Columbia! "Twas in fire and blood At morn, at noon, at eventide, SISTER AND I. We were hunting for wintergreen berries, One May-day, long gone by, Out on the rocky cliff's edge, Little sister and I. Sister had hair like the sunbeams; Black as a crow's wing, mine; Sister had blue, dove's eyes; There, don't hold my hands, Maggie, We were looking for wintergreen berries; Though the sun shone ever so brightAnd when sister found the most berries, I was angry enough to fight! And when she laughed at my poutingWe were little things, you know I clinched my little fist up tight, And struck her the biggest blow! I struck her-I tell you-I struck her, And she fell right over belowThere, there, Maggie, I won't rave now; You needn't hold me so She went right over, I tell you, Down, down to the depths below! "Tis deep and dark and horrid There, where the waters flow! She fell right over, moaning, 46 'Bessie, oh, Bessie!" so sad, That, when I looked down affrighted, It drove me mad-mad! Only her golden hair streaming Only her little hand reaching Up, for some one to save; And she sank down in the darkness, I never saw her again, And this world is a chaos of blackness No more playing together Down on the pebbly strand; Nor building our doll's stone castles No more fishing with bent pins, No more holding funerals O'er dead canaries' graves; No more walking together To the log school-house each morn; No more vexing the master With putting his rules to scorn; No more feeding of white lambs With milk from the foaming pail; No more playing "see-saw" And hugging each other tight, And mother is dead, you see. Isn't she? Isn't it true? My eyes aren't blue, you see- I'm sure, I'm sure of it, Maggie, I never shall rave any more. Maggie, you know how these long years I've heard her calling, so sad, "Bessie, oh, Bessie!" so mournful? It always drives me mad! How the winter wind shrieks down the chimney, "Bessie, oh, Bessie, oh! oh!" How the south wind wails at the casement, "Bessie, oh, Bessie!" so low. But most of all when the May-days Come back, with the flowers and the sun, How the night-bird, singing, all lonely, 66 Bessie, oh, Bessie!" doth moan; You know how it sets me raving For she moaned, "Oh, Bessie !" just so, That time I struck little sister, On the May-day long ago! Now, Maggie, I've something to tell you- Well, this very morning, at sunrise, The robins chirped "Bessie!" so clear- Called "Bessie, oh, Bessie!" so sweetly, Now, Maggie, I've something to tell you- Do you see how the sunset has flooded Do you hear her little voice calling out Bessie, oh, Bessie! Come, haste?" Yes, sister, I'm coming; I'm coming, THE CARE OF GOD. "Do you see this lock of hair?" said an old man to me. "Yes; but what is it? It is, I suppose, the curl from the head of a dear child long since gone to God." "It is not. It is a lock of my own hair; and it is now nearly seventy years since it was cut from this head." "But why do you prize a lock of your own hair so much?” "It has a story belonging to it-a strange one. I keep it thus with care because it speaks to me more of God, and of His special care, than anything else I possess. "I was a little child, four years old, with long, curly locks which, in sun or rain or wind, hung down my cheeks uncovered. One day my father went into the woods to cut up a log, and I went with him. I was standing a little behind him, or rather at his side, watching with interest the stroke of the heavy axe, as it went up and came down upon the wood, sending splinters in all directions at every stroke. Some of the splinters fell at my feet, and I eagerly stooped to pick them up. In doing so I stumbled forward, and in a moment my curly head lay upon the log. I had fallen just at the moment when the axe was coming down with all its force. It was too late to stop the blow. Down came the axe. I screamed, and my father fell to the ground in terror. He could not stay the stroke, and in the blindness which the sudden horror caused he thought he had killed his boy. We soon recovered-I from my fright, and he from his terror. He caught me in his arms and looked at me from head to foot, to find out the deadly wound which he was sure he had inflicted. Not a drop of blood nor a scar was to be seen. He knelt upon the grass and gave thanks to a gracious God. Ilaving done so, he took up his axe and found a few hairs upon its edge. He turned to the log he had been splitting, and there was a single curl of his boy's hair sharply cut through and laid upon the wood. How great the escape! It was as if an angel had turned aside the edge at the moment it was descending upon my head. "That lock he kept all his days as a memorial of God's care and love. That lock he left to me on his deathbed. I keep it with care. It tells me of my father's God and mine. It rebukes my unbelief and alarm. It bids me trust Him forever. I have had many tokens of fatherly love in my threescore years and ten, but somehow this speaks most to my heart. It is the oldest and perhaps the most striking. It used to speak to my father's heart; it now speaks to mine." THE OWL-CRITIC.-JAMES T. FIELD. "Who stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop; The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop; The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading The young man who blurted out such a blunt question; And the barber kept on shaving. "Don't you see, Mister Brown," How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is- |