leave room for you. I'll just tell a little story or so, to amuse them, and then sit down." "What story, for instance?" I asked. "Oh, nothing, nothing; only a little yarn I happened to remember about a farmer who married a woman who said she could cut four cords of wood, when she couldn't." My worst fears were realized. I turned to the man next to me, and said, with suppressed emotion, “May I ask your name, my friend?" He said his name was Gumbs. May I inquire what your Christian name is?" He said it was William Henry. Well, William Henry Gumbs," I exclaimed, "gaze at me! Do I look like a man who would slay a human being in cold blood?" "Hm-m-m, n-no; you don't," he replied, with an air of critical consideration. "But I AM!" said I, fiercely-"I AM; and I tell you now that if you undertake to relate that anecdote about the farmer's wife I will blow you into eternity without a moment's warning; I will, by George!" "Mr. Gumbs instantly jumped up, placed his hand on the railing of the porch, and got over suddenly into the crowd. He stood there pointing me out to the bystanders, and doubtless advancing the theory that I was an original kind of a lunatic, who might be expected to have at any moment a fit which would be interesting when studied from a dis tance. The chairman looked around, intending to call upon my friend Mr. Gumbs; but not perceiving him, he came to me and said: "Now is your chance, sir; splendid opportunity; crowd worked up to just the proper pitch. We have paved the way for you; go in and do your best." "Oh yes; but hold on for a few moments, will you? I can't speak now; the fact is I am not quite ready. Run out some other man." Haven't got another man. Kept you for the last purposely, and the crowd is waiting. Come ahead and pitch in, and give it to 'em hot and heavy." It was very easy for him to say "give it to them," but I had nothing to give. Beautifully they paved the way for me! Nicely they had worked up the crowd to the proper pitch! Here I was in a condition of frantic despair, with a crowd of one thousand people expecting a brilliant oration from me who had not a thing in my mind but a beggarly story about a fire-extinguisher and a worse one about a farmer's wife. I groaned in spirit and wished I had been born far away in some distant clime among savages who knew not of mass meetings, and whose language contained such a small number of words that speech-making was impossible. But the chairman was determined. He seized me by the arm and fairly dragged me to the front. He introduced me to the crowd in flattering, and I may say outrageously ridiculous terms, and then whispering in my ear, "Hit 'em hard, old fellow, hit 'em hard," he sat down. The crowd received me with three hearty cheers. As I heard them I began to feel dizzy. The audience seemed to swim around and to increase tenfold in size. By a resolute effort I recovered my self-possession partially, and determined to begin. I could not think of anything but the two stories, and I resolved to tell them as well as I could. I said: "Fellow-citizens: It is so late now that I will not attempt to make a speech to you." [Cries of "Yes!" "Go ahead!" "Never mind the time!" etc., etc.] Elevating my voice, I repeated: "I say it is so late now that I can't make a speech as I intended on account of its being so late that the speech which I intended to make would keep you here too late if I made it as I intended to. So I will tell you a story about a man who bought a patent fire-extinguisher which was warranted to split four cords of wood a day; so he set fire to his house to try her, and- No, it was his wife who was warranted to split four cords of wood-I got it wrong; and when the flames obtained full headway, he found she could only split two cords and a half, and it made him- What I mean is that the farmer, when he bought the exting-courted her, that is, she said she could set fire to the house, and when he tried her, she collapsed the first time-the extinguisher did, and he wanted a divorce because his house—Oh, hang it, fellow-citizens, you understand that this man, or farmer, rather, bought a-I should say courted a-that is, a fire-ex-" (Desperately.) "Fellow-citizens! IF ANY MAN SHOOTS THE AMERICAN FLAG, PULL HIM DOWN UPON THE SPOT; BUT AS FOR ME, GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!" As I shouted this out at the top of my voice, in an ecstasy of confusion, a wild, tumultuous yell of laughter came up from the crowd. I paused for a second beneath the spell of that cold eye in the band, and then, dashing through the throng at the back of the porch, I rushed down the street to the depot, with the shouts of the crowd and the uproarious music of the band ringing in my ears. I got upon a freight train, gave the engineer five dollars to take me along on the locomotive, and spent the night riding to New Castle. THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON.-GEORGE W. BUNGAY. (CENTENARY LINES.) The circling century has brought One hundred years ago! We crown the day with radiant green, At break of day again we hear And shots that shake the throne To strike for freedom and be free:- "Load well with powder and with ball, Militia and brave minute-men But through the gray smoke and the flame, From war's red winding-sheet! Hancock and Adams glory won, With yeomen whose best work was done When first they struck the blow. Long may their children's children bear, HE DOETH HIS ALMS TO BE SEEN OF MEN. A poor little girl in a tattered gown Wandering alone through the crowded town, Bedimmed with tears were her eyes of brown, The night was approaching, the winter's chill blast Now hurriedly passing along the street, But slowly and sadly resumes her seat, He saw the wind tempest resistlessly hurl He went to a charity meeting that night And held up his check for a thousand at sight, He handed the check to the treasurer, when The paper next morning had much to say So much for the poor man's cause. TTT* Near by, the same paper went on to repeat With only the snow for a winding sheet,- Ah! who can declare that when God shall unfold Him guilty of murder, who seeks with his gold, The praises of men, while out in the cold He leaves a poor child to die. NATIONS AND HUMANITY.-GEO. W. CURTIS. It was not his olive valleys and orange groves which made the Greece of the Greek, it was not for his apple orchards or potato fields that the farmer of New England and New York left his plough in the furrow and marched to Bunker Hill, to Bennington, to Saratoga. A man's country is not a certain area of land, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. The secret sanctification of the soil and symbol of a country is the idea which they represent; and this idea the patriot worships through the name and the symbol. So with passionate heroism, of which tradition is never weary of tenderly telling, Arnold von Winkelried gathers into his bosom the sheaf of foreign spears. So, Nathan Hale, disdaining no service that duty demands, perishes untimely with no other friend than God and the satisfied sense of duty. So, through all history from the beginning, a noble army of martyrs has fought fiercely, and fallen bravely, for that unseen mistress, their country. So, through all history to the end, that army must still march, and fight, and fall. But countries and families are but nurseries and influences. A man is a father, a brother, a German, a Roman, an American; but beneath all these relations, he is a man. The end of his human destiny is not to be the best German, or the best Roman, or the best father; but the best man he can be. |