Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Galahad [annoyed]

[ocr errors]

!

You don't mean as much as you say Every poet, green or not, must have faith in an ideal. The Ancient [gently] — Ay, but if it make him

Pamper the coward heart

With feelings all too delicate for use,

as Coleridge translates Schiller, it is a deceit and a snare to him. Your Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, were made of different clay.

[ocr errors]

Zoïlus Here's to their sublime Shades, wherever they may be wandering! Out, to the last drop! We are in the small hours; the Donnerwetters! are all silent in the saloon, and Karl Schäfer is probably snoring over his counter, waiting for us. Come!

[Exeunt.

TO BAYARD TAYLOR.

BY GEORGE HENRY BOKER.

[1823-1890.]

WHAT changes of our natures have not been,
In the long process of the many days

That passed while we pursued our different ways,
Lost to each other! Fields that once were green
Beneath our tillage, have been reaped. The scene
Of our young labors has grown old, and lays
Its dust upon us. Things that won our praise
Are tasteless quite, and only move our spleen.
Experience has nipped the bloom of youth;

The flattering dawn of life has gone; in vain
We look for visions of the morn. Stern truth
Glares over us, and makes our view too plain.
I'm sick of life's discoveries; in sooth,

I'd have the falsehoods of our youth again.

The world seems strangely altered to me, friend,
Since last I pressed my ready hand in thine.
I feel like one awakening after wine—

For many yesterdays have had an end
Since we two met - and drowsy tremors send
A thrill of shame across this heart of mine,
That I my better feelings could confine

In easy opiates, make my spirit bend

To slothful rest—a drunkard, and no more!
Yet I will rouse me from this lethargy.
The past is past; the dreaming night is o'er;
Heaven's lamp comes beaming from the east on me,
Touching my eyelids to reality,

And all is sunshine that was dark before.

ANN POTTER'S LESSON.1

BY ROSE TERRY COOKE.

[MRS. ROSE TERRY COOKE, American author, was born at West Hartford, Conn., February 17, 1827, graduated at the Hartford female seminary, and in 1873 married R. H. Cooke, of Winsted, Conn. She wrote: "Poems by Rose Terry" (1860), "Somebody's Neighbors" (1881), "Steadfast" (1889), a novel, Her most characteristic short stories were those of New England rural life. She died at Pittsfield, Mass., July 18, 1892.]

etc.

My sister Mary Jane is older than I,—as much as four years. Father died when we were both small, and didn't leave us much means besides the farm. Mother was rather a weakly woman; she didn't feel as though she could farm it for a livin'. It's hard work enough for a man to get clothes and victuals off a farm in West Connecticut; it's uphill work always; and then a man can turn to, himself, to plowin' and mowin'; but a woman ain't of no use, except to tell folks what to do; and everybody knows it's no way to have a thing done, to send.

Mother talked it all over with Deacon Peters, and he counseled her to sell off all the farm but the home lot, which was sot out for an orchard with young apple trees, and had a garden spot to one end of it, close by the house. Mother calculated to raise potatoes and beans and onions enough to last us the year round, and to take in sewin', so's to get what few groceries we was goin' to want. We kept Old Red, the best cow there was pasture enough for her in the orchard, for the trees wa'n't growed to be bearin' as yet, and we lotted a good deal on milk to our house; besides, it saved butcher's meat.

Mother was a real pious woman, and she was a highcouraged woman too. Old Miss Perrit, an old widder woman that lived down by the bridge, come up to see her the week

1 Copyright, 1886, by Ticknor & Co. Published by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

[graphic][merged small]

after father died. I remember all about it, though I wa'n't but ten years old; for when I see Miss Perrit comin' up the road, with her slimpsy old veil hanging off from her bumbazine bunnet, and her doleful look (what Nancy Perrit used to call "mother's company face"), I kinder thought she was comin' to our house; and she was allers so musical to me, I went into the back door, and took up a towel I was hemmin', and set down in the corner, all ready to let her in. It don't seem as if I could 'a' been real distressed about father's dyin' when I could do so; but children is just like spring weather, - rainin' one hour and shinin' the next, and it's the Lord's great mercy they be; if they begun to be feelin' so early, there wouldn't be nothin' left to grow up. So pretty quick Miss Perrit knocked, and I let her in. We hadn't got no spare room in that house; there was the kitchen in front, and mother's bedroom, and the buttery, and the little back space opened out on't behind. Mother was in the bedroom; so, while I called her, Miss Perrit set down in the splint rockin' chair, that creaked awfully, and went to rockin' back and forth, and sighin', till mother came in.

"Good day, Miss Langdon!" says she, with a kind of a snuffle, "how dew you dew? I thought I'd come and see how you kep' up under this here affliction. I rec'lect very well how I felt when husband died. It's a dreadful thing to be left a widder in a hard world, don't you find it out by this?"

I guess mother felt quite as bad as ever Miss Perrit did, for everybody knew old Perrit treated his wife like a dumb brute while he was alive, and died drunk; but she didn't say nothin'. I see her give a kind of a swaller, and then she spoke up bright and strong:

-

"I don't think it is a hard world, Miss Perrit. I find folks kind and helpful, beyond what I'd any right to look for. I try not to think about my husband any more than I can help, because I couldn't work if I did, and I've got to work. It's most helpful to think the Lord made special promises to widows, and when I remember him I ain't afeard."

Miss Perrit stopped rocking a minute, and then she began to creak the chair and blow her nose again, and she said:

“Well, I'm sure it's a great mercy to see anybody rise above their trouble the way you do; but, law me! Miss Langdon, you ain't got through the fust pair o' bars on't yet. Folks is allers kinder neighborly at the fust; they feel to help you right off,

« AnteriorContinuar »