He does; and confides to Miss Dora Delaine
He shares her disease, and his name is Migraine !"
You see how it was; they were surely a pair,
This Southron ill-used, and the sorrowful fair;
And all that remains for a mortal to guess
This hint from a letter may briefly express:
"My friends in the South" (wrote the doctor one day),
"You know I'm an Allopath, hot in my way,
And that, hitherto, I've belonged to the school
Esteeming my rival a knave or a fool;
But, lately, I've had such a wonderful case,
That, sooner than lose it, I've dared the disgrace
Of making the point, beyond questioning, sure,
That like is for like an infallible cure!
My patient, the loveliest queen of a girl
That ever drew kings in the chain of a curl,
Was fading away with that exquisite smart
I'd carried for years in my own weary heart;
And after due visits, by no means for pelf,
For life I've prescribed-wish me joy in't!-Myself!"
The evening star its vesper lamp
Above the west had lit,
The dusky curtains of the night
Were following over it.
He seized her waist and clasped her hand
And told his tale of love;
He called her every tender name,
"My darling," " duck," and "dove."
A tremor shook her fairy form,
Her eyes began to blink;
Her pulse rose to a hundred, and
She cried: "I think-I think—”
He sighed: "You think you love me?" for
His soul was on the rack;
"Oh, no!" she yelled; “I think a bug
Is crawling down my back!"
THE FIRST SETTLER'S STORY.-WILL CARLETON.
ABRIDGED FOR PUBLIC READING.
It ain't the funniest thing a man can do
Existing in a country when it's new;
Nature, who moved in first-a good long while-
Has things already somewhat her own style,
And she don't want her woodland splendors battered,
Her rustic furniture broke up and scattered,
Her paintings, which long years ago were done
By that old splendid artist-king, the sun,
Torn down and dragged in civilization's gutter,
Or sold to purchase settlers' bread and butter.
She don't want things exposed from porch to closet,
And so she kind o' nags the man who does it.
She carries in her pockets bags of seeds,
As general agent of the thriftiest weeds;
She sends her blackbirds, in the early morn,
To superintend his fields of planted corn;
She gives him rain past any duck's desire—
Then maybe several weeks of quiet fire;
She sails mosquitoes-leeches perched on wings-
To poison him with blood-devouring stings;
She loves her ague-muscle to display,
And shake him up-say every other day;
With thoughtful, conscientious care she makes
Those travelin' poison-bottles, rattlesnakes;
She finds time, 'mongst her other family cares,
To keep in stock good wild-cats, wolves, and bears.
Well, when I first infested this retreat,
Things to my view looked frightful incomplete;
But I had come with heart-thrift in my song,
And brought my wife and plunder right along;
I hadn't a round-trip ticket to go back,
And if I had there wasn't no railroad track;
And drivin' East was what I couldn't endure:
I hadn't started on a circular tour.
My girl-wife was as brave as she was good,
And helped me every blessed way she could;
She seemed to take to every rough old tree,
As sing'lar as when first she took to me.
She kep' our little log-house neat as wax,
And once I caught her fooling with my axe.
She learned a hundred masculine things to do:
She aimed a shot-gun pretty middlin' true,
Although, in spite of my express desire,
She always shut her eyes before she'd fire.
She hadn't the muscle (though she had the heart)
In out-door work to take an active part;
Though in our firm of Duty and Endeavor
She wasn't no silent partner whatsoever.
When I was logging, burning, choppin' wood,
She'd linger round and help me all she could,
And kept me fresh-ambitious all the while,
And lifted tons just with her voice and smile.
With no desire my glory for to rob,
She used to stan' around and boss the job;
And when first-class success my hands befell,
Would proudly say, "We did that pretty well!"
She was delicious, both to hear and see-
That pretty wife-girl that kep' house for me.
Well, neighborhoods meant counties in those days;
The roads didn't have accommodating ways;
And maybe weeks would pass before she'd see-
And much less talk with-any one but me.
The Indians sometimes showed their sun-baked faces,
But they didn't teem with conversational graces;
Some ideas from the birds and trees she stole,
But 'twasn't like talking with a human soul;
And finally I thought that I could trace
A half heart-hunger peering from her face.
Then she would drive it back and shut the door;
Of course that only made me see it more.
'Twas hard to see her give her life to mine,
Making a steady effort not to pine;
"Twas hard to hear that laugh bloom out each minute, And recognize the seeds of sorrow in it.
No misery makes a close observer mourn
Like hopeless grief with hopeful courage borne;
There's nothing sets the sympathies to paining
Like a complaining woman uncomplaining.
It always draws my breath out into sighs
To see a brave look in a woman's eyes.
Well, she went on, as plucky as could be,
Fighting the foe she thought I did not see,
And using her heart-horticultural powers
To turn that forest to a bed of flowers.
You can not check an unadmitted sigh,
And so I had to soothe her on the sly,
And secretly to help her draw her load;
And soon it came to be an up-hill road.
Hard work bears hard upon the average pulse,
Even with satisfactory results;
But when effects are scarce, the heavy strain
Falls dead and solid on the heart and brain.
And when we're bothered, it will oft occur
We seek blame-timber; and I lit on her;
And looked at her with daily lessening favor,
For what I knew she couldn't help, to save her.
And Discord, when he once had called and seen us,
Came round quite often, and edged in between us.
One night, when I came home unusual late,
Too hungry and too tired to feel first-rate,
Her supper struck me wrong (though I'll allow
She hadn't much to strike with, anyhow);
And when I went to milk the cows, and found
They'd wandered from their usual feeding ground,
And maybe'd left a few long miles behind 'em,
Which I must copy, if I meant to find 'em,
Flash-quick the stay-chains of my temper broke,
And in a trice these hot words I had spoke:
"You ought to've kept the animals in view,
And drove 'em in; you'd nothing else to do.
The heft of all our life on me must fall;
You just lie round, and let me do it all."
That speech-it hadn't been gone a half a minute
Before I saw the cold black poison in it;
And I'd have given all I had, and more,
To've only safely got it back in-door.
I'm now what most folks "well-to-do" would call:
I feel to-day as if I'd give it all,
Provided I through fifty years might reach
And kill and bury that half-minute speech.
She handed back no words, as I could hear;
She didn't frown; she didn't shed a tear;
Half proud, half crushed, she stood and looked me o'er,
Like some one she had never seen before!
But such a sudden anguish-lit surprise
I never viewed before in human eyes.
(I've seen it oft enough since in a dream;
It sometimes wakes me like a midnight scream.)
Next morning, when, stone-faced, but heavy-hearted,
With dinner pail and sharpened axe I started
Away for my day's work--she watched the door,
And followed me half way to it or more;
And I was just a-turning round at this,
And asking for my usual good-by kiss;
But on her lip I saw a proudish curve,
And in her eye a shadow of reserve;
And she had shown-perhaps half unawares-
Some little independent breakfast airs;
And so the usual parting didn't occur,
Although her eyes invited me to her;
Or rather half invited me, for she
Didn't advertise to furnish kisses free;
You always had—that is, I had to pay
Full market price, and go more'n half the way.
So, with a short "Good-by," I shut the door,
And left her as I never had before.
But when at noon my lunch I came to eat,
Put up by her so delicately neat—
Choicer, somewhat, than yesterday's had been,
And some fresh, sweet-eyed pansies she'd put in—
"Tender and pleasant thoughts," I knew they meant-
It seemed as if her kiss with me she'd sent;
Then I became once more her humble lover,
And said, "To-night I'll ask forgiveness of her."
I went home over-early on that eve,
Having contrived to make myself believe,
By various signs I kind o' knew and guessed,
A thunder-storm was coming from the west.
('Tis strange, when one sly reason fills the heart,
How many honest ones will take its part:
A dozen first-class reasons said 'twas right
That I should strike home early on that night.)
Half out of breath, the cabin door I swung,
With tender heart-words trembling on my tongue;
But all within looked desolate and bare:
My house had lost its soul,-she was not there!
A penciled note was on the table spread,
And these are something like the words it said:
"The cows have strayed away again, I fear;
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