But when the ice our streams did fetter,

Oh, then how her old bones would shake!
You would have said, if you had met her,
"Twas a hard time for Goody Blake.
Her evenings then were dull and dead:
Sad case it was, as you may think,
For very cold to go to bed,

And then for cold not sleep a wink.
Oh joy for her, whene'er in winter
The winds at night had made a rout,
And scattered many a lusty splinter
And many a rotten bough about.
Yet never had she, well or sick,

As every man who knew her says,
A pile beforehand, turf or stick,

Enough to warm her for three days. Now, when the frost was past enduring, And made her poor old bones to ache, Could anything be more alluring

Than an old hedge to Goody Blake? And, now and then, it must be said, When her old bones were cold and chill,

She left her fire, or left her bed,

To seek the hedge of Harry Gill.

Now Harry he had long suspected
This trespass of old Goody Blake;

And vowed that she should be detected,—
That he on her would vengeance take.

And oft from his warm fire he'd go,

And to the fields his road would take;
And there at night, in frost and snow,
He watched to seize old Goody Blake.

And once, behind a rick of barley,
Thus looking out did Harry stand:
The moon was full and shining clearly,
And crisp with frost the stubble land.
He hears a noise,-he's all awake,-
Again?-on tiptoe down the hill
He softly creeps,-'tis Goody Blake;
She's at the hedge of Harry Gill!
Right glad was he when he beheld her:
Stick after stick did Goody pull:

He stood behind a bush of elder,
Till she had filled her apron full.
When with her load she turned about,
The by-way back again to take,
He started forward with a shout,

And sprang upon poor Goody Blake.

And fiercely by the arm he took her,
And by the arm he held her fast,
And fiercely by the arm he shook her,
And cried, “I've caught you then, at last!”
Then Goody, who had nothing said,
Her bundle from her lap let fall;
And kneeling on the sticks, she prayed
To God who is the judge of all.

She prayed, her withered hand uprearing,
While Harry held her by the arm,-
"God! who art never out of hearing,
Oh, may he nevermore be warm!"
The cold, cold moon above her head,
Thus on her knees did Goody pray:
Young Harry heard what she had said;
And icy cold he turned away.

He went complaining all the morrow
That he was cold and very chill:
His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow,
Alas! that day for Harry Gill!

That day he wore a riding-coat,

But not a whit the warmer he: Another was on Thursday bought, And ere the Sabbath he had three.

'Twas all in vain, a useless matter,

And blankets were about him pinned; Yet still his jaws and teeth they chatter, Like a loose casement in the wind.

And Harry's flesh it fell away;

And all who see him say 'tis plain,
That, live as long as live he may,
He never will be warm again.
No word to any man he utters,
Abed or up, to young or old;
But ever to himself he mutters,
"Poor Harry Gill is very cold."

Abed or up, by night or day,

His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
Now think, ye farmers all, I pray,

Of Goody Blake and Harry Gil!!

WHAT THE LITTLE GIRL SAID.

"Ma's up-stairs changing her dress," said the frecklefaced little girl, tying her doll's bonnet strings and casting her eye about for a tidy large enough to serve as a shawl for that double-jointed young person.

"Oh, your mother needn't dress up for me," replied the female agent of the missionary society, taking a selfsatisfied view of herself in the mirror. Run up and tell her to come down just as she is in her every-day clothes, and not stand on ceremony."

"Oh, but she hasn't got on her every-day clothes. Ma was all dressed up in her new brown silk dress, 'cause she expected Miss Dimmond to-day. Miss Dimmond always comes over here to show off her nice things, and ma doesn't mean to get left. When ma saw you coming she said, 'the dickens!' and I guess she was mad about something. Ma said if you saw her new dress, she'd have to hear all about the poor heathen, who don't have silk, and you'd ask her for money to buy hymn. books to send 'em. Say, do the nigger ladies use hymnbook leaves to do their hair up on and make it frizzy? Ma says she guesses that's all the good the books do 'em, if they ever get any books. I wish my doll was a

heathen."

"Why, you wicked little girl! what do you want of a heathen doll?" inquired the missionary lady, taking a mental inventory of the new things in the parlor to get material for a homily on worldly extravagance.

"So folks would send her lots of nice things to wear, and feel sorry to have her going about naked. Then she'd have hair to frizz, and I want a doll with truly

hair and eyes that roll up like Deacon Silderback's when he says amen on Sunday. I ain't a wicked girl, either, 'cause Uncle Dick-you know Uncle Dick, he's been out West and swears awful and smokes in the house-he says I'm a holy terror, and he hopes I'll be an angel pretty soon. Ma'll be down in a minute, so you needn't take your cloak off. She said she'd box my ears if I asked you to. Ma's putting on that old dress she had last year, 'cause she didn't want you to think she was able to give much this time, and she needed a muff worse than the queen of the cannon-ball islands needed religion. Uncle Dick says you oughter get to the islands, 'cause you'd be safe there, and the natives would be sorry they was such sinners anybody would send you to 'em. He says he never seen a heathen hungry enough to eat you, 'less 'twas a blind one, an' you'd set a blind pagan's teeth on edge so he'd never hanker after any more missionary. Uncle Dick's awful funny, and makes ma and pa die laughing sometimes."

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'Your Uncle Richard is a bad, depraved wretch, and ought to have remained out West, where his style is appreciated. He sets a horrid example for little girls like you."

"Oh, I think he's nice. He showed me how to slide down the banisters, and he's teaching me to whistle when ma ain't around. That's a pretty cloak you've got, ain't it? Do you buy all your clothes with missionary money? Ma says you do."

Just then the freckle-faced little girl's ma came into the parlor and kissed the missionary lady on the cheek and said she was delighted to see her, and they proceeded to have a real sociable chat. The little girl's ma cannot understand why a person who professes to be so charitable as the missionary agent does should go right over to Miss Dimmond's and say such ill-natured things as she did, and she thinks the missionary is a double-faced gossip.

THE LANDLORD'S VISIT.-DE WITT CLINTON LOCKWOOD.

Old Widow Clare,

In a low-backed chair,
Sat nid-nid-nodding;
While over the road

Came Farmer McCrode
A plid-plid-plodding.

It was cold and snowing, and the wind was blowing
At the rate of a hundred miles an hour;

While the farmer was fretting and his countenance getting
Each moment more angry, forbidding and sour.

"She pays me no rent, although I have sent
To her time and again for the money;

And now we shall see what she'll say to me,

For the thing has long ceased to be funny."

Thus he muttered aloud, while the snow like a shroud
Enveloped his burly old figure completely;

And 'twas dark, but not late, when he entered the gate
Of the tenant he was going to astonish so neatly.

Disdaining to knock, he groped for the lock,

And had already planted one foot on the sill, When, just by a chance, he happened to glance

Through the window, and his heart for a moment stood still.

He saw a woman nodding in a low old-fashioned chair;
Her face was sad and wrinkled, while silvered was her hair.
A large and well-thumbed Bible on her lap half-opened lay,
And a cat was softly purring in a sympathetic way.

A scanty pile of fagots, in the fireplace burning low,
Lit
up the room at intervals, and cast a mellow glow
O'er the kindly, aged face, like the nimbus we are told
Which used to hover round the foreheads of the martyred
saints of old.

And the landlord drew up closer, that he might the better look

On the plainly lettered pages of the unfamiliar Book; And the verse he dwelt the longest on, then read it through again,

Was, "Blessed are the merciful, for mercy they'll obtain."

Now why he forebore to push open the door

The farmer could offer no clear explanation;