The Old Soldiers Story Part 15

LITTLE MAID-O'-DREAMS

Little Maid-o'-Dreams, with your Eery eyes so clear and pure Gazing, where we fain would see Into far futurity,-- Tell us what you there behold, In your visions manifold!

What is on beyond our sight, Biding till the morrow's light, Fairer than we see to-day, As our dull eyes only may?

Little Maid-o'-Dreams, with face Like as in some woodland place Lifts a lily, chaste and white, From the shadow to the light;-- Tell us, by your subtler glance, What strange sorcery enchants You as now,--here, yet afar As the realms of moon and star?-- Have you magic lamp and ring, And genii for va.s.saling?

Little Maid-o'-Dreams, confess You're divine and nothing less,-- For with mortal palms, we fear, Yet must pet you, dreaming here-- Yearning, too, to lift the tips Of your fingers to our lips; Fearful still you may rebel, High and heav'nly oracle!

Thus, though all unmeet our kiss, Pardon this!--and this!--and this!

Little Maid-o'-Dreams, we call Truce and favor, knowing all!-- All your magic is, in truth, Pure foresight and faith of youth-- You're a child, yet even so, You're a sage, in embryo-- Prescient poet--artist--great As your dreams antic.i.p.ate.-- Trusting G.o.d and Man, you do Just as Heaven inspires you to.

TO THE BOY WITH A COUNTRY

DAN WALLINGFORD

Dan Wallingford, my jo Dan!-- Though but a child in years, Your patriot spirit thrills the land And wakens it to cheers,-- You lift the flag--you roll the drums-- We hear the bugle blow,-- Till all our hearts are one with yours, Dan Wallingford, my jo!

CLAUDE MATTHEWS

GOVERNOR OF INDIANA

Steadfastly from his childhood's earliest hour-- From simplest country life to state and power-- His worth has known advancement,--each new height A newer glory in his fellow's sight.

So yet his happy fate--though mute the breath Of thronging mult.i.tudes and thundrous cheers,-- Faith sees him raised still higher, through our tears, By this divine promotion of his death.

TO LESLEY

Burns sang of bonny Lesley As she gaed o'er the border,-- Gaed like vain Alexander, To spread her conquests farther.

I sing another Lesley, Wee girlie, more alluring, Who stays at home, the wise one, Her conquests there securing.

A queen, too, is my Lesley, And gracious, though blood-royal, My heart her throne, her kingdom, And I a subject loyal.

Long shall you reign, my Lesley, My pet, my darling dearie, For love, oh, little sweetheart, Grows never old or weary.

THE JUDKINS PAPERS

FATHER AND SON

Mr. Judkins' boy came home yesterday with a bottle of bugs in his pocket, and as the quiet little fellow sat on the back porch in his favorite position, his legs elbowed and flattened out beneath him like a letter "W," his genial and eccentric father came suddenly upon him.

"And what's the blame' boy up to now?" said Mr. Judkins, in an a.s.sumed tone of querulous displeasure, as he bent over the boy from behind and gently tweaked his ear.

"Oh, here, mister!" said the boy, without looking up; "you thist let up on that, will you!"

"What you got there, I tell you!" continued the smiling Mr. Judkins, in a still gruffer tone, relinquis.h.i.+ng the boy's ear, and gazing down upon the fluffy towhead with more than ordinary admiration. "What you got there?"

"Bugs," said the boy--"you know!"

"Dead, are they?" said Mr. Judkins.

"Some of 'em's dead," said the boy, carefully running a needle through the back of a large b.u.mblebee. "All these uns is, you kin bet! You don't think a feller 'ud try to string a live b.u.mblebee, I reckon?"

"Well, no, 'Squire," said Mr. Judkins, airily, addressing the boy by one of the dozen nicknames he had given him; "not a live b.u.mblebee--a real stem-winder, of course not. But what in the name o' limpin'

Lazarus air you stringin' 'em fer?"

"Got a live snake-feeder," said the boy, ignoring the parental inquiry. "See him down there in the bottom, 'ith all th' other uns on top of him. Thist watch him now, an' you kin see him pant. I kin. Yes, an' I got a beetle 'at's purt' nigh alive, too--on'y he can't pull in his other wings. See 'em?" continued the boy, with growing enthusiasm, twirling the big-mouthed bottle like a kaleidoscope. "Hate beetles!

'cause they allus act so big, an' make s'much fuss about theirselves, an' don't know nothin' neither! Bet ef I had as many wings as a beetle I wouldn't let no boy my size knock the stuffin' out o' me with no bunch o' weeds, like I done him!"

"Howd'ye know you wouldn't?" said Mr. Judkins, austerely, biting his nails and winking archly to himself.

"W'y, I know I wouldn't," said the boy, "'cause I'd keep up in the air where I could fly, an' wouldn't come low down ut all--b.u.mpin' around 'mongst them bushes, an' buzzin' against things, an' b.u.t.tin' my brains out a-tryin' to git thue fence cracks."

"'Spect you'd ruther be a snake-feeder, wouldn't you, Bud?" said Mr.

Judkins suggestively. "Snake-feeders has got about enough wings to suit you, ef you want more'n one pair, and ever' day's a picnic with a snake-feeder, you know. Nothin' to do but jes' loaf up and down the crick, and roost on reeds and cat-tails, er fool around a feller's fish-line and light on the cork and bob up and down with it till she goes clean under, don't you know?"

"Don't want to be no snake-feeder, neither," said the boy, "'cause they gits gobbled up, first thing they know, by these 'ere big green bullfrogs ut they can't ever tell from the sk.u.m till they've lit right in their mouth--and then they're goners! No, sir;" continued the boy, drawing an extra quinine-bottle from another pocket, and holding it up admiringly before his father's eyes: "There's the feller in there ut I'd ruther be than have a pony!"

"W'y, it's a nasty p'izen spider!" exclaimed Mr. Judkins, pus.h.i.+ng back the bottle with affected abhorrence, "and he's alive, too!"

"You bet he's alive!" said the boy, "an' you kin bet he'll never come to no harm while I own him!" and as the little fellow spoke his face glowed with positive affection, and the twinkle of his eyes, as he continued, seemed wonderfully like his father's own. "Tell you, I like spiders! Spiders is awful fat--all but their head--and that's level, you kin bet! Flies hain't got no business with a spider. Ef a spider ever reaches fer a fly, he's his meat! The spider, he likes to loaf an' lay around in the shade an' wait fer flies an' bugs an' things to come a-foolin' round his place. He lays back in the hole in the corner of his web, an' waits till somepin' lights on it an' nen when he hears 'em buzzin', he thist crawls out an' fixes 'em so's they can't buzz, an' he's got the truck to do it with! I bet ef you'd unwind all the web-stuff out of thist one little spider not bigger'n a pill, it 'ud be long enough fer a kite-string! Onc't they wuz one in our wood-house, an' a taterbug got stuck in his web, an' the spider worked purt' nigh two days 'fore he got him so's he couldn't move. Nen he couldn't eat him neither--'cause they's sh.e.l.ls on 'em, you know, an'

the spider didn't know how to hull him. Ever' time I'd go there the spider, he'd be a-wrappin' more stuff around th' ole bug, an' stoopin'

down like he wuz a-whisperin' to him. An' one day I went in ag'in, an'

he was a-hangin', alas an' cold in death! An' I poked him with a splinter an' his web broke off--'spect he'd used it all up on the wicked bug--an' it killed him; an' I buried him in a' ink-bottle an'

mashed the old bug 'ith a chip!"

"Yes," said Judkins, in a horrified tone, turning away to conceal the real zest and enjoyment his face must have betrayed; "yes, and some day you'll come home p'izened, er somepin'! And I want to say right here, my young man, ef ever you do, and it don't kill you, I'll lint you within an inch of your life!" And as the eccentric Mr. Judkins whirled around the corner of the porch he heard the boy murmur in his low, absent-minded way, "Yes, you will!"

MR. JUDKINS' REMARKS

Judkins stopped us in front of the post-office yesterday to say that that boy of his was "the blamedest boy outside o' the annals o'