UNIM OF

ME AN' MARY.

THERE'S a lot o' joy in livin', an' a lot o' fun in life

When a fellow has a sweetheart an' is thinkin' of a wife,

An' that kinder now reminds me that I

lived on honey-comb

When Mary did the milkin' an' I drove the cattle home.

I was kinder shy an' bashful, an' what
folks would say was "green";
An' the writin' in the Bible put down
Maryseventeen";

I'd been thinkin' of the city-bein' much inclined to roam,

But I wondered, if I left her, who would drive the cattle home?

But there warn't so much in farmin', or in drivin' cows to milk;

It kept me down to cotton jeans an' Mary fur from silk ;

An' so, though I was up to go-for leavin' of the loam,

As I said before, I wondered who would drive the cattle home?

You see, they kinder knowed me-been a-drivin' of 'em so!

An' Mary had to milk 'em at a certain time-you know!

Would they come up in the twilight,

would they know the time o' stars? An' who, like me, could coax 'em, an, let down for 'em the bars?

I remember it was springtime-'bout the settin' of the sun;

An' I'd drove the cows to Mary, an' the milkin' had begun ;

An' I said: "I'm sorry, Mary, that the two of us must part;"

An' I kept a-whistlin', careless, like 'twould break nobody's heart.

But she looked acrost the meadows with her blue an' beamin' eyes, Which was like a dream o' heaven, an' jest took in all the skies!

An' then-an' then-I can't tell how-I couldn't think or see

"Do you like the city livin', or the cattle, more than me?"

Warn't no milk in that ere farmhouse that evenin'-not a drop!

The cows got in the cornfield an' jest eat up half the crop !

But the dish that I was feedin' from was

sweet with honey-comb

From the red, sweet lips o' Mary as I kissed her goin' home!

I lost sight o' the city life, whatever it might be ;

One acre in the country was enough,

an' more, for me!

An' I've made my mind up certain, an' I ain't inclined to roam

While Mary does the milkin' an' I drive the cattle home!

A MOTHER'S PICTURE.

ONLY a mother's picture,
Stained by my falling tears;
Only a mother's picture,

Snatched from the wreck of years,
But it carries me back to my childhood;
Back to my boyhood days,
Thoughts of the old home come o'er

me,

Thoughts of the good old ways.

THERE'S a little empty cradle,

Standing in a darkened room,
And a loving mother's prayers

Echo through the silent room;
For to-day the snow-white pillow
Brings no little head sweet rest,
And the dainty bed's sad smoothness
By no little form is pressed.

By its side the lonely mother,

Choked with grief and unshed tears, Kneels and prays for strength and comfort

To sustain her through the years
She must spend in yearning sorrow,
Thinking of that happy time
When her home was filled with laughter,
Making sweet and merry chime.

All the longings and the heartaches,
Of the mother in her woe,
All the bitter pain unceasing,

Only childless mothers know;

For howe'er well-meant the effort,
None can any comfort give,
And her heart seems full to bursting,
Such a burden 'tis to live.

But there comes a time when sunbeams,
Shining in the sombre room,
Change her prayers to praises,

And vanishes the saddening gloom; Now her heart hath found sweet comfort;

And her weariness sweet rest,
In the thought, "whate'er betides us
Jesus doeth all things best."
-MINNIE MARTIN FULler.

WHEN THE CIRCUS WAS IN TOWN,

DAR ain't no day lack show-day, when de circus comes to town,

Wid all its spotted hosses, its varmints an' its clown;

Hit's long ways 'head of Christmas an' ef here de whole year roun', I'd be a happy nigger while dat circus wuz in town.

Hit jes' puts a kind o' feelin' all in a feller's bones

Dat makes him feel lack spendin' jes'

ev'ry cent he owns

To git inside dat circus-an' it's inside I'll be boun',

You'll alluz fin' dis pusson when the circus is in town.

How well I's rickolectin'-long sens niggers wuz sot free,

Ole Moster come aroun' one day an' say-says he to me:

"I want you all to promise that the fact'ry shan't shet down,

But you'll all keep on a-workin' when that circus comes to town."

An' he 'low'd pore-bucks an' niggers wuz all de sort what went

An' spent der time an' money inside a circus tent;

An' he 'low'd ef ev'rybody wuz lack him de circus groun'

Would look lonesome as a grave-yard when de circus come to town.

IN promulgating your esoteric cogitations and in articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable philosophical or psychological observations beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications possess a clarified conciseness, a compacted comprehensibleness, coalescent consistency, and a concatenated cogency. Eschew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement, asinine affectations. Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity without rhodomontade or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolixity, psittaceous vacuity, ventriloquial verbosity, and vaniloquent vapidity. Shun double ententes, prurient jocosity, and pestiferous profanity, obscurant or apparent. other words, talk plainly, briefly, natu

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