The Youth's Companion Part 11

"Something tells me we ought to go now," she pleaded, with tears in her eyes.

Mr. C------ yielded; he even caught the infection of her excitement, and while she called the servants and heaped the carriage with bundles of bedding, clothes and baskets of provisions, he inclosed a hundred-dollar bill in a blank envelope.

In the meantime the guardians of the orphans had on that day spent their last dollar. "We had," said the matron, "actually nothing to give the children for breakfast."

The two women went to their knees that night, G.o.d only knows with what meaning in their cries for daily bread.

While they were yet praying, a carriage drove to the door, and without a word, the clothes, provisions and money were handed out by an unknown lady inside.

They knew G.o.d had sent her in answer to their prayers.

If we all could bring our absolute, simple faith in Him into our daily lives, what a solid foundation we would lay under all change of fortune, disease, or of circ.u.mstance! We should have then a house indeed founded on a rock.

"TEARS AND KISSES."

A writer in the _Sabbath School Times_ tells a pathetic story of that language of signs which is common all over the world: "Two little Italians accompanied a man with a harp out of the city along the country roads, skirted by fields and woods, and here and there was a farmhouse by the way.

"He played and they sang at every door. Their voices were sweet, and the words in an unknown tongue.

"The old ladies came out of the door, and held their hands above their eyes to see what it all meant, and from behind them peered the flaxen heads of timid children.

"Not knowing how to make themselves understood, the little children, when they had finished singing, shyly held out their little brown hands or their ap.r.o.ns to get anything that might be given them and take it to the dark man out at the gate, who stood ready to receive it.

"One day the dark harpist went to sleep, and the little boy and girl, becoming tired of waiting for him, went off to a cottage under the hill an began to sing under the window.

"They sang as sweetly as the voices of birds. Presently the blinds were opened wide, and they saw by the window a fair lady on a sick bed regarding them.

"Her eyes shone with a feverish light, and the color of her cheeks was like a beautiful peach.

"She smiled, and asked them if their feet were tired. They said a few words softly in their own tongue.

"She said, 'Are the green fields not better than your city?'

"They shook their heads.

"She asked them, 'Have you a mother?'

"They looked perplexed.

"She said, 'What do you think while you walk along the country roads?'

"They thought she asked for another song, so eager was the face, and they sang at once a song full of sweetness and pity, so sweet the tears came into her eyes.

"_That_ was a language they had learned; so they sang one sweeter still.

"At this she kissed her hand and waved it to them. Their beautiful faces kindled, and like a flash the timid hands waved back a kiss.

"She pointed upward to the sky, and sent a kiss up thither.

"At this they sank upon their knees and also pointed thither, as much as asking, 'Do you also know the good G.o.d?'

"A lady leaning by the window, said, 'So tears and kisses belt the earth, and make the whole world kin.' And the sick one added, 'And G.o.d is over all.'"

RIGHTS IN THE ROAD.

The following statements as to rights in the road may be useful to some of our readers. It certainly contradicts certain common opinions:

If a farm deed is bounded by, on or upon a road, it usually extends to the middle of the roadway.

The farmer owns the soil of half the road, and may use the gra.s.s, trees, stones, gravel, sand or anything of value to him, either on the land or beneath the surface, subject only to the superior rights of the public to travel over the road, and that of the highway surveyor to use such materials for the repair of the road; and these materials may be carted away and used elsewhere on the road.

No other man has a right to feed his cattle there, or cut the gra.s.s or trees, much less deposit his wood, old carts, wagons or other things there.

The owner of a drove of cattle that stops to feed in front of your land, or a drove of pigs which root up the soil, is responsible to you at law, as much as if they did the same thing inside the fence.

n.o.body's children have a right to pick up the apples under your trees, although the same stand wholly outside of your fence.

No private person has a right to cut or lop off the limbs of your trees in order to move his old barn or other buildings along the highway, and no traveller can hitch his horse to your trees in the sidewalk without being liable, if he gnaws the bark or otherwise injures them.

If your wall stands partly on your land and partly outside the fence, no neighbor can use it except by your permission.

Nay, more; no man has a right to stand in front of your land and insult you with abusive language without being liable to you for trespa.s.sing on your land.

He has a right to pa.s.s and repa.s.s in an orderly and becoming manner; a right to use the road, but not to abuse it.

But notwithstanding the farmer owns the soil of the road, even he cannot use it for any purpose which interferes with the use of it by the public for travel.

He cannot put his pig-pen, wagons, cart, wood or other things there, if the highway surveyor orders them away as obstructing public travel.

If he leaves such things outside his fence, and within the limits of the highway, as actually laid out, though some distance from the traveled path, and a traveller runs into them in the night and is injured, the owner is not only liable to him for private damages, but may also be indicted and fined for obstructing a public highway.

And if he has a fence or wall along the highway, he must place it all on his land, and not half on the road, as in case of division fences between neighbors.

But as he owns the soil, if the road is discontinued, or located elsewhere, the land reverts to him, and he may inclose it to the centre, and use it as part of his farm.--_Judge Bennett._

For the Companion.

DANA.

O deep grave eyes! that long have seemed to gaze On our low level from far loftier days, O grand gray head! an aureole seemed to grind, Drawn from the spirit's pure, immaculate rays!