world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well have been a
happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of
danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One
moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully
out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to
weary weeks of torture, to silence and the grave.
Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the
very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he
was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its
aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death--and he did
not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed,
he could give up life hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days
of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because
silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage he looked into his open
grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes whose lips may
tell--what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what
sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of
sweet household ties! Behind him a proud expectant nation; a great host of
sustaining friends; a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich
honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life
lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's days of
frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into
closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a
father's love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet
all demands. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was
not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound and
universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre
of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love
and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the
winepress alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing
tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's
bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the
Divine decree.
As the end drew near his early craving for the sea returned. The stately
mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he
begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling
air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love
of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the
sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving
billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face
tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze he looked out wistfully upon the
ocean's changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light;
on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the
noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on
the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying
eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know.
Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great
waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow
the breath of the eternal morning.
HOW SHALL I LOVE YOU?
WILL C. FERRIL.
How shall I love you? I dream all day
Dear, of a tenderer, sweeter way;
Songs that I sing to you, words that I say,
Prayers that are voiceless on lips that would pray;
These may not tell of the love of my life;
How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?
How shall I love you? Love is the bread
Of life to a woman--the white and the red
Of all the world's roses, the light that is shed
On all the world's pathways, till life shall be dead!
The star in the storm and the strength in the strife;
How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?
Is there a burden your heart must bear?
I shall kneel lowly and lift it, dear!
Is there a thorn in the crown that you wear?
Let it hide in my heart till a rose blossom there!
For grief or for glory--for death or for life,
So shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife.
THE LITTLE BROWN CURL.
A quaint old box with a lid of blue,
All faded and worn with age;
A soft little curl of a brownish hue,
A yellow and half-written page.
The letters, with never a pause nor dot,
In a school-boy's hand are cast;
The lines and the curl I may hold to-day,
But the love of the boy is past.
It faded away with our childish dreams,
Died out like the morning mist,
And I look with a smile on the silken curl
That once I had tenderly kissed.
One night in the summer--so long ago--
We played by the parlor door,
And the moonlight fell, like a silver veil,
Spreading itself on the floor.
And the children ran on the graveled walk
At play in their noisy glee;
But the maddest, merriest fun just then
Was nothing to John and me.
For he was a stately boy of twelve,
And I was not quite eleven--
We thought as we sat by the parlor door
We had found the gate to heaven.
That night when I lay on my snowy bed,
Like many a foolish girl,
I kissed and held to my little heart
This letter and silken curl.
I slept and dreamed of the time when I
Should wake to a fairy life;
And sleeping, blushed, when I thought that John
Had called me his little wife.
I have loved since then with a woman's heart,
Have known all a woman's bliss,
But never a dream of the after life
Was ever so sweet as this.
The years went by with their silver feet,
And often I laughed with John
At the vows we made by the parlor door
When the moon and stars looked on.
Ah? boyish vows were broken and lost,
And a girl's first dream will end,
But I dearly loved his beautiful wife,
While he was my husband's friend.
When at last I went to my childhood's home
Far over the bounding wave,
I missed my friend, for the violets grew
And blossomed over his grave.
To-day as I opened the old blue box,
And looked on this soft brown curl,
And read of the love John left for me
When I was a little girl,
There came to my heart a throb of pain,
And my eyes grew moist with tears,
For the childish love and the dear, dear friend,
And the long-lost buried years.
DE PINT WID OLE PETE.
Upon the hurricane deck of one of our gunboats, an elderly looking darkey,
with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted
on his bundle, toasting his shins against the chimney, and apparently
plunged into a state of profound meditation. Finding, upon inquiry, that he
belonged to the Ninth Illinois, one of the most gallantly behaved and heavy
losing regiments at the Fort Donelson battle, I began to interrogate him
upon the subject.
"Were you in the fight?"
"Had a little taste of it, sa."
"Stood your ground, did you?"
"No, sa, I runs."
"Run at the first fire, did you?"
"Yes, sa; and would hab run soona, had I know'd it was comin'."
"Why, that wasn't very creditable to your courage."
"Massa, dat isn't my line, sa; cookin's my profeshun."
"Well, but have you no regard for your reputation?"
"Yah, yah! reputation's nuffin to me by de side ob life."
"Do you consider _your_ life worth more than other people's?"
"It is worth more to me, sa."
"Then you must value it very highly?"
"Yes, sa, I does; more dan all dis world, more dan a million ob dollars,
sa; for what would dat be wuth to a man wid the bref out ob him?
Self-preserbation am de fust law wid me."
"But why should you act upon a different rule from other men?"
"Because different men set different values upon deir lives; mine is not in
the market."
"But if you lost it, you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you
died for your country."
"What satisfaction would dat be to me when de power ob feelin' was gone?"
"Then patriotism and honor are nothing to you?"
"Nuffin whatever, sa; I regard them as among the vanities."
"If our soldiers were like you, traitors might have broken up the
government without resistance."
"Yes, sa; dar would hab been no help for it."
"Do you think any of your company would have missed you, if you had been
killed?"
"Maybe not, sa; a dead white man ain't much to dese sogers, let alone a
dead nigga; but I'd a missed myself, and dat was de pint wid me."
MOTHER'S FOOL.
"'Tis plain to see," said a farmer's wife,
"These boys will make their mark in life;
They were never made to handle a hoe,
And at once to a college ought to go;
There's Fred, he's little better than a fool,
But John and Henry must go to school."
"Well, really, wife," quote Farmer Brown,
As he sat his mug of cider down,
"Fred does more work in a day for me
Than both his brothers do in three.
Book larnin' will never plant one's corn,
Nor hoe potatoes, sure's your born,
Nor mend a rod of broken fence--
For my part give me common sense."
But his wife was bound the roast to rule,
And John and Henry were sent to school,
While Fred, of course, was left behind
Because his mother said he had no mind.
Five years at school the students spent;
Then into business each one went.
John learned to play the flute and fiddle,
And parted his hair, of course, in the middle;
While his brother looked rather higher than he,
And hung out a sign, "H. Brown, M. D."
Meanwhile, at home, their brother Fred
Had taken a notion into his head;
But he quietly trimmed his apple trees,
And weeded onions and planted peas,
While somehow or other, by hook or crook,
He managed to read full many a book.
Until at last his father said
He was getting "book larnin'" into his head;
"But for all that," added Farmer Brown,
"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,
Went marching home as General Brown.
But he went to work on the farm again,
And planted corn and sowed his grain;
He shingled the barn and mended the fence,
Till people declared he had common sense.
Now, common sense was very rare,
And the State House needed a portion there;
So the "family dunce" moved into town--
The people called him Governor Brown;
And his brothers, who went to the city school,
Came home to live with "mother's fool."
AN HOUR OF HORROR.
It was close upon the hour of midnight.
A man sat alone in an upper room in a tumble-down tenement--a man whose
face showed by his furrowed brow, glaring eyes and pallid lips the effects
of a terrible mental struggle going on within him.
Before him were several pages of manuscript, and his nervous hand
convulsively clutching a pen, was rapidly adding to them.
Close to his right hand and frequently touched by it as he plied his pen,
was a gleaming, glittering object--ivory, silver and steel--a loaded
revolver.
The window beside him was open, and through it the cool breeze entered and
fanned his fevered brow. The night without was calm and placid. Nature was
lovely, bathed in the light of the summer moon; but the man was oblivious
of the beauties of the night. He glanced at the clock now and then, and
observing the long hand climbing up the incline toward the figure twelve,
he redoubled his labor at his manuscript.
Anon he glanced at the revolver on the desk beside him. He touched its
ivory handle as if faltering in his resolution; and then went on with his
writing.
Hark!
What sound is that that is borne upon the breeze of the summer night? A
long, low wail, like the cry of a woman in mortal anguish.
The man started like a guilty soul, dashed the dews of perspiration from
his clammy brow, and uttered an incoherent exclamation.
Again! again, that moaning, uncanny cry!
The man heard it and groaned aloud. He dashed aside the last page of his
manuscript, and glanced again at the clock. The hands marked the hour of
midnight. He grasped the revolver with a resolute air and exclaimed through
his clenched teeth:
"It must be done!"
And, going to the window, he fired twice. * * * There was a scattering
sound in the backyard, and the next day a gray cat was found dead close to
the woodshed. The story and the deed were done.
GO VAY, BECKY MILLER, GO VAY!
I don'd lofe you now von schmall little bit,
My dream vas blayed oudt, so blease git up und git;
Your false-heardted vays I can't got along mit--
Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
Vas all der young vomans so false-heardted like you,
Mit a face nice und bright, but a heart black und plue,
Und all der vhile schworing you lofed me so drue--
Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
Vy, vonce I t'ought you vas a shtar vay up high;
I liked you so better as gogonut bie:
But oh, Becky Miller, you hafe profed von big lie--
Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
You dook all de bresents vat I did bresent,
Yes, gobbled up efery virst thing vot I sent;
All der vhile mit anoder young rooster you vent--
Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
Vhen first I found oudt you vas such a big lie,
I didn't know vedder to schmudder or die;
Bud now, by der chingo, I don't efen cry--
Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
Don'd dry make belief you vas sorry aboudt,
I don'd belief a dings vot coomes oudt by your moudt;
Und besides I don'd care, for you vas blayed oudt--
Go vay, Becky Miller, go vay!
IT IS A WINTER NIGHT.
BY RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
It is a winter night,
And the stilly earth is white,
With the blowing of the lilies of the snow;
Once it was as red,
With the roses summer shed;
But the roses fled with summer, long ago.
We sang a merry tune,
In the jolly days of June,
As we danced adown the garden in the light,
But now December's come,
And our hearts are dark and dumb,
As we huddle o'er the embers here to-night.
WHAT THE LITTLE GIRL SAID.
"Ma's upstairs changing her dress," said the freckle-faced little girl,
tying her doll's bonnet strings and casting her eye about for a tidy large
enough to serve as a shawl for that double-jointed young person.
"Oh, your mother needn't dress up for me," replied the female agent of the
missionary society, taking a self-satisfied view of herself in the mirror.
"Run up and tell her to come down just as she is in her every-day clothes,
and not stand on ceremony."
"Oh, but she hasn't got on her every-day clothes. Ma was all dressed up in
her new brown silk dress, 'cause she expected Miss Dimmond to-day. Miss
Dimmond always comes over here to show off her nice things, and ma doesn't
mean to get left. When ma saw you coming she said, 'the dickens!' and I
guess she was mad about something. Ma said if you saw her new dress, she'd
have to hear all about the poor heathen, who don't have silk, and you'd ask
her for money to buy hymn books to send 'em. Say, do the nigger ladies use
hymn-book leaves to do their hair up on and make it frizzy? Ma says she
guesses that's all the good the books do 'em, if they ever get any books. I
wish my doll was a heathen."
"Why, you wicked little girl! what do you want of a heathen doll?" inquired
the missionary lady, taking a mental inventory of the new things in the
parlor to get material for a homily on worldly extravagance.
"So folks would send her lots of nice things to wear, and feel sorry to
have her going about naked. Then she'd have hair to frizz, and I want a
doll with truly hair and eyes that roll up like Deacon Silderback's when
he says amen on Sunday. I ain't a wicked girl, either, 'cause Uncle
Dick--you know Uncle Dick, he's been out West and swears awful and smokes
in the house--he says I'm a holy terror, and he hopes I'll be an angel
pretty soon. Ma'll be down in a minute, so you needn't take your cloak off.
She said she'd box my ears if I asked you to. Ma's putting on that old
dress she had last year, 'cause she didn't want you to think she was able
to give much this time, and she needed a muff worse than the queen of the
cannon-ball islands needed religion. Uncle Dick says you oughter get to the
islands, 'cause you'd be safe there, and the natives would be sorry they
was such sinners anybody would send you to 'em. He says he never seen a
heathen hungry enough to eat you, 'less 'twas a blind one, an' you'd set a
blind pagan's teeth on edge so he'd never hanker after any more missionary.
Uncle Dick's awful funny, and makes ma and pa die laughing sometimes."
"Your Uncle Richard is a bad, depraved wretch, and ought to have remained
out West, where his style is appreciated. He sets a horrid example for
little girls like you."
"Oh, I think he's nice. He showed me how to slide down the banisters, and
he's teaching me to whistle when ma ain't around. That's a pretty cloak
you've got, ain't it? Do you buy all your clothes with missionary money?
Ma says you do."
Just then the freckle-faced girl's ma came into the parlor and kissed the
missionary lady on the cheek and said she was delighted to see her, and
they proceeded to have a real sociable chat. The little girl's ma cannot
understand why a person who professes to be so charitable as the missionary
agent does should go right over to Miss Dimmond's and say such ill-natured
things as she did, and she thinks the missionary is a double-faced gossip.
"WE'RE BUILDING TWO A DAY!"
BY REV. ALFRED J. HOUGH.
[During the Freethinkers' Convention, at Watkins, N.
Y., in response to statements that the churches
throughout the land were losing all aggressive power, a
message was received from Chaplain McCabe, of the
Methodist Episcopal Church Extension Board saying in
substance and speaking only of his own denomination,
"All hail the power of Jesus' name; we're building two
a day!"]
The infidels, a motley band,
In council, met and said:
"The churches die all through the land,
The last will soon be dead."
When suddenly a message came,
It filled them with dismay:
"All hail the power of Jesus' name!
We're building two a day."
"We're building two a day," and still,
In stately forests stored,
Are shingle, rafter, beam, and sill,
For churches of the Lord;
And underpinning for the same,
In quarries piled away;
"All hail the power of Jesus' name!
We're building two a day."
The miners rend the hills apart,
Earth's bosom is explored,
And streams from her metallic heart
In graceful molds are poured,
For bells to sound our Saviour's fame
From towers,--and, swinging, say,
"All hail the power of Jesus' name!
We're building two a day."
The King of saints to war has gone,
And matchless are His deeds;
His sacramental hosts move on,
And follow where He leads;
While infidels His church defame,
Her corner-stones we lay;
"All hail the power of Jesus' name!
We're laying two a day."
The Christless few the cross would hide,
The light of life shut out,
And leave the world to wander wide
Through sunless realms of doubt.
The pulpits lose their ancient fame,
Grown obsolete, they say;
"All hail the power of Jesus' name!
We're building two a day."
"Extend," along the line is heard,
"Thy walls, O Zion, fair!"
And Methodism heeds the word,
And answers everywhere.
A new church greets the morning's flame,
Another evening's gray.
"All hail the power of Jesus' name!
We're building two a day."
When infidels in council meet
Next year, with boastings vain,
To chronicle the Lord's defeat,
And count His churches slain,
Oh then may we with joy proclaim,
If we His call obey:
"All hail the power of Jesus' name!
We're building THREE a day."
THE MODERN BELLE.
The daughter sits in the parlor,
And rocks in her easy-chair;
She is dressed in silks and satins,
And jewels are in her hair;
She winks, and giggles, and simpers,
And simpers, and giggles, and winks;
And though she talks but little,
It's vastly more than she thinks.
Her father goes clad in russet--
All brown and seedy at that;
His coat is out at the elbows,
And he wears a shocking bad hat.
He is hoarding and saving his dollars,
So carefully, day by day,
While she on her whims and fancies
Is squandering them all away.
She lies in bed of a morning
Until the hour of noon,
Then comes down, snapping and snarling
Because she's called too soon.
Her hair is still in papers,
Her cheeks still bedaubed with paint--
Remains of last night's blushes
Before she attempted to faint.
Her feet are so very little,
Her hands so snowy white,
Her jewels so very heavy,
And her head so very light;
Her color is made of cosmetics--
Though this she'll never own;
Her body is mostly cotton,
And her heart is wholly stone.
She falls in love with a fellow
Who swells with a foreign air;
He marries her for her money,
She marries him for his hair--
One of the very best matches;
Both are well mated in life;
She's got a fool for a husband,
And he's got a fool for a wife.
THE PUZZLED DUTCHMAN.
ANONYMOUS.
_A Humorous Recitation._
One who does not believe in immersion for baptism was holding a protracted
meeting, and one night preached on the subject of baptism. In the course of
his remarks he said that some believe it necessary to go down in the water,
and come up out of it, to be baptized. But this he claimed to be fallacy,
for the preposition "into" of the Scriptures should be rendered
differently, as it does not mean into at all times. "Moses," he said, "we
are told, went up into the mountain; and the Saviour was taken up into a
high mountain, etc. Now we do not suppose either went into a mountain but
went unto it. So with going down into the water; it means simply going down
close by or near to the water, and being baptized in the ordinary way, by
sprinkling or pouring." He carried this idea out fully, and in due season
closed his discourse, when an invitation was given for any one so disposed
to rise and express his thoughts. Quite a number of his brethren arose and
said they were glad they had been present on this occasion, that they were
well pleased with the sound sermon they had just heard, and felt their
souls greatly blessed. Finally, a corpulent gentleman of Teutonic
extraction, a stranger to all, arose and broke the silence that was almost
painful, as follows:
"Mister Breacher, I is so glad I vash here to-night, for I has had
explained to my mint some dings dat I never could pelief pefore. Oh, I is
so glad dat into does not mean into at all, but shust close py or near to,
for now I can pelief many dings vot I could not pelief pefore. We reat, Mr.
Breacher, dat Taniel vos cast into de ten of lions, and came out alife.
Now I neffer could pelief dat, for wilt peasts would shust eat him right
off; but now it is fery clear to my mint. He vash shust close py or near
to, and tid not get into de ten at all. Oh, I ish so glad I vash here
to-night. Again we reat dat de Heprew children vas cast into de firish
furnace, and dat always look like a beeg story too, for they would have
been purnt up; but it ish all blain to my mint now, for dey was shust cast
py or close to de firish furnace. Oh, I vas so glad I vos here to-night.
And den, Mister Breacher, it ish said dat Jonah vash cast into de sea, and
taken into de whale's pelly. Now I neffer could pelief dat. It alwish
seemed to me to be a beeg fish story, but it ish all blain to my mint now.
He vash not into de whale's pelly at all, but shump onto his pack and rode
ashore. Oh, I vash so glad I vash here to-night.
"And now, Mister Breacher, if you will shust exblain two more bassages of
Scriptures, I shall be oh so happy dat I vas here to-night! One of dem ish
vere it saish de vicked shall be cast into a lake dat burns mit fire and
primstone alwish. Oh, Mister Breacher, shall I be cast into dat lake if I
am vicked, or shust close py or near to--shust near enough to be
comfortable? Oh, I hope you tell me I shall be cast only shust py a good
veys off, and I vill pe so glad I vash here to-night. Do oder bassage is
dat vich saish blessed are they who do these commandments, dat dey may
have right to de dree of life, and enter in droo de gates of the city, and
not shust close py or near to--shust near enough to see vat I have
lost--and I shall pe so glad I vash here to-night."
THE FAST MAIL AND THE STAGE.
BY JOHN H. YATES.
Lay by the weekly, Betsey, it's old like you and I,
And read the morning's daily, with its pages scarcely dry.
While you and I were sleepin', they were printing them to-day,
In the city by the ocean, several hundred miles away.
"How'd I get it?" Bless you, Betsey, you needn't doubt and laugh;
It didn't drop down from the clouds nor come by telegraph;
I got it by the lightning mail we've read about you know,
The mail that Jonathan got up about a month ago.
We farmers livin' 'round the hill went to the town to-day
To see the fast mail catch the bags that hung beside the way;
Quick as a flash from thundering clouds, whose tempest swept the sky,
The bags were caught on board the train as it went roarin' by.