SCHOOL. (A SUMMARY OF "THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT.") Thy ways be ways of pleasantness Let long-suffering lead to gentleness,— In meekness looking unto God, Thus thou shalt find "the law fulfilled," P. Garrett THE DEMON SHIP.-LLOYD MIFFLIN. Her prow was bright with an evil light, She drifted alone in an endless night, As the blood of a babe her decks were red, Black was the sea as a sorcerer's heart, And she sailed the waves with never a chart, There was Age with his red-rimmed rheumy eyes: There were babes but newly born; There was haggard Woman, with lips of lies, And faded Youth forlorn. Thus she sailed the sea for a thousand years: Till the sea grew black-this sea of Tears- Millions had stood 'neath the sanguine sails Her shrouds were wove of the whole world's wails, She is sailing to-day on that dreadful sea; "Ho-ho!" they shout in their demon glee, The last fresh water they pour in the flood: She's sinking down, but, by Bacchus' blood, We'll quaff till she touches the pit!" And their hoarse throats yell, while their frantic feet As it floods the deck like a slippery street "Ho-ho! ho-ho! How the sea doth roar, As the lightnings crash through the midnight black "Ho-ho" they scoff, "Let the red masts crack, Yet we'll drink on the brink of the grave! "Let death gape wide and swallow us up- She sinks!-she sinks!-then cheer the red cup!" The black sea yawned one ravenous hole: For the Fiend plunged down with every soul O'er the vortex black where the ship went in O God! is 't the stain of wine or of sin, Or the blood of her drunken dead! She may sink to the depths for the millionth time- Yet ever she rises, crimson with crime, For the ship is bright as an evil light, SOMETHING SPILT. Barnet's boy left a sack of flour at Archibald's last evening. It was one of those evil-minded paper sacks that had a hundred pounds in it. "Henry, won't you take that flour up in the garret ?" said Mrs. A. persuasively after supper. "Ain't it awful heavy?" and Henry looked at it apprehensively. "If I was as big as you, I wouldn't talk about any thing being heavy." "Big, eh? I like the big part of it. Who busted one of the West-Ward cars last summer, I'd like to know?" "Old man, you look out now! we are not discussing streetcars. You just grab that sack, and I'll help you with a boost behind." Henry persuaded the sack on a chair, and from the chair to the table. Then he leaned down, and pulled it over on his shoulder; but it came on him with such a rush, that it jammed him against the kitchen-door, nearly knocking the top of his head in. "Where are you going?" screamed Mrs. A. as he staggered back, ramming her over the stove, stepping on the hired girl's corn and the dog's tail in one motion. "What are you kicking things around that way for, you benighted old idiot?” "Why don't you grab hold of this thing, and steady it, afore it chases a fellow down the cellar? Blamed thing weighs about a ton." She grabbed the hind end of the sack, and steered Henry to the stairs. They were crooked, and he went up them with caution. At the next turn something stopped him: the miserable sack had found a nail. "What in sin are you pullin' back for?" "Who's a-pullin' back? Go on, you bandy-legged imbecile, afore a person lifts their heart out helping you.” Henry gave a jerk and a grunt. The bag came loose, and ten pounds of flour came down on Mrs. A.'s head. "Whew!—phew!-merciful powers!" But she was too mad for language, and struck out wildly, hitting Henry just back of the knee, on the leg that had all the strain on it. That leg doubled up like a dissipated dishcloth. He reeled wildly a moment, and let go the sack, which immediately went down on top of Mrs. Archibald, precipitated her into the kitchen on top of the girl, who went backwards into the basket of clean clothes, at the same time nearly breaking the dog's back with her head. Henry just went backwards into a heap until his head struck the wall at the turn of the stairs; when he rolled over, and sat three steps up, feeling around for the place where his backbone came through with one hand, while he rubbed the flour and stars out of his eyes with the other. 'Old woman, didn't you spill something?" he meekly inquired. "O you murderous villain!” and she fired the stove-lifter at him; which, with a woman's usual aim, went out at the window, and knocked over her pet lily. "Old woman's getting mad, I guess!" and Henry scrambled up into the garret and bolted himself in, and leaned out at the end window, inflicting an hour-and-a-half joke on Oxtoby, next door, about the Russians being fond of poultry, because they were going to live on Turkey all summer. WHEN THE COWS COME HOME. When klingle, klangle, klingle, The cows are coming home; Now sweet and clear, now faint and low, That makes the daisies grow; And old-time friends, and twilight plays, With jingle, jangle, jingle, Soft tones that sweetly mingle- Malvine, and Pearl, and Florimel, And mother-songs of long-gone years, Through violet air we see the town, The same sweet sound of wordless psalm A-loitering in the checkered stream, To-link, to-lank, tolinklelinkle, O'er banks with buttercups a-twinkle, And up through memory's deep ravine |