A BORN ORATOR. ONE Kentucky gentleman meets another Kentucky gentleman, and they address one another with that solemn earnestness which is a characteristic of Southern high life: "Good mohning, sah. Hope you are well, sah. Whar have you been this morning?" "I have just come f'om the coat-house, sah. Sen'toh Blackbuhn has been making a speech--the finest speech I have heard since the wah. He is a bawn awter, sah-a bawn awter!" "Excuse me, sah, but what do you mean by 'a bawn awter?'" "A bawn awter! Don't you know what a bawn awter is? Why, sah, you and I would say 'two and two make fo', but a bawn awter would say: When, in the coase of human events, it becomes nec'sa' or expedient to coalesce two intergers and two other intergers, the result I declah it boldly and without feah or favor -the result, by a simple arithmetical calculation termed addition, is fo'!' That's a bawn awter, sah!" EUGENE FIELD, 6 In Chicago News. THERE IS NO DEATH. THERE is no death! The stars go down There is no death! The dust we tread Shall change beneath the summer showers To goiden grain, or mellow fruit, Or rainbow-tinted flowers. The granite rocks disorganize To feed the hungry moss they bear, The leaves drink daily life From out the viewless air. There is no death! The leaves may fall, There is no death! An angel form He leaves our hearts all desolate; The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones Amid the tree of life. And when he sees a smile too bright Born unto that undying life, They leave us but to come again; With joy we welcome them—the same. Except in sin and pain. And ever near us, though unseen, For all the boundless universe Is life-there are no dead! SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. THE LAND OF SHINING GOLD. "THE Woman must go to the workhouse and the young 'uns to the schools. Outdoor relief? Oh, nonsense!-besides, it's against the rules." The man didn't speak unkindly, he simply met the case, But the woman she lay and listened with a white, despairing face, She had starved herself to a shadow, she had plied her needle and thread To pay the rent of her lodgings and to give her children bread; But when she was down with fever, to the parish her landlord sent To come and remove the tenant who had nothing to pay the rent. The children clung to their mother, the tears coursed down their cheeks; They had been her little nurses through all the weary weeks, They had starved and never murmured; they had knelt with her to pray That the God of widow and orphan would send them a brighter day. But now they were thrust asunder-the parish whose laws are wise Can't alter its regulations for sentimental ties; The guardians in their wisdom keep families far apart, Which is good for the parish pocket if bad for the pau per heart. They took her away to the workhouse-this woman, Elizabeth Roy, And the officer came soon after to fetch the girl and boy; But the girl and the boy had vanished; they dreaded their pauper fate The boy was just eleven and the little girl was eight. Where had the children gone to? They'd hidden, the neighbors said, And all that day they hunted for Kate and her brother Fred. But night came down on the alley where their poor little home had been, And by none of the people searching were the missing children seen. The mother lay in the workhouse, racked with the hunger pain, But a beautiful, peaceful vision came to her fevered brain; The squalor of slum and alley had faded out of sight, And back to a scene far brighter had fancy winged its flight. Happy as wife and mother, she sat in the sunlit room, And looked down the country garden where the roses were in bloom; And the children played and prattled, and their innocent laughter filled The air with a joyous music, and the sweet birds sang and trilled. And he, her love and her darling, stood smiling by her side, As gentle, as kind and tender, as the day she was his bride; There was never a cloud in the heavens, never a chill in the breeze, As the sunshine danced a measure with the leaves of the waving trees. But suddenly rose a tempest, and the skies grew an ashen gray, And night with its gloom and terror had banished the golden day. A wife sat alone-deserted-left with her babes to brave The storm that had proved her husband only a coward knave. * * * * Where had the children gone to? She never knew their fate. They feared to tell her the story in her weak, exhausted state; But the neighbors had traced the children to the busy river side- Some one had seen them gazing on the black and swollen tide. They had heard of the fate before them, they had thought of the "school" with dread, They'd be found some day in the river-that's what the gossips said; But many a month went over, and never a trace was found Of the missing brother and sister, and the parish believed them drowned. But they were alive and happy, thousands of miles away; And this is how things had happened: They had heard the people say That "the workhouse" would come to take them. They knew of their mother's fate, So they held a council together, Fred and his sister Kate. A wonderful scheme the boy had; he had heard of a land of gold, Where you pick up the yellow nuggets as big as your hand can hold Where the beautiful golden metal that can buy you such lovely things Can be got with a spade-and he murmured, "Oh, Kate, for a pair of wings! "For a pair of wings to fly with, away to that gold n land, And then we could fill our pockets;" but Kate didn't understand; So he told her the splendid story-he fancied that in the mines, In great wondrous masses, the fabulous treasure shines— |