Recitations for the Social Circle Part 26

But there Brother Toombs turned off the gas suddenly, and the meeting adjourned full of indignation at the good pastor. His resignation was accepted unanimously.

THE GOOD OLD WAY.

John Mann had a wife who was kind and true,-- A wife who loved him well; She cared for the house and their only child; But if I the truth must tell, She fretted and pined because John was poor And his business was slow to pay; But he only said, when she talked of change, "We'll stick to the good old way!"

She saw her neighbors were growing rich And dwelling in houses grand; That she was living in poverty, With wealth upon every hand; And she urged her husband to speculate, To risk his earnings at play; But he only said, "My dearest wife, We'll stick to the good old way."

For he knew that the money that's quickly got Is the money that's quickly lost; And the money that stays is the money earned At honest endeavor's cost.

So he plodded along in his honest style, And he bettered himself each day, And he only said to his fretful wife, "We'll stick to the good old way."

And at last there came a terrible crash, When beggary, want, and shame Came down on the homes of their wealthy friends, While John's remained the same; For he had no debts and he gave no trust, "My motto is this," he'd say,-- "It's a charm against panics of every kind,-- 'Tis stick to the good old way!"

And his wife looked round on the little house That was every nail their own, And she asked forgiveness of honest John For the peevish mistrust she had shown; But he only said, as her tearful face Upon his shoulder lay, "The good old way is the best way, wife; We'll stick to the good old way."

EXTRACT FROM BLAINE'S ORATION ON JAMES A. GARFIELD.

[Delivered in the City of Was.h.i.+ngton, Monday, February 27, 1882.]

On the morning of Sat.u.r.day, July 2, the President was a contented and happy man--not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On his way to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and keen antic.i.p.ation of pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful and congratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial his administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting him at his inauguration had been safely pa.s.sed; that trouble lay behind him and not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted and at times almost unnerved him; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most cheerful a.s.sociations of his young manhood and to exchange greetings with those whose deepening interest had followed every step of his upward progress from the day he entered upon his college course until he had attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his countrymen.

Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well have been a happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence and the grave.

Great in life, he was surpa.s.singly great in death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death--and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes whose lips may tell--what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friends.h.i.+ps, what bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud expectant nation; a great host of sustaining friends; a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's days of frolic; the fair young daughter; the st.u.r.dy sons just springing into closest companions.h.i.+p, claiming every day and every day rewarding a father's love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demands. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the winepress alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet he heard the voice of G.o.d. With simple resignation he bowed to the Divine decree.

As the end drew near his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as G.o.d should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling sh.o.r.eward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and s.h.i.+ning pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know.

Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther sh.o.r.e, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning.

HOW SHALL I LOVE YOU?

WILL C. FERRIL.

How shall I love you? I dream all day Dear, of a tenderer, sweeter way; Songs that I sing to you, words that I say, Prayers that are voiceless on lips that would pray; These may not tell of the love of my life; How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?

How shall I love you? Love is the bread Of life to a woman--the white and the red Of all the world's roses, the light that is shed On all the world's pathways, till life shall be dead!

The star in the storm and the strength in the strife; How shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife?

Is there a burden your heart must bear?

I shall kneel lowly and lift it, dear!

Is there a thorn in the crown that you wear?

Let it hide in my heart till a rose blossom there!

For grief or for glory--for death or for life, So shall I love you, my sweetheart, my wife.

THE LITTLE BROWN CURL.

A quaint old box with a lid of blue, All faded and worn with age; A soft little curl of a brownish hue, A yellow and half-written page.

The letters, with never a pause nor dot, In a school-boy's hand are cast; The lines and the curl I may hold to-day, But the love of the boy is past.

It faded away with our childish dreams, Died out like the morning mist, And I look with a smile on the silken curl That once I had tenderly kissed.

One night in the summer--so long ago-- We played by the parlor door, And the moonlight fell, like a silver veil, Spreading itself on the floor.

And the children ran on the graveled walk At play in their noisy glee; But the maddest, merriest fun just then Was nothing to John and me.

For he was a stately boy of twelve, And I was not quite eleven-- We thought as we sat by the parlor door We had found the gate to heaven.

That night when I lay on my snowy bed, Like many a foolish girl, I kissed and held to my little heart This letter and silken curl.

I slept and dreamed of the time when I Should wake to a fairy life; And sleeping, blushed, when I thought that John Had called me his little wife.

I have loved since then with a woman's heart, Have known all a woman's bliss, But never a dream of the after life Was ever so sweet as this.

The years went by with their silver feet, And often I laughed with John At the vows we made by the parlor door When the moon and stars looked on.

Ah? boyish vows were broken and lost, And a girl's first dream will end, But I dearly loved his beautiful wife, While he was my husband's friend.

When at last I went to my childhood's home Far over the bounding wave, I missed my friend, for the violets grew And blossomed over his grave.

To-day as I opened the old blue box, And looked on this soft brown curl, And read of the love John left for me When I was a little girl,

There came to my heart a throb of pain, And my eyes grew moist with tears, For the childish love and the dear, dear friend, And the long-lost buried years.

DE PINT WID OLE PETE.

Upon the hurricane deck of one of our gunboats, an elderly looking darkey, with a very philosophical and retrospective cast of countenance, squatted on his bundle, toasting his s.h.i.+ns against the chimney, and apparently plunged into a state of profound meditation. Finding, upon inquiry, that he belonged to the Ninth Illinois, one of the most gallantly behaved and heavy losing regiments at the Fort Donelson battle, I began to interrogate him upon the subject.

"Were you in the fight?"