150 THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE. I sat an hour to-day, John, Beside the old brook stream Where we were school-boys in old time, The brook is choked with fallen leaves, I scarce believe that you would know The school-house is no more, John, The wild rose by the window's side Has been ploughed up by stranger handɛ The chestnut-tree is dead, John, The grape-vine of that same old swing I read our names upon the bark, Beneath the grass-grown bank, John, I took the old blind road, John, And seems so lone and still; But not a voice of human kind Where all our voices rung. I sat me on the fence, John, And thought how, o'er the bars of life, The faces that were gone. PUTTING UP STOVES. The first step a person takes is to put on a very old and ragged coat, under the impression that when he gets his mouth full of plaster it will keep his shirt-bosom clean. Next he gets his hands inside the place where the pipe ought to go, and blacks his fingers, and then he carefully makes a black mark down the side of his nose. It is impossible to make any headway in doing this work, until this mark is made. Having got his face properly marked, the victim is ready to begin the ceremony. The head of the family-who is the big goose of the sacrifice-grasps one side of the bottom of the stove, and his wife and the hired girl take hold of the other side. In this way the load is started from the woodshed toward the parlor. Going through the door, the head of the family will carefully swing his side of the stove around, and jam his thumb-nail against the door-post. This part of the ceremony is never omitted. Having got the stove comfortably in place, the next thing is to find the legs. Two of them are left inside the stove since the spring before; the other two must be hunted after for twenty-five minThey are usually found under the coal. Then the head of the family holds up one side of the stove while his wife puts two of the legs in place, and next he holds up the other side while the other two are fixed, and one of the first two falls out. By the time the stove is on its takes off his old coat, regardless of his linen. Then he goes off for the pipe, and gets a cinder in his eye. It don't make any difference how utes. legs he gets reckless, and well the pipe was put up last year, it will be found a lit tle too short or a little too long. The head of the family jams his hat over his eyes, and, taking a pipe under each arm, goes to the tin-shop to have it fixed. When he gets back he steps upon one of the best parlor chairs to see if the pipe fits, and his wife makes him get down for fear he will scratch the varnish off the chair with the nails in his boot-heel. In getting down he will surely step on the cat, and may thank his stars if it is not the baby. Then he gets an old chair, and climbs up to the chimney again, to find that in cutting the pipe off, the end has been left too big for the hole in the chimney. So he goes to the woodshed, and splits on one side of the end of the pipe with an old axe, and squeezes it in his hands to make it smaller. Finally he gets the pipe in shape, and finds that the stove does not stand true. Then himself and wife and the hired girl move the stove to the left, and the legs fall out again. The next move is to the right. More difficulty with the legs. Moved to the front a little. Elbow not even with the hole in the chimney, and he goes to the woodshed after some little blocks. While putting the blocks under the legs, the pipe comes out of the chimney. That remedied, the elbow keeps tipping over, to the great alarm of his wife. He then gets the dinner table out, puts the old chair on it, gets his wife to hold the chair, and balances himself on it to drive some nails into the ceiling. Drops the hammer on his wife's head. At last he gets the nails driven, makes a wire-swing to hold the pipe, hammers a little here, pulls a little there, takes a long breath, and announces the ceremony completed. Job never put up any stoves. It would have ruined his reputation if he had. DRAFTED.-MRS. H. L. BOSTWICK. My son! What! Drafted? My Harry! Why, man, he's a boy at his books; No taller, I'm sure, than your Annie-as delicate, too, in his looks. Why, it seems but a day since he helped me, girl-like, in my kitchen at tasks. He drafted! Great God, can it be that our President knows what he asks? He never could wrestle, this boy, though in spirit as brave as the best; Narrow-chested, a little, you notice, like him who has long been at rest. Too slender for over-much study--why, his master has made him to-day Go out with his ball on the common, and you've drafted a child at his play! Not a patriot? Fie! Did I whimper when Robert stood up with his gun, And the hero-blood chafed in his forehead, the evening we heard of Bull Run? 66 Pointing his finger at Harry, but turning his eyes to the wall, 'There's a staff growing up for your age, mother,” said Robert, "if I am to fall.' Eighteen? Oh, I know! And yet narrowly; just a wee babe on the day When his father got up from a sick-bed and cast his last ballot for Clay; Proud of his boy and his ticket, said he, "A new morsel of fame We'll lay on the candidate's altar"--and christened the child with his name. Oh, what have I done, a weak woman, in what have I meddled with harm Troubling only my God for the sunshine and rain on my rough little farm That my ploughshares are beaten to swords, and whetted before my eyes, That my tears must cleanse a foul nation, my lamb be a sacrifice? Oh, 'tis true there's a country to save, man, and 'tis true there is no appeal, But did God see my boy's name lying the uppermost one in the wheel? Five stalwart sons has my neighbor, and never the lot upon one; Are these things Fortune's caprices, or is it God's will that is done? Are the others too precious for resting where Robert is tak ing his rest, With the pictured face of young Annie lying over the rent in his breast? Too tender for parting with sweethearts? Too fair to be crip pled or scarred? My boy! Thank God for these tears-I was growing so bitter and hard! Now read me a page in the book, Harry, that goes in your knapsack to-night, Of the eye that sees when the sparrow grows weary and falters in flight; Talk of something that's nobler than living, of a love that is higher than mine, And faith which has planted its banner where the heavenly camp-fires shine. Talk of something that watches us softly, as the shadows glide down in the yard; That shall go with my soldier to battle, and stand with my picket on guard. Spirits of loving and lost ones,-watch softly with Harry tonight, For to-morrow he goes forth to battle, to arm him for freedom and right! THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.-F. M. FINCH. The women of Columbus, Mississippi, animated by noble sentiments, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of Confederate and National of soldiers. By the flow of the inland river, Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, Under the sod and the dew, Under the other, the gray. These in the robings of glory, Under the willow, the gray · |