Pipes OPan at Zekesbury | Page 9

a-wundern what she done
That all her
sisters kep' a gittin' married, one by one,
And her without no
chances--and the best girl of the pack-- An old maid, with her hands,
you might say, tied behind her back! And Mother, too, afore she died,
she ust to jes' take on, When none of 'em was left, you know, but
Evaline and John, And jes' declare to goodness 'at the young men must
be bline To not see what a wife they 'd git if they got Evaline!
I got to thinkin' of her; in my great affliction she
Was sich a comfert
to us, and so kind and neighberly,--
She 'd come, and leave her
housework, far to be'p out little Jane, And talk of her own mother 'at
she 'd never see again-- Maybe sometimes cry together--though, far the
most part she Would have the child so riconciled and happy-like 'at we

Felt lonesomer 'n ever when she 'd put her bonnet on
And say she
'd railly haf to be a-gittin' back to John!
I got to thinkin' of her, as I say,--and more and more
I'd think of her
dependence, and the burdens 'at she bore,-- Her parents both a-bein'
dead, and all her sisters gone
And married off, and her a-livin' there
alone with John-- You might say jes' a-toilin' and a-slavin' out her life

Far a man 'at hadn't pride enough to git hisse'f a wife-- 'Less some
one married Evaline, and packed her off some day!-- So I got to
thinkin' of her--and it happened thataway.
BABYHOOD.

Heigh-ho! Babyhood! Tell me where you linger:
Let's toddle home
again, for we have gone astray;
Take this eager hand of mine and lead
me by the finger
Back to the Lotus lands of the far-away.
Turn back the leaves of life; don't read the story,--
Let's find the
pictures, and fancy all the rest:--
We can fill the written pages with a
brighter glory
Than Old Time, the story-teller, at his very best!
Turn to the brook, where the honeysuckle, tipping
O'er its vase of
perfume spills it on the breeze,
And the bee and humming-bird in
ecstacy are sipping
From the fairy flagons of the blooming locust
trees.
Turn to the lane, where we used to "teeter-totter,"
Printing little
foot-palms in the mellow mold,
Laughing at the lazy cattle wading in
the water
Where the ripples dimple round the buttercups of gold:
Where the dusky turtle lies basking on the gravel
Of the sunny
sandbar in the middle-tide,
And the ghostly dragonfly pauses in his
travel
To rest like a blossom where the water-lily died.
Heigh-ho! Babyhood! Tell me where you linger:
Let's toddle home
again, for we have gone astray;
Take this eager hand of mine and lead
me by the finger
Back to the Lotus lands of the far-away.
THE DAYS GONE BY.
O the days gone by! O the days gone by!
The apples in the orchard,
and the pathway through the rye; The chirrup of the robin, and the
whistle of the quail
As he piped across the meadows sweet as any
nightingale;
When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was in
the sky, And my happy heart brimmed over in the days gone by.
In the days gone by, when my naked feet were tripped
By the
honey-suckle's tangles where the water-lilies dipped, And the ripples of

the river lipped the moss along the brink Where the placid-eyed and
lazy-footed cattle came to drink, And the tilting snipe stood fearless of
the truant's wayward cry And the splashing of the swimmer, in the days
gone by.
O the days gone by! O the days gone by!
The music of the laughing
lip, the luster of the eye;
The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin's
magic ring-- The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in everything,--

When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh, In the golden
olden glory of the days gone by.
MRS. MILLER
John B. McKinney, Attorney and Counselor at Law, as his sign read,
was, for many reasons, a fortunate man. For many other reasons he was
not. He was chiefly fortunate in being, as certain opponents often strove
to witheringly designate him, "the son of his father," since that sound
old gentleman was the wealthiest farmer in that section, with but one
son and heir to, in time, supplant him in the role of "county god," and
haply perpetuate the prouder title of "the biggest tax-payer on the
assessment list." And this fact, too, fortunate as it would seem, was
doubtless the indirect occasion of a liberal percentage of all John's
misfortunes. From his earliest school-days in the little town, up to his
tardy graduation from a distant college, the influence of his father's
wealth invited his procrastination, humored its results, encouraged the
laxity of his ambition, "and even now," as John used, in bitter irony, to
put it, "it is aiding and abetting me in the