best grace imaginable, the dreaded Mrs. Raw- forward I never mean to worry any more. lins stayed at home. So after all the worriment, the cogitations the tears, the end of Sister Patty's Sewing Society was unmitigated delight. From hence It's wicked and a waste of time, besides. For there's a best to every worst, and where the shadows fall the thickest, it's a sure sign that there the light is brightest! A COMPARISON.-At the root of the tree, buried in unambitious silence, lie the life-forces, that elaborate and evolve all the pillared and ramified glories above. In the bosom of the | family live the feminine instincts and harmonies IN THE HARBOR. T BY J. C. T. The ships, the staunch ships, with their stately, Alone has each wrestled with waves of the deep, masts, And white sails gleaming like ocean spray, In strength and grandeur, through sunshine and blasts, In the harbor are coming, coming to-day. The old ships, battle-ships, honored with scars, With golden years crowned, bearing trophies of wars, In the harbor are coming, coming to-day. The ships of the Orient laden with pearl, With odor of sandal-wood, spices and bay, So lightly they glide and their banners unfurl, The ships with the breath of the Northland cold, The stars and stripes of our own barks bold, Together they end the long, dreary way, And while many a wreck in the dark waters sleep, Oh, loving hearts watching and fond hearts that Weary your night has been, but the first ray Of the bright morning whispers in accents elate"In the harbor they're coming, coming to-day!" And methinks there's a song in the haven on high, A greeting of loved ones, a triumphal lay, For thousands from Time's troubled ocean are nigh, In the harbor they're coming, coming to-day. Coming! oh, life, with its sorrows all past, Life, with its weight of bliss, theirs for aye, Safe from the storms of earth, conq'rors at last, In the harbor of glory they're coming to-day. Seven times the October frost SONG. BY EMILIE LESTER LEIGH. Has painted the leaves of the maple tree, But never a sign the gulf has crossed Fixed between one I love and me. Never to see Time change to gray The hair I kissed in its paly gold, Never to mark youth stealing away, Never to see my love grow old! The grave is wide; But the sea of pride Lies wider and darker, and full as cold. Seven times the November rain Has chilled the summer flowers to death, I have felt the touch of the April's breath; And if thou hadst died-oh, hadst thou died! I might have looked for a pearly gate, But Love's bright jewel Is lost in the hopeless sea of pride. SELF-MADE. EDITED BY UNA LOCKE. "And I pitied my own heart As though I held it in my hand." thought the world was made up of the few farms enclosed by them; and indeed, this was "Art thou named of a common crowd, and sensible of all his world. He knew his father went to high aspirings? It is hard for thee to rise; yet strive; thou mayest be among them a Musœus." Sensitiveness, (which does not come from pride,) delicacy, innate refinement-how came I by these qualities? My family was not refined, not delicate in any sense, not sensitive. They, all but me, wore armor, as was meet, for battle with poverty. They had to wrest a livelihood from the barren hills; they had to look after the body, which clamored for food and raiment perpetually to the soul, which was its bond-servant. As for me, poor shy little wretch, life looked to me, at a very early age, a strange, sad problem. I was no Edipus to solve the Sphinx's riddle. I suffered much from physical delicacy; much, very much, from childish diffidence; still more, perhaps, from a morbid sense of unworthiness which is rarely found in children. At one time in my life I scribbled a little autobiography, and it is my purpose to make from it copious extracts; and if (at the instance of bonny Henrietta,) I suffer it to see the light, it is only with the hope that it may prove a foot-print to some "forlorn and shipwrecked brother," who seeing it, may, as the poet tells us, "take heart again." mill and to meeting, but where 'to mill and to meeting' were, was a great mystery. His parents were quiet, unsocial people, who never conversed freely, even with each other, upon any subject. Much less did they waste time talking to their children; and as little Sandford was kept in the house most of the time to take care of the baby, his tongue was of little use except as an instrument for saying 'yes, ma'am,' and 'no, ma'am,' and for an occasional singing of by low baby,' when he was sure no one could hear him except his charge. He very seldom saw a stranger; when he did see one by chance, he took great pains not to be seen; but if he unfortunately encountered such a person, and especially if he were asked a question, he would, instead of replying, rush into the house like s shy, frightened creature of the woods running to covert. The only lesson he received in etiquette consisted of the injunction to add ma'am and sir, to his yes and no, when addressing his parents or the older neighbors. He was also taught rigid obedience to his parents, and here his education ended, he being too sickly to be put to farming. I mistake. He was taught to rock the baby, and was kept at this employment day after day, until in the bitterness of his heart he wished there were no baby. But the days went on, and he grew older and stronger; in fact, old enough to begin his education on the farm. He was actually five years old, and being better in health, must now cominence to earn his living.' Going after the cows and sheep, feed As I turn the yellow manuscript, its covert satire, its quaintness and simplicity, even the dash of boyish bitterness that runs through the whole, seem to me to transmit such a fresh, original flavor of the hard, humble life into which I was born, that I give it without much alteration. Curi-ing the pigs and the hens, gathering beans and ously enough, with something perhaps of the strange sensitiveness of the old-time minister in New England, who persisted in covering his face from his nearest friends with crape, I veiled my life-story, in the narration by the use of the third person. Thus I commenced : When I first saw little Sandford, his home was in one of those deep valleys, so common in the western part of New England, where the hills and the sky seem to come in contact on every side. Sandford, who had never been on the top of any of those rocky, sky-crowned mountains, peas for dinner, digging potatoes and washing them for the morning and noonday mealsthese were his primary lessons; and until his thirteenth year he continued to add knowledge of the like accomplishments to his education. But now he had learned that the world was a great deal larger than he once supposed, for he had frequently been to meeting, and had once actually been away to Carlemountain to mill with his father! (Not that Carlemountain was a pretentious village, or anything but a modest little hamlet among the hills.) Ah, he could hardly have believed that such an army of people as he saw in the street and about the store, existed in the world! "At fourteen, Sandford was able to read all Webster's Spelling Book as far as Amendment,' which was the hardest word he had ever seen. (In more senses than one, poor fellow.) Having become thus advanced, it was thought advisable to send him away to school, his native hills producing nothing of the sort. Accordingly, one morning, on the first of a certain December, he started on foot and alone for the house, five miles distant, at which he was to board while attending the school of Mr. Moth, of Hartville. All his clothes (except those he wore), viz., one shirt and one pair of socks, were packed in a bundle with his two books, the Spelling-Book and Arithmetic, and he took them along with him. He was himself to pay his board by work out of school hours. When the boy Sandford arrived at his temporary home, he was shown into a light, large, airy room at the top of the house. To give a correct idea of this lovely nook will be, I fear, impossible. However, I will try. It was thirty feet by forty, very high in the centre, but gradually sloping on the sides, until it became two feet high. It was the whole length of the house, in fact, and being entirely innocent of lath and plaster, and the boards everywhere appearing to have had a quarrel, it was naturally, as I said, light and airy. The house was situated on an elevation, and looked delightfully towards the north-west, where you might have seen, far away, some snow-clad mountains, looking as drear and chill as the north pole itself. covered with a snow-white spread, thick and soft, while there would be a carpet of the same on each side of it. Oh, who could help being happy there? Yet poor Sandford was so ungrateful as not to be happy, his eyes being much of the time swollen with secret weeping. But his snowy dormitory was the least of his troubles. When he was dressed for the day, his most conspicuous garment was a blue and white homespun and home-woven frock, which reached to the knees. Now his father kept none but Scotch sheep,' and his mother prided herself on making the very best of 'kersey' for her boys; there was not another boy in school who wore a garment at all like it! But poor Sandford was not proud of this; on the contrary, the young ingrate suffered the deepest chagrin on account of it, for the unappreciative schoolboys called it 'night-dress,' 'petticoat,' and other opprobrious names. "The school-house stood about ten feet from the high road leading to the village of Hartville. A massive stone wall was along-side this road, and a piece of this wall appeared to have been obligingly displaced for the school-house, the ends abutting against it on the north and south. From the school-house windows we had a fine view of the rocks which very thickly dotted the neighboring sheep-pastures like cocks of hay. A little muddy brook came winding from the hills past the house, and here the geese of the neighborhood (and there were a great many of them) clamored and enjoyed themselves; here, too, might the school children have the privilege of lying down on their faces to drink. "As you walk in through the entry of the "On the enormous round timbers with which school-house-a part of which is oocupied by this room was ornamented, hung and were the chimney, and a still larger portion by wood arranged all sorts of articles calculated to enter- and chips and old boards, serving for fuel—you tain and interest an investigating stranger. tread on a floor of primitive earth; here are Hams, dried beef, dried apple, dried pumpkin, pegs for the hats, caps and bonnets of the sausages, summer savory, sage, boneset, with scholars. Passing through the entry, you find antediluvian garments of kinds too numerous yourself in the main room, some fourteen by for detail, while overhead was hung a network fifteen feet in size. There is a window on three of the finest texture, from which were suspended of the sides, on the fourth a fireplace, which last such numbers and varieties of insects as made a is six feet wide, three feet deep and four feet source of never-failing amusement to the admir-high. In the north-west corner is the teacher's ing occupant of this apartment. At the end of the room was a bed, at the head of which the before-mentioned unfriendliness of the boards caused long narrow windows, which were curtained with more of this delicate network, waving in the breezes that entered unceremoniously. The bed was often, of a morning, desk, looking amazingly like an old-fashioned pine table, with a chair behind it. The rest of the room is filled with benches and desks, leaving just space enough in the centre for the infliction of corporeal discipline, the instrument of which was considered the most important branch of science in the institution. In this, however, Sandford had previously been so thoroughly educated that he was never obliged to take it up here. the boys at school desired him to play 'I spy,' or 'hide-and-go-seek,' or 'goal,' he had an excellent reason for declining further bodily exertion, realizing the truth of the proverb, Enough is as good as a feast.' "The experience of our hero's first day at school was on this wise: 'Good-morning,' said Madam Hall to him as he entered; 'you are late.' "I could not get here any earlier,' was the bashful reply. 'Where do you live?' asked she. "Five days, each one of which seemed as though it would never end, Sandford went to this school-house, at the end of which time the battle with homesickness was too much for him. He packed his one shirt and one pair of socks, his arithmetic and spelling-book, and started on a Saturday morning for home. There was no path over the mountains, and the snow was more than two feet deep. He reached home just before sunset, tired, footsore and even ill. But his weariness and illness were not to be "Where is that?' asked Madam, looking surconsidered; he had left school without leave of prised. 'Queer names you have here,' she added his eldest brother, who had now installed him-in an aside to one of the young men among her self head of the family, and he was therefore severely reprimanded, and ordered to bed without his supper. This was, however, countermanded by his mother. 4. 666 In Little Hope, ma'am,' pupils. "It is away up the river,' was the reply. "Are you coming here to school?' Yes, ma'am.' "Well, what are you going to study?" "These books,' presenting Webster's Spelling-Book and Woodbridge's Geography, first "You may take your seat over in that corner.' 864 Class third may read,' says the teacher. 'You may read with them,' addressing Sandford. Take your place here. You may com mence to read.' This eldest brother (I will call him, for the convenience of having a name, Esau) concluded he would now himself open a school in his father's house. Why not? He could read in-edition. telligibly (where the words were not too long and hard), he could form all the letters of the alphabet (after a sort), he could perform simple "Sandford obeys. Every inmate of the room sums in the four fundamental rules of Arith-shows such evident and deep interest in the metic. But the school continued only two new-comer, all eyes noting his every motion, weeks. I could never discover why it was that he thinks of the proverbial cat in the broken off. (It could not be that the teacher strange garret, and almost begins to wish he was not fully competent for his place!) Then was in a garret himself. (Albeit, not the garret Sandford was told that he might go to a school in Hartville.) three miles away, provided he did the 'chores' night and morning. This arrangement would give him a walk of six miles each day, affording all the exercise he could need, taking into consideration the fact that there was no road the first two miles of the way, and he must, most of the time, wade in untrodden snow more than ankle deep. Accordingly, he commenced. Rising at four o'clock, he fed cattle, pigs, fowls, brought in wood and water for the day, and ate his breakfast of bread and frozen milk before his ambitious brother, the head of the honse, was up. Then he hurried away as fast as possible towards school. When the snow was not so deep but he could run a part of the way, he often reached the school-house in season to go in with the other scholars; and by leaving when school was half out in the afternoon, he could reach home in season to perform all his allotted tasks before dark; if not, he had the privilege (of which no one wished to deprive him) of finishing in the evening. In the meantime, if "R-i-n-g, ring-t-h-e, the-b-e-1-1—' blunders Sandford, spelling in a whisper every word. That will do,' says the too satisfied teacher; the next may read, and you may go back to your seat. You must read in the fourth class.' "In due time the fourth class is called, and Sandford reads again. This time it is b-a-k-e-r, baker; c-a-p-e-r, caper. Half an hour passes, and the teacher's ferule comes on the table with a blow that arrests every eye and startles the new-comer in the corner. It only means the hour of noon has arrived. "Arise!' says Madam Hall. The school arises. Attention!' she says again. The school attends by bowing and courtesying. 'School is dismissed!' she exclaims lastly. Then follows such jumping and hooting, whistling, yelling and stamping, as would lead an uninitiated passer-by to suppose a whole tribe of Indians was holding within a demoniacal powwow, or else that a menagerie of wild beasts had been turned together into that den of a school-house. Several boys come around the new scholar. "You couldn't read in our class!' they say, mockingly. from what I have seen, I now know to be something very unusual. He liked, above all things, to invent machinery which would operate perfectly on a miniature scale-saw-mills moving by water; trip-hammers; curious, elaborate bridges, and almost endless labor-saving conveniences for house and farm; still, nobody "Great boy like you, have to read in the guessed, or cared perhaps to guess, for what fourth class!' "Oh! have to read in the fourth class!' The degree of contempt expressed in tone is inexpressible on paper. Nature meant the boy. But the sugar was to make, the sheep to shear, potatoes to plant, and so on, a ceaseless routine, until winter again. This winter he attended a school in Hartville, "Hurrah! hallo! let's go and have a game and now really began to make progress in that of fox and geese in the snow!' direction. It was a pleasant part of his hard life, so that he was sorry to be obliged to return home. But now again came on the maplesugar season; his big brother Esau was married; the next in age had let himself to work on a neighboring farm. Sandford worked a part of the time on his father's farm, and a part of the time helped to relieve his brother, and the season passed without his being able to look at a "Let him go,' says another; and the boys leave, while Sandford only waits till they disap-book. The poor fellow was very uneasy. He pear, and bowing his face in his hands, and leaning against the house, he is crying like a girl. When the boys are all out of sight, he goes down by the brook to wash his face, lest the teacher should discover his weakness. Presently the ferule is heard on the side of the house, the signal for school exercises to commence. An hour passes. The boys have their recess. was now fifteen; with an unappeasable longing for something higher and better; he was acutely aware of his extreme backwardness and ignorance, and where was the remedy? 'His father, at this point of the story, decided to give, by deed, half of his farm to Esau, with the proviso that he should support him and his family-the children till legally of age, and the parents through life. No matter to tell in detail followed this arrangement. The land was bought “'Please, ma'am, may I be dismissed?' says the disappointment and dissatisfaction which Sandford. "Why do you wish it?' is the teacher's in- back by the father for four hundred dollars; quiry. stock, farming-tools and use of land for two 'Esau said I must go home when school was years to come, being thrown into Esau's share of half out in the afternoon.' the bargain. The family now depended on the exertions of Sandford for its support. He hired an old house of one of the neighbors, in which they might live, and went to work with his might, at whatsoever his hand might find to do. He chopped the wood; he helped to rebuild a dam for a factory, company, and then commenced working at haying for a neighbor. But hard lifting and standing in the water while building the dam, had brought on a slow fever, and after one week at haying, Sandford was obliged to go. home, sick. "The winter passed. The boy Sandford had made some advancement at school; but as he never had time to look inside a book during the rest of the year, he forgot most of his acquirements before he had another opportunity of attending school. He was not quick; no one took pains to speak to him one encouraging "All summer he suffered extremely. He is word; there came no electric flash to dissolve nervous and whimsical,' said the neighbors; the chain in which his intellect was bound. So'nothing ails him besides; and too proud to complain, the young man tried to work in his father's potato field. But more time being spent lying on the ground, uttering groans wrung at fourteen he was a dullard at his books; yet out of school, his capabilities if not praised, were yet in full demand. His mechanical genius, VOL. IV., No. 8.-33 |