So thick they died the people cried "The gods are moved against the land." The Priest in horror about his altar To Thor and Odin lifted a hand: 66 Help us from famine And plague and strife! What would you have of us? Were it our nearest, We give you his life!" But still the foeman spoiled and burned, And whitened all the rolling flood; Or down in a furrow scathed with flame: And ever and aye the Priesthood moaned Till at last it seemed that an answer came. "The King is happy In child and wife: The Priest went out by heath and hill; And cried with joy, The King returned from out the wild, Or I, the wife?" The King bent low, with hand on brow, For now the Priest has judged for me." "The gods," he said, “would have chosen well; Yet both are near, and both are dear, And which the dearest I cannot tell!" But the Priest was happy, His victim won: The rites prepared, the victim bared, Me, not my darling, no!" He caught her away with a sudden cry; I am his dearest!" rushed on the knife. We give you a life. Which was his nearest ? Who was his dearest? The gods have answered; MOTHER'S FOOL. ""Tis plain to see," said a farmer's wife, While Fred, of course, was left behind Five years at school the students spent; John learned to play the flute and fiddle, Meanwhile, at home, their brother Fred He was getting "book larnin'" into his head; 66 'He's the smartest boy there is in town." The war broke out, and Captain Fred A hundred men to battle led, And when the rebel flag came down, THE OLD WOMAN'S RAILWAY SIGNAL. ELIHU BURRITT. The most effective working-force in the world in which we live is the law of kindness; for it is the only moral force that operates with the same effect upon mankind, brutekind, and bird-kind. From time immemorial, music has wonderfully affected all beings, reasoning or unreasoning, that have ears to hear. The prettiest idea and simile of ancient literature relates to Orpheus playing his lyre to ani mals listening in intoxicated silence to its strains. Well, kindness is the music of good-will to men and beasts; and both listen to it with their hearts, instead of their ears; and the hearts of both are affected by it in the same way, if not to the same degree. Volumes might be written, filled with beautiful illustrations of its effect upon both. The music of kindness has not only power to charm, but even to transform, both the savage breast of man and beast; and on this harp the smallest fingers in the world may play heaven's sweetest tunes on earth. Some time ago we read of an incident in America that will serve as a good illustration of this beautiful law. It was substantially to this effect: a poor, coarse-featured old woman lived on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, where it passed through a wild, unpeopled district in Western Virginia. She was a widow, with only one daughter living with her in a log-hut, near a deep, precipitous gorge crossed by the railway bridge. Here she contrived to support herself by raising and selling poultry and eggs, adding berries in their season, and other little articles for the market. She had to make a long, weary walk of many miles to a town where she could sell her basket of produce. The railway passed by her house to this town; but the ride would cost too much of the profit of her small sales: so she trudged on generally to the market on foot. The conductor, or guard, came finally to notice her traveling by the side of the line, or on the footpath between the rails; and being a goodnatured, benevolent man, he would often give her a ride to and fro without charge. The engine-man and brakeman also were good to the old woman, and felt that they were not wronging the interests of the railway company by giving her these free rides. And soon an accident occurred that proved they were quite right in this view of the matter. In the wild month of March the rain descended, and the mountains sent down their rolling, roaring torrents of melted snow and ice into this gorge, near the old woman's house. The flood arose with the darkness of the night, until she heard the crash of the railway bridge, as it was swept from its abutments, and dashed its broken timbers against the craggy sides of the precipice on either side. It was nearly midnight. The rain fell in a flood; and the darkness was deep and howling. In another half-hour the train would be due. There was no telegraph on the line; and the stations were separated by great distances. What could she do to warn the train against the awful destruction it was approaching? She had hardly a tallow candle in her house; and no light she could make of tallow or oil, if she had it, would live a moment in that tempest of wind and rain. Not a moment was to be lost; and her thought was equal to the moment. She cut the cords of her only bedstead, and shouldered the dry posts, head-pieces, and side-pieces. Her daughter followed her with their two wooden chairs. Up the steep embankment they climbed, and piled their all of household furniture upon the line, a few rods beyond the black, awful gap, gurgling with the roaring flood. The distant rumbling of the train came upon them just as they had fired the well-dried combustibles. The pile blazed up into the night, throwing its red, swaling, booming light a long way up the line. In fifteen minutes it would begin to wane; and she could not revive it with green, wet wood. The thunder of the train grew louder. It was within five miles of the fire. Would they see it in time? They might not put on the brakes soon enough. Awful thought! She tore her red woollen gown from her in a moment, and tying it to the end of a stick, ran up the line, waving it in both hands, while her daughter swung around her head a blazing chair-post a little before. The lives of a hundred unconscious passengers hung on the issue of the next minute. The ground trembled at the old woman's feet. The great red eye of the engine showed itself coming round a curve. Like as a huge, sharp-sighted lion coming suddenly upon a fire, it sent forth a thrilling roar, that echoed through all the wild heights and ravines around. The train was at full speed; but the brakemen wrestled at their leverage with all the strength of desperation. The wheels ground along on the heated rails slower and slower, until the engine stopped at the roaring fire. It still blazed enough to show them the beetling edge of the black abyss into which the train and all its passengers would have plunged into a death and destruction too horrible to |