As Annie was carrying the baby one day,
Tossing aloft the lump of inanity,-
Dear to its father and mother no doubt,
To the rest of the world a mere lump of humanity,— Sam came along, and was thinking then, maybe,
Full as much of Annie as she of the baby.
"Just look at the baby!" cried Ann, in a flutter,
Giving its locks round her fingers a twirl :
"If I was a man I know that I couldn't
Be keeping my hands off a dear little girl."
And Sam gave a wink, as if to say "Maybe,
Of the girls, I'd rather hug you than the baby!”
"Now kiss it!" she cried, still hugging it closer,
"Its mouth's like the roses the honey-bee sips!"
Sam stooped to obey; and, as heads came together,
There chanced to arise a confusion of lips!
And, as it occurred, it might have been, maybe,
That each got a kiss,-Sam, Ann, and the baby!
It's hard to tell what just then was the matter,
For the baby was the only one innocent there:
And Annie flushed up like a full-blown peony,
And Samuel turned red to the roots of his hair.
So the question is this,-you can answer it, maybe,—
Did Annie kiss Sam, or did both kiss the baby?
THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY.-E. A. DUNCAN.
Without 'twas cold and cheerless, and glooming into night,
Within 'twas warm and cheery, the "yule" log burning bright.
Beside a cosy table o'erspread with tempting lunch,
Mid appetizing odors from steaming jugs of punch,
Were seated two old veterans who'd served throughout the
And had their soldiers' record engraved in livid scars Deep in their furrowed faces. The night was Christmas Eve. Three legs the party counted, beside one empty sleeve. They smoked their pipes and chatted in a dreamy sort of way Of times agone, and present, as two old comrades may. 'Twas "Bob" and "Joe" in private who forgot the rank they bore,
Nor "recked" they of the symbols which their broad should
Old tales they told and gossipped of strange things they had seen,
How each had won his laurels in fights he'd helped to win. Now tell me, Joe," said Bob at last, "the best thing you have done;
The proudest recollection of all your life that's gone?"
""Tis not as you may think, Bob, an easy thing to tell,
What we have done that's best, we've done so few things
well;
For memory will not linger on tragic things to brood,
Nor does she like her pictures bedabbled o'er with blood.
When alone we sit reviewing the pages of our life,
We quickly drop the curtain on scenes o'ercast with strife,
Such as the world, applauding, calls our fields of glory,
But fill your glass, and listen, Bob, and I'll tell you a story.
"In sixty-six, in Autumn, one wild, tempestuous night, I sat alone in quarters and watched the flickering light Cast its trembling shadows upon the walls about, As if in mirth defying the howling winds without. I'd cast aside my harness and piled it in a chair,
And tipped back in my rocker with feet high in the air, And smoked my pipe sedately. 'Twas the meerschaum poor Jack Moore
Gave me. Poor Jack! you knew him. He fell at 'Grand Ecore.'
Impatiently I waited for my slow coming meal,
While old Aunt Dinah, blustering with Ethiopic zeal,
Was railing at the darkies, who, in her sable view,
Were 'de no countest niggahs dat she done ebber knew.'
So goaded into action by her reproving blast,
The loit'ring rogues awakened and brought my meal at last. I started for my mess-room, and, as I crossed the floor,
I heard a gentle rapping upon the outer door.
'Who's that!' I cried, impatient, in a surly voice I own, Not in what you would call, Bob, a 'hospitable tone!' 'Come in! I say there, can't you? come in! when you are told!'
'Twas a timid voice that answered, 'My fingers are so cold.' I turned the knob, and looking out in the night and storm I saw there standing shivering, the dripping, scant-clad form Of a sad-faced little girl; a face that grief, not years, Had made look wan and sunken; while from her eyes the tears
All mixed with big, cold rain-drops, were trickling down her cheek;
I stood a moment silent, waiting for her to speak.
She stood upon the threshold perhaps say half a minute,
Down looking in her basket, which had nothing in it;
And still she seemed to linger as if of chiding fearful
Like one unused to kindness; and then her eyes, still tearful,
Sought mine with look so anxious, so imploring, and so sad,
I could not have denied her the last hard-tack I had.
'Come in, my child,' said I; 'come in from out the rain;'
And something chill came o'er me that felt, Bob, like a pain.
She came up to the hearth side, and took the proffered
seat,
And held up to the fire her poor, half-frozen feet;
For they were bare and shoeless, and blue with pinching cold,
And like her dress all spattered with yellow, clayey mold; Her gown was old and tattered, and vainly lengthened out; With odds and ends all different, and patched and darned about;
An old and faded kerchief covered her unkempt hair, Which would have glowed with beauty if smoothed and dressed with care;
Her eye was of that gentle blue which artists love to paint,
In ideal picture showing some sorrow-stricken saint.
In fact, her gentle manners and timid modest ways
All seemed to tell that she had known more bright and better days.
When by the blazing fire she'd warmed her scant-clad form, I asked her what had brought her forth in such a driving. storm;
'I came,' she answered, blushing and hanging down her head, 'I came to see if I, sir, could get a little bread;
And oh! I can not tell you how much I hate to beg,
But poor mamma is starving and Tom has lost his leg;
He lost his leg at Dallas-be was a soldier then;
They took our boys to battle, as well as all the men.
We all did what we could, sir, and tried to win the fight,
Gave all we had to country; we thought 'twas doing right.
My father died a soldier, a rebel soldier, too;
And that is why I feared, sir, to ask for bread of you ;
But we are all so hungry, we've neither bread nor meat;
For two long days we've fasted, with not a thing to eat;
We used to have a plenty, sir, with horses, too, to ride,
A happy home with servants and all we wished beside;
But now we've nothing left, sir, they all went one by one;
Our dear old home we lost it, and now all else has gone.
We had to sell our dresses for anything they'd bring,
Last week we had to sell dear mamma's wedding ring.'
"Tis long since you've seen tears, Bob, on my tough, hard-
ened cheek;
But then my eyes ran over, nor did I think it weak.
Could you have heard her story, so sadly told, I know
You'd weakened on your manhood,-grown womanish 'like
Joe.'
Ere she came I was hungry; I could have gnawed a bone;
But that was now all over, my appetite was gone.
Just then my sable Dinah began to fret and scold,
And wondered why de massa done leave dat supper cold.'
So out I led the little one to the supper table where
There lay in loose profusion the usual army fare;
I sat her down beside it, tucked in the warmest seat,
And, Bob, it did my heart good to see the poor child eat.
The coffee, ham, and corn cakes all vanished past recal!;
I wondered where a child so small found room to stow it all.
Of this the child seemed conscious, and said: 'Sir, if I could
I'd eat less; but I'in so hungry and this is all so good!'
So when her meal was finished, she drew back in her chair,
And held up to the fire her little feet so bare,
A sort of drowsy mantle over her senses crept;
She soon forgot her sorrows and, tired out, she slept!
And as I watched her sleeping, and heard that sobbing sigh,
I felt a sort o' choking, a mist came in my eye;
She brought to mind a little one who was just about her size,
With just such nut-brown ringlets and tender, loving eyes.
I shuddered as I thought, what if some day my own,
Now blessed with home and plenty, should wander sad and
Like this poor child, to seek this cold world's colder dole.
The picture, Bob, was frightful; it chilled my very soul;
I felt that I but paid a debt to this poor child of sorrow,
Which might be due my own in some far-off to-morrow.
When her short rest was over, and time to go had come,
It brought the sad remembrance of hungry ones at home;
And so I filled her basket with dainty bits of food
Such as the surgeon tells us for invalids are good;
And I sent Ben, my darkey, with 'hard-bread,' meal and
meat,
And other things we reckoned the healthy ones could eat;
Besides I gave her something to shield her ill-clad form
And shoeless little feet from winter's cold and storm.
It wasn't much I gave her, not much in the amount;
Perhaps it will be credited upon my loose account,
Help through my final papers which, much I fear, without
Some lift like that, won't pass when I'm last mustered out.
I wrapped my 'capote' round her; I kissed her then 'good
'May God bless you!' she whispered, the bright tear in her eye.
Now though I wear the 'color, the good old 'federal blue,'
Had fought against her father the weary war all through,
Yet still, the proudest memory of all my life that's fled
Is of my little kindness to that child of the dead.
On stormy nights in winter, when winds are howling wild,
I hear the sweet 'God bless you,' of that dead rebel's child."
They sat alone by the bright wood fire,
The gray-haired dame and the agéd sire,
Dreaming of days gone by;
The tear-drops fell on each wrinkled cheek,
They both had thoughts that they could not speak,
And each heart uttered a sigh.
For their sad and tearful eves descried
Three little chairs placed side by side,
Against the sitting-room wall;
Old fashioned enough as there they stood,
Their seats of flag and their frames of wood,
With their backs so straight and tall.
Then the sire shook his silvery head,
And with trembling voice he gently said,-
"Mother, those empty chairs!
They bring us such sad, sad thoughts to-night,
We'll put them forever out of sight,
In the small dark room up stairs."
But she answered, "Father, no, not yet,
For I look at them and I forget
That the children are away:
The boys come back, and our Mary, too,
With her apron on, of checkered blue,
And sit here every day.
"Johnny still whittles a ship's tall masts,
And Willie his leaden bullets casts,
While Mary her patch-work sews;
At evening time three childish prayers
Go up to God from those little chairs,
So softly that no one knows.
"Johnny comes back from the billow deep,
Willie wakes from his battle-field sleep,
To say good-night to me;
Mary's a wife and a mother no more,
But a tired child whose play-time is o'er,
And comes to rest on my knee.
"So let them stand there, though empty now,
And every time when alone we bow,
At the Father's throne to pray,
We'll ask to meet the children above,
In our Saviour's home of rest and love,
Where no child goeth away."
|