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And yet the mother seems to go at it in the right way She opens the stair door and insinuatingly observes, "Johnny." There is no response. "Johnny." Still no response. Then there is a short, sharp "John," followed a moment later by a long and emphatic "John Henry." A grunt from the upper regions signifies that an impression has been made; and the mother is encouraged to add, "You'd better be getting down here to your breakfast, young man, before I come up there an' give you something you'll feel." This so startles the young man that he immediately goes to sleep again. And the operation has to be repeated several times. A father knows nothing about this trouble. He merely opens his mouth as a soda bottle ejects its cork, and the "John Henry" that cleaves the air of that stairway goes into that boy like electricity, and pierces the deepest recesses of his nature. And he pops out of that bed and into his clothes, and down the stairs, with a promptness that is commendable. It is rarely a boy allows himself to disregard the paternal summons. About once a year is believed to be as often as is consistent with the rules of health. He saves his father a great many steps by his thoughtfulness.

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O! for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools:
Of the wild bees' morning chase,
Of the wild flower's time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the ground-mole digs his well;
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans!

For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Part and parcel of her joy,
Blessings on the barefoot boy.
O for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for!
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming birds and honey bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade,
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight,
Through the day and through the night;
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,

Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
Still, as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too,
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy!

O, for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread,
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door stone, gray and rude!
O'er me like a regal tent,
Cloudy ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play

Of the pied frogs' orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.

I was monarch; pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!

Cheerily, then, my little man!
Live and laugh as boyhood can;
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat.
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil,
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in

Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

-John G. Whittier.

The School Boy.

WE bought him a box for his books and things,

And a cricket bag for his bat;

And he looked the brightest and best of kings
Under his new straw hat.

We handed him into the railway train

With a troop of his young compeers, And we made as though it were dust and rain Were filling our eyes with tears.

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M

Maidenhood.

AIDEN! with the meek brown eyes,

In whose orb a shadow lies,
Like the dusk in evening skies!

Thou, whose looks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run.

Standing, with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!

Gazing with a timid glance
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse.

Deep and still, that gliding stream,
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.

Then, why pause with indecision, When bright angels in the vision Beckon thee to fields Elysian!

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?

Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafen'd by the cataract's roar?

O thou child of many prayers!

Life hath quicksands, life hath snares!
Care and age come unawares!

Like the swell of some sweet tune,
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.

Childhood is the bow where slumber'd
Birds and blossoms many-number'd;
Age, that bow with snows encumber'd.
Gather, then, each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.

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TWO

Interpretation of The Term

66

Gentleman."

'WO great errors, coloring, or, rather, discoloring, severally, the minds, of the higher and lower classes, have sown wide dissension and wider misfortune through the society of modern days. These errors are in our modes of interpreting the word "gentleman.”

Its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is, "a man of pure race," well bred, in the sense that a horse or dog is well bred.

The so-called higher classes, being generally of purer race than the lower, have retained the idea and the convictions associated with it, but are afraid to speak it out, and equivocate about it in public; this equivocation mainly proceeding from their desire to connect another meaning with it, and a false one,-that of "a man living in idleness on other people's labor," -with which idea the term has nothing whatever to do.

The lower classes, denying vigorously, and with reason, the notion that a gentleman means an idler, and rightly feeling that the more any one works the more of a gentleman he becomes and is likely to become, have nevertheless got little of the good they otherwise might from the truth, because with it they wanted to hold a falsehood—namely, that race was of no consequence; it being precisely of as much consequence in man as in any other animal.

The nation cannot truly prosper till both these errors are finally got quit of. Gentlemen

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