Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

66

[ocr errors]

hand, and I put it on. "Hester," said I to my wife, "why am I thus accoutred, liable to be more extravagant than ever?" She said she didn't know. Because," said I triumphantly, "I am bound to waist!" She pretended not to see the reason; and I did not explain, but went to work. "Now shall you see, wife of my soul," said I, "such work as you can find alone in the Vatican at Rome, or the Louvre at Paris, should you feel inclined to seek it. Here before this door I take my stand, and here I commence. You shall see." "William Henry," said my wife," don't drip it over the floor." "Never fear,” said I, dipping in the brush, and sopping it up against the side in the most approved form. My first aim was at the upper part of the door—a paneled door-and I applied the brush vigorously. "Hester," said I to my wife," as the morning is rather cold, shouldn't you think it well to put on two coats?" She took the pleasantry as an unkind reflection on the disposition made of the old clothes, and didn't say anything. I worked away on that door severely, but I found, before I had half done it, a weariness in the wrist; and a cold sensation up my sleeve attracting my attention, revealed the fact that a stream of paint was stealing along the handle of the brush, up my arm. I laid down the implement, and went to procure something with which to wipe the paint off. "Mr. Rootle," screamed my wife, "look at the baby." I looked, as she held that young prodigy up to view, and was much shocked. The baby had crawled to the paint-pot, and had immersed his two hands to the elbows. Not content with this, he had laid his hands on the brush, and, when Hester saw him, he was engaged in an insane effort to get it into his mouth. The precocity of that child is most wonderful. The paint was washed off, and I commenced again. “Now,” said my wife, when I had been working about two hours, with my hands cramped, my wrists and back aching, my eyes full of paint, and my face tattooed by the same like a New Zealander, are you 'most done?" The "No" that I returned, I fear was not pleasant. All that forenoon I worked at that terrible task, and at about dinner time I saw it accomplished. "Hester," said I, "the work is completed; come and look, and admire." She came at my request, and I noticed a mis

66

66

chievous twinkle in her eye as she looked. "Why, William Henry," said she, you've put more paint on the paper and carpet than you have anywhere else." Her criticism seemed unkind; but I looked where she had directed, and round the doors and window-frames were rays of paint like the surroundings of islands on a map, and below were large blotches of paint upon the carpet, that had assumed geometrical forms enough to have puzzled the judgment of a professor. "I confess, my dear, that in this particular I have been a little slovenly; but look at that work." "Mr. Rootle,” said my wife, "if there's no better painting in what's-its-name at Rome, I don't care about seeing it." The door-bell here rang, and "accoutred as I was," without thinking of it, I rushed to see who had come, and met a whole bevy of ladies, and suffered the severe mortification of a sensitive nature under such circumstances. I here sum up the whole:

1858.

W. HENRY ROOTLE, IN ACCOUNT WITH DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

DR.

To painting one room

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

I throw in the dangerous experiment of the baby and the injury to health, both of which, could they be estimated by numbers, would swell the amount to an alarming figure. I came solemnly to the conclusion that it would have been better to have paid a proper person to have done the work in a proper manner. Don't you think so yourself?

A FAREWELL.-CHARLES KINGSLEY.

My fairest child, I have no song to give you,
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey,
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you

For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them all day long;
And so make life, death, and that vast forever,

One grand, sweet song.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.-THEODORE O'HARA.

The Legislature of Kentucky caused the dead of that State who fell at Buena Vista to be brought home and interred at Frankfort, under a splendid monument. Theodore O'Hara, a gifted Irish-Kentuckian soldier and scholar, was selected the orator and poet of the occasion, whence this beautiful eulogy which has the same application to-day.

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat

The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.

On fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;

No braying horn nor screaming fife.
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their pluméd heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,

And the proud forms, by battle gashed,

Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past;

Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal

Shall thrill with fierce delight

Those breasts that never more may feel

The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce northern hurricane

That sweeps his great plateau,

Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,

Came down the serried foe.

Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,

Knew well the watchword of that day
Was "Victory or death."

Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain-
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain-
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;

Not long, our stout old chieftain* knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.

"Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave

The flower of his beloved land,†
The nation's flag to save.

By rivers of their father's gore
His first-born laurels grew,

And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory, too.

Full many a norther's breath had swept
O'er Angostura's‡ plain-

And long the pitying sky has wept
Above the moldering slain.

The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,

Alone awakes each sullen height

That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,?
Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air;

Your own proud land's heroic soil

Shall be your fitter grave

She claims from war his richest spoil-
The ashes of her brave.

So, 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast,
On many a bloody shield;

The sunshine of their native sky

Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by

The heroes' sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead,
Dear as the blood ye gave;

Zachary Taylor.

+Gen. Taylor was a native of Kentucky, and the Kentucky troops are here alluded to.

Mexicans knew the battle of Buena Vista by the name of Angostura-which means "Narrow Pass."

The Indian name for Kentucky.

No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While fame her record keeps,
Or honor points the hallowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone,

In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanished age

The story how ye fell;

hath flown,

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,

Shall dim one ray of glory's light

That gilds your deathless tomb.

A PHYSICIAN'S STORY.

Dr. Munro, of Hull, gives this incident in his life as a practicing physician. It a story with an unmistakable moral.

A hard-working, industrious, God-fearing man, a teetotaler of some years' standing, suffering from an abscess in the hand, which had reduced him very much, applied to me for advice. I told him the only medicine he required was rest and to remedy the waste going on in his system, and to repair the damage done to his hand, he was to support himself with a bottle of stout daily. He replied:

"I cannot take it, for I have been a teetotaler for some years."

"Well, I said, "if you know better than the doctor, it is of no use applying to me."

He looked anxiously in my face, evidently weighing the matter over in his mind, and sorrowfully replied:

"Doctor, I was a drunken man once, and should not like to be one again."

He was, much against his will, prevailed upon to take the stout, and in time he recovered from his sickness. When he got well, I, of course, praised up the virtues of stout as a means of saving his life, for which he ought ever to be thankful. I rather lectured him on being such a fanatic (that's the word,) as to refuse taking a bottle of stout daily to restore him to his former health.

« ZurückWeiter »