Rides over the hill the livelong year

Rides calling and calling the brave to come
And rest and rest in the Soldiers' Homě.

“ What battle? What deeds did I do in the fight ?

Why, sir, I have seen green fields turn as red As yonder red town in that marvelous light ! Then the great blazing guns! Then the ghastly white

dead But, tell me, I faint, I must cease to roam !

This battered leg aches! Then this sabered old head! Is—is this the way to the Soldiers' Home?

Why, I hear men say 'tis a paradise
On the
green

oak hills by the great red town; That many old comrades shall meet my eyes ;

That a tasseled young trooper rides up and rides down, With bugle-horn blowing to the still blue skies,

Calling and calling to rest and stay
In that Soldiers' Home. Sir, is this the way?

a

"My leg is so lame! Then this sabered old head

Ah! pardon me, sir, I never complain ; But the road is so rough, as I just now said ;

And then there is something that troubles my brain. It makes the light dance from yon Capitol's dome;

It makes the road dim as I doubtfully tread. But is this the way to the Soldiers' Home?

“From the first to the last in that desperate war

Why, I did my part. If I did not fall,
A hair's-breadth measure of this skull-bone scar

Was all that was wanting; and then this ball

But what cared I? Ah! better by far

Have a sabered old head, and à shattered old knee To the end, than not had that praise of Lee.

a

4 What! What do I hear? No home there for me?

Why, I heard men say that the war was at end ! Oh! my

head świms so; and I scarce can see! But a soldier's a soldier, I think, my friend, Wherever that soldier may chance to be!

And wherever a soldier may chance to roam,
Why, a Soldiers' Home is a soldier's home?”

He turned as to go; but he sank to the grass ;

And I lifted my face to the firmament;
For I saw a sentinel white star pass,

Leading the way the old soldier went.
And the light shone bright from the Capitol's dome,

Brighter indeed from the monument,
Lighting his way to the Soldiers' Home.

JOAQUIN MILLER

DON'T BE MEAN, BOYS.

SOMETI

a

OMETIMES I wonder what a mean man thinks

about when he goes to bed. When he turns out the light and lies down alone he is then compelled to be honest with himself. Not a bright thought, not a generous impulse, not a word of blessing, not a grateful look comes back to him; not a penny dropped into the palm of poverty, nor the balm of a loving word dropped into an aching heart; no sunbeam of encouragement cast upon a struggling life; no strong right hand of fellowship reached out to help some fallen man to his feet-when none of these things come to him as the “God bless you” of the departed day, how he must hate himself-how he must try to roll away from himself and sleep on the other side of the bed—when the only victory he can think of is some mean victory, in which he has wronged a neighbor. No wonder he always sneers when he tries to smile. How pure and fair and good all the rest of the world must look to him, and how careless and dreary must his own path appear! Why, even one isolated act of meanness is enough to scatter cracker crumbs in the bed of the average man, and what must be the feelings of a man whose whole life is given up to mean acts? When there is so much suffering and heartache and misery in the world, anyhow, why should any one add a pound of wickedness or sadness to the general burden? Don't be mean, boys. Suffer injustice a thousand times rather than commit it

BURDETTE.

once.

SING A SONG A SIXPENCE.

Popular Style.

VOCALIZE in silver strains, and with pennies six,

Measured farinaceous grain deftly intermix ; Take of ebon-tinted birds twenty-five or nigh, Place in crust-bound earthen vase, quickly then apply Calorific rays until the temp’rature is high; Intersect the outer crust and a portion raise ; Hark! the feathered choristers are chanting hymns of

praise ! Wasn't that a sight to fill the monarch with amaze ? Rex was in his business room at the iron chest, Accurately estimating coin that he possessed ;

Fair Regina, striving hunger's cravings to appease, Ate with bread a product of the industry of bees; A servant in the garden hung apparel out to dry : Watched by an ebon-tinted bird, escaped the pie; He, full of righteous wrath, a swift avenger proved, And quickly her nasal protuberance removed.

TO THE DESPONDING.

TAKE this for granted, once for all —

There is neither chance nor fate, And to sit and wait for the sky to fall,

Is to wait as the foolish wait.

The laurel, longed for, you must earn

It is not of the things men lend,
And though the lesson be hard to learn,

The sooner the better, my friend.
That another's head can have your crown

Is a judgment all untrue.
And to drag this man, or the other down,
Will not in the least raise you !

ALICE CARY.

A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD.
THEY say that God lives very high,

,
But if you look above the pines
You cannot see our God: and why?
And if you dig down in the mines

You never see Him in the gold ;
Though from Him all that glory shines.

God is so good, He wears a fold

Of heaven and earth across His face-
Like secrets kept, for love, untold.
But still I feel that His embrace

Slides down by thrills, through all things made,
Through.sight and sound of every place.
As if my tender mother laid
On
my

shut lids her kisses' pressure, Half-waking me at night, and said, “Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser ?''

MRS. BROWNING.

THE MODEL WOMAN.

KNOW a woman wondrous fair

A model woman she
Who never runs her neighbors down

When she goes out to tea.
She never gossips after church

Of dresses or of hats ;
She never meets the sewing school

And joins them in their spats.
She never beats a salesman down,

Nor asks for pretty plaques ;
She never asks the thousand things

Which do his patience tax.
These statements may seem very strange-

At least they may to some.
But just remember this, my friends-
This woman's deaf and dumb.

A WISELY ANONYMOUS MAN.