Will hung his head in fear and shame,
And to the awful presence came,
A great, green, bashful simpleton,
The butt of all good-natured fun.

With smile suppressed, and birch upraised,
The thunderer faltered, "I'm amazed

That you, my biggest pupil, should

Be guilty of an act so rude!

Before the whole set school to boot-
What evil genius put you to't?"
""Twas she herself, sir," sobbed the lad,
"I did not mean to be so bad;

But when Susannah shook her curls,
And whispered, I was 'fraid of girls
And dursn't kiss a baby's doll,
I couldn't stand it, sir, at all,

But up and kissed her on the spot!

I know - boohoo - I ought to not,
But, somehow, from her looks-boo-hoo
I thought she kind o' wished me to!"

William Pitt Palmer

THE QUAKER'S MEETING

A traveller wended the wilds among,
With a purse of gold and a silver tongue;

His hat it was broad, and all drab were his clothes,
For he hated high colors - except on his nose,
And he met with a lady, the story goes.
Heigho! yea thee and nay thee.

The damsel she cast him a merry blink,
And the traveller nothing was loth, I think,
Her merry black eye beamed her bonnet beneath,
And the Quaker, he grinned, for he'd very good teeth,
And he asked, "Art thee going to ride on the heath?"

"I hope you'll protect me, kind sir,” said the maid,

As to ride this heath over, I'm sadly afraid;

For robbers, they say, here in numbers abound,
And I wouldn't for anything I should be found,

For, between you and me, I have five hundred pound."

"If that is thee own, dear," the Quaker, he said,

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I ne'er saw a maiden I sooner would wed;
And I have another five hundred just now,
In the padding that's under my saddle-bow,
And I'll settle it all upon thee, I vow!"

The maiden she smil'd, and her rein she drew, "Your offer I'll take, but I'll not take you,"

A pistol she held at the Quaker's head

Now give me your gold, or I'll give you my lead, 'Tis under the saddle, I think you said."

The damsel she ripped up the saddle-bow,
And the Quaker was never a quaker till now!
And he saw, by the fair one he wished for a bride,
His purse borne away with a swaggering stride,
And the eye that shamm'd tender, now only defied.

"The spirit doth move me, friend Broadbrim," quoth she, "To take all this filthy temptation from thee,

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For Mammon deceiveth, and beauty is fleeting,
Accept from thy maiden this right-loving greeting,
For much doth she profit by this Quaker's meeting!

And hark! jolly Quaker, so rosy and sly,

Have righteousness, more than a wench, in thine eye;
Don't go again peeping girls' bonnets beneath,
Remember the one that you met on the heath,
Her name's Jimmy Barlow, I tell to your teeth."

"Friend James," quoth the Quaker, "pray listen to me,
For thou canst confer a great favor, d'ye see;
The gold thou hast taken is not mine, my friend,
But my master's; and truly on thee I depend,

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To make it appear I my trust did defend.

So fire a few shots thro' my clothes, here and there,
To make it appear 'twas a desp'rate affair."

So Jim he popp'd first through the skirt of his coat,

And then through his collar - quite close to his throat;

'Now one thro' my broadbrim," quoth Ephraim, “I vote.”

"I have but a brace," said bold Jim, "and they're spent,

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And I won't load again for a make-believe rent.".

Then!" said Ephraim, producing his pistols, "just give My five hundred pounds back, or, as sure as you live,

I'll make of your body a riddle or sieve."

Jim Barlow was diddled-and, tho' he was game,
He saw Ephraim's pistol so deadly in aim,

That he gave up the gold, and he took to his scrapers,
And when the whole story got into the papers,

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They said that the thieves were no match for the

Quakers."

Oh, yes, we've beʼn fixin' up some sence we sold that piece o' groun'

Fer a place to put a golf-lynx to them crazy dudes from town.

(Anyway, they laughed like crazy when I had it specified, Ef they put a golf-lynx on it, thet they'd haf to keep him tied.)

But they paid the price all reg'lar, an' then Sary says to me, 'Now we're goin' to fix the parlor up, an' settin'-room," says she.

Fer she 'lowed she'd been a-scrimpin' an' a-scrapin' all her life,

An' she meant fer once to have things good as Cousin Ed'ard's wife.

Well, we went down to the city, an' she bought the blamedest mess;

An' them clerks there must 'a' took her fer a' Astoroid, I guess;

Fer they showed her fancy bureaus which they said was

shiffoneers,

An' some more they said was dressers, an' some curtains called porteers.

An' she looked at that there furnicher, an' felt them curtains' heft;

Then she sailed in like a cyclone an' she bought 'em right an' left;

An' she picked a Bress'ls carpet thet was flowered like Cousin Ed's,

But she drawed the line com-pletely when we got to foldin'beds.

Course, she said, 't 'u'd make the parlor lots more roomier, she s'posed;

But she 'lowed she'd have a bedstid thet was shore to stay un-closed;

An' she stopped right there an' told us sev'ral tales of folks she'd read

Bein' overtook in slumber by the "fatal foldin'-bed."

"Not ef it wuz set in di'mon's! Nary foldin'-bed fer me! I ain't goin' to start fer glory in a rabbit-trap!" says she. 'When the time comes I'll be ready an' a-waitin'; but ez yet,

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I sha'n't go to sleep a-thinkin' that I've got the triggers set."

Well, sir, shore as yo' 're a-livin', after all thet Sary said, 'Fore we started home that evenin' she hed bought a foldin'

bed;

An' she's put it in the parlor, where it adds a heap o' style; An' we're sleepin' in the settin'-room at present fer a while. Sary still maintains it's han'some, "an' them city folks 'll

see

That we're posted on the fashions when they visit us,” says she;

But it plagues her some to tell her, ef it ain't no other use, We can set it fer the golf-lynx ef he ever sh'u'd get loose. Albert Bigelow Paine

FIVE LIVES

Five mites of monads dwelt in a round drop
That twinkled on a leaf by a pool in the sun.
To the naked eye they lived invisible;
Specks, for a world of whom the empty shell
Of a mustard-seed had been a hollow sky.

One was a meditative monad, called a sage;

And, shrinking all his mind within, he thought: 'Tradition, handed down for hours and hours,

Tells that our globe, this quivering crystal world,

Is slowly dying. What if, seconds hence
When I am very old, yon shimmering doom

Comes drawing down and down, till all things end?"
Then with a wizen smirk he proudly felt
No other mote of God had ever gained
Such giant grasp of universal truth.

One was a transcendental monad; thin

And long and slim of mind; and thus he mused:

'Oh, vast, unfathomable monad-souls!

Made in the image a hoarse frog croaks from the pool, 'Hark! 'twas some god, voicing his glorious thought

In thunder music. Yea, we hear their voice,

And we may guess their minds from ours, their work.
Some taste they have like ours, some tendency
To wriggle about, and munch a trace of scum.'
He floated up on a pin-point bubble of gas
That burst, pricked by the air, and he was gone.

One was a barren-minded monad, called
A positivist; and he knew positively;
"There was no world beyond this certain drop.
Prove me another! Let the dreamers dream
Of their faint gleams, and noises from without,
And higher and lower; life is life enough.'
Then swaggering half a hair's breadth hungrily,
He seized upon an atom of bug, and fed.

One was a tattered monad, called a poet;

And with a shrill voice ecstatic thus he sang:

'Oh, little female monad's lips!

Oh, little female monad's eyes!

Ah, the little, little, female, female monad!"
The last was a strong-minded monadess,
Who dashed amid the infusoria,

Danced high and low, and wildly spun and dove,
Till the dizzy others held their breath to see.

But while they led their wondrous little lives

Eonian moments had gone wheeling by,