Chapter II: Introduction (2)

BIDDY.――Oh, ye blarney! [_Exit R. E._]

PAT. (_Rises from chair and walks up and down the stage_).――Humph! this is a very foine house. It lacks the comforts of a home, howiver, for there’s not the sign of a pipe or a ’bacca bowl about the room. They’re evidently mane people.

[_Enter Biddy R. E. carrying tray, on which are loaf of bread, a
knife, a black bottle and two glasses._]

Look at that now! If that isn’t the tip of hospitality my name’s not Patrick Dolan.

BIDDY (_places tray on table_).――Now, Pat, ye must not thrifle over the sup, (_fills glass from bottle_) but drink it at once. It would niver do to have the folks foind ye here.

PAT (_takes glass_).――Here’s to our wedding day, (_drinks_) Oh! ah! (_jumps to his feet and runs about stage holding his throat_) I’m pizened, I’m kilt.

BIDDY (_following him about_).――Shpeak, shpeak, me darlint Pat.

PAT (_gasping and pointing to bottle_).――Look――look――look at that! What’s in the bottle?

BIDDY.――Sure I can’t read. (_Hands bottle to Pat._)

PAT.――Saint Patrick defind me! (_reads_) “Pure Jamaica Ginger,” Oh! its atin me up! (_Noise heard without._)

BIDDY.――Hark! (_Both listen._)

NICHOLAS (_from without_).――We should have taken an umbrella; hurry in or we shall be drowned with the rain.

PAT (_agitated_).――Put me away! hide me! cover me up!

BIDDY.――Run! No――shtop――they’re here! get under the table.

PAT (_crawls under table_).――Bad luck to the rain!

BIDDY.――Arrah! What shall I do? He’s opening the door wid the noight key. Kape shtill, Pat.

NICHOLAS.――Walk in Miss Spyall; it is only a shower.

[_Enter Neverslip, Matilda and Miss Spyall L. E._]

MISS SPYALL (_aside_).――Refreshments, as I live! (_Aloud_) I feel real chilly! If I were home I’d have a bowl of hot tea, or something warm.

BIDDY.――I was thinkin’ mum, that ye might be cold.

MATILDA.――What’s that, Biddy?

BIDDY.――I thought ye’d need a warrum drink and a bite, so I’ve the bottle and bread handy for yez. (_Points to bottle._)

NICHOLAS (_takes bottle_).――Jamaica Ginger.

MATILDA.――The idea! Bread and ginger. Why, Biddy, you are certainly becoming insane.

MISS SPYALL (_aside_).――I thought they were too mean to have cake and wine, I thought it was a pound cake. How disappointed and hungry I feel. (_Aloud_) I wonder if it still rains?

NICHOLAS.――Be seated, ladies. Biddy, go to the door, and see if it has stopped raining.――(_Matilda and Miss Spyall take seats at table_).

I will see if I can find an umbrella for Miss Spyall. [_Exit L. E._]

PAT.――(_Pat’s head rises slowly from behind table_).

MISS SPYALL.――Does Mr. Neverslip smoke much?

MATILDA.――Never at all. Why do you ask?

MISS SPYALL.――I thought I detected a strong odor of an old pipe.

PAT.――(_aside_) Ye spalpeen! (_Pulls her ear and stoops behind table_).

MISS SPYALL.――Oh! (_indignantly_).――Don’t do that again. I dislike such familiarity.

MATILDA (_astonished_).――Why, what’s the matter with you?

MISS SPYALL.――I guess if I were to pull your ear you would know how it feels. There! (_They turn their backs to each other angrily_).

(_Pat peeps from under table and pulls Matilda’s ear_).

MATILDA (_springing to her feet_).――You impudent gossip! How dare you? (_rubs her ear_) If you want exercise, try pedestrianism; I will excuse your presence. (_Points to door_).

MISS SPYALL (_rising and backing off_).――I am shocked beyond expression. (_aside_) If I only get out――the woman’s surely mad.

[_Enter Nicholas L. E. with umbrella._]

MATILDA.――My dear, give Miss Spyall the umbrella; she is surely ill and should get home with all possible speed.

MISS SPYALL.――Not at all, not at all, sir; it is your insolent wife who needs your attention.

NICHOLAS.――What is the meaning of such singular language? (_picks up bottle_) You have not been tampering with this?

[_Enters Biddy R. E. holding shawl in her hands._]

BIDDY.――Look at me shplendid shawl! An illigant present that oi’ve just received. (_unfolds shawl and advances towards rear of table_.)

NICHOLAS.――Some other time, Biddy; we are engaged at present.

MISS SPYALL (_aside_).――The whole family are certainly crazy.

MATILDA.――I’m in no humor to look at shawls; I prefer taking a dissolving view of somebody’s back. (_looks at Miss Spyall_.)

BIDDY (_holds up shawl with both hands_).――Pat, get behind the shawl.

PAT.――(_crawls behind the shawl, screens himself from view, and moves off with Biddy_).

BIDDY. (_backing towards the door_)――It shows better at a distance, mum.

NICHOLAS. (_advancing to Biddy_).――This must cease.

BIDDY.――Don’t come too close; ye’ll shpoil the effect.

MATILDA.――Take the shawl from her.

NICHOLAS.――Let me have it. (_pulls shawl from Biddy, exposing Pat to view_).

PAT (_bowing_).――Yez’ll pardon me, but I was always bashful.

NICHOLAS.――Explain yourself, at once!

MATILDA.――Look after the teaspoons!

MISS SPYALL (_aside_).――Here’s a nut to crack! Here’s a scandal.

BIDDY (_crying and holding apron to eyes_).――I’ll tell yez the truth. Patsy and meself are engaged to be married, and seein’ as I was to be lift alone in this big barn of a house, an’ bein’ timid, the poor man jist happened in to kape me company for a few minutes.

PAT.――What she says is intirely true, your honors; it’s meself that can bring a reference the lingth of me arrum.

NICHOLAS.――Enough. Biddy is too good a girl to be guilty of even a wrong thought. Our spoons are safe, and I (_all advancing to front_) have but one suggestion to make, that in future you entertain him in the kitchen, where you will not be likely to be disturbed by unwelcome visitors.

MATILDA.――If I thought I would be free from unwelcome visitors (_looking at Miss Spyall_) I’d go to the kitchen too.

PAT.――The nixt kitchen we mate in will be the kitchen of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Dolan; how do ye loike that?

MISS SPYALL (_aside_).――Well I’m supplied with a lot of fresh news anyhow. (_All take positions._)

NICHOLAS.――And as there appears to be a wedding near at hand, we must prepare for it; so we’ll say good night――and dream of getting ready.

[CURTAIN.]

_Geo. M. Vickers._

The Humors of Elocution

Sitting in our Library some few weeks ago we were startled by a resounding knock upon the door, and in answer to our summons, “Come in,” a large woman entered, followed by a bouncing girl of seventeen or thereabouts. The costumes of both bespoke them to be just from the rural districts. After a courtesy from the woman, followed by a fac-simile from the girl, the former said: “We’ve heard that you was a good hand at learnin’ people fur to speak pieces, and Samanthy here hez to spout at the next meetin’ of our Lyceum, and she wants you fur to larn her somethin’ funny. You see, all the young folks down our way has gone just cracked over speakin’ pieces, and the school ma’am has been coachin’ ’em, but Samanthy wants to do better nor the rest, and wants to hev it to say that she has took lessons from a reg’lar purfessor, so I thought if you would find her a piece and coach her on it, I wouldn’t begrudge a quarter of a dollar, even if I has to save it out of my egg-money, then if she’ll hold on to what she larns she can go ahead of the hull caboodle of ’em.” Seeing in the credulous face of the old woman a rich chance for some fun at her expense we said: “Is it howld on ye say? An’ didn’t I howld on till the heart of me was clane broke intoirely, an’ me wastin’ that thin you could clutch me wid yer two hands.” “Oh, law!” exclaimed the old woman, “is elocution so bad on you as that, but you don’t seem to look the wuss for it now.” “Seems! madam, nay, it is! I know not seems! Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.” “Oh, I catch your meanin’ now. You mean you was thin and then you got fleshy. That’s just like my husband’s sister’s son’s wife. You see she was always kind o’ sickly, but she was such a shrew.”――“Oh, yes, ’tis about twenty years since Abel-Law, a short, round-favored, merry old soldier of the Revolutionary war was wedded to a most abominable shrew.” “No marm, you’re mistaken, her husband’s name was Timothy Titcomb, and he never was a soldier, but he was jest like a rollin’ stone, he never made nothin’――” “Off a rollin’ shtone vas der root of all efil, und a settin’ hens vould catch der early vorm by chance der usual vay, alzo der early bird vould not got fat on moss ofer he don’t had vorms, ain’t it?” The girl who had been standing at one side with her mouth wide open, here pulled her mother’s sleeve and whimpered, “Mom, let’s go. I’m afeared! I think that woman’s mad.” We turned upon her with――

“I’m mad, I’m mad, I _know_ I’m mad,
Enough to drive one mad,
Stark, raving, howling, crazy mad,
It is to lose one’s child.”

Samantha subsided and flew behind her mother like a chicken behind an old hen. The old woman laid her hand tenderly on our shoulder, and said sympathizingly: “Poor creetur she’s lost a child; I think I’d go crazy, too, if I lost Samanthy. Poor lamb!”

“Mary haf got a leetle lambs already,
Dose wool vas vite like shnow,
Und efery times dot Mary did vend oud,
Dot lambs vent oud vid Mary.”

“Massy sakes!” cried the woman, “what do you call yourself, Dutch, Irish or American?” “My father and mother are Irish, and I am Irish too.” “Mon dieu, madame, vat you please.”

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, its handle toward my hand?
Come, let me clutch thee, I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
What light is this which surrounds me and seems to set fire to my
brain?
What whistle that, yelling so shrilly? Ah! I know now, ’tis the
train.”

The woman then said, “Samanthy, I think it is time _we_ was takin’ the train. I don’t think I could trust you to come here alone. Good day, marm, we must be goin’. I would like to send you some of my yarb tea. Its powerful soothin’ to the nerves.”

“Be that word our sign of parting,
Get thee back into the tempest and the night’s Plutonian shore;
Leave no black plume as a token of that he thy soul has spoken,
Leave my loneliness unbroken.”

By this time she had the door shut, but she went to some of the neighbors and asked if our place was not a private lunatic asylum.

_F. Lizzie Peirce._

The Reason Why.

Can anybody tell why, when Eve was manufactured from one of Adam’s ribs, a hired girl wasn’t made at the same time to wait on her?

We can, easily. Because Adam never came whining to Eve with a ragged stocking to be darned, a collar button to be sewed on, or a glove to be mended “right away quick now.” Because he never read the newspaper until the sun got down behind the palm trees, and then stretched himself, yawning out, “Ain’t supper most ready, my dear.” Not he. He made the fire and hung over it the tea-kettle himself we’ll venture, and pulled the radishes and peeled the bananas, and did everything else that he ought to. He milked the cows and fed the chickens and looked after the pigs himself. He never brought home half a dozen friends to dinner when Eve hadn’t any fresh pomegranates and the mango season was over. He never stayed out until 11 o’clock to a ward meeting, hurrahing for the out-and-out candidate, and then scolded because poor Eve was sitting up and crying inside the gates. To be sure he acted rather cowardly about the apple-gathering time, but that don’t depreciate his general helpfulness about the garden! He never played billiards, nor drove fast horses, nor choked Eve with cigar-smoke. He never loafed around corner groceries while solitary Eve was rocking little Cain’s cradle at home. In short, he did not think she was specially created for the purpose of waiting on him, and wasn’t under the impression that it disgraced a man to lighten his wife’s cares a little. That is the reason that Eve did not need a hired girl, and we wish it was the reason that none of her descendants did.

――_Anon._

Nothing to Wear.

Toby Simpson, a dealer most worthy and just,
Slowly wended his way through the rattle and dust
Of the city. He mused on the cholera scare,
On his relative chance as a wheat or a tare
In the prophesied raid. Then he mumbled a prayer,
And each mud hole he eyed seemed a villainous snare,
While his conscience said, solemnly, “Simpson, beware!”

On the strength of a limited balance in cash
He had planned for himself and his family a dash
To the mountains, the seaside, it mattered not where;
To delay any longer was more than he dare;
Some relief must be had from the terrible flare
Of the midsummer sun, which would surely impair
The good health of Dame Simpson, now cross as a bear.

’Twas quite late in July and old Sol was aglow,
All the people had gone who had money to go
From the city to seek a few sniffs of fresh air,
And forgot for a season their burdens of care;
Then no wonder Dame Simpson was heard to declare
That the Joneses looked up with an insolent stare,
As she stood at her window exposed to the glare.

But her husband that ev’ning when rising from tea,
With his hands full of tickets and heart full of glee,
Quite as proud as a lion could be in its lair,
Shouted out: “To the Capes, yes, to-morrow, prepare,
I’ve engaged jolly quarters and paid all the fare!”
To which mother and daughters, with mock debonair,
Chorused forth: “Why, dear papa, we’ve nothing to wear!”

With a look most bewildered he clutched at a tray,
For his mercantile courage was oozing away,
And his features were grim ’neath his carroty hair;
Twenty bills he had paid for goods costly and rare
For those females! and now could not possibly spare
An additional stamp. Unaccustomed to swear,
It was startling to hear him say: “Darned if it’s fair!”

In an eight by ten office, half sweltered with heat,
Sat T. Simpson, the jobber. He gazed at his feet
Which reposed on a desk, just in front of his chair,
While his face was dejected and full of despair;
And he owed not a cent; his accounts were all square――
No, not that, but the problem of Nothing to Wear
Was just why the poor fellow sat pondering there.

_George M. Vickers._

Echo and the Ferry.

Ay, Oliver! I was but seven, and he was eleven;
He looked at me pouting and rosy. I blushed where I stood
They had told us to play in the orchard (and I only seven!
A small guest at the farm); but he said, “Oh! a girl was no good!”
So he whistled and went, he went over the stile to the wood.
It was sad, it was sorrowful! Only a girl――only seven!
At home in the dark London smoke I had not found it out.
The pear-trees looked on in their white, and blue-birds flashed about,
And they, too, were angry as Oliver. Were they eleven?
I thought so. Yes, every one else was eleven――eleven!

So Oliver went, but the cowslips were tall at my feet,
And all the white orchard with fast-falling blossom was littered;
And under and over the branches those little birds twittered,
While hanging head downward they scolded because I was seven.
A pity――a very great pity. One should be eleven.
But soon I was happy, the smell of the world was so sweet,
And I saw a round hole in an apple-tree rosy and old.
Then I knew, for I peeped, and I felt it was right they should scold.
Eggs small and eggs many. For gladness I broke into laughter;
And then some one else――oh! how softly!――came after, came after
With laughter――with laughter came after.

And no one was near us to utter that sweet, mocking call,
That soon very tired sank low with a mystical fall.
But this was the country――perhaps it was close under heaven;
Oh! nothing so likely; the voice might have come from it even.
I knew about heaven. But this was the country, of this
Light, blossom, and piping, and flashing of wings, not at all.
Not at all. No. But one little bird was an easy forgiver:
She peeped, she drew near as I moved from her domicile small,
Then flashed down her hole like a dart――like a dart from the quiver.
And I waded atween the long grasses, and felt it was bliss.

――So this was the country; clear dazzle of azure and shiver
And whisper of leaves, and a humming all over the tall
White branches, a humming of bees. And I came to the wall――
A little low wall――and looked over, and there was the river,
The lane that led on to the village, and then the sweet river,
Clear shining and slow, she had far, far to go from her snow;
But each rush gleamed a sword in the sunlight to guard her long flow,
And she murmured, methought, with a speech very soft――very low.
“The ways will be long, but the days will be long,” quoth the river,
“To me a long liver, long, long!” quoth the river――the river.
I dreamed of the country that night, of the orchard, the sky,
The voice that had mocked coming after and over and under.
But at last――in a day or two namely――Eleven and I
Were very fast friends, and to him I confided the wonder.
He said that was Echo. “Was Echo a wise kind of bee
That had learned how to laugh; could it laugh in one’s ear and then
fly,
And laugh again yonder?” “No; Echo”――he whispered it low――
“Was a woman, they said, but a woman whom no one could see.
And no one could find; and he did not believe it, not he;
But he could not get near for the river that held us asunder.
Yet I that had money――a shilling, a whole silver shilling――
We might cross if I thought I could spend it.” “Oh! yes, I was
willing”――
And we ran hand in hand, we ran down to the ferry, the ferry,
And we heard how she mocked at the folk with a voice clear and merry
When they called for the ferry; but, oh! she was very――was very
Swift-footed. She spoke and was gone; and when Oliver cried,
“Hie over! hie over! you man of the ferry――the ferry!”
By the still water’s side she was heard far and wide――she replied,
And she mocked in her voice sweet and merry, “You man of the ferry,
You man of――you man of the ferry!”

“Hie over!” he shouted. The ferryman came at his calling;
Across the clear reed-bordered river he ferried us fast.
Such a chase! Hand in hand, foot to foot, we ran on; it surpassed
All measure her doubling――so close, then so far away falling,
Then gone, and no more. Oh! to see her but once unaware,
And the mouth that had mocked, but we might not (yet sure she was
there),
Nor behold her wild eyes, and her mystical countenance fair.
We sought in the wood, and we found the wood-wren in her stead;
In the field, and we found but the cuckoo that talked overhead;
By the brook, and we found the reed-sparrow, deep-nested, in brown;
Not Echo, fair Echo, for Echo, sweet Echo, was flown.

So we came to the place where the dead people wait till God call.
The church was among them, gray moss over roof, over wall.
Very silent, so low. And we stood on a green, grassy mound
And looked in at the window, for Echo, perhaps, in her round
Might have come in to hide there. But, no; every oak-carven seat
Was empty. We saw the great Bible――old, old, very old.
And the parson’s great prayer-book beside it; we heard the slow beat
Of the pendulum swing in the tower; we saw the clear gold
Of a sunbeam float down to the aisle, and then waver and play
On the low chancel step and the railing; and Oliver said,
“Look, Katie! look, Katie! when Lettice came here to be wed
She stood where that sunbeam drops down, and all white was her gown;
And she stepped upon flowers they strewed for her.” Then quoth small
Seven:
“Shall I wear a white gown and have flowers to walk upon ever?”
All doubtful: “It takes a long time to grow up,” quoth Eleven;
“You’re so little, you know, and the church is so old, it can never
Last on till you’re tall.” And in whispers――because it was old
And holy, and fraught with strange meaning, half felt, but not told,
Full of old parsons’ prayers, who were dead, of old days, of old folk.
Neither heard nor beheld, but about us――in whispers we spoke.
Then we went from it softly, and ran hand in hand to the strand,
While bleating of flocks and birds’ piping made sweeter the land.
And Echo came back e’en as Oliver drew to the ferry,
“O Katie!” O Katie!” “Come on, then!” “Come on then!” “For see,
The round sun, all red, lying low by the tree”――“by the tree.”
“By the tree.” Ay, she mocked him again, with her voice sweet and
merry;
“Hie over!” “Hie over!” “You man of the ferry”――“the ferry.”
“You man of the ferry――”
“You man of――you man of――the ferry.”

Ay, here――it was here that we woke her, the Echo of old;
All life of that day seems an echo, and many times told.
Shall I cross by the ferry to-morrow, and come in my white
To that little low church? and will Oliver meet me anon?
Will it all seem an echo from childhood passed over――passed on?
Will the grave parson bless us? Hark! hark! in the dim failing light
I hear her! As then the child’s voice clear and high, sweet and merry,
Now she mocks the man’s tone with “Hie over! Hie over the ferry!”
“And, Katie.” “And, Katie.” “Art out with the glow-worms to-night,
My Katie?” “My Katie!” For gladness I break into laughter
And tears. Then it all comes again as from far-away years;
Again, some one else――oh, how softly!――with laughter comes after,
Comes after――with laughter comes after.

――_Jean Ingelow._

Roderick Lee.

This is a wild, lone valley, and the road that threads it through
Is the loneliest road I know of, and I’ve traveled not a few;
Those hills on the left[72] so barren, and yon[73] towering, rocky
ridge,
Look down on a sluggish river that is spanned by a moss-grown bridge――
And nigh to the bridge like a sentry, a tall, gray chimney stands,
’Mid the wreck that time has buried ’neath the tangled weeds and
sands.

In this valley three ruins moulder that were once three happy homes,
And where once fond voices mingled, now the sly fox fearless roams;
Then these locks[74] were thick and glossy, that are now so sparse
and gray;
Then I’d clamber these rocks as willing by night as I would by day――
But, if a royal scepter, if the world[75] were promised mine
To cross again this valley, I would shudder and decline.

Roderick Lee was a miller, and as grist was hard to find
Down in his old New Hampshire,[76] he had little or naught to grind;
So, with his young wife blooming and his brown-eyed daughter Nell,
Together with two young farmers, he came to this[77] place to dwell:
And many’s the mile of prairie, and many’s the forest drear,
That lay ’twixt the far-off Merrimack[78] and the stream[79] that
ripples here.

Yet with a heart as buoyant and as brave as it was true,
Young Lee, ’mid the cheers at parting, bade his native town adieu;
Then came the weeks of toiling, aye, months, ere the scorching plain
Was crossed, and his eyes were greeted by the distant mountain chain;
But the white-topped, dusty wagons at last made their final stand,
And he knelt to breathe thanksgiving with his little pilgrim band.

Stay! even now in fancy, I can see their forms once more,
I can see their peaceful faces and the look of hope they wore――
Poor Kate and Nell and Edith, young Harry, Mag and Joe――
’Neath that oak[80] I see them kneeling, tho’ ’tis thirty years ago!
And long ere the hazy autumn had mellowed another year,
Our huts were built in the clearing, and our corn hung ripe in the
ear.

Joe was a model husband, as fair Edith, his wife, well knew,
And Mag and her raw-boned Harry, lived as loving couples do;
But, as their homes were childless, very natural-like it fell
That these kind and worthy people thought the world of little Nell.
Many a time they kept her whole days ’gainst her mother’s will,
First in the hut by the river[81], then in the hut by the hill[82].

Once in the chill November, when the slender moon[83] hung low,
And the barren hill tops yonder[84] were clad in a gauze of snow;
Kate with a gleam of mischief in her bright and twinkling eye,
Started across the river[85] to the hut of Joe, hard by;
And Roderick sat by the window, watching her out of sight,
Dreamily watching the shadows of that chill November night.

Ere it had seemed a moment she again stood by his chair;
She had called at their neighbor’s cabin, but Nellie had not been
there.
Roderick slowly rising took his rifle from the rack,
For the road was wild and lonely and led through a forest tract;
Over the ruts and boulders, chatting, they strode[86] along
Till the voice of raw-boned Harry was heard in a merry song.

“Singing for Nell’s amusement,” said the wife, as she hurried on;
“Pity,” she added, musing, “that they have no child of their own.”
Soon with a hearty greeting they were met at the cabin door,
“And where is your little daughter?” asked Mag, as she scanned them
o’er.
“Question your good man, Harry[87], for I’ll venture that he can
tell,”
Said Kate, then smiling added, “we must stop lending little Nell.”

Mag, with a playful gesture drew the bed-room screen[88] aside,
“See!” she exclaimed, “she’s not here; now I hope you are satisfied.”
“Come, Maggie, come, don’t trifle, for the hour is growing late;
I know that the child is hiding; would you have us longer wait?”
Thus queried Kate, half pleading, when a look akin to fear
Stole over the face of Harry as he said, “she is not here!”[89]

“Not here! O God[90] protect her!” with a gasp young Roderick cried,
And his pale wife like a statue, mute with fright, stood at his side.
’Twas but a single moment, yet it seemed like an age to wait
Ere Mag and Kate with their husbands filed out[91] through the open
gate;
Dark[92] was the night as a dungeon, for the moon had sunk away[93],
And the far-off cries of a panther[94] filled each breast with dread
dismay.
On[95] through the gloomy forest like a band of ghosts they sped,
Silently, save when the mother sobbed, or a twig snapped ’neath their
tread;
“Hark[96]!” whispered tall, gaunt Harry, and they stood with heads[97]
bent low,
While faint on the air of midnight came shrieks[98] of pain and woe.
“Hello! hello[99]!” cried Harry; but they heard no voice reply――
“Heavens! what means that crimson, that glow[100] on the fleecy sky?

See how it spreads[101] and deepens! Look! our cabins are ablaze!”
Then Roderick paused in terror at the sight that met his gaze.
Light grew the wood about[102] them; their shadows fell before,
For behind[103] them on the hillside leaped the flames from Harry’s
door:
“On[104] for your lives!” screamed Harry, “on for little Nell!”
Then, like an answering challenge, rose the distant Indians’ yell.

Bang! bang! “That’s Joe replying; he’ll fight ’em game and well,”
Were the words that Harry uttered; “God[105] spare my darling Nell!”
This from the pallid mother; and the settlers fairly flew
O’er the matted brush and boulders till the clearing came in view.
Oh, such a sight[106] of ruin! oh, such a ghastly scene!
Stark, dead,[107] lay Joe and Edith on the charred and trampled green.

Crouching down ’mid the bushes they watched the painted fiends,
Watched with the strange, grim calmness that despair so often lends;
“My child! my child!” then springing from the group like astartled
deer,
Kate rushed[108] o’er the red-lit clearing ere one could interfere――
The hideous, screeching cut-throats had captured little Nell;
But, when they saw her mother, they stood bound, as by a spell.

“Spare![109] oh, spare my darling! Here, pierce me,[110] strike me
dead![111]
Give back my child, my Nellie!” the frantic woman said;
Then on her panting bosom her daughter’s head she laid,
Then both sank[112] down in silence, looked up and mutely prayed;
That was the fatal signal, for on, like a sweeping hell[113]
They came with knife and hatchet, with rifle-shot and yell.

Bravely they fought, yet vainly, that fated settler band,
Clubbing their empty rifles, meeting them hand to hand;
Roderick reeled and staggered, then fell[114] ’neath a crushing blow,
And a whoop of fiendish malice told the triumph of the foe;
Then like a flash they vanished[115] and Roderick bleeding lay,
Hearing their yells grow fainter, till at last they died away.

Gray dawned the wintry morning on that awful scene of death,
And five cold brows of marble were kissed[116] by its chilling
breath――
God in his wisdom took them――save Nellie, who ne’er was found;
And all of them sleep in this valley, each ’neath a grassy mound.
Poor little Nell may be living, but if living she’s dead to me;
Yes, the tale is indeed a true one――and my name?――is Roderick Lee.

――_Geo. M. Vickers._

GESTURES.
[72] Left A. O.
[73] Left ind. A. O.
[74] Point to head.
[75] H. sweep.
[76] H. L.
[77] H. F.
[78] H. L.
[79] H. F.
[80] Ind. H. F.
[81] H. O.
[82] Left H. O.
[83] A. O.
[84] Left A. O.
[85] H. O.
[86] H. F.
[87] H. O.
[88] Left H. O.
[89] Shake head.
[90] Glance up.
[91] H. F.
[92] Ver. H. sweep.
[93] Let hand fall.
[94] H. O.
[95] H. F.
[96] Raise hand to listen.
[97] Bow head.
[98] H. F.
[99] Hand to mouth.
[100] A. F.
[101] A. sweep.
[102] b. H. O.
[103] A. B.
[104] H. F.
[105] Clasp hands.
[106] b. hands raised V. and head turned away.
[107] H. F.
[108] H. F.
[109] Clasp hands.
[110] b. H. F.
[111] b. D. F.
[112] b. D. F.
[113] P. ind. D. F.
[114] D. F.
[115] H. O.
[116] P. D. F.

Holding a Baby.

Yesterday, while waiting on the corner for a street-car, a woman, laden with an umbrella, a bandbox and a baby, accosted me with “Say, mister, can I git to Market street on these yer cars?” “You can,” I replied. “How long must I wait?” “Madam,” said I, noticing the string slipping from her bandbox, “may I hold your umbrella and bandbox until the car arrives? See, here it comes!” “I’d rather you’d hold Berthy, if you will, mister, ’cause this darned string’s a slippin’ off――quick!――ketch it! Land o’ misery! There be all my things scattered over the bricks! Do hold Berthy while I pick ’em up.” Here was a dilemma. The car was not forty yards off, while the sidewalk was strewn with every conceivable article, from a broken hair brush to a pair of old worsted slippers. “Hurry up, then, madam,” cried I, as I reached for the child, “I have an appointment and must take this car.” Just as I took her from the woman’s arms, Berthy set up a yell that would have paralyzed a huckster. Before the woman had gathered up half the articles the car was upon us. Leaving her bandbox, she ran to the crossing, and with a “Hold on there, you!” signaled the driver to stop. The latter, taking in the situation, kept on, but a fat man standing on the platform pulled the bell and the car stopped, about half a dozen yards beyond the flag-stones. The conductor, who was inside, collecting fares, ran out, and, grasping the bell-strap with one hand and beckoning with the other, screeched: “If you want to ride down, come on; I ain’t a-goin’ to anchor here all day!” As soon as the woman took up her bandbox and umbrella, I started for the car. “Tell your wife to come,” yelled the conductor. I looked back and there stood the woman on the corner. “Do you think I’m a-goin’ to wade through that mud?” screamed the woman, “for if you do, you’re mistaken. Just back that ve-he-cle to me, right quick, too!” I had reached the platform with Berthy in my arms, but the woman, looking cyclones, still refused to move an inch. I shrieked out, “Walk along the pavement and get on here!” A cross old maid looking through the window at my elbow remarked aloud: “Hear him abuse his poor wife!” The fat man suggested that I should manage the freight and let my wife take the baby. The woman slowly picked her way through the mire and stepped on the car. The conductor gave the bell a wicked snap, and with a jerk that almost threw us over the dasher, the car started down the street like a ten-penny nail from a slap-jack. “Here, madam,” said I, in desperation, “take the child, I have forgotten my pocket book.” She dropped into a seat and took her baby. Just as I was rushing from the car the word “scoundrel!” was hissed into my ear. Turning quickly, my horrified eyes beheld the stony gaze of my wife. “Go!” she muttered. Well, I did go! Friends do you see this bald spot on my head? Well, that reminds me never to fool with other people’s babies.

――_Geo. M. Vickers._

The Spanish Mother.

[Supposed to be related by a veteran French officer.]

Yes! I have served that[117] noble chief throughout his proud career,
And heard the bullets whistle past in lands both far and near――
Amidst Italian flowers,[118] below the dark pines of the north,[119]
Where’er the Emperor willed[120] to pour his clouds of battle forth.

’Twas _then_ a splendid sight to see, though terrible, I ween,
How his vast spirit filled[121] and moved the wheels of the machine;
Wide sounding leagues[122] of sentient steel, and fires that lived
to kill,[123]
Were but the echo of his voice, the body of his will.

But _now_ my heart is darkened with the shadows[124] that rise and
fall
Between the sunlight and the ground to sadden and appall:
The woeful things both seen and done we heeded little then,
But they return, like ghosts, to shake the sleep of aged men.

The German and the Englishman were each an open foe,
And open hatred hurled[125] us back from Russia’s blinding snow;
Intenser far, in blood-red light, like fires unquenched, remain
The dreadful deeds wrung forth by war from the brooding soul of Spain.

I saw a village[126] in the hills, as silent[127] as a dream,
Naught stirring but the summer sound[128] of a merry mountain stream;
The evening star[129] just smiled from heaven with its quiet silver
eye,
And the chestnut woods[130] were still and calm beneath the deepening
sky.

But in that place, self-sacrificed, nor man nor beast we found,
Nor fig-tree on the sun-touched slope, nor corn upon the ground;
Each roofless hut[131] was black with smoke, wrenched up each trailing
vine,
Each path was foul[132] with mangled meat and floods of wasted wine.

We had been marching, travel-worn, a long and burning way,
And when such welcoming we met, after that toilsome day,
The pulses in our maddened breasts were human hearts no more,
But, like the spirit of a wolf, hot on the scent of gore.

We lighted on one dying man, they slew him where he lay;
His wife, close-clinging, from the corpse they tore[133] and wrenched
away;
They thundered in her widowed ears, with frowns and curses grim,
“Food, woman――food and wine, or else we tear[134] thee limb from
limb.”

The woman shaking off _his_ blood, rose,[135] raven-haired and tall,
And our stern glances quailed before one sterner far than all.
“Both food and wine,”[136] she said, “I have; I meant them for the
dead,[137]
But ye are living still, and so let them be yours instead.”

The food was brought, the wine was brought out of a secret place,[138]
But each one paused aghast, and looked into his neighbor’s face;
Her haughty step and settled brow, and chill indifferent mien,
Suited so strangely with the gloom and grimness of the scene.

She glided here,[139] she glided there,[140] before our wondering
eyes,
Nor anger showed, nor shame, nor fear, nor sorrow, nor surprise;
At every step, from soul to soul a nameless horror ran,
And made us pale and silent as that[141] silent murdered man.

She sat, and calmly soothed her child into a slumber sweet;
Calmly the bright blood on the floor crawled[142] red around our
feet.
On placid fruits and bread lay soft the shadows of the wine,
And we like marble statues glared――a chill, unmoving line.

All white, all cold; and moments thus flew by without a breath,
A company of living things where all was still――but death;[143]
My hair rose up from roots of ice as there unnerved I stood
And watched[144] the only thing that stirred――the rippling of the
blood.

That woman’s voice was heard at length, it broke the solemn spell,
And human fear, displacing awe, upon our spirits fell――
“Ho![145] slayers of the sinewless! Ho! tramplers of the weak!
What! shrink ye from the ghastly meats[146] and life-bought wine ye
seek?

Feed, and begone![147] I wish to weep――I bring you out my store[148]――
Devour[149] it――waste[150] it all――and then――pass[151] and be seen
no more.
Poison! Is that your craven fear?” She snatched the goblet[152] up
And raised it to her queen-like head, as if to drain the cup.

But our fierce leader grasped her wrist――“No, woman! No!” he said,
“A mother’s heart of love is deep――give it your child[153] instead.”
She only smiled a bitter smile――“Frenchmen, I do not shrink――
As pledge of my fidelity, behold[154] the infant drink!”

He fixed on hers his broad black eye, scanning her inmost soul;
But her chill fingers trembled not as she returned the bowl.
And we with lightsome hardihood, dismissing idle care,
Sat down[155] to eat and drink and laugh over our dainty fare.

The laugh was loud around the board, the jesting wild and light;
But _I_ was fevered with the march, and drank no wine that night;
I just had filled a single cup, when through my very brain[156]
Stung, sharper than a serpent’s tooth, an infant’s cry of pain.

Through all that heat of revelry, through all that boisterous cheer,
To every heart its feeble moan pierced, like a frozen spear.
“Aye,” shrieked the woman, darting up, “I pray you trust again
A widow’s hospitality in our unyielding[157] Spain.

Helpless and hopeless, by the light of God[158] Himself I swore
To treat you[159] as you treated _him_[160]――that[161] body on the
floor.
Yon secret place[162] I filled, to feel, that if ye did not spare,
The treasure of a dread revenge was ready hidden there.

A mother’s love is deep, no doubt; ye did not phrase it ill,
But in your hunger ye forgot, that hate is deeper still.
The Spanish woman speaks for Spain;[163] for her butchered love,[164]
the wife,
To tell you that an hour is all _my_ vintage leaves of life.

I cannot paint the many forms of wild despair put on,
Nor count the crowded brave who sleep beneath[165] a single stone;
I can but tell you how, before that horrid hour went by,
I saw the murderess beneath the self-avengers die.

But though upon her wrenched limbs they leaped like beasts of prey,
And with fierce hands, like madmen, tore[166] the quivering life
away――
Triumphant hate and joyous scorn, without a trace of pain,
Burned to the last, like sullen stars, in that haughty eye of Spain.

And often now it breaks my rest, the tumult vague and wild,
Drifting, like storm-tossed clouds,[167] around the mother and her
child――
While she,[168] distinct in raiment white, stands silently the while,
And sheds through torn and bleeding hair the same unchanging smile.

――_Sir Francis Hastings Doyle._

GESTURES.
[117] H. O.
[118] H. O.
[119] Left H. O.
[120] D. F.
[121] b. H. O.
[122] H. O. sweep.
[123] D. O.
[124] V. H. O.
[125] b. V. par. H. O.
[126] H. O.
[127] P. H. O.
[128] H. L.
[129] Left ind. A. O.
[130] H. O.
[131] H. O.
[132] V. D. O.
[133] Sp.
[134] b. Cl. H. O. as though tearing apart.
[135] Raise hand P.
[136] Look to left.
[137] D. O.
[138] Left H. L.
[139] H. F.
[140] H. O.
[141] Ind. D. O.
[142] P. D. sweep.
[143] D. O.
[144] Look to D. O.
[145] Look to left.
[146] H. F.
[147] H. L.
[148] b. H. O.
[149] -
[150] Impulses.
[151] H. sweep.
[152] Sp.
[153] Left D. O.
[154] Inclination of head to D. O.
[155] B. H. O.
[156] Hand to head.
[157] D. F.
[158] Point up.
[159] H. F.
[160] D. O.
[161] Ind. D. O.
[162] Left H. L.
[163] H. sweep.
[164] D. O.
[165] P. D. O.
[166] Sp.
[167] H. Sw.
[168] H. F.

An Engineer’s Ride on a Piano.

Bill Jones is my fireman; we have run together on old “thirty-six” for more than twenty years. One night when we were off duty, said Bill, “Jim, let’s take in a show.” “Where?” I replied, at the same time scanning the bill-board at the end of the depot. “See!” cried Bill, “Mons. De Froglimb, the great French piano virtuoso――” “That’s enough, Bill,” said I, “we’ll go”――and we did. He _was_ a Frenchman; looked like an animated switch-signal. I am an old engineer, and have often whistled through the wind, but that virtuoso!――Well, as soon as he sat down on the stool I knew by the way he handled himself that he understood the machine he was running. He tapped the keys away up one end, just as if they were gauges and he wanted to see if he had water enough. Then he looked up as if he wanted to know how much steam he was carrying, and the next moment he pulled open the throttle and sailed out on the main line as if he was a half an hour late.

“You could hear her thunder over culverts and bridges, and getting faster and faster, until the fellow rocked about in his seat like a cradle. Somehow I thought it was old ‘thirty-six’ pulling a passenger train and getting out of the way of a ‘special.’ The fellow worked his keys on the middle division like lightning, and then he flew along the north end of the line until the drivers went around like a buzz-saw, and I got excited. About the time I was fixing to tell him to cut her off a little, he kicked the dampers under the machine wide open, pulled the throttle away back in the tender, and, Jerusalem jumpers! how he did run! I couldn’t stand it any longer, and yelled to him that she was ‘pounding’ on the left side, and if he wasn’t careful he’d drop his ashpan.

“But he didn’t hear me. No one heard me. Everything was flying and whizzing. Telegraph poles on the side of the track looked like a row of cornstalks, the trees appeared to be a mud bank, and all the time the exhaust of the old machine sounded like the hum of a bumblebee. I tried to yell out, but my tongue wouldn’t move. He went around the curves like a bullet, slipped an eccentric, blew out his soft plug, went down grades fifty feet to the mile, and not a confounded brake set. She went by the meeting point at a mile and a half a minute and calling for more steam. My hair stood up like a cat’s tail, because I knew the game was up.

“Sure enough, dead ahead of us was the head-light of the ‘special.’ In a daze I heard the crash as they struck, and I saw cars shivered into atoms, people mashed and mangled, and bleeding, and gasping for water. I heard another crash as the French professor struck the deep keys away down on the lower end of the southern division, and then I came to my senses. There he was, at a dead standstill, with the door of the fire-box of the machine open, wiping the perspiration off his face, and bowing at the people before him. If I live to be a thousand years old I’ll never forget the ride that Frenchman gave me on a piano.”

The World’s Hero.

[Recited by F. Lizzie Peirce at the Annual Re-union of the
Independent Literary Society, August 8th, 1885.]

Go search the annals of the human race,
Go hear the legends that the heathen tell,
And learn that hist’ry, sacred or profane,
Records no hero like the mighty Grant.
Columbia proudly claims him as her own
And rears her monuments with love and pride;
But millions scattered o’er the face of earth,
And millions yet unborn, will share that claim:
Who serves mankind is deemed the friend of man,
And nations nationalize him in their hearts.
Since that first famous Battle of the Kings,
Of which we read in holy writ, no sword
E’er leaped from scabbard in a juster war
Than that which made our country free indeed,
Which, until then, was only free in name.
The bond of unity that Washington
To us bequeathed, Grant’s loyal arm maintained;
Emancipation of the dusky race
By Lincoln’s heaven-inspired pen, by Grant’s
Unsullied sword was made complete!
How well
He proved the potency of equal rights,
And how he dignified Democracy
The monarchs of the world have told, thrice told,
In homage, hospitality and love.
No land is free where dwells a slave: to-day
In all our land there dwells no slave, and we
Are free, forever free!
“_Let us have peace._”
Clasp hands across the ashes of the dead.
No, no; Grant is not dead, he cannot die;
The body is the worn-out coat of mail,
That with his sword and shield the warrior casts
Aside when life’s campaign is o’er, and home,
Eternal home, is reached.
He is not dead
Whose power still exists; and Grant will live
A life of immortality while yet
Our starry banner floats for liberty,
Which, thanks to God, will be forevermore.

――_Geo. M. Vickers._

The Coquette.

Two girls sat in a gay saloon, nor mingled with the crowd;
The younger’s face was pale, and sad, the elder’s stern and proud.

“O Gertrude,” said the younger girl, “thou art a sad coquette;
Ah, many hearts have felt thy power, and thou art flirting yet.

There’s one who fills a foreign grave, who loved thee all too well,
Who breathed thy name forgivingly, as in the fray he fell;

And yet his fate was better far than that of poor Martelle,
Who lonely clanks his heavy chains――a madman――in his cell.”

“O Gertrude,” in a softer tone, “give up thy selfish arts,
Or hopeless love will be thy doom for blighting loving hearts.”

Thus far had Maud unchecked reproved when Gertrude coldly said:
“I care not for the living dupes, why blame me for the dead?

Thy lover, sure, is naught to me, so quell thy jealous fears;
When seeking game I ever strive to strike among my peers.”

“Tis not my lover,” Maud replied, while blushes bathed her brow,
“But brother Paul I fain would save――for him I’m pleading now.

Of kin, he’s all I have on earth――so noble, brave and pure――
Too good, alas, to sacrifice――defeat he’d ne’er endure.”

But Gertrude rose and took the hand that claimed her for the dance,
While Maud stole to the balcony――did Paul stand there by chance?

It seemed not so――anon there came a lass surpassing fair; Some
hurried words, a merry laugh――they seek the gaslight’s glare.

Soon Paul claims Gertrude for the waltz; she yields and softly
sighs,
Then off they whirl while glances dart from scores of jealous eyes.

* * * * *

The full round moon now rides on high; the fragrant air is cool,
The fountain’s spray, like flashing gems, darts in the limpid pool.

A rustic seat girts round an oak, and Paul leads Gertrude there,
She by his side, he takes her hand, so small, so soft and fair.

In accents low he thus began: “O Gertrude, till to-night
True happiness I never knew, and may it ne’er take flight.

Say, may I tell my tale, and hope to gain a smile from thee?
Approving words to ease a heart that is no longer free?

I’m lonely now, for sister Maud is soon to be a bride;
Then wonder not because I seek a refuge at thy side.”

She murmured half inaudibly: “Dear Paul, I long to hear;
Thou’lt get a smile for ev’ry smile, a tear for ev’ry tear.”

“Enough, kind Gertrude, listen then: for years I’ve roamed afar;
I’ve sailed beneath the Southern Cross, I’ve lost the Northern Star;

But now I once more breathe the air of home, I’ll never stray;
I only need a loving wife――why tremble, Gertrude, say?

But soon I’ll tell thee all I may; say, wilt thou share my joy?
God willing, this night, two weeks hence, I marry Kate LeRoy.”

Poor Gertrude heard no more that eve, nor saw she Paul again;
The rose-tints faded from her cheeks; at last she loved――in vain.

* * * * *

Her wasted form the church-yard holds; Ah! never this forget:
A woman’s love is woman’s life, e’en tho’ a gay coquette.

――_Geo. M. Vickers_.

Experience with a Refractory Cow.

[This piece is very effective given in costume.]

We used to keep a cow when we lived in the country, and sich a cow! Law sakes! Why, she used to come to be milked as reg’lar as clock-work. She’d knock at the gate with her horns, jest as sensible as any other human critter.

Her name was Rose. I never knowed how she got that name, for she was black as a kittle.

Well, one day Rose got sick, and wouldn’t eat nothing, poor thing! and a day or so arter she died. I raly do believe I cried when that poor critter was gone. Well, we went for a little spell without a cow, but I told Mr. Scruggins it wouldn’t do, no way nor no how; and he gin in. Whenever I said _must_ Mr. Scruggins knowed I meant it. Well, a few days arter, he come home with the finest cow and young calf you ever seed. He gin thirty dollars for her and the calf, and two levies to a man to help bring her home. Well, they drove her into the back yard, and Mr. Scruggins told me to come out and see her, and I did; and I went up to her jest as I used to did to Rose, and when I said “Poor Sukey,” would you believe it? the nasty brute kicked me right in the fore part of my back; her foot catched into my dress――bran-new dress, too――cost two levies a yard, and she took a levy’s-worth right out as clean as the back of my hand.

I screeched right out and Mr. Scruggins kotched me jest as I was dropping, and he carried me to the door, and I went in and sot down. I felt kind o’ faintish, I was so abominable skeered.

Mr. Scruggins said he would larn her better manners, so he picked up the poker and went out, but I had hardly began to get a leetle strengthened up afore in rushed my dear husband a-flourishing the poker, and that vicious cow arter him like all mad. Mr. Scruggins jumped into the room, and, afore he had time to turn round and shut the door, that desperate brute was in, too.

Mr. Scruggins got up on the dining-room table, and I run into the parlor. I thought I’d be safe there, but I was skeered so bad that I forgot to shut the door, and, sakes alive! after hooking over the dining-room table and rolling Mr. Scruggins off, in she walked into the parlor, shaking her head as much as to say: “I’ll give you a touch now.” I jumped on a chair, but thinking that warn’t high enough, I got one foot on the brass knob of the Franklin stove, and put the other on the mantel-piece. You ought to ha’ seen that cow in our parlor; she looked all round as if she was ’mazed; at last she looked in the looking-glass, and thought she seed another cow exhibiting anger like herself; she shuck her head and pawed the carpet, and so did her reflection, and――would you believe it?――that awful brute went right into my looking-glass.