The doctor's opening is superb, - But Dr. Brown is proving it, And that's enough for me. M. F. BUTTS. THE CAPTIVE. FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHWAB. "WE'LL rescue the captive, his fetters we'll rend; The firebrands caught on the turrets and floors, They broached the deep cellars, they guzzled the wine, And rose well refreshed as the third morning broke. "Where is the poor pris'ner? Where spends he his day? His corpse, smoke-smothered, upon the ground, But it pleased the rabble rout just as well, HENRY PHILLIPS, JR. THE PERIL OF THE MINES. "TWENTY years ago last May I came to live in this bit of a house by the great coal mine, to be near my husband and my two boys. Not that I felt they were in any great danger when I lost sight of them going down in the shaft in the morning; but then, you see, I could have them by me a bit longer in the morning, and then it was so pleasant to watch for them coming up at night; and more than all, little crumbs of news came up from time to time all day. Somebody would be coming up every little while, and I had many a chance to drop in the buckets little tin pails, with a taste of something warm right cff the fire, or a bottle of hot coffee, when I saw my husband, or Rufus, or Charles, was a little weak; and then to watch for thethank you, wife,' or 'thank you, mother,' that was always certain to come back the next chance. Oh, I like living here! I would not have gone away to live in the finest house in the land and left my husband and boys behind. "It was seventeen years ago last May when the overseer of the mine came one night to talk to my husband. He took him out of the house and beyond the little garden paling, where I could not hear what he said; but when he had gone, John that was my husband - looked soberer than ever I had seen him in my life; and he was always the brightest man, full of good thoughts to all. He could not help laughing out his gladness. He said 'there was so much of it coming up in his soul that he couldn't help letting it out;' and it made me feel as if I was all done up in a rainbow, somehow; and then the two boys There For a moment Aunt Mudge stopped, and Paul ventured to ask: "What did the overseer want? "He wanted my husband to go down in the mine at midnight, and examine it, just as the miners had gone below now. were noises, strange growlings and groanings, and the damps were filling all the mine. You see they opened the mine then on both sides of the mountain, east and west, and were work. ing toward each other, hoping to gain an opening through the mountain; and some thought it was the air rushing through that made the noises. Well, my husband went down. never told me till 'twas just midnight. You see it was Suuday night, and nothing could coax him to go down on Sunday; so he let me go to sleep; and, when I woke up, the moon was floating into the room like a great high tide; and there, right in the midst of it, was John, kneeling on the floor and saying his prayers; and I heard the little clock on the kitchen shelf strike, and I counted twelve. Just then came a knock, and John said ‘Amen,' quite out loud, and got up. Then he came and looked at me, and saw that I was wide awake; and so he kissed me, and said: 66 6 'Good-by, my little Mudge! I'm going down the mine to look at some things they've found down there. I'll be back, please God, to eat breakfast with you.' "The moonlight, and the prayer, and the knock, and the good-by, all seemed so strange that they dazed me, and I let him go; but a dream I had just after, frightened my sleep away, and I went out and sat by the lonely shaft, and watched all night. I listened with my ears close to the opening; but it was all so still; and the great full moon walked down the blue field, and the dark mountain came up between, and the day began to break at last, and then I got up. My two boys were out, early as it was, digging in the garden to surprise me; so I stole in at the front door and let them think I was asleep. "The little round table. - you see it there ―was soon ready; four plates and knives and forks on it; it was just large enough for four. Well, while the breakfast was waiting for John, the boys came to inquire for their father; and when I had told them where he had gone, they never stopped to speak, but went straight out, and I followed them to the place where I had watched all night. Just then the miners were come, and they said Rufus and Charles must not go down; but my two boys couldn't be kept back, and they bade me good-by; and, as their bright heads went out of sight, Rufus called back, Keep the breakfast warm, mother, and we will fetch father up to eat soon.' The place where the coal was taken out of the mine was about half a mile away, and the men who stood at the windlass were gone to it, and I could not bear to leave the place; the signal might come at any instant, and there would be no one there to mind it, so I stayed; but no sign came until the sun was high in the sky; and then I heard a soft step behind me, as I sat watching the rope, not daring to take my eyes from it. to see who came nearer and nearer. 66 "What is my little Mudge doing here?', said John's voice; 'I've come for my breakfast;' and my husband stood leaning oyer me. 'The boys, John!' was all that I could utter, never stopping to ask or wonder how he could have come to me. "God pity us, wife, if the boys are down below!' was all he said; and in an instant he was gone for aid. He met the two men returning from the coal-shaft just beyond the garden railing; and, dazed as I was by everything that day, I knew enough to run to the house for a bit of food, that might never meet the lips it was prepared for, and to lend a hand at the crank, as my John and another brave soul went down out of sight. Before many seconds, the signal came to draw back, and the two men eould not lift themselves out of the bucket when they came into the air, but held on, with white, gasping faces, although we wound up as fast as we could; and when I saw them, I knew my two boys would never come back to me as they had gone from me. But I had my husband safe, and I tried to take that into my soul, and to make it grow there and cover up the great wound that I had got." 66 "You didn't tell us how your husband got out," gasped' Paul. No, I forgot that, thinking of the boys. There were terrible eruptions and explosions down there in the deep blackness, and the lamps seemed of no use at all, the air was so thick; and God alone knows how, but the way between the east and the west shafts was opened by some angel, and the poor fellow escaped death by it. At that dreadful time the mine was so filled up that the old places are not cleared away yet, and that is what I am waiting for. It will come soon now. John never got well. He went away from me day by day, until at last I could find him no longer; but, in some way, he left all his cheerfulness and his thankfulness behind, for me to live by. The last words he said were, I'm going to the west shaft to watch for the boys; you stay and watch here.' That night he died, and I saw the same full moon walk down the great blue field up above, and the shadow of the mountain came up, and it was all darkness; but the sun was shining when I lifted up my face-it had been shining full on my face and on John's; but it was not the sunshine that made his shine so, it was something that he saw in heaven; and they put him away with the light still on it." The little brown nut of a house has gone from the mountain; the little woman who had found the fountain of perpetual youth is gone from the earth to where life-springs are immortal, and she sees the something that John saw in heaven; and to us, who watched and are left, there are dark mines, and miners ever coming up and going down-waiting for us to give them a helping hand, and to pour into the shafts of life of the sunshine that God gives richly to those who dwell on His mountain. AUNT PHILLIS'S GUEST. St. Helena Island, 1863. I WAS young, and "Harry" was strong, The Summer was bursting from sky and plain, Thrilling our blood as we bounded along, Till a picture flashed — and I dropped the rein. A black sea-creek, that like a snake Slipped through a low green league of sedge, An ebbing tide and a setting sun, And a hut and a woman by the edge. Her back was bent, and her wool was gray, That Freedom had come to the last of a race. She lived from a neighbor's hominy-pot; There was praise in the hut when "the pain" passed by; From its floor of dirt the smoke curled out Where the shingles were patched with bright-blue sky. "Aunt Phillis, you live here all alone?" I asked, and pitied the gray old head Sure as a child, in quiet tone, "Me and Jesus, Massa," she said. I started; for all the place was aglow And the guest Divine stood at the door! Ay, it was true that the Lord of Life, Who seeth the widow give her mite, The hut and the dirt, the rags and the skin, |