The judge's face was a study

The strangest you ever saw,

As he cleared his throat and murmured
Something about the law.

For one so learned in such matters,
So wise in dealing with men,
He seemed, on a simple question,
Sorely puzzled just then.

But no one blamed him or wondered,
When at last these words they heard
"The sentence of this young prisoner
Is, for the present, deferred."

And no one blamed him or wondered
When he went to her and smiled,
And tenderly led from the court-room,
Himself, the "guilty" child.

ODE FOR DECORATION DAY.

HENRY PETERSON.

Bring flowers to strew again

With fragrant purple rain

Of lilacs, and of roses white and red,

The dwellings of our dead, our glorious dead!
Let the bells ring a solemn funeral chime,

And wild war-music bring anew the time
When they who sleep beneath
Were full of vigorous breath,

And in their lusty manhood sallied forth,

Holding in strong right hand

The fortunes of the land,

The pride and power and safety of the North!

It seems but yesterday

The long and proud array

But yesterday when ev'n the solid rock

Shook as with earthquake shock,

As North and South, like two huge icebergs, ground

Against each other with convulsive bound,

And the whole world stood still

To view the mighty war,

And hear the thunderous roar,

While sheeted lightnings wrapped each plain and hill.

Alas! how few came back

From battle and from wrack!

Alas! how many lie

Beneath a Southern sky,

Who never heard the fearful fight was done,
And all they fought for won.

Sweeter, I think their sleep,

More peaceful and more deep,

Could they but know their wounds were not in vain,
Could they but hear the grand triumphal strain,
And see their homes unmarred by hostile tread.
Ah! let us trust it is so with our dead-
That they the thrilling joy of triumph feel,
And in that joy disdain the foeman's steel.

We mourn for all, but each doth think of one
More precious to the heart than aught beside—
Some father, brother, husband, or some son

Who came not back, or coming, sank and died,In him the whole sad list is glorified! "He fell 'fore Richmond, in the seven long days When battle raged from morn till blood-dewed eve And lies there," one pale, widowed mourner says, And knows not most to triumph or to grieve. "My boy fell at Fair Oaks," another sighs; "And mine at Gettysburg!" his neighbor cries,

And that great name each sad-eyed listener thrills.

I think of one who vanished when the press

Of battle surged along the Wilderness,

And mourned the North upon her thousand hills.

Oh! gallant brothers of the generous South,
Foes for a day and brothers for all time,

I charge you by the memories of our youth,
By Yorktown's field and Montezuma's clime,
Hold our dead sacred-let them quietly rest

In your unnumbered vales, where God thought best'
Your vines and flowers learned long since to forgive,
And o'er their graves a 'broidered mantle weave;
Be you as kind as they are, and the word
Shall reach the Northland with each summer bird,
And thoughts as sweet as summer shall awake
Responsive to your kindness, and shall make
Our peace the peace of brothers once again,
And banish utterly the days of pain.

And ye! O Northmen! be ye not outdone
In generous thought and deed.

We all do need forgiveness, every one;

And they that give shall find it in their need.

Spare of your flowers to deck the stranger's grave,
Who died for a lost cause—

A soul more daring, resolute, and brave
Ne'er won a world's applause!

(A brave man's hatred pauses at the tomb.)

For him some Southern home was robed in gloom,
Some wife or mother looked with longing eyes

Through the sad days and nights with tears and sighs,-
Hope slowly hardening into gaunt Despair.

Then let your foeman's grave remembrance share;

Pity a higher charm to Valor lends,

And in the realms of Sorrow all are friends.

Yes, bring fresh flowers and strew the soldier's grave,
Whether he proudly lies

Beneath our Northern skies,

Or where the Southern palms their branches wave!
Let the bells toll and wild war-music swell,

And for one day the thought of all the past

Of all those memories vast

Come back and haunt us with its mighty spell!
Bring flowers, then once again,

And strew with fragrant rain

Of lilacs, and of roses white and red,
The dwellings of our dead.

BUCK FANSHAW'S FUNERAL.-MARK TWAIN.

Somebody has said that in order to know a community, one must observe the style of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with most ceremony. I can not say which class we buried with most eclat in our " flush times," the distinguished public benefactor or the distinguished rough—possibly the two chief grades or grand divisions of society honored their illustrious dead about equally; and hence, no doubt, the philosopher I have quoted from would have needed to see two representative funerals in Virginia before forming his estimate of the people.

There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was a representative citizen. He had "killed his man," not in his own quarrel to be sure, but in defense of a stranger beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had

been the proprietor of a dashing helpmeet, whom he could have discarded without the formality of a divorce. He had held a high position in the fire department, and had been a very Warwick in politics. When he died there was great lamentation throughout the town, but especially in the vast bottom-stratum of society.

On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium of a wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself through the body, cut his throat, and jumped out of a four-story window and broken his neck, and, after due deliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but with intelligence unblinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of "death by the visitation of Providence." What could the world do without juries!

Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the vehicles in town were hired, all the saloons were put in mourning, all the municipal and fire-company flags were hung at half-mast and all the firemen ordered to muster in uniform, and bring their machines duly draped in black.

Now-let us remark in parenthesis-as all the peoples of the earth had representative adventurers in the Silverland, and as each adventurer had brought the slang of his nation or his locality with him, the combination made the slang of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely varied and copious that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps, except in the mines of California in the "early days." Slang was the language of Nevada. It was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be understood. Such phrases as "You bet!" "Oh, no I reckon not!" "No Irish need apply," and a hundred others, became so common as to fall from the lips of a speaker unconsciously—and very often when they did not touch the subject under discussion and consequently failed to mean anything.

Regretful resolutions were passed and various committees appointed; among others, a committee of one was deputed to call on the minister-a fragile, gentle, spiritual new fledgling from an eastern theological seminary, and as yet unacquainted with the ways of the mines. The committee-man, "Scotty" Briggs, made his visit.

Being admitted to his presence, he sat down before the clergyman, placed his fire-hat on an unfinished manuscript sermon under the minister's nose, took from it a red silk handkerchief, wiped his brow, and heaved a sigh of dismal impressiveness, explanatory of his business. He choked and even shed tears, but with an effort he mastered his voice, and said, in lugubrious tones:

"Are you
the duck that runs the gospel-mill next door?"
"Am I the-pardon me, I believe I do not understand."
With another sigh and a half sob, Scotty rejoined:

"Why you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys thought maybe you'd give us a lift, if we'd tackle you, that is, if I've got the rights of it, and you're the head clerk of the doxology works next door."

"I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next door."

"The which?"

"The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers whose sanctuary adjoins these premises."

Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then said:

"You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can't call that card. Ante and pass the buck."

"How? I beg your pardon. What did I understand you to say?"

Or maybe

"Well, you've ruther got the bulge on me. we've both got the bulge, somehow. You don't smoke me and I don't smoke you. You see one of the boys has passed in his checks, and we want to give him a good send off, and so the thing I'm on now is to roust out somebody to jerk a little chin-music for us, and waltz him through handsome."

"My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your observations are wholly incomprehensible to me. Can • you not simplify them some way? At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would it not expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical statements of fact unincumbered with obstructing accumulations of metaphor and allegory?"

Another pause and more reflection. Then Scotty said: "I'll have to pass, I judge."