Who laugh at all and am only a clown, A runner next day leaped down the sand, And I must carry my message straight The castle he neared, but the waves were great, The swimmer against the waves began The monarch, moving his rook ahead,— Gave “Check!”—then looked on the lake and said, To the lords and mirthful dames the bard Then came the chief of the halberdiers, An army with banners and bows and spears! The red usurper reached the throne; The tidings over the realm were blown; With a trusty few, the King made moan. But long and loudly laughed the Clown: ON THE PRAIRIE.-ROBERT C. V. MEYERS.* Written expressly for this Collection. We was out there on the prairie,-wife, an' Jimmie, an' me; All alone with the miles o' grass that was like a gilded sea, All alone with the sky an' the wind, an' the noises that wasn't noise, But jest like bits o'lovin' words ye ketch from a far-off voice. Jim was sick; had been that way for three days-'bout as weak As water; couldn't raise a hand; he didn't keer to speak; We only knowed he was in pain by the spasm on his face When the wagon pitched, or the sun grew hot, or a hoss jerked on a trace. For three days all alone out there, wife, an' Jimmie, an' me, An' 'twould be three more before we'd reach the settlement. An' we Saw that Jim got worse an' worse. At first, wife she would smile, An' say, "All childern has their spells; he'll pick up after 'while." Then the smiles they kind o' dropped; she'd look down on him there A-layin' on the wagon seat, with all his yellow hair Stiller an' stiller his sleep got, and oncet quick as a flash, O' thunder, nothin' more, but jest a thought from far an' wide A-crowdin' on me-jest a thought o' the time that mother died. I looked at Jim, wife looked at me-she come up close to me— Jest then the hosses give a lurch, an' Jim he give a groan. *Author of "If I should die To-night," "The Sentinel of Metz," Our C'lumbus," and other popular, recitations found in this Series. Mr. Meyers has also furnished some excellent Amateur Plays for the Dramatic Supplements, appended to the earlier Numbers. So we got out o' the wagon, and we set there in the grass, An' Jim crept in her arms-her eyes were like two bits of glass. Sudden she pushed Jim to me. "Take him," says she, "an' lay Him careful up to your breast, Joe-Joe, I'm goin' to pray!" We hadn't lived a prayin' life-I was called a fool When I married "Torpedo Sal,”—she that had fought the dool, And pinned her man. But that was now five years ago, an' more, An' Jimmie, our little boy, he was a-goin' on to four. In sort o' skeer I held our Jim, an' looked at Sal on her knees. She looked up to the big blue sky. "Lord," says she, "you will please Excuse a wicked creetur for comin' to you jest Because she is about to lose somethin' she loves the best. "Lord, was your mother lonesome the time that you was born? That manger must a-made her feel a little bit forlorn. I guess her heart would 'most a-broke if you had died before You'd quite learned how to love her-jest a-goin' on to four. "Lord, I aint fit to come to you, but you can come to me. Come to Joe, an' Jimmie, and me, come to us poor three; An' if when you go, there'll be left two where there was three before, Prove it some way our Jim is went up to the shinin' shore!" Then she turns round an' grabs up Jim, an' holds him to her heart "Look! Joe, look!" she says in a voice that give me such a start. I looked-Jim's eyes was open,-they fairly seemed to glow; "The shinin' shore," he says jest like his mother'd said, you know. "An' look!" says Sal, a-pointin', "the manger an' the son!" For the hosses was around us, an' they was a-lookin' on. The air fell, an' a quiet that was almost like a song A-smilin' like he was waitin' for somebody he loved more Than even mother an' father; he smiled, he raised his hand— An' the hosses looked, an' the grass bent down, an' the star shone over the land, An' the quiet an' the stiilness was closer an' closer yet, An' held his hand as if he felt another hand in his; he slid Back in her arms. The wind come up, the hosses chafed, Her face in Jimmie's yellow hair,-Jimmie, that had got still before This minute your two little white feet is treadin' the shinin' shore. There's only two where there used to be three-no, no, there's four; there's you, An' me, an' Joe, and Him that heard my prayer an' answered it true!" BILL NYE ON HORNETS. 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 whenever 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 watermelon 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. BUZZARD'S POINT.*-GEORGE M. VICKERS This Selection was awarded a Gold Medal prize at the Elocutionary Contest of the Mt. Vernon Institute of Elocution and Languages, Philadelphia, June 14, 1888. Huge, fleecy clouds, like stately ships, drift by, That juts far out from shore, two lovers sit |