me, but I paid my fare like a little man -twenty-five cents for an hour's run and a little concert by the passengers thrown in. I tell you, pilgrim, you take the river road when you want-"

But just here the long whistle from the engine announced a station, and the brakeman hurried to the door, shouting: "Zionsville! The train makes no stops between here and Indianapolis!" -Burlington Hawkeye.

OVER THE HILL FROM THE POOR-HOUSE.
WILL CARLETON.

I, who was always counted, they say,
Rather a bad stick any way,

66

Splintered all over with dodges and tricks,
Known as the worst of the Deacon's six;"
I, the truant, saucy and bold,

The one black sheep in my father's fold,
"Once on a time," as the stories say,
Went over the hill on a winter's day—
Over the hill to the poor-house.

Tom could save what twenty could earn;
But givin' was somethin' he ne'er would learn;
Isaac could half o' the Scriptur's speak-
Committed a hundred verses a week;
Never forgot, an' never slipped;

But "Honor thy father and mother" he skipped
So over the hill to the poor-house!

As for Susan, her heart was kind

An' good--what there was of it, mind;
Nothin' too big, an' nothin' too nice,
Nothin' she wouldn't sacrifice

For one she loved; an' that 'ere one
was herself, when all was said an' done;
An' Charley an' Becca meant well, no doubt,
But any one could pull 'em about;

An' all o' our folks ranked well, you see,
Save one poor fellow, and that was me;
An' when, one dark an' rainy night,
A neighbor's horse went out o' sight,
They hitched on me, as the guilty chap
That carried one end o' the halter-strap.
An' I think, myself, that view of the case
Wasn't altogether out o' place;
My mother denied it, as mothers do,
But I am inclined to believe 'twas true.
Though for me one thing might be said-
That I, as well as the horse, was led;
And the worst of whisky spurred me on,
Or else the deed would have never been done.
But the keenest grief I ever felt

Was when my mother beside me knelt,

An' cried, an' prayed, till I melted down,
As I wouldn't for half the horses in town.
I kissed her fondly, then an' there,

An' swore henceforth to be honest and square.

I served my sentence-a bitter pill
Some fellows should take who never will;
And then I decided to go "out West,"
Concludin' 'twould suit my health the best;
Where, how I prospered, I never could tell,
But Fortune seemed to like me well;
An' somehow every vein I struck
Was always bubbling over with luck.
An', better than that, I was steady an' true,
An' put my good resolutions through.
But I wrote to a trusty old neighbor, an' said,
"You tell 'em, old fellow, that I am dead,
An' died a Christian; 'twill please 'em more,
Than if I had lived the same as before."

But when this neighbor he wrote to me,
"Your mother's in the poor-house," says he,
I had a resurrection straightway,

An' started for her that very day.

And when I arrived where I was grown,

I took good care that I shouldn't be known;
But I bought the old cottage, through and through,
Of some one Charley had sold it to;

And held back neither work nor gold

To fix it up as it was of old.

The same big fire-place, wide and high,
Flung up its cinders toward the sky;

The old clock ticked on the corner-shelf-
I wound it an' set it agoin' myself;
An' if everything wasn't just the same,
Neither I nor money was to blame;

Then-over the hill to the poor-house!

One blowin', blusterin' winter's day,
With a team an' cutter I started away;
My fiery nags was as black as coal;
(They some'at resembled the horse I stole ;)
I hitched, an' entered the poor-house door-
A poor old woman was scrubbin' the floor;
She rose to her feet in great surprise,
And looked, quite startled, into my eyes;

I saw the whole of her trouble's trace
In the lines that marred her dear old face;
"Mother!" I shouted, "your sorrows is done!
You're adopted along o' your horse-thief son,
Come over the hill from the poor-house!"

She didn't faint; she knelt by my side,
An' thanked the Lord, till I fairly cried.
An' maybe our ride wasn't pleasant an' gay,
An' maybe she wasn't wrapped up that day;
An' maybe our cottage wasn't warm an' bright,
An' maybe it wasn't a pleasant sight,
To see her a-gettin' the evenin's tea,
An' frequently stoppin' an' kissin' me;
An' maybe we didn't live happy for years,
In spite of my brothers' and sisters' sneers,
Who often said, as I have heard,

That they wouldn't own a prison-bird;
(Though they're gettin' over that, I guess,
For all of 'em owe me more or less;)

But I've learned one thing; an' it cheers a man
In always a-doin' the best he can;

That whether on the big book, a blot
Gets over a fellow's name or not,
Whenever he does a deed that's white,
It's credited to him fair and right.

An' when you hear the great bugle's notes,
An' the Lord divides his sheep and goats;
However they may settle my case;
Wherever they may fix my place,
My good old Christian mother, you'll see,
Will be sure to stand right up for me,
With over the hill from the poor-house!

A PICTURE.

Girt round by sunburnt meadows newly mowed, The trees its rain-worn shingles half concealing A shabby cottage stands beside the road,

The paint in patches peeling.

Before the house, 'mid weeds and grasses dense,
Stand hollyhocks and stunted lilac bushes;
And through the broken palings of the fence
A ragged rose-tree pushes.

And all is silent, save the hum of bees,

The patient, plodding beetle's dreary droning,
Or, in the swaying branches of the trees,

The west wind's restless moaning.

But, hark! through window and through door there flow
Sounds of a feeble voice's plaintive singing;
With a forgotten song of long ago

The lonely room is ringing.

A childless widow chants hymns learned of yore,
In country churches sung by rustic voices,
And as the sacred notes through silence soar,
Her placid soul rejoices.

Her eyes are on the hillside, where green graves,
Deep-buried in the unshorn grass, lie sleeping;
Over the simple tombs a willow waves,

And tangled vines are creeping.

She marks them not; her inward eyesight sees,
Beyond the glory of the sun descending,
Her blessed dead, with solemn psalmodies,
Before the white throne bending.

For though her voice be harsh, and worn, and old,
As on her lips the trembling music lingers,
Within her heart she hears the harps of gold
Swept by celestial fingers.

Day dies, stars gleam, night's dusky shadows loom,
The swallow home his wayward flight is winging;
Yet, in the quiet of the growing gloom,
She still is gently singing.

HEROES OF THE LAND OF PENN.-George Lippard.

Beautiful in her solitary grandeur—fair as a green island in a desert waste, proud as a lonely column, reared in the wilderness-rises the land of Penn in the history of America.

Here, beneath the Elm of Shackamaxon, was first reared the holy altar of toleration. Here, from the halls of the old State House, was first proclaimed that bible of the rights of man-the Declaration of Independence.

Here William Penn asserted the mild teachings of the gospel, whose every word was love. Here Franklin drew