A voice sounds through the viewless air, Time proves it so. No wheels are stopped, On other shoulders has been thrown; We lose the angel of our home, Some pure, sweet child, whose gracious smile Brightens the darkest days that come, And e'en life's drudgery beguiles. He lifted us to higher plains, This was his mission just begun ; Surprised we find his smile remains, His influence lives-his work goes on. Who rights the wrong, who breaks the chain From limbs long fettered without cause, Or from our statutes wipes the stain Of evil and oppressive laws, Must work, and trust to God and time, Nor hope with mortal eyes to see The dawning of the day sublime, The harvest white of victory. Sad leader of some hated cause, Measuring thy work by life's few years, Thou fall'st before the day be won, Some heart inspired shall fill thy place, BOBBY SHAFTOE.*-HOMER GREENE. [Copyright 1892, by the author.] Bobby Shaftoe's gone to sea, This old and musical nursery rhyme had been run. ning in my head all day as I went about my work. My work was teaching the district school at Garrett's Mills, a small village in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The зchool-house was near the head of the mill-pond by the side of the public road, half way between Garrett's Mills and Bently's Dam; so situated in order to accommodate children from both villages. Why that ancient nursery rhyme should have been singing itself in my head all day I do not know, unless it was because one of my pupils, popularly known as Bobby Shaftoe, had that morning given me an unusual amount of trouble. How and when he received the nickname I never heard; perhaps it was because of his oft-declared ambition to be a sailor and go to sea; possibly it was on ac count of a similarity of sound between this name and his real one. He was ten years old, bright and active, and the most mischievous child I ever saw-not maliciously mischievous, but good-naturedly, irrepressibly, unceasingly mischievous. Such mild punishment as his mirthful misbehavior deserved had but a momentary effect on him, and one must have had an unusually hard heart to have chastised Bobby with any degree of severity. On the June day of which I write Bobby was more than ordinarily full of pranks and practical jokes. He had been busy with them all the bright morning, and he was holding his own steadily through the hot and sultry afternoon. *By permission of the author and The McClure Newspaper Syndicate. Mr. Greene is author of "What my Lover Said," "My Daughter Louise," and "De Quincy's Deed," in previous Numbers of this Series. I had reprimanded him times without number, I had punished him mildly again and again without lasting effect. Finally I seated him on top of the cold stove in order to humiliate him; but from that conspicuous perch his comical motions and queer grimaces, when my back was turned, kept the entire school snickering till I took him down. After that he made an amusing picture on his slate of himself sitting on the stove, and held it up to be laughed at by the boys in his vicinity; but before I could capture it his sponge had obliterated forever this triumph of his art. His next achievement that afternoon was the produc tion of two little pasteboard figures of men pinned to a stick and fighting each other furiously as his deft fingers pulled the strings attached to them. I caught him at it squarely. "Let me have them, Bobby," I said. He turned them over to me without a murmur, explaining as he did so: "You want to pull thith thtring to make 'em fight, Mith he knockth 'im down. Mitchell, and thith thtring w'en Don't they jutht lambathte each other, though?” It is needless to say that the school was again diverted. Everyone save Bobby and I grinned broadly. He was sober and I was annoyed. "What "Give them to me at once," I said, sharply. am I going to do with such a boy? How shall I punish you? I've tried everything except a severe whipping. Shall I give you that, or can you suggest something more effective!" He cast his eyes to the ceiling and screwed his mouth up comically, as if in intense thought. The school broke out in renewed laughter. Finally he said: "You might put me up in the loft, Mith Mitchell; I haven't been put up there yet." "Very well," I replied, quickly, "up in the loft you go." He was a little startled by the suddenness of my decision. I don't think he really intended me to adopt his suggestion, for the loft was not a pleasant place to go into; for it was dark and hot and empty, with the roof sloping down on each side, so that only through the middle of it could even a boy stand erect. "Here, Bobby," I continued, " help me set this table under the opening-that's it; now give me that chair." The horizontal aperture that led to the loft was just over the high platform that stretched across the rear end of the room, and with the aid of a chair placed on a table one could readily climb up through it. "You hold fatht to the chair an' don't let her thlip," said Bobby, as he hitched up his suspenders, screwed up his face and made ready for the grand ascent. He climbed to the table, mounted the chair and thrust his head and shoulders up through the opening out of sight. He drew them down again in a moment to say: "Ith dark up there, Mith Mitchell." "I know it," I replied, calmly. "An' hot." "I know it." "An'-an' lonesome." "That's why I'm sending you up there; go on." "Well," he sighed, "here goeth; 'good-by, my lover, good-by!'" He reached up, grasped the frame-work of the opening, and in the next instant had drawn his pliant little body up out of sight. I lifted the chair down, removed the table and tried to go on with the routine of recitations. There was some scrambling above in the loft; once I saw a bare brown foot twinkling down through the opening for a second, to the great edification of all of Bobby's fellowpupils, and once a dust-begrimed face, inverted and comical, looked carefully down and set the school in a new roar. "Bobby!" I called out to him, finally, "put the cover down on the opening at once.' I had not thought to have this done; it would make it so dark up there, but his irrepressible mischief left. me no recourse. "Yeth'm," he replied, still cheerfully, "thall I thit on it to hold it down? "Certainly." The cover, which was on hinges, was let carefully down, and this movement was immediately followed by a thud which indicated that Bobby was "sitting on it." After that, save certain indefinable sounds, all was quiet in the region of the loft. The afternoon tasks went on monotonously. The day grew more sultry as it neared its close. Just before it was time to dismiss the school one of my pupils, a little girl, after looking out for a minute through the open door into the dusty road, rose quickly from her seat, threw up her hand and began to snap vigorously with her thumb and finger to attract my attention. "Well, what is it, Rosie?" I inquired. "Please, Miss Mitchell, Bobby Shaftoe's out there in the road." "Who?" I asked in amazement. 66 Bobby Shaftoe; he's out there hidin' behind a tree." Of course every one turned and looked out at the door. At that moment a little figure darted out from the shadow of one tree and sought shelter behind another. It was, indeed, Bobby Shaftoe. How he had managed to make his escape from the loft I could not conjecture. I went to the door and called, "Bobby! Bobby Shaftoe!" He left the protection of the tree at once. "Yeth'm," he replied, "I'm comin'." He had evidently hurt his foot in some way, for he limped slightly as he came up the steps. "Take your seat, Bobby," I said, sternly, " and don't move out of it until I give you permission to do so." He hung his head a trifle, as though he were ashamed, at last, of his misdeeds, and dropped into his seat and sat there in perfect quiet during the few minutes that intervened before the close of school. I dismissed the scholars somewhat ahead of time, as there appeared to be a thunder shower coming up in the west, and I wished them to get to their homes before |