Recitations for the Social Circle Part 3

_Q._ What! Impossible! That would make you a hundred and eighty years old.

How do you account for that?

_A._ I don't account for it at all.

_Q._ But you said at first you were only nineteen, and now you make yourself out to be one hundred and eighty. It is an awful discrepancy.

_A._ Why, have you noticed that? (_Shaking hands._) Many a time it has seemed to me like a discrepancy; but somehow I couldn't make up my mind.

How quick you notice a thing!

_Q._ Thank you for the compliment, as far as it goes. Had you, or have you, any brothers or sisters?

_A._ Eh! I--I--I think so,--yes--but I don't remember.

_Q._ Well, that is the most extraordinary statement I ever heard.

_A._ Why, what makes you think that?

_Q._ How could I think otherwise? Why, look here! Who is this a picture of on the wall? Isn't that a brother of yours?

_A._ Oh, yes, yes, yes! Now you remind me of it, that _was_ a brother of mine. That's William, _Bill_ we called him. Poor old Bill!

_Q._ Why, is he dead, then?

_A._ Ah, well, I suppose so. We never could tell. There was a great mystery about it.

_Q._ That is sad, very sad. He disappeared, then?

_A._ Well, yes, in a sort of general way. We buried him.

_Q._ _Buried_ him! Buried him without knowing whether he was dead or not?

_A._ Oh, no! Not that. He was dead enough.

_Q._ Well, I confess that I can't understand this. If you buried him, and you knew he was dead----

_A._ No, no! We only thought he was.

_Q._ Oh, I see! He came to life again?

_A._ I bet he didn't.

_Q._ Well. I never heard anything like this. _Somebody_ was dead. Somebody was buried. Now, where was the mystery?

_A._ Ah, that's just it! That's it exactly! You see we were twins,--defunct and I; and we got mixed in the bathtub when we were only two weeks old, and one of us was drowned. But we didn't know which. Some think it was Bill; and some think it was me.

_Q._ Well, that _is_ remarkable. What do _you_ think?

_A._ Goodness knows! I would give whole worlds to know. This solemn, this awful mystery has cast a gloom over my whole life. But I will tell you a secret now, which I never have revealed to any creature before. One of us had a peculiar mark, a large mole on the back of his left hand; that was _me_. _That child was the one that was drowned._

_Q._ Very well, then, I don't see that there is any mystery about it, after all.

_A._ You don't; well, _I_ do. Anyway, I don't see how they could ever have been such a blundering lot as to go and bury the wrong child. But, 's.h.!.+

don't mention it where the family can hear of it. Heaven knows they have heart-breaking troubles enough without adding this.

_Q._ Well, I believe I have got material enough for the present; and I am very much obliged to you for the pains you have taken. But I was a good deal interested in that account of Aaron Burr's funeral. Would you mind telling me what peculiar circ.u.mstance it was that made you think Burr was such a remarkable man?

_A._ Oh, it was a mere trifle! Not one man in fifty would have noticed it at all. When the sermon was over, and the procession all ready to start for the cemetery, and the body all arranged nice in the hea.r.s.e, he said he wanted to take a last look at the scenery; and so he _got up, and rode with the driver_.

Then the young man reverently withdrew. He was very pleasant company; and I was sorry to see him go.

THE PRIME OF LIFE.

BY ELLA WHEELER WILc.o.x.

I read the sentence or heard it spoken-- A stalwart phrase and with meaning rife-- And I said: "Now I know, by youth's sweet token, That this is the time called the 'prime of life.'

"For my hopes soar over the loftiest mountain, And the future glows red, like a fair sunrise; And my spirits gush forth, like a spring-fed fountain, And never a grief in the heart of me lies."

Yet later on, when with blood and muscle Equipped I plunged in the world's hard strife, When I loved its danger, and laughed at the tussle, "Why _this_," I said, "is the prime of life."

And then, when the tide in my veins ran slower, And youth's first follies had pa.s.sed away, When the fervent fires in my heart burned lower, And over my body my brain had sway,

I said: "It is when, through the veiled ideal The vigorous reason thrusts a knife And rends the illusion, and shows us the real, Oh! this is the time called 'prime of life.'"

Hut now when brain and body are troubled (For one is tired and one is ill, Yet my soul soars up with a strength redoubled And sits on the throne of my broken will), Now when on the ear of my listening spirit, That is turned away from the earth's harsh strife, The river of death sounds murmuring near it-- I know that _this_ "is the prime of life."

SUPPORTING THE GUNS.

Did you ever see a battery take position?

It hasn't the thrill of a cavalry charge, nor the grimness of a line of bayonets moving slowly and determinedly on, but there is peculiar excitement about it that makes old veterans rise in the saddle and cheer.

We have been fighting at the edge of the woods. Every cartridge-box has been emptied once and more, and a fourth of the brigade has melted away in dead and wounded and missing. Not a cheer is heard in the whole brigade. We know that we are being driven foot by foot, and that when we break back once more, the line will go to pieces and the enemy will pour through the gap.

Here comes help!

Down the crowded highway gallops a battery, withdrawn from some other position to save ours. The field fence is scattered while you could count thirty, and the guns rush for the hill behind us. Six horses to a piece, three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches where a farmer could not drive a wagon; through clumps of bushes, over logs a foot thick, every horse on the gallop, every rider las.h.i.+ng his team and yelling,--the sight behind us makes us forget the foe in front. The guns jump two feet high as the heavy wheels strike rock or log, but not a horse slackens his pace, not a cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, six caissons, sixty horses, eighty men, race for the brow of the hill as if he who reached it first was to be knighted.