The Enchanted Shirt

At last two famous doctors came,

And one was as poor as a rat,

He had passed his life in studious toil,
And never found time to grow fat.

The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble:
If they recovered, they paid him well;
If they died, their heirs paid double.

Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the King on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.

The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut." "Hang him up," roared the King in a galeIn a ten-knot gale of royal rage;

The other leech grew a shade pale;

But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran—

The King will be well, if he sleeps one night
In the Shirt of a Happy Man.

Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,

And fast their horses ran,

And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
But they found no Happy Man.

They found poor men who would fain be rich,
And rich who thought they were poor;
And men who twisted their waist in stays,
And women that shorthose wore.

They saw two men by the roadside sit,
And both bemoaned their lot;
For one had buried his wife, he said,
And the other one had not.

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At last they came to a village gate,

A beggar lay whistling there;

He whistled, and sang, and laughed, and rolled
On the grass in the soft June air.

The weary courtiers paused and looked

At the scamp so blithe and gay;

And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend! You seem to be happy to-day."

"O yes, fair sirs," the rascal laughed, And his voice rang free and glad;

"An idle man has so much to do

That he never has time to be sad."

"This is our man," the courier said;
"Our luck has lead us aright.

I will give you a hundred ducats, friend,
For the loan of your shirt to-night."

The merry blackguard lay back on the grass,
And laughed till his face was black;

"I would do it, God wot," and he roared with the fun, "But I haven't a shirt to my back."

Each day to the King the reports came in
Of his unsuccessful spies,

And the sad panorama of human woes
Passed daily under his eyes.

And he grew ashamed of his useless life,
And his maladies hatched in gloom;

He opened his windows and let the air
Of the free heaven into his room.

And out he went in the world, and toiled

In his own appointed way;

And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
And the King was well and gay.

John Hay.

Jim Bludso

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JIM BLUDSO

WAL, no! I can't tell whar he lives,
Because he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of livin' like you and me.

Whar have you been for the last three years
That you haven't heard folks tell

How Jemmy Bludso passed-in his checks,
The night of the Prairie Belle?

He weren't no saint-them engineers
Is all pretty much alike-
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill,
And another one here in Pike.
A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward man in a row
But he never flunked, and he never lied;
I reckon he never knowed how.

And this was all the religion he had—
To treat his engines well;

Never be passed on the river;
To mind the pilot's bell;

And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire,
A thousand times he swore,
He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.

All boats have their day on the Mississip,
And her day come at last.

The Movastar was a better boat,

But the Belle she wouldn't be passed; And so come tearin' along that night,The oldest craft on the line,

With a nigger squat on her safety valve,

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she clared the bar,

And burnt a hole in the night,

And quick as a flash she turned, and made

To that willer-bank on the right.

There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out Over all the infernal roar,

"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank

Till the last galoot's ashore."

Through the hot black breath of the burnin' boat

Jim Bludso's voice was heard,

And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And know he would keep his word.
And, sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,-

And Bludso's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

He weren't no saint-but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim,
'Longside of some pious gentlemen

That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He'd seen his duty, a dead-sure thing-
And went for it thar and then:
And Christ ain't a going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

John Hay.

WRECK OF THE "JULIE PLANTE"

ON wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre,

De win' she blow, blow, blow,

An' de crew of de wood scow "Julie Plante"

Got scar't an' run below;

For de win' she blow lak hurricane,

Bimeby she blow some more,

An' de scow bus' up on Lac St. Pierre,

Wan arpent from de shore.

Wreck of the "Julie Plante "

De Captinne walk on de fronte deck,
An' walk de hin' deck, too—
He call de crew from up de hole
He call de cook also.

De cook she's name was Rosie,

She come from Montreal,

Was chambre maid on lumber barge,
On de Grande Lachine Canal.

De win' she blow from nor'eas'-wes'-
De sout' win' she blow, too,
W'en Rosie cry "Mon cher Captinne,
Mon cher, w'at I shall do?"

Den de Captinne t'row de big ankerre,
But still de scow she dreef,

De crew he can't pass on de shore,
Becos' he los' hees skeef.

De night was dark, lak' one black cat,
De wave run high an' fas',

W'en de Captinne tak' de Rosie girl

An' tie her to de mas'.

Den he also tak' de life preserve,

An' jomp off on de lak',

An' say, "Good by, ma Rosie dear,

I go drown for your sak"."

Nex' morning very early,

'Bout ha'f-pas' two-t'ree-fourDe Captinne, scow, an' de poor Rosie Was corpses on de shore;

For he win' she blow lak' hurricane

Bimeby she blow some more,

An' de scow bus' up on Lac St. Pierre,
Wan arpent from de shore.

MORAL

Now, all good wood scow sailor man
Tak' warning by dat storm,
An' go an' marry some nice French girl
An' leev on wan beeg farm;

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