unquenchable foolishness, Now after you've finished eatin' that poem of fried sausage an' that symphony of twisted doughnut, you take an' dust up stairs in less'n two seconds, an' peel off that fancy dress-gown and put on a caliker, an' then come down an' help your mother wash dishes. I want it distinctly understood that ther ain't goin' to be no more rhythmic foolishness in this house, so long's your superlative Pa an' Ma's runnin' the ranch. You hear me, Maria ?"

Maria was listening.

OLD CHUMS.

ALICE CAREY.

Is it you, Jack? Old boy, is it really you?

I shouldn't have known you but that I was told You might be expected;-pray, how do you do? But what under heaven has made you so old?

Your hair! why, you've only a little gray fuzz!

And your beard's, white! but that can be beautifully dyed;

And your legs aren't but just half as long as they was; And then—stars and garters! your vest is so wide! Is this your hand! Well! how I envied you that In the time of our courting,-so soft, and so small! And now it is callous inside, and so fat,

Well, you beat the very old deuce, that is all.

Turn 'round! let me look at you! isn't it odd

How strange in a few years a fellow's chum grows! Your eye is shrunk up like a bean in a pod,

And what are these lines branching out from your

nose?

Your back has gone up and your shoulders gone down,
And all the old roses are under the plough:

Why, Jack, if we'd happened to meet about town,
I wouldn't have known you from Adam, I vow!

You've had trouble, have you? I'm sorry; but, John,
All trouble sits lightly at your time of life.
How's Billy, my namesake? You don't say he's gone
To the war, John, and that you have buried your
wife.

Poor Katherine! so she has left you,-ah me!

I thought she would live to be fifty, or more. What is it you tell me? She was fifty-three!

O no, Jack! she wasn't so much by a score !

Well, there's little Katy,-was that her name, John? She'll rule your house one of these days like a queen. That baby! Great Scott! is she married and gone? With a Jack ten years old! and a Katy fourteen!

Then I give it up! Why, you're younger than I By ten or twelve years, and to think you've come back

A sober old graybeard, just ready to die!

I don't understand how it is,—do you Jack?

I've got all my faculties yet, sound and bright!
Slight failure my eyes are beginning to hint;
But still, with my spectacles on, and a light
'Twixt them and the page, I can read any print.
My hearing is dull, and my leg is more spare,
Perhaps, than it was when I beat you at ball;
My breath gives out, too, if I go up a stair,—
But nothing worth mentioning nothing at all!

My hair is just turning a little, you see,

And lately I've put on a broader-brimmed hat Than I wore at your wedding, but you will agree, Old fellow, I look all the better for that.

I'm sometimes a little rheumatic, 'tis true,

And my nose isn't quite on a straight line, they say; For all that, I don't think I've changed much, do you? And I don't feel a day older, Jack, not a day!

worn

LABOR.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Two men I honor, and no third. First, the toilcraftsman that with earth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hand, hard and coarse, wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of this planet. Venerable, too, is the rugged face all weather-tanned, besoiled, with his rude intelligence; for it is the face of a man living man-like. Oh, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly entreated brother! for us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so derfomed; thou wert our conscript on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee, too, lay a God-created form, but it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of labor; and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom. Yet, toil on, toil on: thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable daily bread.

A second man I honor, and still more highly,

him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable, not daily bread, but the bread of life. Is not he, too, in his duty; endeavoring towards inward harmony; revealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavors, be they high or low? Highest of all when his outward and his inward endeavors are one: when we can name him artist; not earthly craftsman only, but inspired thinker, who with heavenmade implement conquers heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have food, must not the high. and glorious toil for him in return that he may have light, guidance, freedom, immortality? These two, in all their degrees, I honor; all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it listeth.

There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he ever so benighted, or forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works; in idleness alone there is perpetual despair. Consider how, even in the meanest sort of labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into real harmony. He bends himself with. free valor against his task; and doubt, desire, sorrow, remorse, indignation, despair itself, shrink murmuring far off in their caves. The glow of labor in him is a purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up; and of smoke itself, there is made a bright and blessed flame. Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness; he has a life purpose. Labor is life. From the heart of the worker rises the celestial force, breathed into him by Almighty God, awakening him to all nobleness, to all knowledge. Hast thou valued patience, courage, openness to light, or readiness to own thy mistakes? In wrestling with the dim brute powers of fact, thou wilt continually

learn. For every noble work the possibilities are diffused through immensity, undiscoverable, except to faith. Man, Son of heaven! is there not in thine inmost heart a spirit of active method, giving thee no rest till thou unfold it? Complain not. Look up, wearied brother. See thy fellow-workmen surviving through eternity, the sacred band of immortals.

CONNOR.

To the

Memory of Patrick Connor,
this Simple Stone was Erected by his
Fellow Workingmen.

These words you may read any day upon a white slab in a cemetery not many miles from New York; but you might read them a hundred times without guessing at the little tragedy they indicate, without knowing the humble romance which ended with the placing of that stone above the dust of one poor humble man.

In his shabby, frieze jacket and mud-laden brogans, he was scarcely an attractive object as he walked into Mr. Bawne's great tin and hardware shop one day and presented himself at the counter with an—

"I've been tould ye advertised for hands, yer honor."

"Fully supplied, my man," said Mr. Bawne, not lifting his head from his account book.

"I'd work faithfully, sir, and take low wages, till I could do better, and I'd learn,-I would that."

It was an Irish brogue, and Mr. Bawne always declared that he never would employ an incompetent hand.