94

THE GENEROUS SOLDIER SAVED.

"I remember. It was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was at a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost for his culpable negligence.'

"So my father said," replied Blossom, gravely, "but poor Bennie was so tired, sir, and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it

was Jemmie's night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about himself, that he was tired too."

"What is this you say, child? Come here; I do not understand," and the kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justifi

cation of an offence.

Blossom went to him; he put his hand tenderly on her shoulder, and

turned up the pale, anxious face towards his. How tall he seemed and he was President of the United States, too.

A dim thought of this kind passed for a moment through Blossom's mind; but she told her simple and straightforward story, and handed Mr. Lincoln Bennie's letter to read.

He read it carefully; then, taking up his pen, wrote a few hasty lines, and rang his bell.

Blossom heard this order given: "Send this dispatch at once.'

The President then turned to the girl and said, "Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence, even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or-wait until tomorrow; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death; he shall go with you."

"God bless you, sir," said Blossom; and who shall doubt that God heard and registered the request?

Two days after this interview, the young soldier came to the White House with his little sister. He was called into the President's private room, and a strap fastened upon the shoulder. Mr. Lincoln then said: "The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the act so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country." Then Bennie and Blossom took their way to their Green Mountain home. A crowd gathered at the Mill Depot to welcome them back; and as farmer Owen's hand grasped that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks and he was heard to say fervently: "The Lord be praised!"

SONG OF SARATOGA.

JOHN G. SAXE.

RAY what do they do at the Imprimis, my darling, they drink

Springs?"

The question is easy to ask:
But to answer it fully, my dear,
Were rather a serious task.
And yet, in a bantering way,

As the magpie or mocking-bird sings,

I'll venture a bit of a song,

To tell what they do at the Springs.

The waters so sparkling and clear;
Though the flavor is none of the best,
And the odor exceedingly queer:
But the fluid is mingled you know,

With wholesome medicinal things;
So they drink, and they drink, and they
drink,-

And that's what they do at the Springs'

96

THE RUINED COTTAGE.

Then with appetites keen as a knife,
They hasten to breakfast, or dine;
The latter precisely at three,

The former from seven till nine.

Ye gods! what a rustle and rush,

When the eloquent dinner-bell rings!
Then they eat, and they eat, and they eat-
And that's what they do at the Springs!

Now they stroll in the beautiful walks,
Or loll in the shade of the trees;
Where many a whisper is heard

That never is heard by the breeze;
And hands are commingled with hands,

Regardless of conjugal rings:

And they flirt, and they flirt, and they flirt-
And that's what they do at the Springs!

N

The drawing-rooms now are ablaze,
And music is shrieking away;
Terpsichore governs the hour,
And fashion was never so gay!
An arm round a tapering waist-

How closely and how fondly it clings!
So they waltz, and they waltz, and they waltz,
And that's what they do at the Springs!

In short, as it goes in the world,

They eat, and they drink, and they sleep;
They talk, and they walk, and they woo;

They sigh, and they laugh, and they weep:
They read, and they ride, and they dance;
(With other remarkable things :)
They pray, and they play, and they PAY,-
And that's what they do at the Springs!

THE RUINED COTTAGE

MRS. LETITIA E. MACLEAN.

ONE will dwell in that cottage, for they say oppression reft it from an honest man, and that a curse clings to it; hence the vine trails its green weight of leaves upon the ground; hence weeds are in that garden; hence the hedge, once sweet with honeysuckle, is half dead; and hence the gray moss on the apple-tree. One once dwelt there who had been in his youth a soldier, and when many years had passed, he sought his native village, and sat down to end his days in peace. He had one child—a little, laughing thing, whose large, dark eyes, he said, were like the mother's he had left buried in strangers' land. And time went on in comfort and content-and that fair girl had grown far taller than the red rose tree her father planted on her first English birthday; and he had trained it up against an ash till it became his pride; it was so rich in blossom and in beauty, it was called the tree of Isabel. 'Twas an appeal to all the better feelings of the heart, to mark their quiet happiness, their home-in truth a home of love,-and more than all, to see them on the Sabbath, when they came among the first to church, and Isabel, with her bright color and her clear, glad eyes, bowed down so meekly in the house of prayer, and in the hymn her sweet voice audible; her father looked so fond of her, and then from her looked up so thankfully to heaven! And their small cottage was so very neat; their garden filled with fruits and herbs and flowers; and in the winter there was no fireside so cheerful as their own.

THE SOUL OF ELOQUENCE.

97

But other days and other fortunes came-an evil power! They bore against it cheerfully, and hoped for better times, but ruin came at last; and the old soldier left his own dear home, and left it for a prison! 'Twas in June -one of June's brightest days; the bee, the bird, the butterfly, were on their lightest wing; the fruits had their first. tinge of summer light; the sunny sky, the very leaves seemed glad; and the old man looked back upon his cot and wept aloud. They hurried him away from the dear child that would not leave his side. They led him from the sight of the blue heaven and the green trees into a low, dark cell, the windows shutting out the blessed sun with iron grating; and for the first time he threw him on his bed, and could not hear his Isabel's good night! But the next morn she was the earliest at the prison gate, the last on whom it closed; and her sweet voice

and sweeter smile made him forget to pine, notwithstanding his deep sorrow. She brought him every morning fresh wild flowers; but every morning he could mark her cheek grow paler and more pale, and her low tones get fainter and more faint, and a cold dew was on the hand he held. One day he saw the sunshine through the grating of his cell-yet Isabel came not; at every sound his heart-beat took away his breath-yet still she came not near him! But one sad day he marked the dull street through the iron bars that shut him from the world; at length he saw a coffin carried carelessly along, and he grew desperate--he forced the bars, and he stood on the street free and alone! He had no aim, no wish for liberty; he only felt one want to see the corpse that had no mourners. When they set it down, ere it was lowered into the new-dug grave, a rush of passion came upon his soul, and he tore off the lid-he saw the face of Isabel, and knew he had no child! He lay down by the coffin quietly-his heart was broken!

A search for words? Oh! these fine holiday Of hearers with communicated power,

phrases,

In which you robe your worn-out commonplaces,

In vain you strive, in vain you study

earnestly!

Toil on forever, piece together fragments,

These scraps of paper which you crimp and Cook up your broken scraps of sentences, curl And blow, with puffing breath, a struggling light,

And twist into a thousand idle shapes,

These filigree ornaments, are good for Glimmering confusedly now, now cold in