Part 28 (2/2)

I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles

With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With eed and mallow

I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brio on for ever

I wind about, and in and out, With here a blosso, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake Upon olden gravel,

And draw the river, For o on for ever

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel covers; I row for happy lovers

I slip, I slide, I gloo ss; I ainst my sandy shallows

I er by ly bars; I loiter round ain I curve and flow To join the brio on for ever

TENNYSON

As good alood book Many a ood book is the precious life blood of a master-spirit

MILTON

”DO SEEK THEIR MEAT FROM God”

There was a solitary cabin in the thick of the woods a hbour, a substantial fra The owner of the cabin, a shi+ftless felloho spent his days for the most part at the corner tavern three usted with a land wherein one must work to live, and had betaken himself with his seven-year-old boy to seek some more indolent clime

The five-year-old son of the prosperous owner of the frame house and the older boy had been playmates The little boy, unaware of his comrade's departure, had stolen away, late in the afternoon, along the lonely stretch of wood road, and had reached the cabin only to find it erew afraid to start for ho into the cabin, whose door would not stay shut Desperate with fear and loneliness, he lifted up his voice piteously In the terrifying silence, he listened hard to hear if anyone or anything were cos arose, startling the unexpectant night, and piercing the forest depths, even to the ears of two great panthers which had set forth to seek their meat from God

The lonely cabin stood sohway connecting the settle wearily All day he had been walking, and now as he neared hoan to quicken with anticipation of rest Over his shoulder projected a double-barrelled fowling-piece, fro a bundle of such necessities as he had purchased in town thatIt was the prosperous settler, the master of the frame house, who had chosen to make the tedious journey on foot

He passed the one perhaps a furlong beyond, when his ears were startled by the sound of a child crying in the woods He stopped, lowered his burden to the road, and stood straining ears and eyes in the direction of the sound It was just at this time that the two panthers also stopped, and lifted their heads to listen Their ears were keener than those of the reater distance

Presently the settler realized whence the cries were co He called to mind the cabin; but he did not know the cabin's owner had departed

He cherished a hearty contempt for the drunken squatter; and on the drunken squatter's child he looked with small favour, especially as a playmate for his own boy Nevertheless he hesitated before resu his journey

”Poor little fellow!” he muttered, half in wrath ”I reckon his precious father's drunk down at 'the Corners,' and hi for loneliness!”

Then he re-shouldered his burden and strode on doggedly