A frightful scene was before me. Williams, my assistant, was on the ground, covered with blood, and around him was a crowd of the worst boys in the prison, pounding, kicking, and trying to snatch his keys so as to escape by unlocking the gate. Luckily my bat with which I had played baseball with the boys stood in the corner, and grabbing this I struck out with all my strength, knocking down the boys right and left. Just then the guard came up on the run, the wounded man was carried to the hospital, and his assailants locked up.

Williams, it appeared, had, in his absent-mindedness, unlocked the jail instead of the wall gates, and let out upon him this horde of ruffians who had been put in there for safe-keeping. He finally recovered, but left the island through fear of his life.

The discipline of the school was much benefited by forming a school regiment, and drilling them to the music of a brass band composed of the boys themselves. They were as proud of their uniforms, shoulder straps and accoutrements, as were the old guard of Napoleon, and their ambition was stimulated by merited promotions from the ranks.

For more than a year I thoroughly enjoyed the work of uplifting those waifs on our sea of life; they responded appreciatively to the influence of kindly words and acts, even as the Aeolian harp yields its sweetest music to the caresses of the airs of heaven. It was an inspiration to watch the blossoming of purer thoughts and higher aspirations, and to feel that we were cooperating with the invisible spirits in developing the hidden angels in this youthful army.

All at once the shadows fell, the baneful greed of that organized appetite called "Tammany Hall," reached out its devil-fish tentaculae, which neither fear God, nor have any mercy on men, to seek our blood. Evil looking Shylock-faced trustees began to supplant those noble men who had made this refuge a veritable gate of heaven to so many more sinned against than sinning,—children of the vile. These avaricious, beastly emissaries of "Tammany," soon snarled at us poor teachers that we must divide our small salaries with them or give place to those that would. Not a school book, or a shin-bone for soup, could be bought unless these leeches had a commission from it; they brought enormous baskets and filled them with fruit practically stolen from our children, and carted them home for their own cubs.

Our superintendent and chaplain were strong sectarians, but very weak Christians, and they readily made friends of the "Mammon of unrighteousness." One hot Sunday, when I was in command at chapel, the somnolent tones of the chaplain, who, as usual, was pouring forth a stream of mere words—words almost devoid of thought, lulled a large number of my fifteen hundred boys and girls into the land of dreams.

As soon as the services were over and I had surrendered my flock to the yard master, I was summoned before the superintendent where the pious chaplain accused me of insulting him by not keeping the children awake. I quietly asked him how this could be done. "Go among them with a rattan," said he. I told him I thought the preacher deserved the rattan much more than the children, that they would listen gladly if he would give them anything worth hearing. From that moment he was my malicious foe.

One day while returning from a row in the harbor, I treated my boat's crew to apples and pears from our orchard; just then the superintendent's whistle sounded, and I was called before the trustees then in session.

"Are you aware," said he, savagely, "that the rules direct that all fruit shall be gathered by the head gardener, and by him alone?"

"Yes," was my reply.

"Well, then, you were stealing, just now."

"I was simply imitating your example, sir; it takes a thief to catch a thief." The trustees roared with laughter. The president of the board then asked if I had seen others stealing the fruit.

"Yes, sir, the chaplain, superintendent, and nearly all the trustees."

"Well," said he, "this is a den of thieves."

"All except the convicts, sir," I replied.

These incidents did not add to my popularity among the sneaks whose petty slings and arrows were so annoying, and so minimized my power for good that I reluctantly resigned, to accept a more lucrative position as teacher in an aristocratic boarding-school located in the romantic county of Berkshire, much nearer, geographically, to the stars.

Among our responsibilities at the reform school, were many "wharf rats"—so called, because having had no homes or visible parents, like Topsy, they had simply "growed," and slept under the wharves of the city, swarming out at intervals to steal or beg for something to assuage the pangs of hunger. They were vicious to a degree, and at first seemed to prefer a raw shin-bone that they had stolen to an abundant meal obtained honestly. They would rather fight than eat, and prized a penny obtained by lies more than dollars secured by telling the truth. Some were stupid as donkeys; but others possessed minds of surprising acuteness. I once asked one of these why he was sent to the reform school.

"Oh," was the reply, "I stole a sawmill, and when I went back after the water dam the copper scooped me in."

Another quizzed his teacher unmercifully, when, in trying to teach him the alphabet, she drew a figure on the board and told him it was A, he called out: "How do you know that is A?"

"Why, when I went to school my teacher told me it was A."

"Well," said the little imp, "how do ye know but what that feller lied?"

At one of our public meetings, the superintendent introduced as a speaker, a man by the name of Holmes, and wishing to impress the boys favorably, he announced him as Professor Holmes. The orator was annoyed at being called professor, and trying to be "funny," commenced by saying: "I am not Professor Holmes, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass—" At this point, quick as a flash, up jumped one of our wharf rats, and shouted: "Well, if you ain't Professor Holmes' ass, whose ass be ye?"

Then the little barbarian, evidently maddened by the sneering pomposity of our eloquent guest, strutted across the floor in perfect imitation of Holmes' affected grandiloquence; then he launched into the coon song:—

"De bigger dat you see de smoke De less de fire will be, And de leastest kind ob possum Climbs de biggest kind ob tree.

"De nigger at de camp-groun' Dat kin loudest sing an' shout, Am gwine ter rob some hen-roos' Befo' de week am out."

Thus, often, from a bud seemingly withered and dead, would unexpectedly blossom out an unknown flower of startling brilliancy and unprecedented attractiveness.



CHAPTER IX.

SUNLIGHT AND DARKNESS IN PALACE AND COTTAGE.

My pupils at the reform school were from the dens and hovels of the Bowery, while those at S—— were from the palaces of Fifth Avenue; but to my utter astonishment, the children of the slums were morally and perhaps intellectually superior to those of the plutocrats. I was occasionally the guest of both the poverty-stricken and the millionaire parents of my scholars, and I verily believe that I saw as much depravity and misery in the abodes of the rich as in those of the poor.

On my arrival in Berkshire County, I found both of my employers were off on a spree, and that I was ordered to do the work of receiving and organizing. One day, a princely equipage with liveried coachman and outrider halted at the schoolroom door, a "bloated bondholder" and his wife, arrayed in purple, fine linen, and diamonds, pulled a flashily appareled, humpbacked boy up to me, every lineament of whose face showed depravity and cunning. "There," said the father, "is my d—— d son, he drinks, swears, and breaks all the commandments every day. Take him, and send the bill to me." He handed me his card and away they went.

This was not an isolated case. I did my best for them; but they were satiated with luxury, hated books, and seemed to care for nothing but debauchery. The very next day several of these scamps obtained permission to visit the cave in "Bear Mountain," where ice could be found throughout the year. As they did not return on time, I went in search and found them all drunk. They had no appreciation of the sun-kissed mountains, waving forests, or verdure-clad valleys; the grand scenery awakened no responsive smiles, no ennobling aspirations; they were intent upon nothing but drowning their ignoble souls in the noxious fumes of tobacco and alcohol. I tumbled them into the wagon, drove them to their dormitory and put them to bed, lower than the beasts they seemed to be in their depravity; not all to be sure, for there were a few choice spirits like Julian Hawthorn, who followed to some extent the example of his illustrious father, and has won his spurs in literature.

I found to my disgust that bad eggs would ruin the good ones; but that many good ones could not take the rottenness from even one of the bad. It seemed a hopeless task to endeavor to inspire such impoverished souls, and I retired in despair, to accept the principalship of the ancient academy in the village.

Here I met the children of the so-called middle class, the very bone and sinew of the Republic; here I was monarch of all I surveyed, and untrammeled by the cramming regulations of the public schools, I pursued the delightful avocation of a true educator. E and duco is the etymology of the word, to lead out, to develop the latent energies of the mind. I had chemical and philosophical apparatus with which to perform experiments in illustrative teaching of the sciences, and all were intent upon acquiring thorough, practical education.

When I saw their enthusiasm lagging from want of physical exercise, at the tap of the bell, we would all rush out upon the beautiful campus and kick football, or run races until, with glowing faces and invigorated energies, they would follow me back to our studies, sometimes into the cheerful academy hall, sometimes under the shade of the noble oaks, where we would study botany close to nature's heart amid the songs of birds and the sublime chanting of the tree-tops.

We gave musical and dramatic entertainments, securing ample funds to decorate the walls of our hall with works of art; we went on rides together in barges, drank in long draughts of inspiration from the glorious scenery, and studied geology, practically, like, if not equal to Hugh Miller, among the rocks and boulders. I was doing good, and here I should have remained; but the old unrest came back to me, and I unwisely accepted a much larger salary in teaching in my native county of Essex.

As soon as I took command of my two hundred boys and girls in B——, I realized how vast is the contrast between free and unrestricted educating, and the grind of cramming according to the ironclad rule of the public school system.

Many children are so crammed with everything that they really know nothing. In proof of this, read these veritable specimens of definitions, written by public school children that very year in another school of this town.

"Stability is the taking care of a stable."

"A mosquito is the child of black and white parents."

"Monastery is the place for monsters."

"Tocsin is something to do with getting drunk."

"Expostulation is to have the smallpox."

"Cannible is two brothers who killed each other in the Bible."

"Anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, the head, the chist and the stummick. The head contains the eyes and brains, if any; the chist contains the lungs and a piece of the liver. The stummick is devoted to the bowels, of which there are five, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w, and y."

Every teacher was rated according to his ability to secure from his pupils a high percentage in examinations for promotion.

I grew restless under the restraints imposed by a committee of incompetents; besides, the minister who was chairman of the Board, considered a Unitarian to be an infidel, demoralizing the religious life of the young. I grew tired of his malicious peccadillos, and accepted a "louder" call from that quaint town where the historic Lloyd Ireson "with his hord horrt was torrd and futhered und Korrid in a Kort by the wimmun o' Marrble ed."

Here I had one hundred boys in one room, many of whom went fishing in summer to get up muscle to lick the schoolmaster in winter. They had been quite successful in this latter industry for several years in my school, and at once proceeded to try the same tactics with me. On the first morning, I was saluted with a volley of iced snow balls as hard as brickbats, and I at once reciprocated these favors by knocking down the leader, dragging him into the house, and giving him a sound cowhiding, and when the vinegar-faced committee came in later I was busily engaged in teaching their sons to dance to this same useful instrument.

These owl-like worthies sat solemnly on the platform for awhile, saying no more than the ugly fowls they so much resembled, and then stalked out, leaving me to my fate. A young Hercules fisherman at once suggested, that the first business in order was to throw me out the window as they had so many of my predecessors. To this I stoutly objected, and seizing a big hickory stick window-elevator, I swung it fiercely close to their heads. This was more than they had bargained for, and the uproar pro tem subsided.

This was the winter famed in the history of Massachusetts, as producing the severest snowstorm ever known, and for a week I was snow-bound in my boarding-house, where my bright-eyed, sweet-faced cousins were most agreeable substitutes for my plug-ugly pupils.

One day, this same week, the giant ringleader of my assailants who had moved to baptize me by immersion in the icy waters of the harbor, himself, while fishing, fell through a hole in the ice and was drowned. The loss of their mighty general somewhat demoralized his followers, and vi et armis, I managed to survive the fourteen weeks' term. At the close of the first session of the last day, I threw a football to my enemies, who, not suspecting my trick, rushed off, kicking it down the street, and when they returned in the afternoon to take vengeance upon me for my unprecedented rule over them, I was in the "hub of the universe." I afterwards learned that my discretion was the better part of valor, for my ferocious pupils had the determination and the necessary force to send me unshriven to Davy Jones' locker.

I had never believed in the doctrine of reincarnation until I met in the city, the veritable Judas Iscariot, ready and anxious to sell anybody and everything for thirty pieces of silver, nickel, copper, or any old thing he could pick up. This Jew pretended to wish to sell one-half interest in his commercial school for $2,000. I had some negotiations with him, but found out, by careful investigation, that he had already sold several confiding teachers, who ascertained too late to save their money, that this fraud was collector and treasurer of all funds of the company, that he required his partner to do all the drudgery, and that his report always claimed that all collections had been paid out for expenses.

He reminded me of the legend, that when the devil took Christ to the top of a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth, and said: "All these things will I give you to fall down and worship me." Suddenly, the face of a Shylock appeared, saying: "Shentlemen, peeshness ish peeshness, and if you can't trade, I will take dat offer."

I mention this little incident hoping it may prove a warning to the unwary who, like myself, may fall among the sharpers of the Modern Athens. Disgusted with this business experience, and wishing to do good and get good, I advertised, offering $50 for an acceptable position as teacher, and I at once received many responses from thrifty committeemen, and retiring teachers.

I interviewed a clergyman who wanted the reward in advance; but when the time came for him to deliver the goods, he had suddenly decamped in the night to avoid a coat of tar and feathers from indignant parents whose children's morals had been basely ruined by this wolf in sheep's clothing. Others extended itching palms for the money, but failed to secure for me the "sine qua non."

At last, an impecunious teacher in W——, who was retiring to accept a "louder" call in Boston, introduced me to his Board as a particular friend whom he had known for many years, (he had never seen me before), and vouched for me as one of the greatest of living instructors.

When the three doctors, constituting the school board, were about to give me a searching examination, which doubtless would have floored me, prearranged calls summoned them to see pretended patients, and on the mercenary pedagogue's assurance that I was a university graduate, they hastily signed my commission and I was saved.

I shall always remember my two years' experience in this beautiful town, with much pleasure and pride. On the opening of the school I found myself looking upon over one hundred of the finest appearing boys and girls I had ever beheld, seated in a noble new hall well equipped with organ and all the apparatus which wealth could procure.

Soon after the opening exercises, the usual trial of the new master commenced, and a stifling, choking odor threw all into convulsions of coughing, almost to strangulation. Some one had thrown a large quantity of cayenne pepper down the register. I quietly opened the windows, and when the noxious fumes had passed away, the new principal said:

"I feel sure that the pleasant outward appearance of my family here is an expression of the inward goodness and honor of you all, and I am confident that the perpetrator of this disagreeable mischief will take pride in removing suspicion from his companions by rising in his seat and apologizing for his thoughtless rudeness."

A fine, manly looking boy at once arose. "Come up here, my friend, and let us talk it over," I said, and he came and stood by my side. "We are all brothers and sisters here, and I have no doubt you, Arthur, will now express your regrets for what you have done." He did so, the audience applauded, and the incident was closed.

The new master's manner was such a decided contrast to that of his "knock down and drag out" predecessor, that it captivated his proteges at the start, and this was the only unpleasant episode in my delightful intercourse with these charming children.

I established a society called the "Class of Honor," which soon comprised my entire family. Every pupil who had no marks against him or her for failures in scholarship or deportment, was decorated with a blue ribbon, and when he had earned and worn this for one month, he was presented with a handsome diamond shaped pin on which was engraved the words "class of honor." They were prouder of this decoration than ever were the imperial guard of Napoleon of the Cross of the Legion.

If a pupil failed on some point in recitation, he could retrieve himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same time, he was stimulated to making independent researches in the school and public libraries. Each class of honor pupil could whisper, go out, or go to the blackboards to draw or cipher without asking permission. The high sense of honor was thus developed which is so essential to a successful career.

We had a system of light gymnastics which, with military drill, gave grace and erectness to the carriage, and every Friday afternoon, the large hall was crowded with the parents to enjoy the singing, declamations, gymnastics, dramatics, and drawing exercises, and all went merry as a marriage bell.

My salary was raised voluntarily every six months; I enjoyed their games with them in our ample playgrounds. We often, on holidays, roamed the woods and seashore together; I often dined with them in their homes, and at picnics; on all public occasions I was one of the principal speakers, and my life was an ideal one in all respects save one. For some cause the air of the valley, too often impregnated with moisture from the sluggish Abajona, kept my throat in an almost chronic state of irritation, and too frequently for days at a time, I could hardly speak above a whisper. Had it not been for this one serious handicap, I think I would gladly have remained there for life.

I kept a saddle horse, and often cantered twenty miles to my father's house, and my boat on the lake furnished many a pleasant sail for myself and pupils.

One incident shows the appreciation of my pupils and neighbors for my efforts in their behalf. During the first campaign of General Grant for the presidency, many of my pupils and I joined the W—Battalion of uniformed and torch bearing "Tanners." We marched to the city as an escort for speakers at a Republican rally. When the hoodlums smashed our lanterns with rocks, our captain, the son of a distinguished statesman, retreated; but I lost my head and charged the rioters, using my torch handle vigorously; I was cut off from my company of which I was lieutenant, and captured by the Democrats. As soon as my men realized this, they rushed upon my captors en masse; many heads were broken, but I was rescued and carried to the train on the shoulders of my heroic defenders.

If my foresight had been half so good as my hindsight, I would never have left W——, but the tempter came in the form of an offer of a much larger salary from N——, and I foolishly accepted.

The change from W—to N——, was like that from breezy, sunny green fields, where wild birds sang their free, joyous songs, and where wild flowers bloomed free as air exhaling their sweet perfumes, to the suffocating air of a hothouse where the birds drooped in cages and where the few flowers were forced into existence by steam heat and unsavory fertilizers. In the former the people were social, natural and free from the trammels of tyrannical fashions; in the latter they were cold, distant, and valued you according to the size of your bank account and the number of your horses and servants. In the one the teachers were educators, free to develop superior methods along their own original lines; in the other they were mere machines to carry out the ironclad rules of the opinionated precedent-hunting school board.

In the former all seemed like one great family sympathizing and loving; in the latter the newly-rich set the pace of ignoble luxury and display; while the others aped their ways which led many to bankruptcy, poverty, and misery. In the one you were free from all social ostracism if you worshipped according to the dictates of your own conscience; in the other you were ignored and disliked unless you attended and contributed liberally for the support of the palatial orthodox church.

I was early told that I would fail if I persisted in attending the little Unitarian church; but I preferred failure to hypocrisy, and would not sell my birthright of conscience for a mess of pottage. Two of my ancient, sour-faced assistants were bigoted members of the fashionable church, and at once set me down as a corruptor of youth because I was an advocate of the liberal faith. The venomous spite of one of these forcibly suggested the spirit of the inquisition, and one day she found her blackboard decorated with the following truthful poem, suggested by her spirit and the first syllable of her name:

"Old Aunt Dunk Is a mean old skunk."

She flew into a furious rage, declared that some Unitarian must have perpetrated this insult, and that I must find the culprit.

She never forgave me because I failed to do so, and at her urgent solicitation the minister, after great exertion, secured a few signatures to a petition for my discharge on the plea that I chewed tobacco and expectorated on the floor in the presence of my class. As I easily proved that I never chewed tobacco, and as my patrons presented an overwhelming protest, the prayer of the petitioners was unanimously refused by the school board.

It would have been laughable had it not been so serious and pitiful, to see the frantic attempts of the poor in this town to keep up appearances, and counterfeit the style of those who had grown rich by cheating widows and orphans in bucket shops and stock gambling. The little minnows put on all the snobbish airs of the whales who had grown so large by devouring all the small fish in their business seas.

One pillar of the church, who was a cashier, ruined his bank by stealing money to enable him, for a while, to live in an elegant house and support servants, equipages, silks and diamonds galore. For a time he was the idol of the town, while he gave costly dinners and showered his ill-gotten gains to embellish his favorite temple, and to build a tower upon it to look down in contempt upon all the lesser shrines.

He barely escaped the sheriff at night-time, and fled beyond the seas, leaving his showy family to poverty and the ill-concealed derision of those who worshipped them while they were supposed to be rich.

Such as these made life very uncomfortable for me, and at the end of my year, I left in disgust; never again to resume the profession in which I had spent so many years of my somewhat checkered existence. My life seemed a failure; I reflected long upon the question of the Psalmist, "What is man?" and here are the answers which I culled from many thoughtful poets, whose names are appended to their several replies.

In this grand wheel, the world, we're spokes made all;— (Brome.)

He who climbs high, endangers many a fall;—(Chaucer.)

A passing gleam called life is o'er us thrown,—(Story.)

It glimmers, like a meteor, and is gone.—(Rogers.)

To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise—(Congreve.)

The flower that smiles to-day, to-morrow dies—(Shelly.)

And what do we, by all our bustle gain?—(Pomfret.)

A drop of pleasure in a sea of pain.—(Tupper.)

Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without;—(Holmes.)

Yet who knows most, the more he knows to doubt.—(Daniel.)

Princes and lords are but the breath of kings.—(Burns.)

And trifles make the sum of human things.—(More.)

If troubles overtake thee, do not wail;—(Herbert.)

Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are frail.—(Percival.)

The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;—(Bryant.)

Great sorrows have no leisure to complain.—(Gaffe.)

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,—(Shakespeare.)

For we the same are that our sires have been;—(Knox.)

Nor is a true soul ever born for naught,—(Lowell.)

Yet millions never think a noble thought.—(Bailey.)

Good actions crown themselves with lasting bays,—(Heath.)

And God fulfils Himself in many ways.—(Tennyson.)

The world's a wood in which all lose their way—(Buckingham.)

A fair where thousands meet, but none can stay;—(Fawkes.)

To sport their season, and be seen no more,—(Cowper.)

Till tired they sleep, and life's poor play is o'er.—(Pope.)



CHAPTER X.

ADVENTURES IN MOSQUITO-LAND.

At the close of the school in July, 1870, a friend of mine, Doctor B——, of Boston, and I, attracted by the alluring prospectus of a new town near Plymouth, North Carolina, visited that place via the Merchant's and Miner's steamship line.

I wrote an account of this pleasure excursion, which was widely copied by northern newspapers in which I figured as the professor and he as the doctor, while both of us combined were called the "Shoo-Fly Club." I quote some extracts from the description of this remarkable excursion.

"On the early morning after our arrival in the Southland, doctor and professor, after a brief sojourn in the arms of Morpheus, awoke to a contest which was enough to daunt the stoutest heart.

"Mosquitoes to the right of them, mosquitoes to the left of them, black flies above them, black flies beneath them, buzzed and stabbed with a vengeance. We lay under our netting appalled at the profanity and ferocity of our foes, caught in a trap from which there seemed to be no escape. The breakfast-bell rang and rang, but we dared not venture out among our bloodthirsty foes, for an array of bristling bayonets was thrust through the bars long enough to hang our clothes on, and fierce enough to suck every drop of blood from our trembling limbs, and our only consolation was that our invariable diet of 'hog and hominy' had so reduced the vital fluid, that our tormentors would starve though we were slain.

"At length a brilliant thought flashed across the mind of the doctor. 'The shoo-fly—the shoo-fly,' said he; 'why didn't we think of that? and out he went for his carpetbag, pulled out some suspicious looking bottles labeled with the mystic words, and made for the bed, entirely covered with a ferocious cloud of the aforesaid 'skeeters' and flies stabbing him for dear life. We then proceeded to anoint our bodies with this preparation, which the doctor declared to be a panacea for all human ills; then completely clad in our armor, we sallied forth to the crusade. Down came the fiends; they cared not for 'shoo-fly,' cared not for blows, and our visions of fortunes to be realized from our new discovery vanished away, but not so our tormentors.

"Regardless of Mrs. Grundy, regardless of everything save life, the professor fled, down over the stairs he fled, pants and unmentionables flying in the air, to the astonishment of the contraband servant girls, for the bath-house—here at length plunged beneath the flood he found relief. After copious ablutions the professor went back for his friend, but the valiant doctor had retreated behind the bars, resolved there to starve rather than again to face his foes.

"After much parleying the doctor's desire for hog and hominy overcame all his fears, and the club marched to breakfast. Here two servant girls armed with long fans, fought a cloud of the famished varmints, while the club swallowed hoe cake covered with a copious lather of the flies of the season. At length our appetites or rather we ourselves, were conquered, and retired in disgust, leaving our foes to bury their dead and divide the spoils of war.

"Our host, who is a true gentleman from Pennsylvania, then ordered the darkies to harness the span. After the inevitable delays which always attend everything that the fifteenth amendments have undertaken to do, we rode out to view the country; and we now congratulated ourselves that our troubles were at an end, but they had but just commenced. Our host had a lame hand, and the professor volunteered to drive; our friends, the varmints, now confined their kind attentions almost exclusively to the horses, which they butchered unmercifully. Oh, such roads! Boys of New England, if you sigh for 'sunny' North Carolina, go; go by all means, and you will return satisfied that old Massachusetts, with all its east winds is a paradise compared with what we saw in the 'old North State,' or in the 'Old Dominion.'

"But to our journey. The horses floundered through quagmires covered in some places with logs, which toss and tumble you till every bone aches, floundered and swam through streams reeking with scum from the cypress swamps; the roads are about six inches wider than your carriage, and the professor found himself obliged to avoid the sharp corners of fences, on either side the deep ditches on whose very edge ran the wheels; to urge his horses over stumps and fallen trees; to whip them over long snouts of prostrate pigs who refused to budge an inch; to jump them over chasms running dark and deep across his path and to spur them down sharp, perpendicular pitches which threatened to break every bone in his body.

"Here and there we saw a few logs piled up together, flanked by mud and sticks, and dignified by the name of house; the naked piccaninnies rolled in the dust, and the poor-white scowled as he lifted his hat, while we worried our miserable way along.

"Now, by the departure of our friend to look after his business, the doctor and the professor were thrown upon their own resources for enjoyment. After shooting at the wild pigs for a while, finding there was great danger of their being melted down into their boots, they threw off their clothes, and regardless of moccasins, regardless of spiders and the whole race of poisonous vermin, they plunged to their necks into the ditch by the roadside. For long weary hours we wallowed till the welcome form of our host appeared, and we recommenced the pitching and stumbling of the dangerous return voyage of this, our pleasure trip.

"For miles the tall, slender pine and cypress-trees festooned with moss and enormous Scuppernong grape-vines, were unbroken by a single clearing or a single shanty. The Scuppernong grapes, by the way, are a great luxury; from these are made a wine equal to anything that can be found (we believe) in the world. One vine is found on Roanoke Island, which is two miles in length, covers several acres of land, and was planted by Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, centuries ago. For miles that afternoon, we wandered up and down the country seeking for water fit to drink and finding none; looking at the droves of rollicking darkies, making collections of souvenirs, gazing at the good-looking crops of corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, and still fighting the aborigines, the flies.

"We have seen some toothsome things in the South, some beautiful scenes, but at this season of the year, at least, the flies and mosquitoes ruined all as thoroughly as the harpies of olden times defiled the feast of the wandering Trojans.

"The great gala-day of Jamesville has dawned, to-day the great Norfolk steamer honors the town with its presence; everybody (and some more) comes down to the wharf to see the wonderful sight. Here are groups of 'F.F.'s' puffing their long pipes and talking the everlasting 'd—n nigger'; there are crowds of 'fifteenth amendments' laughing and frolicking like children, and here, too, the flea-bitten, mosquito-stabbed, black-fly tortured Doctor B. and Professor F., looking northward as the pilgrim to his loved and far-off Mecca. A scream, a hurrah, a waving of handkerchiefs, and away we go out of the howling wilderness, all that is left of us, and but little indeed that is.

"The Astoria, is but a wretched tub, and we crawl along at the rate of four or five miles per hour, halting here and there to avoid the wrecks of the war, panting for breath, longing, 'as the heart panteth for the water-brook,' to see once more the shores of our beloved New England. Never will this excruciating sail be forgotten. All day—all night, for long, long, weary hours, the wretched little steamer groaned and screamed its melancholy way over the yellow, nasty Roanoke.

"Hour after hour we sat gazing at the tall cypress-trees and the long trailing mosses, looking like the pale sickly shrouds enveloping a dead and ruined world. Here and there we saw huge nests of the size and shape of a barrel, and near, on the ruined branch of a lightning-struck tree, perched on its topmost bough, the great bald eagle of the South, keeping his sleepless watch and ward, while the wife-bird tended the household gods below. Deadly moccasins and huge turtles lay listless in the sun, and hundreds of bushels of blackberries were wasting their sweetness on the desert air. Now and then there came to us like an inspiration from heaven the ecstatic music of the mockingbird, carrying shame and despair to the breasts of all the other warblers of the aerial choir.

"Nothing could be more inspiring than the notes of this charming singer, as we listened to them here amid these melancholy swamps exhaling the sickly miasma beneath this blighting sun, with not a breath of air to lift the blood red banners of the trumpet creepers, or to cool the fevered brow. Melancholy waitings are heard from the swamps, and the waves in parting, look like fields of fire. The winds come to us, but with them no refreshing, for they came over mile after mile of suffocating, reeking lagoons, stifling with the hot breath of the miasma.

"Every now and then the Rip Van Winkle machinery breaks down, and for hours we are motionless, listening per force to the terrific cursing and pounding in the Vulcanic realms below. At length the sun, not like the rosy-fingered Aurora, daughter of the dawn, but like a huge red monster intent on devouring the world, shoots at us his blighting, withering lances of scorching heat. We touch once more at Plymouth, which greets us with its usual entertainment of murderous fleas, death-dealing watermelons and chain-lightning whiskey. Our ten minute touch here lengthened into three horrid sweltering hours owing to the fact, that the intelligent contrabands were paid by the hour for 'toting' the cargo; but off we are at last, thank heaven, and at length we enter the great canal leading to the North River of Norfolk.

"With chat and jest we were worrying away the leaden-winged hours, when suddenly thug, splash, and like a huge turtle we were floundering in the mud. 'No moving,' said the captain, 'till the tide comes up;' and so for three mortal hours we lay stuck in the mud at the edge of the great dismal swamp of Virginia. 'Ah,' said the mate, 'there is the scene of many a horror, there the nigger was torn limb from limb by the bloodhounds, there the runaway slave chose to endure starvation and death amid deadly snakes and miasma rather than comfort in bondage; there I myself saw crowds of black men swinging from limb to limb like monkeys over reeking scums to their fever-haunted dens to escape the lash.'

"Thus was the story of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe verified by one of Virginia's own sons. All the fearful word paintings of Dred floated again before our mental vision, and we thanked God that the old horror of slavery is passed, and that the old flag now floats indeed 'o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.'

"But these hours of waiting, like all things earthly, at length had their end, and just as the moon gilded the cypress-trees with golden glory, the wheels began to move and we again worried our tortuous way up the North River. 'Ah,' said the melancholy-looking man who had been long gazing in silence at the sad waves below, 'alas, here I am, friendless and alone in this wretched country, peddling beeswax and eggs for hog and hominy, chills and fever; but I was once a schoolmaster with $1,200 a year, down in Connecticut; wine and women did it. But,' said he, 'I'll be rich yet—I've got it—I've discovered perpetual motion, and the world will honor me yet.'

"'Wish you would apply it to this old tub at once,' said the professor; and the forlorn peddler went his way to cherish visions of coming glory. Just then we were electrified by a cheer from the doctor, as the lights of Norfolk flashed over this splendid harbor, yet to float the commerce of a great city.

"We bade farewell without a single regret to the old tub Astoria, and entered the narrow streets, reeking with the horrors of a thousand and one stenches, stumbling over the prostrate forms of sleeping negroes to the hotel, where we indulged once more in the luxury of a bath, which the nasty water of North Carolina had forbidden for many weary days. Suddenly the city was aroused by the roll of drums and the shouts of hundreds, calling to a mass meeting in Court House Square. Thither we followed the crowd, listening for awhile to the blatant Southern orators roaring about the future greatness of the 'Mother of Presidents,' deploring the reign of carpet-baggers and calling for a white man's government amidst the shouts of the great unwashed; while the sons of Ham looked silently and sullenly on.

"We gladly responded to the steamer's shrill call and sailed away to our home in the great and glorious North."



CHAPTER XI.

IN ARCADIE.

I gladly returned, like a tired child, to the kindly faces and hearty greetings of my loving and much loved father, mother, brothers, green fields, and all the beautiful children of summer.

"Born where the night owl hooted to the stars, Cradled where sunshine crept through leafy bars; Reared where wild roses bloomed most fair, And songs of meadow larks made glad the summer air,

"Each dainty zephyr whispers follow me, Ten thousand leaflets beckon from each tree; All say, 'why give a life to longings vain? Leave fame and gold: come home: come home again.'

"I hear the forest murmuring 'he has come' A feathered chorus' joyous welcome home; Each flower that nods a greeting seems a part Of nature's welcome back to nature's heart."

The old home was much changed, and for the better. With much patient toil, the unsightly rocks and stumps had been removed from the fields which sloped gracefully to the little river and were covered with tall, waving, luxuriant grasses, starred with buttercups, clover, and daisies. The dilapidated house and barn had given place to modern buildings; apple, pear, and peach-trees, covered with fragrant blossoms were substituted for their decayed and skeleton prototypes; the narrow, crooked, muddy lane, where horses and wagons had struggled through the knee-deep, and often hub-deep sticky clay, had become a firm and fairly straight highway.

My house in the tree on the hilltop, where I had often rehearsed my orations and sermons in such stentorian tones that the amazed cows lifted their tails on high and took to their heels, welcomed me back embowered in leafy new-grown branches.

My second brother, realizing that as "unto the bow the cord is, as unto the child the mother, so unto man the woman is—useless one without the other," had taken unto himself a good wife, the daughter of the deacon, our next neighbor. My mother thus had a much needed helper, as their farms, like their owners, were joined in wedlock.



The worthy deacon and my deeply religious father alternately led the family devotions, and peace and comfort prevailed. The mowing machine, horse-hoe, corn-planter and power-rake dispensed with the drudgery of the scythe and back-breaking hand tools. A protective tariff had set the mill wheels rolling in the neighboring cities, thus furnishing excellent markets for all the products of the farm. The sky-scraping shoe manufactories, where men, like automatons, delved night and day for a few weeks and then leaving them to semi-starvation for the rest of the year, had not yet arrived.

One of my brothers had, like most of the farmers of that day, his little shop where in winter he coined a few hundred dollars making boots and shoes, and where I earned many precious pennies, blackballing the edges and occasionally pegging by hand, all of which is now done by machinery.

We could now afford occasional holidays, when we all gaily sailed down the river, dug clams, caught lobsters in nets, regaled ourselves with toothsome chowders, broils and stews in the open air, and had many rollicking good times swimming in the breakers, frolicking, old and young, like children. We pitched our tents on old Bar Island, slept on the fragrant hay at night, played ball, and renewed our youth inhaling deep draughts of the salty wind which bloweth in from the sea.

When sailing home one day with a wet sheet, a flowing main, and a breeze following far abaft, we espied a boat submerged to the gunwhale floating out to sea. Throwing our yacht up into the wind, we took the craft in tow to the landing, and were surprised and delighted beyond measure to find it nearly half full of fine large lobsters, held there by a wire netting. For weeks we and all the neighbors held high carnival boiling and eating the luscious crustaceans.

We had much merriment one day on a fishing excursion at the expense of a parsimonious member of our crew. At first he alone pulled in the much prized tomcods and flounders. "Well," said he, "I think we better go in, each one for himself." "All right," was the reply, but soon stingy ceased to catch any, while the rest of us pulled in the fish as fast as we could throw the hooks. Mr. Greedy looked very solemn, and at last, unable to repress his selfishness longer, shouted: "I think we better share all alike!" "Too late," was the chorus, and while he carried home but a beggarly string, the rest rejoiced in our great abundance.

These seem like little incidents, light as airy nothings, but they come back to memory in the twilight of life when other and greater events are all forgotten.

When the crops were all harvested, and the winds and snows of winter shut me out from my woodland, river, and seashore haunts, I grew weary of the monotony of the indoor country life, and once more went to the city of Boston in the endless quest of the unattainable.

Restless as the sea, we are never satisfied this side the stars; but we are all looking forward to that sweet by and by, "as the hart panteth for the water brook."

I shall be satisfied, not here, not here Not where the sparkling waters fade into mocking sands as we draw near, Where in the wilderness each footstep falters, I shall be satisfied; but, oh, not here.

Not here, where every dream of bliss deceives us, Where the worn spirit never finds its goal, But haunted ever by thoughts that grieve us, Across our souls floods of bitter memories roll.

Satisfied, satisfied, the soul's vague longing, The aching void, which nothing earthly fills, Oh, what desires upon my mind are thronging, As my eyes turn upward to the heavenly hills!

Shall they be satisfied, the spirit's yearning, For sweet communion with kindred minds? The silent love that here meets no returning, The inspiration, which no language finds?

There is a land, where every pulse is thrilling, With rapture, earth's sojourners may not know, Where heaven's repose the weary heart is stilling, And peacefully earth's storm-tossed currents flow.

Far out of sight, while yet the flesh enfolds us, Lies that fair country, where our hearts abide, And, of its bliss, naught more wondrous is told us, Than these few words, I shall be satisfied.



CHAPTER XII.

FROM PHILISTINE TO BENEDICT AND A HONEYMOON.

The fates, who lead the willing-and drive the unwilling, guided me to the old time firm of B. & T. publishers. They were overwhelmed with applications from the great army of the impecunious, and did not wish to pay any more salaries; but "mercy tempers the blast to the shorn lamb," and they persuaded me, by a tender of large profits on their Worcester's Dictionaries, to strike out on my own hook and endeavor to induce a reluctant public to buy these instead of the popular dictionaries written by "Noah Webster who came over in the ark."

The special prices granted by the publishers enabled me to undersell the wholesalers, and by securing their adoption as regular text-books by school boards, I made more money than ever before in my life, sometimes from $25 to $100 per day, consequently the firm finding I was filling the markets and my own pockets so that they had no sales at regular prices, hired me at a liberal salary as representative of all their publications.

In this business I won my "double stars," although the competition was intense. I often found as many as twenty agents at the same time and in the same town, log-rolling with school committees for the adoption of their books, the merits of the publications "cut but little ice." Nearly every school official "had his price," wanting to know what there was in his vote for him, and the agent who best concealed the bribery hook by dining and wining teachers and committeemen, filling their libraries with complimentary books and their pockets with secret commissions, "caught the most fish."

When among Romans, I was, much to my disgust, obliged to do as Romans did. I would often go to cities where my opponent's readers or arithmetics had been adopted the night before, point out the defects of rival publications, give an unabridged dictionary to each official, offer a ten per cent. commission to the "king pin," take the board in a hack to their headquarters, secure a reconsideration, telegraph for my books, and the next day with express wagons and helpers, put our readers into every school in the town.

This was sharp practice, prices were cut, until finally, we gave new books in even exchange for old ones, trusting to future sales to reimburse us, but when they needed another supply, they would swap even with another publisher, so that our bread cast upon the waters never returned.

We often secured "louder calls" for influential teachers and clergymen in reciprocation for their votes, bought anything they had to sell at their own prices until many publishers became bankrupt; the big fish swallowing the little ones, and then came the survival of the longest purse.

One evening, after my day's work in the city of G—was ended, being lonesome in my hotel, I thought of a family residing there who had a summer residence in R——, and concluded to renew my acquaintance with the eldest daughter with whom I had enjoyed many rides and sails, and to whom I had quoted many romantic poems the previous season.

With fear and trembling, for I was always a bashful youth, I rang the door bell, and was ushered into the parlor where I caught my first glimpse of a fair-haired, rosy-cheeked, graceful younger sister to whom, at a glance, I knew I was married in heaven.

Whence came that vital spark blending our souls in one? Had we lived and loved on some fairer shore? Who can tell? Had our spirits been wandering through the universe millions of years seeking each the other, nor finding rest until we met? Only the angels know.

All we knew and all we seemed to care to know was that at last each had found the "alter ego" for which it pined. There were no others on earth—father, mother, sister, brothers, came and went almost unheeded. Strange as it may seem, on this evening of our first meeting, we told each other the old, old story, first told in Eden, reiterated by millions since, and will continue to be rehearsed until Gabriel through his trumpet sounds the final love song to the world.

With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, We sailed for the Hesperides, The land where golden apples grow; But that, ah that was long ago.

How far, since then, the ocean streams Have swept us from that land of dreams, That land of fiction and of truth, The lost Atlantis of our youth.

Ultima Thule, utmost isle, Here in thy harbors for a while, We lower our sails; awhile we rest From the unceasing, endless quest.

For a long time I had divided homes and a divided heart, one at the old home with the old folks, the other in the city by the sea.

In our new-born and first-born enthusiasm, we applied to Mary's parents for an early union of hands as well as hearts; but they wisely insisted upon a year's interim, promising that, if at the end of this trial time our ardor had not cooled, they and the minister would "bless you my children," and our hearts should beat as one forevermore.

The course of true love never did run smooth, and when the claiming day arrived, Mary's mother told me that she had been credibly informed that another girl had a prior claim to my promised hand. I protested in vain, and, as the daughter was invisible, I left the house in a rage.

A week, which seemed like a century, passed by on leaden wings in which I strove to drown my sorrows in the "flowing bowl" of hard work, and foolish declarations that "I didn't care"; then came a kind letter from Alderman B——, gracefully apologizing for his wife's mistaken assertions, stating that "Mary was giving them no peace day or night," and inviting me to call at my earliest convenience.

The very next train took me to the old familiar trysting-place, once more the white-winged dove of peace brooded over the B—mansion, and we all, especially the parents, fully realized that in order to appreciate heaven we must have at least seven days of hell.

Shortly after, at the home of the bride's parents, we twain were made one in the presence of numerous friends and presents; the old shoes and rice were duly showered, and we were off for a month's tour, and a lifelong honeymoon.

During this wedding tour, at the request of my employers, I combined business with pleasure, the firm generously paying all our expenses, and continuing my salary.

We visited many cities, greatly enjoying their varied attractions; but the business part of our journey, which was collecting large sums of money due for books, was not particularly delightful, as the banks had all suspended specie payments as a result of the "green back craze," and I was often obliged to resort to legal measures and attachments of property, to secure from reluctant book sellers the sums long overdue.

At one hotel we met with an adventure which well-nigh proved serious. I was awakened at night by the flash from a bull's eye lantern, a sense of suffocation and a scream from my wife. A masked burglar was before me, pressing to my face a handkerchief saturated with chloroform, and endeavoring to take from under the mattress a large sum of money which I had collected the day before.

"No noise," said he, "your money or your life."

"All right," said I quietly, "I'll get it for you." He stepped back a pace, I quickly pulled from under the pillow my self-cocking revolver, and fired in rapid succession.

His pistol exploded at nearly the same time, he dropped to the floor, his light vanished, and for a time all was darkness and suspense. I expected another bullet any moment, and seeing nothing to fire at myself, feared to jump from the bed lest I be seized by invisible hands of the desperate villain. Then came shouts and pounding upon the door by neighbors aroused by the uproar. Encouraged by the reinforcements, I struck a light but the ruffian had escaped through the open window on to a piazza roof, thence by a pillar to the ground.

Then we were besieged by excited inquirers, and the rosy-fingered Aurora, daughter of the dawn, appeared before the calm which succeeded the storm.

Shortly after our return from this journey, a great light went out on earth to shine in heaven. My wife's father suddenly left the body,—he did not die, for

There is no death, what seems so is transition, This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life Elysian, Whose portal we call death.

Alderman B—— was a gentleman of the old school, a loving father, a very successful business man, managing marine railways, ship-building and repairing, as well as grain mills. We missed him sadly; but were consoled by the reflection that our great loss was his eternal gain.

My eldest brother, and two of my brother Mark's children, at about this time crossed the same bright river and rested under the shade of the celestial trees.

Myself and wife had intended to live in G——, but as her father was gone, and as she had formed a strong mutual attachment for my family, my wife the following summer took much pleasure in building a handsome cottage nearly opposite my father's house, and on a beautiful lot of land given us by my brother. We formed a literary and musical club, which met weekly at our house, making it the social centre of the entire town.

I was elected chairman of the school committee, and proceeded vigorously in a crusade against ignorance; but soon found that the life of a reformer is crowned with more thorns than roses, a thousandfold! I removed incompetent teachers who, by their silly question and answer methods, were producing parrots—not scholars.

On one occasion, when I substituted a trained normal school graduate for a useless dancing doll who had made herself popular by flattering parents and coddling their children, all pupils were withdrawn from the school. I told the new teacher to ring the bell, take in sewing if she wished, and draw her salary even if she was left alone in her glory; then I notified the parents that unless they at once sent their children to the school, I should have the pupils arrested for truancy, and themselves fined for violating the laws of the state. Moral suasion had failed; but the strong arm of the law prevailed, and they soon acknowledged that the new instruction was the best they had ever had in the district.

Much time had hitherto been worse than wasted by cramming the minds with the jaw-breaking names of unimportant rivers, mountains, descriptions of all the frog ponds in Ethiopia, and other useless trash in the so-called geographies; in memorizing the obsolete rules of duodecimals, compound proportion, etc., in the arithmetic; long-winded, unpractical rules for grammar, etc.

I issued a circular eliminating this trash from the course of study, substituting the practical short cuts of modern business principles, and in this, also, I met with opposition from the "moss-backs," who insisted that what they had learned in the year one was good enough for their children; they wanted no "new-fangled" notions.

They reminded me of the way-back-hard-shell preacher whose hymn book had been stuffed with profane poems by some lewd fellows of the baser sort. He always opened at random and, trusting to divine guidance, read the first hymn that presented itself; he commenced: "We will sing together the one thousand three hundred and forty 'leventh hime."

"'All around the cobbler's bench the monkey chased the weasel—'"

He was amazed; the congregation was dumbfounded. Taking off his spectacles, wiping them carefully, he put them on his nose again, gazed at the book in consternation: "Well," said he, "I never seed that hime in this yer hime-book before; but the Lord put it in, and we'll sing it whir or no," and proceeded:

"'The preacher kissed the cobbler's wife, pop goes the weasel.'"

As I have said before, it requires a surgical operation to get progressive ideas through our thick heads; but the knife was used freely by me, and I had the satisfaction as well as the odium of infusing much young blood into the worn out educational body during my two years' service as school superintendent in this town.

A few of us wasted our money in building a new church, dedicated to the teaching of the advanced thoughts of the liberal faith; but the people were joined to their idols, and it is now deserted, though the "little leaven has largely leavened the whole lump" of the ancient hell fire theology.

It is very, very hard to endure the slings and arrows of the jealous and envious for whose good you are toiling; to be slandered and reviled by your neighbors whose feeble intellects fail to appreciate your strenuous efforts to push forward the car of progress in their midst; but the consolations expressed in this poem bring balm to every wounded spirit.

"I know as my life grows older, And mine eyes have clearer sight, That under each rank wrong, somewhere, There lies the root of right. That each sorrow has its purpose By the suffering oft unguessed; But as sure as the sun brings morning, Whatever is, is best.

"I know that each sinful action, As sure as the night brings shade, Is some time, somewhere punished, Though the hour be long delayed. I know that the soul is aided Sometimes, by the heart's unrest, And to grow, means often to suffer; But whatever is, is best.

"I know there are no errors In the great eternal plan, And all things work together For the final good of man. And I know when my soul speeds onward In the grand eternal quest, I shall say, as I look earthward, Whatever is, is best."



CHAPTER XIII.

THE ANGELS OF LIFE AND DEATH.

By and by unwonted silence and anxiety reigned in our house. The family doctor remained all night, then a faint cry was heard, and little baby May came into this world of ours,

"The gates of heaven were left ajar; With clasping hands and dreamy eyes, Wandering out of paradise, She saw this planet, like a star; We felt we had a link between This real world and that unseen."

These beautiful lines of one of the sweetest of earth's singers, came to us like a new revelation at the advent of our first-born, as also those other immortal words—

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From heaven, which is our home."

Our little vocalist commenced rehearsing for her chosen profession the very minute that she first saw the light, and she certainly continued the development of her lungs with marvelous persistency. Then her numerous grandparents, uncles, and aunts all vied with each other in petting and spoiling the one pet lamb of the several families, and she basked in the sunshine of unlimited affection.

A few bright years sped by, all roseate with love, prosperity and contentment in this happy valley. Then two little cherubs, just alike as "two peas in a pod" came to us at dawn of day, like twin rays from the rising sun, their blue eyes beaming with smiles which have continued ever since.

We named them Ada and Ida: but were obliged to label them to tell "which was which," and said label is essential for distinguishment to this very day, though twenty-four bright summers have passed since the sight of them first gladdened our hearts.

But almost with the sunbeams came the terrible cloud overspreading all our lives. The mother had scarcely welcomed the twin buds of promise, when she faded away like a flower and was

"Gone beyond the darksome river, Only left us by the way; Gone beyond the night forever, Only gone to endless day;

Gone to meet the angel faces, Where our lovely treasures are; Gone awhile from our embraces, Gone within the gates ajar."

There seemed to be no light left on earth; the sun was blotted out forever,

Oh glory of our youth that so suddenly decays! Oh crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze! Oh breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air Scatters a moment's sweetness, and flies we know not where!

"A boat at midnight sent alone To drift upon the moonless sea; A lute whose leading chord is gone; A wounded bird that hath but one Imperfect wing to soar upon, Are like me Oh loved one, without thee;"

but the pitiful wailings of the twin girl babies called me back to earth again, and I took up the cares of existence, though they seemed greater than I could bear.

The largest church in the village was filled to overflowing with sincere mourners, for the sweet face of the departed had brought good cheer into many darkened households in our town. All sectarian barriers were for the time burned away by the flame of sympathy, and wonderful to tell, the Universalist clergyman who married us was allowed to pronounce the eulogy in an orthodox Congregational church.

When the organ pealed the requiem and the choir chanted the ever dear words of the hymn—

"Only waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown,"

and closing with the triumphant expression of a deathless faith; it required but a little imagination to see the light streaming through the open door of heaven, and to hear the responses of the angel choir from the great cathedral on high, and we wended our homeward way thinking not of "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," but of the disembodied spirit to be our guardian angel forevermore.

"Faith sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing." Infinitely sad was the passing of our beloved, to those left in the earth-life; but soothingly comes to us the song chanted by the choir invisible whenever a soul escapes the mortal coil:

"Passing out of the shadow, Into a purer light; Stepping behind the curtain, Getting a clearer sight.

"Laying aside a burden, This weary mortal coil; Done with the world's vexations— Done with its tears and toil.

"Tired of all earth's playthings, Heartsick and ready to sleep— Ready to bid our friends farewell, Wondering why they weep.

"Passing out of the shadow Into eternal day— Why do we call it dying, This sweet going away?"



CHAPTER XIV.

TRIBULATIONS OF A WIDOWER.

But we must descend from the sublime to the stern realities of this workaday world. Of all the people on this earth, a lone, lorn widower with three babies on his hands, is the most forlorn and miserable. Take care of them himself he cannot, and if he hires the ordinary woman to do so, she immediately sets her cap for him, and leaves no stone unturned to secure him for a husband, especially if he is possessed of some of this world's goods which she covets with all her mind and soul.

Words are inadequate to describe the annoyances I endured for two weary years from this class of women, who seemed to be the only ones who would come to a lonely country home to assume such responsibilities and endless labors. The world seemed full of these anxious but not aimless women, who claimed to adore little children; but who really cared for nothing except to capture a "widower with means."

One nurse carelessly slipped on the stairs, and the twins went flying from her arms through the air down the long passageway, apparently to their death; only a miracle saved them. I picked up the little wingless cherubs, scarcely bigger than my fist, and their blue eyes smiled at me, as if they had really enjoyed their aerial flight.

They seemed to have a charmed and charming existence; they were the admiration of all the people far and wide who flocked to our house to see and fondle the really "heavenly twins." My business kept me from home nearly all the time; but my father, mother, brother, and sister-in-law kindly watched my caretakers with argus eyes, and the so-called triplets throve wonderfully day by day.

Whenever in my absence, my good childless brother and his wife found one of my hired women unworthy, he would tell her to pack her trunk, then he would drive her to the depot, banish her from the town over which he long reigned as chairman of the selectmen and State representative, telegraph me to hunt up another one, and thus the road to the station was nearly worn out, and the railroad receipts were greatly augmented.

One of these women, while I was far away, greatly scandalized the whole town by leaving the "light infantry" to their fate one Sunday, and indulging in the pious delights of shooting wood-chucks. My indignant brother and his father-in-law deacon disarmed the jezabel, made her sleep in the barn that night, sent her off flying the next morning, and personally, tenderly as mothers, watched over the children until I arrived with another nurse.

One woman whipped little May secretly with a stick; but the victim's wonderful lungs aroused my mother who, reinforced by the entire family, overpowered the virago, and sent her off on the next train. It is evident from these thrilling recitals that I was not a good mind-reader of woman character; but they were as sweet as angels when I was at home, and evidently the unwonted self-restraint to thus appear reacted very forcibly when the widower was out of sight.

I vowed in my wrath that I would never again speak to a woman outside my own immediate family. I tried in vain to hire men nurses, and I sympathized with Paolo Orsini, who slipped a cord around the neck of Isabella di Medici, and strangled her; I almost envied Curzon of Simopetra who had never seen a woman. But I soon found that this misanthropy was unjust, that I misjudged the pure depths of life's river by a little dirty froth floating upon the surface.

Women can no more be lumped together in level community than men can be. There is an ample variety of tenacious womanly characters between the extremes marked by Miriam beating her timbrels, and Cleopatra applying the asp; Cornelia, caring for nothing but her Roman jewels; Guyon, rapt in God; Lucrezia Borgia raging with bowl and dagger, and Florence Nightingale sweetening the memory of the Crimean war with philanthropic deeds.

What group of men can be brought together more distinct in individuality, more contrasted in diversity of traits and destiny, than such women as Eve in the garden of Eden, Mary at the foot of the cross, Rebecca by the well, Semiramis on her throne, Ruth among the corn, Jezabel in her chariot, Lais at a banquet, Joan of Arc in battle, Tomyris striding over the field with the head of Cyrus in a bag of blood, Perpetua smiling on the lions in the amphitheatre, Martha cumbered with many cares, Pocahontas under the shadow of the woods, Saint Theresa in the Convent, Madame Roland on the scaffold, Mother Agnes at Port Royal, exiled DeStael wielding her pen as a sceptre, and Mrs. Fry lavishing her existence on outcasts?



CHAPTER XV.

FAITH SEES A STAR.

One day I was introduced by a friend to a very attractive lady school-teacher, who combined with superior domestic training, elocutionary and musical accomplishments. She was so sincere and sympathetic that I found myself almost unconsciously expressing the same sentiments that I had spoken to another long ago in the city by the sea.

The love which I supposed had passed on forever to the other world, seemed to be sent back to me through the opening clouds of evening by my self-sacrificing spirit bride, to give to another who would love and cherish the helpless little ones who so needed a mother's care.

I poured forth all my sorrows, troubles, perplexities and needs to a congenial, sympathetic spirit, and she consented to go to my home and take up the burdens which the ascended mother had been required by the angel-world to lay down.

On the arrival of the new housekeeper, order was evolved out of chaos; the children received the best of care, and the horse a much needed rest after his arduous labors in carting to and from the depot the numerous hired women who had been "weighed in the balance and found wanting." In the following month of roses, Lillian concluded that my "first glance" attachment was reciprocated; we were married in her father's house at Allston; we enjoyed a brief tour of the White Mountains, and then settled down in our cottage to our life work. The peace of God, which always comes, sooner or later to those who strive to do their duty, was ours, and the inspiration of Whittier's sweet poem "My Psalm" brought infinite consolation to our blended lives.

"I mourn no more my vanished years; Beneath a tender rain, An April rain of smiles and tears, My heart is young again.

"All as God wills, who wisely heeds To give or to withhold, And knoweth more of all my needs Than all my prayers have told.

"All the jarring notes of life Seem blending in a psalm, And all the angles of its strife Slow rounding into calm.

"And so the shadows fall apart, And so the sunbeams play; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day."



CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE POLITICAL STUMP.

I had always been somewhat prominent in politics, being President of the Republican Club in our town, and that autumn I was hired by Dr. George B. Loring to conduct his campaign for the position of Representative in Congress; this I accomplished so successfully that Judge Thayer, the chairman of the State Committee, hired me to stump the Commonwealth against General Butler and in favor of the Hon. George D. Robinson as candidate for Governor. This campaign will long be remembered as being the most fiercely contested of any in the political history of Massachusetts, and many incidents in my career as a public speaker are much pleasanter in the reminiscence than in the endurance. One will suffice by way of illustration.

Free speech was not tolerated by our frantic greenback opponents, and stale eggs with decayed cabbages hurled at the heads of Republican orators were the strongest arguments used by the General's admirers to combat our appeals for protective tariff and sound money. At a meeting of our state committee in Boston, Judge Thayer announced that General Hall of Maine, one of our most brilliant speakers, could not reach Rockport, where he was billed to hold forth, before ten o'clock that evening, and called for volunteers to hold the audience for two hours. Rockport was almost solid for Butler, and his friends had declared that no Republican should speak there, consequently no one volunteered. At last, the Judge, in despair, said:

"Foss, will you go?"

"I shall obey orders," was my reply, amid cheers of the much-relieved shirkers, and I bolted for the train.

On arriving at my destination, I found the station crowded with a howling mob, and the Republican town committee were frantically shouting: "General Hall, General Hall!" "Here," said I, and only by the vigorous aid of the clubs of the police was I hustled through the embattled hosts to a hack, which took me to the hall where I walked on the shoulders of a friendly uniformed club to the platform, which I finally reached with torn apparel and in a condition of almost physical and mental collapse.

The "hail to the chief," by the band was drowned by the cat-calls: "Put him out!"—"Duck him!"—"Ride him on a rail!" etc., etc., Yells of the Butlerites who had packed the hall. At last I got my "mad up," and rising, I lighted a cigar, puffed vigorously, and smiled upon my uproarious foes. This astonished the "great unwashed," and a big Irishman jumped on the stage, shouting:

"Shut up, shut up, byes! Let's hear what the cuss has to say; he's a cool un."

There was silence. Taking out my cigar, I laughed long and loud.

"What you laughing at?" howled the mob.

"This reminds me," said I, very slowly, "of a little story."

"Out with it," was the response.

"When I was a teacher in Marblehead," drawled I, "I had occasion to wallop a boy with a cowhide. I made him touch his toes with his fingers and laid on the braid where it would do the most good; the more I whaled him the more he laughed. I laid on Macduff with a 'damned be he who first cries hold, enough,' determination, and yet he laughed. 'What you laughing at?' cried I. 'Oh, ha, ha, ha, you're licking the wrong boy,' giggled the unspeakable scamp. It's just that way here. You gentlemen are licking the wrong boy; I am not General Hall, at all, I am Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant." The crowd roared: "He's a good un, let's hear him—ha, ha, ha, he's a good un," and for two hours I had as good-natured an audience as you ever saw.

"You say you don't want a protective tariff; you don't want sound money. Well, you remind me of the man who killed his father, mother, brothers, sisters, and when condemned to death he begged the judge to have mercy upon a poor orphan. You have killed the tariff twice, and nearly every mill wheel stopped, and you and I had to beg from door to door or live on dry crackers and shin-bones. Do you want that kind of provender again? Butler says, 'give us greenbacks by the ton, and everybody will be rich.' You tried that once and you carried your money to market in a bushel basket, and brought back the dinner you bought with it in a gill dipper. Do you want any more such times?"

"Be Gorrah," cried my big Irish friend, "that's so: I rimimber it well. I'd forgut it; the bye's right, he is."

"Yes," I yelled, "Butler says he'll leave the Republican party out in the cold. It reminds me of the old farmer who rushed outdoors in his bed-shirt, bareheaded and barefooted in winter, grabbed a barking dog who was disturbing his rest, by the ears; his wife came down to hunt him up. 'What on airth, father, you doin'?' she cried, as she saw his knees knocking together, and his teeth chattering with the cold. 'I've gut the cuss,' he shouted, 'and I'll hold him here till he freezes to death.'

"You'll hold your employers out in the cold, will you? Well, who'll freeze to death first if you stop the factories? The owners who have plenty of money, or you who are dependent upon the work they give you for every cent you get? General Butler who lives in a palace, and drives a kingly equipage tries to frighten you by painting the bugaboo; 'the rich growing richer, and the poor growing poorer,' that soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the world, and then the rest of the people will all starve. It reminds me of the old farmer who set up such an outrageous looking scarecrow in his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had stolen in the previous ten years. Are we craven crows to be scared by such windy effigies?"

Thus having caught their attention by light weight stories, I gave them broadsides of facts and arguments until I won the greatest political fight of my life. We won a famous victory; the workers, as usual, were soon forgotten; the elected exulted in their brief authority; the defeated at once began log-rolling for the next election, and so the office hunting strife goes on forever. After this I resumed the work of my crusade against ignorance and bad literature, having had my pockets well filled by those who are always eager to trade money for fame.

Our home was three miles from the railroad station, and the wintry winds with deep snows made the frequent journeys to and fro over the bleak, uncomfortable country roads, extremely cold and often hazardous.

I had endured for years these alternate freezing and roasting rides for the pleasure of living near the old folks; but now the numerous colds and coughs resulting from the exposure drove me to move nearer to the depot, and we bought a large three-story house with barn and fourteen acres of land on High Street in the city of N——.

We rejuvenated our old castle with paint, new boiler and paper, letting loose upon our devoted heads numerous fevers and other diseases which generations had stored up on the walls, all eager for new victims. Strange it is, that all bad things are so contagious and so long-lived to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty.

Upon me, the descendant of a long line of farmers, fell the agricultural fever, and I broke my own back as well as that of the hired man, cultivating that sterile soil where my potatoes cost me about a quarter of a dollar a piece, and each blade of grass, sickness and much hard-earned cash. We made the old place to bud and blossom like the rose, but the game as usual was not worth the candle, and an ulcerated sore throat which some predecessor had breathed upon the paper which we tore off, left me a walking skeleton, when ex-Congressman Loring, then United States Commissioner of Agriculture, came to my relief by appointing me his deputy for Florida at a good salary, to investigate and report upon the developed and undeveloped resources of that State, and its attractions for northern settlers. I gladly accepted this commission to serve my country, for—

Somewhere the sun is shining, I thought as I toiled along In the freezing cold of the winter, Yes, somewhere the sun is shining Though here I shiver and sigh, Not a breath of warmth is stirring Not a beam in the arctic sky.

Somewhere the thing we long for Exists on earth's wide bound, Somewhere the heat is cheering While here winter nips the ground. Somewhere the flowers are springing, Somewhere the corn is brown, And is ready unto the harvest To feed the hungry town.

Somewhere the twilight gathers, And weary men lay by The burdens of the daytime, And wrapped in slumber lie.

Somewhere the day is breaking, And gloom and darkness flee; Though storms our bark are tossing, There's somewhere a placid sea.

And thus, I thought, 'tis always In this mysterious life, There's always gladness somewhere In spite of its pain and strife; And somewhere the sin and sorrow Of earth are known no more; Somewhere our weary spirits Shall find a peaceful shore.



CHAPTER XVII.

THAT EDDYFYING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

This season there broke out in our community, as elsewhere, what has always appeared to me, to be a distemper, misnamed by its crafty creator, "Christian Science." Unchristian scienceless would be a more appropriate name, as the so-called divine revelation was made to its Eddyfying high priestess about 1800 years after the sublime career of Christ was ended, and its preposterous claims antagonize every principle of modern science.

This craze seized certain discontented young women who studied "Science and Health" under the tutorage of its author, and they soon became too transcendental to perform the useful duties of life, posing as teachers of the "utterly utter." It monopolized the feeble intellects of some farmers' boys, who at once began to try to get a lazy living by sitting beside sick women with their hands over their eyes, ostensibly engaged in prayer, but really endeavoring to prey upon the weak minded.

Some superstitious people who had been long under the care of a regular physician, and who were just at the turning point of receiving benefit therefrom, took an "Eddy sitting" and jumped to the conclusion that said mummery affected a miraculous cure.

As a drowning man clutching at a straw, I confess that I accepted the offer of treatments, made by a pleasant lady "Christian science" doctor. I found it tolerably agreeable to sit by her side, holding her soft hand while she assumed an attitude of supplication, but my malady was in nowise benefited thereby. This amiable lady finally loaned me a copy of their sacred book called "Science and Health," expressing the opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make me a believer in their modern Eleusinian mysteries forever.

I read this preposterous book with all the earnestness and prayerfulness of which I was capable; but found it to be a heterogeneous conglomeration of words—mere words, a hodge podge of all the exploded philosophical, religious, and scientific heresies of the past ages, so cunningly jumbled that the gullible, unable to find any meaning to it, conclude that it is too profound for their comprehension, and unwilling to acknowledge the fact for fear of being called ignorant, solemnly pronounce it to be great.

One quotation will reveal the utter nothingness of this book, from the sale of which "Pope Eddy" is said to have realized, a half-million dollars. Says this modern goddess: "The word Adam is from the Hebrew Adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness. Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or obstruction. This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal mind in solution."

Like all the other humbugs of superstition, this new doctrine seems to me to contain but a single drop of truth submerged in an ocean of folly. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the great high priestess, claims to possess the power to heal the sick and raise the dead; yet she has retired with much lucre to her palatial residence, lives like a queen, rolling in luxury, refusing to exercise her pretended healing power upon the thousands writhing in agony and whom she claims to be able to cure. Surely her "Key to the Scriptures" should thunder in her ears the anathema, "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is a sin."

I, too, claim a great discovery, a new "sacred book," which I have been inspired to write, and if people will give it the implicit faith required to benefit by "Christian Science," I will guarantee to cure all mental ills, and to bring eternal peace on earth. I herewith give my revelation to all, without money and without price, in strong contrast to the mercenary methods of the Eddy healers. My "science and health" is multum in parvo. Here it is:

Columbus discovered the new world; but his wife discovered the old world. The name of his wife, of course, was Columba, which in Latin, means a dove. Columba, the dove, flew forth from the ark, and so discovered the Eastern Continent. Columbus sailed from G—noa; but Columba sailed from Noah, and when the gods saw her with the olive-branch, they said "blessed be the dove, for whosoever shall receive her by faith into his heart, the same shall be free from unrest and from war forevermore."

Faith can remove mountains, and faith is all there is to "Christian Science," so far as we have been able to ascertain. We concede to its many devotees an almost unlimited amount of this saving grace; but sincerely claim that our "Columba science" will be equally efficient for good if received in the same spirit which has greeted the new gospel promulgated by Saint Mary Baker G. Eddy. Selah.



CHAPTER XVIII.

IN THE LAND OF FLOWERS.

After these scientific investigations, my wife and I left New England covered with snow and swept by fierce, freezing winds to find this far-famed peninsular basking in delicious sunshine, the air full of the exquisite perfume of orange blossoms and the songs of rejoicing birds. It was an enchanted land, the balsamic odors from the beautiful evergreen pine forests starred by the fragrant magnolia blossoms of spotless white, exorcised the ulceratic demons from throat and lungs.

We feasted upon the delicious fruits and vegetables fresh from the trees and earth, and the returning healthy appetite was refreshed by tender venison, wild turkeys and quails from the woods, nutritious and abundant fish and ducks from the lakes and rivers. It was a new heaven and a new earth, full of gladness and semi-tropical luxuries.

As soon as the hospitable people learned that I represented our beloved Uncle Sam, I was overwhelmed with free passes and free hotels, anywhere and everywhere.

The Count De Barry, who had amassed a vast fortune as the American representative of "Mum's Extra Dry," and who had received numerous valuable seeds and shrubs from our generous department, took us on his palatial steamer for hundreds of miles up the lordly St. John's River, where we feasted our eyes upon acres of wild ducks, pelicans, cranes and many huge, lazy alligators floating on the waves, rejoicing in the life-giving beams of the sun.

The stately trees along the banks, old when Adam was a baby, were covered with flowering vines of wondrous beauty and fragrance; then vast orange groves appeared covered with blossoms, small and ripe fruit all at the same time; numerous herds of cattle standing knee deep in the water, leisurely browsing upon the river plants both on the surface and under the shallow river.

We would anchor, and throwing a clasp-net which spread out on the bottom and then closed like a purse, we pulled in excellent fish by the hundreds; sitting on the canopied deck we shot ducks which the negroes captured in small boats, and soon served cooked for our delectation; pineapples and berries were brought from the shore, in fact, it was a lotus-eater's dream of paradise, and seemed to be a land and a river "flowing with milk and honey."

The words from Willis' confessional came floating to our minds.

"On ocean many a gladsome night, When heaved the long and sullen sea, With only waves and stars in sight, We stole along by isles of balm; We furled before the coming gale, We slept amid the breathless calm, We flew beneath the straining sail.

Oh, softly on these banks of haze Her rosy face the summer lays, Becalmed along the azure sky The argosies of cloudland lie; The holy silence is God's voice We look, and listen, and rejoice."

When the night fell, and one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, blossomed out the beautiful stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels, they seemed so near that you almost expected to touch them with the hand, and the silver moon arising, set the clouds on fire with gladness and "left upon the level water one long track and trail of splendor, down whose stream we sailed into the purple vapors, to the islands of the blessed, to the kingdom of Ponemah to the land of the hereafter."

While thus we dreamed, the balmy zephyr brings from the forecastle to our delighted hearing, the tinkling music of the banjo and guitar, the melody of the singing voices and dancing feet of our freedmen boat's crew. The lines of Whittier were resurrected in our thoughts.

"Dear, the black man holds his gifts Of music and of song, The gold that kindly nature sifts Among his sands of wrong, The power to make his toiling days And poor home comforts please; The quaint relief of mirth that plays With sorrow's minor keys."

For they sang among others the identical words of the poet's expressive song,

"Ole massa on he trabbels gone, He leaf de land behind: De Lord's breff blow him furder on, Like corn-shuck in de wind: We own de hoe, we own de plow, We own de hans dat hold, We sell de pig, we sell de cow, But nebber chile be sold.

De norf wind tell it to de pines, De wild-duck to de sea, We tink it when de church-bell ring, We dream it in de dream, De rice-bird mean it when he sing, De eagle when he scream, De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice and corn; Nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driber blow his horn."

And so all too quickly passed that ideal night, without thought of sleep, till the rising sun shot his radiant beams over the great river, when we steamed slowly up to the long pier, and walked under an arch of stately palms to our host's beautiful home, embowered in orange trees and luxuriant trumpet creepers in this summer land of perpetual bloom.

Close by the Count's residence was a lake of sulphur water, gushing from deep down in the earth. Into this we plunged and swam until we seemed to be born again into immortal youth, then on the broad piazza we enjoyed a feast which would have delighted Jupiter and all his gods, every course of which was taken from the adjoining trees, grounds and waters.

We then inspected the great plantation, where was found growing in profusion, everything essential to the wants of the most fastidious of mortals, while the surrounding woods and river teemed with a great variety of fish and game.

I roam as in a waking dream The garden of the Hesperides, And see the golden fruitage gleam Amid the stately orange-trees.

Unfading green is on the hill, The vales are decked with countless flowers, While hums the bee, the song birds trill Sweet music through the sunny hours.

The moss is waving in the gale From live oak, hickory, and pine, And draping like a bridal-veil The beauteous yellow jessamine.

Through countless vistas in the wood I see the windows of the morn Ope to the world a glowing flood Of glory when the day is born.

And when, with robes of Tyrian dye, The evening comes when day is done, I see around the radiant sky A hundred sunsets blent in one.

We parted from our genial entertainer with much reluctance when the superintendent of the railroad claimed us as his guests, and with him, we inspected the famous orange groves along his line, resting on Sunday at a palatial hotel where the St. John's River broadens into the great Lake Munroe.

While at church we were much entertained by the lively, frolicsome manoeuvres of the numerous beautiful chameleons of rapidly changing colors, who greatly distracted the attention of the congregation from the service by their pranks on the walls and decorations.

Directly in front of us was a sleepy, bald-headed man upon whose shining, nodding, snoring pate several flies were resting in quiet enjoyment of the sermon. All at once, this toothsome collection attracted the attention of a very large bright-eyed chameleon admirer who launched himself through the air upon said bald head in pursuit of his dinner. With a yell of fear, the sleeper struck the animal with his huge hand, sending the long tailed frolicsome creature heels over head directly upon the clergyman's manuscript, and the alarmed preacher, in turn, with a smothered imprecation and a sweeping blow, hurled the sprawling legs and elongated tail down upon some frightened children who screamed and tumbled over each other upon the floor in a struggling heap.

This was too much for the pent-up risibilities of the audience who laughed long and loud, greatly to the disturbance of the solemnity of the occasion. The witty minister remarked that this addition to his flock, like some church members, seemed to care more for the carnal than the spiritual, and proceeded to the thirteenthly division of his discourse.

From here we traveled for hundreds of miles over the flat, monotonous, arid sands of south Florida, where green grass and fresh garden vegetables were unknown, frequently remarking that if we owned these localities and hades, we would give away the former and live in the latter place. But when we retraced our steps, and reached the rich highlands of the northern counties of Marion, Bradford, and Clay, found the earth covered with green grass in winter, the trees beautiful with blossoms and luscious oranges, the air fragrant with rare flowers, and resonant with songs of birds, saw the planters shipping thousands of crates of fruit and vegetables, and finally arrived at the far-famed Silver Springs, it seemed as if we had found Ponce de Leon's fountain of immortal youth.

The crystal clear waters of this wonderful spring, or more properly called lake, gush in immense volumes seemingly from the very centre of the earth, spreading out until wide and deep enough to float a great navy, and are so transparent that multitudes of fishes are seen disporting among marine plants and shells plainly discernible hundreds of feet below.

Here we embarked on a comfortable steamer, and sailed nearly twenty-four hours down the incomparable Ocklawaha River, through scenes that are indescribably picturesque; under arches of gigantic trees covered with sombrely beautiful Spanish mosses and trumpet creeper vines, where all day long are heard the ecstatic songs of mockingbirds, and where flutter the plumages of all the colors of the rainbow.



Swiftly the golden hours fly, as we float over this marvelous river; softly the dusky boatmen chant their love songs, the fires from their "fatwood" cauldron on the upper deck illuminates the stately trees, and the strains of the poet, Butterworth, come plaintively to our mental hearing.

"We have passed funereal glooms, Cypress caverns, haunted rooms, Halls of gray moss starred with blooms— Slowly, slowly, in these straits, Drifting towards the cypress gates Of the Ocklawaha.

"In the towers of green o'erhead Watch the vultures for the dead, And below the egrets red Eye the mossy pools like fates, In the shadowy cypress gates Of the Ocklawaha.

"Clouds of palm crowns lie behind, Clouds of gray moss in the wind, Crumbling oaks with jessamines twined, Where the ring-doves meet their mates, Cooing in the cypress gates Of the Ocklawaha.

"High the silver ibis flies— Silver wings in silver skies; In the sun the Saurian lies: Comes the mockingbird and prates To the boatman at the gates Of the Ocklawaha.

"Now the broader waters gleam— Seems my voyage upon the stream Like a semblance of a dream, And the dream my Soul elates; Life flows through the cypress gates Of the Ocklawaha.

"Ibis, thou wilt fly again, Ring-dove, thou wilt sigh again, Jessamines bloom in golden rain; And a loving song-bird waits Me beyond the cypress gates Of the Ocklawaha."