I'll never forget the mornin'

He married his chuck of a wife.

'Twas the summer the mill hands struck,
Just off work, every one;

They kicked up a row in the village
And killed old Donevan's son.

Bill hadn't been married mor'n an hour,
Up comes a message from Kress,
Orderin' Bill to go up there,

And bring down the night express.
He left his gal in a hurry,

And went up on Number One,
Thinking of nothing but Mary,
And the train he had to run.

And Mary sat down by the window
To wait for the night express;
And, sir, if she hadn't a' done so,
She'd been a widow, I guess.
For it must a' been nigh midnight
When the mill hands left the Ridge;

They come down—the drunken devils,
Tore up a rail from the bridge.

But Mary heard 'em a-workin'

And guessed there was somethin' wrong— And in less than fifteen minutes,

Bill's train it would be along!

She couldn't come here to tell us,
A mile-it wouldn't a' done;
So she jest grabbed up a lantern,
And made for the bridge alone.
Then down came the night express, sir,
And Bill was makin' her climb!
But Mary held the lantern,
A-swingin' it all the time.

Well, by Jove! Bill saw the signal,

And he stopped the night express,

And he found his Mary cryin',

On the track, in her weddin' dress;

Cryin' an' laughin' for joy, sir,

An' holdin' on to the light-`

Hello! here's the train-good-bye, sir,
Bill Mason's on time to-night.

INCONSTANT.

Inconstant! Oh, my God!

Inconstant! When a single thought of thee
Sends all my quivering blood,

Back on my heart, in thrills of ecstasy!

Inconstant! When to sleep

And dream that thou art near me, is to learn
So much of heaven, I weep

Because the earth and morning must return.

Inconstant! Ah, too true!

Turned from the rightful shelter of thy breast,
My tired heart flutters through

-a bird without a nest.

The changeful world,

Inconstant to the crowd

Through which I pass, as, to the skies above,
The fickle summer cloud,

But not to thee, oh, not to thee, dear love!
I may be false to all

On earth beside, and every tender tie
Which seems to hold in thrall
This weary life of mine, may be a lie;

But true as God's own truth,

My steadfast heart turns backward evermore
To that sweet time of youth

Whose golden tide beats such a barren shore!

Inconstant! Not my own

The hand which builds this wall between our lives; On its cold shadow, grown

To perfect shape, the flower of love survives.

God knows that I would give

All other joys, the sweetest and the best,
For one short hour to live

Close to thy heart, its comfort and its rest.

But life is not all dark;

The sunlight gladdens many a hidden slope,
The dove shall find its ark

Of peaceful refuge and of patient hope.

I yet shall be possessed

Of woman's meed-my small world set apart!

Home, love, protection, rest,

And children's voices singing through my heart.

By God's help, I will be

A faithful mother and a tender wife;

Perhaps even more, that he

Has chastened the best glory from my life.

But sacred to this loss,

One white sweet chamber of my heart shall be; No foot shall ever cross

The silent portal sealed to love and thee.

And sometimes when my lips

Are to my first-born's clinging, close and long,
Draining with bee-like sips

At its sweet lily-heart, will it be wrong,

If, for an instant, wild

With precious pain, I put the truth aside,
And dream it is thy child

That I am fondling with such tender pride?

And when another's head

Sleeps on thy heart, if it should ever seem
To be my own, instead,

Oh, darling, hold it closer for the dream!

God will forgive the sin,

If sin it is, our lives are swept so dry,

So cold, so passion-clear,——

Thank him death comes at last-and so good-bye.

THE ELEVENTH HOUR.-ANNA L. RUTH.

Whist, sir! Would ye plaze to speak aisy,
And sit ye down there by the dure?
She sleeps, sir, so light and so restless,

She hears every step on the flure.

What ails her? God knows! She's been weakly For months, and the heat dhrives her wild; The summer has wasted and worn her

Till she's only the ghost of a child.

All I have? Yes, she is, and God help me!
I'd three little darlints beside,

As purty as iver ye see, sir,

But wan by wan dhrooped like, and died.
What was it that tuk them, ye're asking?
Why, poverty, sure, and no doubt;
They perished for food and fresh air, sir,
Like flowers dhried up in a drought.

'Twas dreadful to lose them? Ah, was it!

It seemed like my heart-strings would break.
But there's days when wid want and wid sorrow,
I'm thankful they're gone, for their sake.
Their father? Well, sir, saints forgive me!
It's a foul tongue that lowers its own:
But what wid the sthrikes and the liquor
I'd better be strugglin' alone.

Do I want to kape this wan? The darlint!
The last and dearest of all!

Shure you're niver a father yourself, sir,
Or you wouldn't be askin' at all.

What is that? Milk and food for the baby!
A docther and medicine free!

You're huntin' out all the sick children,
An' poor, toilin' mothers, like me!

God bless you and thim that have sent you!
A new life you've given me, so.

Shure, sir, won't you look in the cradle

At the colleen you've saved, 'fore you go?

O mother o' mercies! have pity!

O darlint, why couldn't you wait!

Dead! dead! an' the help in the dure way!
Too late! oh, my baby! too late!

MARK TWAIN ON JUVENILE PUGILISTS. S. L. CLEMENS.

"Yes, I've had a good many fights in my time," said old John Parky, tenderly manipulating his dismantled nose, “and it's kind of queer, too, for when I was a boy, the old man was always telling me better. He was a good man and hated fighting. When I would come

home with my nose bleeding or with my face scratched up, he used to call me out in the woodshed, and in a sorrowful and discouraged way say, 'So, Johnny, you've had another fight, hey? How many times have I got to tell ye how disgraceful and wicked it is for boys to fight? It was only yesterday that I talked to you an hour about the sin of fighting, and here you've been at it again. Who was it with this time? With Tommy Kelly, hey? Don't you know any better than to fight a boy that weighs twenty pounds more than you do, besides being two years older? Ain't you got a spark of sense about ye? I can see plainly that you are determined to break your poor father's heart by your reckless conduct. What ails your finger? Tommy bit it? Drat the little fool! Didn't ye know enough to keep your finger out of his mouth? Was trying to jerk his cheek off, hey? Won't you never learn to quit foolin' round a boy's mouth with yer fingers? You're bound to disgrace us all by such wretched behavior. You're determined never to be nobody. Did you ever hear of Isaac Watts-that wrote, "Let dogs delight to bark and bite "-sticking his fingers in a boy's mouth to get 'em bit, like a fool? I'm clean discouraged with ye. Why didn't ye go for his nose, the way Jonathan Edwards, and George Washington, and Daniel Webster used to do, when they was boys? Couldn't 'cause he had ye down? That's a purty story to tell me. It does beat all that you can't learn how Socrates and William Penn used to gouge when they was under, after the hours and hours I've spent in telling you about those great men! It seems to me sometimes as if I should have to give you up in despair. It's an awful trial to me to have a boy that don't pay any attention to good example, nor to what I say. What! You pulled out three or four handfuls of his hair? H'm! Did he squirm any? Now, if you'd a give him one or two in the eye-but as I've told ye, many a time, fighting is poor business. Won't you-for your father's sake