dlin' well for some time, till I made up my mind to pop the question, for I loved her harder every day, and I had an idee she loved me or had a sneaking kindness for me. But how to do the thing up nice and right pestered me orful. I bought some love books, and read how the fellers git down onter their knees and talk like poets, and how the girls But somehow or would gently-like fall in love with them. other that way didn't kinder suit my notion. I asked mam how she and dad courted, but she said it had been so long Uncle Jo said mam did all she had forgotten all about it.

the courting.

At last I made up my mind to go it blind, for this thing was fairly consumin' my mind; so I goes over to her dad's, and when I got there I sot like a fool, thinkin' how to begin. Sall seed somethin' was troublin' me, so she said, says she, 'An't you sick, Peter?" She said this mighty soft-like. "Yes; No!" sez I; "that is, I an't zackly well. I thought I'd come over to-night," sez I. I tho't that was a mighty purty beginnin'; so I tried agin. “Sall," sez I-and by this time I felt kinder fainty about the stommuck and shaky about the knees-"Sall," sez I. "What?" sez she. "Sall," sez I agin. 'What?" sez she. I'll get to it arter awhile at this rate, thinks I. "Peter," says she, "there's suthin' troublin' you; 'tis mighty wrong for you to keep it from a body, for an inard sorrer is a consumin' fire." She said this, she did, the sly critter. She knowed what was the matter all the time mighty well, and was only tryin' to fish it out, but I was so far gone I couldn't see the point.

At last I sorter gulped down the big lump a-risin' in my throat, and sez I, sez I, "Sall, do you love anybody?" "Well," sez she, "there's dad and mam," and a-countin' of her fingers all the time, with her eyes sorter shet like a feller shootin' off a gun, "and there's old Pide (that were their old cow), and I can't think of anybody else just now," says she. Now, this was orful for a feller ded in love; so arter awhile I tried another shute. Sez I, "Sall," sez I, "I'm powerful lonesome at home, and sometimes think if I only had a nice, pretty wife to love and talk to, move, and have my bein' with, I'd be a tremendous feller." Sez I, "Sall, do you know any gal would keer for me?"

With that she begins, and names over all the gals for five miles around, and never once came nigh naming of herself, and sed I oughter git one of them. This sorter got my dander up, so I hitched my cheer up close to her, and shet my eyes and sed, "SALL, you are the VERY gal I've been hankering arter for a long time. I love you all over, from the sole of your head to the crown of your foot, and I don't care who knows it, and if you say so we'll be jined together in the holy bonds of hemlock, Epluribusunum, world without end, amen!" sez I; and then I felt like I'd throwed up an alligator, I felt so relieved.

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With that she fetched a sorter scream, and arter awhile sez, sez she, "PETER!" 'What, Sally?" sez I. "YES!" sez she, a-hidin' of her face behind her hands. You bet a heap, I felt good. “Glory! glory!" sez I, “I must holler, Sall, or I shall bust. Hurrah for hooray! I can jump over a ten-rail fence!"

With that I sot right down by her and clinched the bargain with a kiss. Talk about your blackberry jam; talk about your sugar and merlasses; you wouldn't a got me nigh 'em-they would all a been sour arter that. Oh, these gals! how good and bad, how high and low they make a feller feel! If Sall's daddy hadn't sung out 'twas time all honest folks was abed, I'd a sot there two hours longer.

You oughter seed me when I got home! I pulled dad out of bed and hugged him! I pulled mam out of bed and hugged her! I pulled aunt Jane out of bed and hugged her! I larfed and hollered, I crowed like a rooster, I danced round there, and I cut up more capers than you ever heerd tell on, till dad thought I was crazy, and got a rope to tie me with.

"Dad," sez I, "I'm goin' to be married!" "Married!" bawled dad. “Married!” squalled mam. "Married!" screamed aunt Jane. "Yes, married," sez I; "married all over, married for sure, married like a flash-joined in wedlock, hooked on for life, for worser or for better, for life and for death-to SALL. I am that very thing-me! Peter Sorghum EsQUIRE!"

With that I ups and tells 'em all about it from Alfer to Ermeger! They was all mighty well pleased, and I went to bed as proud as a young rooster with his first spurs.

EXTRACT FROM THE DEDICATORY ODE FOR

THE GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY,
July 1, 1869.-BAYARD TAYLOR.

After the eyes that looked, the lips that spake
Here, from the shadows of impending death,

Those words of solemn breath,

What voice may fitly break

The silence, doubly hallowed, left by him?
We can but bow the head, with eyes grown dim,
And as a nation's litany, repeat

The phrase his martyrdom has made complete,
Noble as then, but now more sadly-sweet:
"Let us, the living, rather dedicate

Ourselves to the unfinished work, which they
Thus far advanced so nobly on its way,

And save the periled state!

Let us, upon this field where they, the brave,
Their last full measure of devotion gave,
Highly resolve they have not died in vain!
That, under God, the nation's later birth
Of freedom, and the people's gain

Of their own sovereignty, shall never wane
And perish from the circle of the earth!"
From such a perfect text, shall song aspire
To light its faded fire,

And into wandering music turn

Its virtue, simple, sorrowful and stern?

His voice all elegies anticipated;

For whatsoe'er the strain,

We hear that one refrain:

"We consecrate ourselves to them, the consecrated!*

After the thunder-storm our heaven is blue;

Far off, along the borders of the sky,

In silver folds the clouds of battle lie,

With soft consoling sunlight shining through;
And round the sweeping circle of your hills

The crashing cannon-thrills

Have faded from the memory of the air;

And summer pours from unexhausted fountains
Her bliss on yonder mountains;

The camps are tenantless, the breast works bare;

Earth keeps no stain where hero-blood was poured.

The hornets, humming on their wings of lead,
Have ceased to sting, their angry swarms are dead;
And, harmless in its scabbard, rusts the sword!

Oh, not till now,-oh, now we dare, at last,
To give our heroes fitting consecration!
Not till the soreness of the strife is past,
And peace hath comforted the weary nation.
So long her sad, indignant spirit held
One keen regret, one throb of pain, unequaled,
So long the land about her feet was waste,
The ashes of the burning lay upon her.

We stood beside their graves with brows abased,
Waiting the purer mood to do them honor!
They, through the flames of this dread holocaust,
The patriot's wrath, the soldier's ardor lost:
They sit above us and above our passion,
Disparaged even by our human tears-

Beholding truth our race, perchance, may fashion
In the slow judgment of the creeping years.
We saw the still reproof upon their faces;
We heard them whisper from the shining spaces:
"To-day ye grieve: come not to us with sorrow!
Wait for the glad, the reconciled to-morrow!
Your grief but clouds the ether where we dwell;
Your anger keeps your souls and ours apart;
But come with peace and pardon, all is well!
And come with love, we touch you, heart to heart!

This they have done for us, who slumber here,-
Awake, alive, though now so dumbly sleeping;
Spreading the board, but tasting not its cheer,
Sowing, but never reaping;-

Building, but never sitting in the shade
Of the strong mansion they have made;

Speaking their word of life with mighty tongue,
But hearing not the echo, million-voiced,
Of brothers who rejoiced,

From all our river-vales and mountains flung.
So take them, heroes of the songful past!
Open your ranks, let every shining troop,

Its phantom banners droop,

To hail earth's noblest martyrs, and her last.
Take them, O Fatherland!

Who, dying, conquered in thy name;

And, with a grateful hand,

Inscribe their deeds who took away thy blameGive, for their grandest all, thine insufficient fame! Take them, O God! our brave,

The glad fulfillers of thy dread decree;

Who grasped the sword for peace, and smote to save, And, dying here for freedom, died for thee!

THE RUM MANIAC.-ALLISON.
"Say, doctor, may I not have rum,
To quench this burning thirst within?
Here on this cursed bed I lie,
And cannot get one drop of gin.
I ask not health, nor even life-
Life! what a curse it's been to me!
I'd rather sink in deepest hell,
Than drink again its misery.

"But, doctor, may I not have rum?
One drop alone is ail I crave;
Grant this small boon, I ask no more!
Then I'll defy-yes e'en the grave;
Then, without fear, I'll fold my arms,
And bid the monster strike his dart,
To haste me from this world of woe,
And claim his own,-this ruined heart.
"A thousand curses on his head
Who gave me first the poisoned bowl,
Who taught me first this bane to drink,
Drink-death and ruin to my soul.
My soul! oh, cruel, horrid thought!
Full well I know thy certain fate;
With what instinctive horror shrinks
The spirit from that awful state!
"Lost-lost-I know forever lost!
To me no ray of hope can come :
My fate is sealed; my doom is
But give me rum; I will have rum.
But, doctor, don't you see him there?
In that dark corner low he sits;
See! how he sports his fiery tongue,
And at me burning brimstone spits!