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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,

"T was 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 bearing.

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,

'T was 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 shook 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 passed 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 't was boyish love, yet still,
Oh, listless woman! weary lover!

To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill
I'd give but who can live youth over?

NOBODY THERE.

1 was the last new boy at school:
I must pay my "initiation fee,”-
Twelve boys wanted a thieving tool;

The latter the reason, the former the plea.
With boast and bluster and bullying air,
They won consent from "the last boy there."

A stealthy walk 'neath a silver moon;

Then an orchard wall looking e'er so high; Next, "Here's the plunder! climb like a coon," From the biggest boy with the blackest eye. "What a ninny you are; and how you stare! Nobody will hurt you: nobody's there."

They knew the place for scaling well,
And pushed me up with eager hands,
Till, trembling and weak, their victim fell
On the broad ledge guarding the Bellair lands.
"A crooked tree leans down like a stair,"
They told me; and there it was,-right there!

Right there! And, on that stairway swung,
I crouched like a coward amid the leaves:
To right, to left, the ripe fruit hung

On that first and fairest of autumn eves,-
Crimson and gold, in a silver air,
Apple on apple, pear on pear,

Just within reach of my tempting hold,
The air astir with their fruity breath;-
Globe of crimson, pendant of gold:

What was to hinder loitering Seth?
Silent I hung on the old tree stair:
As silent the orchard,-nobody there.

High in the heavens hung the harvest moon:
Strange!-but it brought my mother's smile.
"Tell me all that happens, and write me soon,”
She said, through smiles and tears the while.
There were two of us only: God took one,-
A sister, the sweetest under the sun.

Somehow in that silvery hush,

Came the murmur of mother's prayer; And a little stream, 'mid banks of rush, Caught the gleam of my sister's hair. Still, crimson and gold, in a silver air, Hung apple on apple, pear on pear.

Down in the dark some tiny thing,
Under the daisies' silken hood,
Smote the quiet with bell-like ring,

Bringing an answer out of the wood,-
Two together: they make me reel,
Chiming in chorus, "Thou shalt not steal."

The twelve in waiting saw me bound
Over the wall with empty hands,
Panting,-breathless. They flee the ground:
Far beyond lay the tempting lands.

"Was it Box?" said the bully," or old Bellair?"
"Neither," I answered: "God was there."

LAND POOR.-J. W. DONOVAN.

I've had another offer, wife-a twenty acres more,
Of high and dry prairie land, as level as a floor.

I thought I'd wait and see you first, as lawyer Brady said,
To tell how things will turn out best, a woman is ahead.

And when this lot is paid for, and we have got the deed,
I'll say that I am satisfied- it's all the land we need;
And next we'll see about the yard, and fix the house up

some,

And manage in the course of time to have a better home.

WIFE.

There is no use of talking, Charles—you buy that twenty more. And we'll go scrimping all our lives, and always be land poor. For thirty years we've tugged and saved, denying half our needs,

While all we have to show for it is tax receipts and deeds!

I'd sell the land if it were mine, and have a better home, With broad, light rooms to front the street, and take life as it come.

If we could live as others live, and have what others do, We'd live enough sight pleasanter, and have a plenty too.

While others have amusements and luxury and books, Just think how stingy we have lived, and how this old place looks.

That other farm you bought of Wells, that took so many

years

Of clearing up and fencing in, has cost me many tears.

Yes, Charles, I've thought of it a hundred times or more, And wondered if it really paid to always be land poor,That had we built a cozy house, took pleasure as it come, Our children, once so dear to us, had never left our home.

I grieve to think of wasted weeks and years and months and days,

While for it all we never yet have had one word of praise. Men call us rich, but we are poor-would we not freely give The land with all its fixtures for a better way to live?

Don't think I'm blaming you, Charles-you're not a whit to blame,

I've pitied you these many years, to see you tired and lame. It's just the way we started out, our plans too far ahead; We've worn the cream of life away, to leave too much when dead.

Tis putting off enjoyment long after we enjoy,—

And after all too much of wealth seems useless as a toy,Although we've learned, alas, too late! what all must learn at last,

Our brightest earthly happiness is buried in the past,

That life is short and full of care, the end is always nigh, We seldom half begin to live before we're doomed to die. Were I to start my life again, I'd mark each separate day, And never let a single one pass unenjcyed away.

If there were things to envy, I'd have them now and then, And have a home that was a home, and not a cage or pen. I'd sell some land if it were mine, and fit up well the rest, I've always thought, and think so yet-small farms well worked are best.

THE LAWYERS AND THE CAT.

Two Arkansas lawyers were domesticated in the rude ho tel of a country town. The hotel was crowded, and the room allotted to our heroes was also occupied by six or eight others. Shake down beds, enough to accommodate the guests, were disposed about the room, against the four walls, leaving an open space in the centre of the apartment.

Judge Clark lay with his head to the north, on one side, and Judge Thomas lay with his head to the south on the other side of the room. So far as that room was concerned, it might be said that their heads represented the north and south poles respectively.

All the other beds in the room were occupied. The central part of the room was deemed neutral ground, in which the occupants of the different beds had equal rights. Here, in picturesque confusion lay the boots, hats, coats, and breeches of the sleepers. There were no windows, and though the door was open, there being no moon, the night was very dark in that room.

The wily lawyers, who had been opposing counsel in a case tried in the town court that day, and had opposed each other with the contumacity of wild pigs, were now the very incarnations of meekness, for when the hungry swarm of mosquitoes settled down and bit them on the one cheek they slowly turned the other to be bitten also.

But hush! hark!

A deep sound strikes the ear like a rising knell.

66 Me-ow-ow!"

Judge Clark and Thomas were wide awake, and sitting bolt upright in an instant.

Again the startling cry!

"Ye-ow, ye-ow!"

"There's a cat!" whispered Clark. "Scat you!" hissed Thomas.

Cat paid no attention to these demonstrations, but gave vent to another yowl.

Oh, gracious!" cried Clark, "I can't stand this! Where is he, Thomas?"

"On your side of the room somewhere," replied Thomas. No, he's on your side." said Clark.

66

(6 Ye-ow-ow-ow!"

"There I told you he was on your side," they both exclaim ed in a breath.

And still the howl went on.

The idea now entered the heads of both the lawyers, that by the exercise of a certain strategy they might be enabled to execute a certain flank movement on the cat, and totally

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