Volume VII Part 10 (2/2)

”Oh, tell me of your precious wife, For she was very dear, I know, It must have been a blissful life You led with her you treasure so?”

”My wife is mouldering in the ground, In yonder house she's spinning now, And lo! this moment may be found A driving home the family cow;

”And see, she's standing at the stile, And leans from out the window wide, And loiters on the sward a while, Her forty babies by her side.”

”Old man, you must be mad!” I cried, ”Or else you do but jest with me; How is it that your wife has died And yet can here and living be?

”How is it while she drives the cow She's hanging out her window wide, And loiters, as you said just now, With forty babies by her side?”

The old man raised his snowy head, ”I have a sainted wife in Heaven; I am a Mormon, sir,” he said, ”My sainted wife on earth are seven.”

TALK

BY JOHN PAUL

It seems to me that talk should be, Like water, sprinkled sparingly; Then ground that late lay dull and dried Smiles up at you revivified, And flowers--of speech--touched by the dew Put forth fresh root and bud anew.

But I'm not sure that any flower Would thrive beneath Niagara's shower!

So when a friend turns full on me His verbal hose, may I not flee?

I know that I am arid ground, But I'm not watered--Gad! I'm drowned!

A WINTER FANCY

(_Little Tommy Loq_)

BY R.K. MUNKITTRICK

My father piles the snow-drifts Around his rosy face, And covers all his whiskers-- The gra.s.s that grows apace.

And then he runs the snow-plough Across his smiling lawn, And all the snow-drifts vanish And then the gra.s.s is gone.

JACK BALCOMB'S PLEASANT WAYS

BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON

There comes a time in the life of young men when their college fraternity pins lie forgotten in the collar-b.u.t.ton box and the spiking of freshmen ceases to be a burning issue. Tippecanoe was one of the few freshwater colleges that barred women; but this was not its only distinction, for its teaching was sound, its campus charming and the town of which it was the chief ornament a quiet place noted from the beginning of things for its cultivated people.

It is no longer so very laudable for a young man to pay his way through college; and Morris Leighton had done this easily and without caring to be praised or martyrized for doing so. He had enjoyed his college days; he had been popular with town and gown; and he had managed to get his share of undergraduate fun while leading his cla.s.ses. He had helped in the college library; he had twisted the iron letter-press on the president's correspondence late into the night; he had copied briefs for a lawyer after hours; but he had pitched for the nine and hustled for his ”frat,” and he had led cla.s.s rushes with ardor and success.

He had now been for several years in the offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr at Mariona, only an hour's ride from Tippecanoe; and he still kept in touch with the college. Michael Carr fully appreciated a young man who took the law seriously and who could sit down in a court room on call mornings, when need be, and turn off a demurrer without paraphrasing it from a text-book.

Mrs. Carr, too, found Morris Leighton useful, and she liked him, because he always responded unquestioningly to any summons to fill up a blank at her table; and if Mr. Carr was reluctant at the last minute to attend a lecture on ”Egyptian Burial Customs,” Mrs. Carr could usually summon Morris Leighton by telephone in time to act as her escort. Young men were at a premium in Mariona, as in most other places, and it was something to have one of the species, of an accommodating turn, and very presentable, within telephone range. Mrs. Carr was grateful, and so, it must be said, was her husband, who did not care to spend his evenings digging up Egyptians that had been a long time dead, or listening to comic operas. It was through Mrs. Carr that Leighton came to be well known in Mariona; she told her friends to ask him to call, and there were now many homes besides hers that he visited.

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