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46

COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.

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He held up that mystic lapstone,
He held it up like a lens,

And he counted the long years coming
By twenties and by tens.

"One hundred years," quoth Keezar,
"And fifty have I told:
Now open the new before me,
And shut me out the old!"

Like a cloud of mist, the blackness
Rolled from the magic stone,
And a marvelous picture mingled,
The unknown and the known.

Still ran the stream to the river,

And river and ocean joined;

And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line,
And cold north hills behind.

But the mighty forest was broken,
By many a steepled town,
By many a white-walled farm-house,
And many a garner brown.

Turning a score of mill-wheels,

The stream no more ran free; White sails on the winding river, White sails on the far-off sea. Below in the noisy village

The flags were floating gay, And shone on a thousand faces The light of a holiday.

Swiftly the rival ploughmen

Turned the brown earth from their shares:
Here were the farmer's treasures,
There were the craftsman's wares.

Golden the goodwife's butter,
Ruby the currant-wine;

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"But where are the clowns and puppets,
And imps with horns and tail?
And where are the Rhenish flagons?
And where is the foaming ale?

"Strange things I know will happen,-
Strange things the Lord permits;
But that droughty folks should be jolly
Puzzles my poor old wits.

*Here are smiling manly faces,

And the maiden's step is gay,

Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking, Nor mopes, nor fools, are they.

"Here's pleasure without regretting,

And good without abuse,

The holiday and bridal
Of beauty and of use.

It rolled down the rugged hillside,
It spun
like a wheel bewitched,
It plunged through the leaning willows,
And into the river pitched.

There in the deep, dark water,

The magic stone lies still, Under the leaning willows In the shadow of the hill. But oft the idle fisher

Sits on the shadowy bank,
And his dreams make marvelous pictures
Where the wizard's lapstone sank.

And still, in the summer twilights,
When the river seems to run
Out from the inner glory,

Warm with the melted sun,

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In the march of life don't heed the order of

"right about" when you know you are
about right.
(Holmes.

He that lacks time to mourn lacks time to mend:

Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them. (Shakespeare. The worst kind of vice is advice. (Coleridge. A self-suspicion of hypocrisy is a good evidence of sincerity. (Hannah More. A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read. (Macaulay.

I am not one of those who do not believe in love at first sight, but I believe in taking a second look. (Henry Vincent. A man is responsible for how he uses his common sense as well as his moral sense.

(Beecher. When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he isn't apt to be talkative.

(Prentice. The year passes quick, though the hour tarry, and time bygone is a dream, though we thought it never would go while it was going. (Newman. Good temper, like a sunny day, sheds a brightness over everything. It is the sweetener of toil and the soother of disquietude. (Irving.

A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule. (Mill. Our moods are lenses coloring the world

with as many different hues. (Emerson. Men believe that their reason governs their

words, but it often happens that words have power to react on reason. (Bacon. Minds of moderate calibre ordinarily condemn everything which is beyond their range. (La Rochefoucault. Geology gives us a key to the patience of God. (Holland. (Goethe. of

Do to-day thy nearest duty.
Many of our cares are bat a morbid way
looking at our privileges.

(Walter Scott.

The greatness of melancholy men is seldom strong and healthy. (Bulwer. Cowardice asks, Is it safe? Expediency asks, Is it politic? Vanity asks, Is it popular? but Conscience asks, Is it right?

(Punshon

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CHABOD Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex; and it is. not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes; more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those everything was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree spread its branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a

50

BALTUS VAN TASSEL'S FARM.

spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens; whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heartsometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.

The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of winter fare. In his devouring mind's

eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of

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