OUR POETS' CORNER. Home from the Poor House. [If the reader has ever perused "Over the Hill to the Poor House,” he must have noticed that Mr. Carleton's old lady tells that they had six children, who "all growd clean and neat," yet in her home seeking she accounts for but four. The following little poem is written by Mrs. M. J. Bittle, who never could bear the thought of letting the old lady go down to a pauper's grave, so she brings her out, and renders a good account of the sixth one in the following lines:] How he'd work for father and mother; and he never done no wrong, Exceptin' his boyish mischief an' his runnin, off somehow now out of them all he seemed the So to sea; best to me. An' so the slow days wore along, just as the days all go When we cling to some wild fancy that all the while we know Is nothing but a fancy; yet we nurse it till 'twould seem No, I didn't stay in the poor house, and this is how That the dream alone is real and the real only a you see dream. It happened that at the very last there came a way And so I clung to Georgie, or clung to my faith in for me.. The Lord, He makes our sunniest times out of our darkest days, And yet we fail most al'ays to render His name the praise. him, And thought of him the long days through until my eyes were dim, And my old heart ached full sorely to think that never again But as I was goin' to tell you, I have a home of I should see my boy until we stood before the Judge of men. my own, An' keep my house, an'-no, I'm not a livin' here When one day a big, brown, bearded man came rushin' up to me, alone. Of course you wonder how it is, an' I'm a goin' to Sayin', "Mother, my God! have they yut you here ?" and then I see tell How though I couldn't change a jot the Lord done "Twas Georgie, my boy come back to me, and I all things well. I've spoke of Charlie, and Thomas, and Rebecca, "that lives out West;" knowed nothin' more, 'Cause I got faint, and but for him I'd fallen on the floor. "And Isaac, not far from her, some twenty miles They say he swore some awful words. I don't at best;" know-it may be; And Susan;-but not a word I said about another But swear or not, I know my boy's been very good to me; one Yet we had six ;-but, Georgie! Ah! he was our And he's bought the old home back again, an' I wayward son. An' while his father was livin' he ran away to sea, An' never sent a word nor line to neither him nor me. Each heart has some secret sorrow it hides in silence there, An' what we can freely speak of is not so hard to bear. But I couldn't talk of Georgie,-he was too dear to blame, It seemed as if I couldn't bear even to hear his name; But when I took my pauper's place in that old work-house grim, My weary heart was every day a cryin' out for him. For I'd tried the love of the others, and found it weak and cold; And I kind of felt if Georgie knew that I was poor and old, He'd help to make it better and try to do his part, For love and trust are last of all to die in a woman's heart. And he used to be al'ays telling, when he was a man and strong, come here to stay, Never to move till the last move,-the final going away. An' I take a heap of comfort, for Georgie's good and kind, An' the thought of bein' a pauper ain't wearin' on my mind; But still I never can forget until my dyin' day That they put me in the poor house 'cause I was in the way. Two Lives. Born-he grew to manhood fair. Weak-he stray's from mother's care. Mad-he wed a woman low. Drunk-he dealt a deadly blow. Hung-he broke a mother's heart. Wrong-e'en from the very start. Born-he grew to manhood fair. Strong-he prized a mother's care. Loved-he wed a maiden pure. Kind-he helped the needy poor. Dead-is mourn'd by every one. Good-oh, true and faithful son! "I Wish I had Capital." We do not know the author of the following, but he preaches one of the best practical business sermons to young men that we have heard this many a day : "I wish I had capital." So we heard a strapping young man exclaim the other day in our office. We did want to tell him a piece of our mind so bad, and we will just write to him. come in and help you, but go to work. Take the first work you can find, no matter what it is so you may be sure to do it as Billy Gray did his drummingwell. Yes, what you undertake, do it well, always do your best. If you manage the capital you have, you soon will have plenty more to manage; but if can't or won't manage the capital God has given you, you never will have any more to manage. you Cultivate Cheerfulness." You want capital do you? And suppose you had what you call capital, what would you do with it? Havn't you got If we but make up our minds to it, hands, and feet and muscles and bones we can be cheerful under any circumand brains? and don't you call them stances, no matter how adverse and capital? what more did God give to discouraging they may appear for the anybody?"Oh, they are not money,' time being. And by how much we do say you. But they are more than this, by so much we increase our own money, and no one can take them away and the happiness of those around us. from you. Don't you know how to use Charles Lamb used to say that "a laugh them? If you don't it is time you were is worth a thousand groans in any state learning. Take hold of the first plow of the market." Dr. Johnson mainor hoe or jack-plane or broad-ax that tained that the habit of looking on the you can find and go to work. Your bright side of every thing was "better capital will soon yield you a large in- than $5,000 salary a year." Cheerfulterest. Ay, there's the rub. You don't ness and diligence, says Samuel Smiles, want to work; you want money or credit are the life and soul of success, as well that you may play the gentleman and as of happiness; perhaps the very highspeculate, and end by playing the vaga- est pleasure in life consists in clear, bond. Or you want a plantation and brisk, conscious working. Bishop Hall hands, that you may hire an overseer wrote, "For every bad there might be to attend to them, while you run the a worse; and when one breaks his leg, country and dissipate; or you want to let him be thankful that it was not his marry some rich girl, who may be fool-neck." There are few, if any, persons ish enough to marry yon for your good who find things just as they would like looks that she may support you. to have them. Annoyances, vexations, Shame upon you, young man! Go to and trials are incident to the life of work with the capital you have, and you every one. We may allow them to will soon make interest enough upon it constantly fret and irritate us, souring and with it to give you as much money our dispositions and making us unhapas you want and make you feel like a py generally, or we can rise above man. If you can't make money upon them and be cheerful in spite of them. what capital you have, you couldt't make it if you had a million dollars in money. If you don't know how to use bone and muscle aud brains, you would not know how to use gold. If you let the capital you have lie idle and waste and rust out, it would be the same thing with you if you had gold; you would only know how to waste it. It should be the aim of all to cultivate a habit of cheerfulness; to look upon the virtues and not the faults of those around them; to refrain from brooding over the past, and study how the future may be made bright and cherry. We should keep depression and low spirits. at a distance, and not permit ourselves to indulge in melancholy moods or reThen don't stand about like a great pining because matters are not so and helpless child, waiting for some one to so. Women in Conversation. In this busy, bustling period, there is great danger of men being worried by the friction and wear and tear of busiWe do not share the feeling of the ness life into a chronic condition of ir-author who said that "women chatter ritability and peevishness. In their but never converse." On the other eagerness to acquire wealth, they over-hand our observation of society proves tax their energies, encroach upon the that women bear away the palm as necessary hours of sleep, and become conversationalists from the men. Of fretful, fidgety, and waspish. Those course there are insipid women who do in large cities particularly should be on nothing but gossip and gabble, and their guard against falling into this con- whose conversation is made up of poor dition of constant anxiety and appre- puns, hysterical eulogies of Ouida's last hension lest something is going wrong. novel and spasmodic giggling; but you It is an excellent resolution which take women in the average as you some make to leave the "shop" behind meet them in society, and you will find them when returning home at night, to that, with the exception of politics and dispel all thoughts of the day's cares business, they are better informed on and anxieties, and surrender them- what is really worth knowing, and have selves to the soothing, quieting influ- a more pleasing and intelligible way of ences which should be found in every expressing it, than the men. And who family circle. Whoever will do this is is there who mingles in good society bound to be cheerful. Rest, recreation, who cannot mention upon the instant and participation in amusements were more than one woman who really exdesigned by our Creator to counteract cels in the art of conversing, and whose the effect of hard labor on mind and presence at any gathering of sensible body. Whoever refuses to recognize and clever people is enough to insure this fact and conform to it, will suffer success to the entertainment? It is both mentally and physically. How Emerson, we think, who has said “that much better it is for one to pass down in conversation, women, if not the to old age with a limited competency, feeling that he has enjoyed life and contributed to the enjoyment of others, than to secure riches at the sacrifice of all the better instincts of nature and all enjoyment! There is no more pitiable object in the world than the sordid, crabbed old man who has devoted a lifetime to money-getting simply, and sacrificed every trait of manhood in his endeavors. queen and victor, is the law-giver." High eulogy, indeed; but who shall say it is not deserved? How much of counsel, of advice, of caution, and even of reprimand, a woman of principal, intelligence and tact, can impart to one in conversation! How wise her art enables her to be! How direct in her censure without giving offense! How suggestive of rarest thought without egotism! How pure in her influences without effort! How wise in remark without premediation! Coleridge said that cultivated women were the depositories and guardians of pure English, and Luther mentions the "pure German" of his wife; while Steele made the remarkable assertion of a beautiful and gifted woman, that "to have loved her was a liberal education." We have never seen the stimulating, liberalizing, educative influence of a lovely and in As cheerfulness is essential to happiness, so regular habits and plenty of sleep are essential to cheerfulness. We can not violate physical laws with impunity. The Almighty has arranged in his physical anatomy that his creatures must have so much rest and nourishment in order to maintain health, and mental elasticity and buoyancy. There is such an intimate relation existing between the body and mind, that|telligent woman so well stated in so the former can not be out of gear without disarranging the latter. few words. And extracting the sting of the satire from the remark of the old bachelor in the play, we can adopt it as ours, that "men were made to think and woman to talk." A Noble Tribute. Teacher, Do not Give up. Harvests come in human life very unexpectedly. Take the sculptor, Thor valdson, who produced "Jason of the How touching is that tribute of Hon. Golden Fleece;" he was in reality Thomas H."Benton to his mother's in- about to forsake his studies altogether, fluence for good in early life. Said he. and leave Rome filled with bitter disapMy mother asked me never to use to-pointment; he had already broken up bacco; I never touched it from that time to the present day. She asked me never to gamble; and I never have gambled; I cannot tell who are loseing in games that are being played. She admonished me too, against hard drinking; and whatever capacity for endurance I have at present, and whatever usefulness I have, I attribute to having complied with her pious and correct wishes. When I was seven years of age she asked me not to drink, and then I made the resolution of total abstinence; and that I have adhered to through all time and owe it to my mother. Well and safe would it be for all to follow this poble example, especially those on the down grade, quick time, if it still be possible to effectually put on the brake. Then they might live longer to bless others and themselves, to be an honor and comfort to relatives and their homes. one statue of Jason, and smashed it in Our Own Fault. Stern and dreadful experience proves beyond a doubt that tobacco stimulent leads directly to the demand for a more powerful stimulent. Hence the natural resort to the smoking, drinking, and gambling saloon of this class. Such is It is the habit of erring humanitythe attraction that those of fine cloth, and a very comforting one apparentlygood business and otherwise, we see to blame Providence for the misfortunes seeking, and slyly entering by the back which by imprudence we bring upon door these disgraceful haunts of vice ourselves. If a man eats too much at even on the Sabbath. What, if on the dinner, drinks too much and smokes morrow, they were summoned by law too many cigars and dies of apoplexy to take the witness stand, and under at forty, when he ought, by the laws of oath testify what was sold, and who nature, to have lived to eighty, God is bought? Shame on humanity! Why arraigned, and the man's friends and thus reckless and suicidal? Answer, the clergyman who preaches his funerhabit, habit, dreadful habit. Where is al sermon calls his death a "mysterious the rowdy, even though beardless, who does not use tobacco? Where is the loathsome, tipling drunkard who did not begin to stimulate with tobacco ? If a dispensation of Providence." The dyspeptic person should avoid hard water, as he would hard drugs, for all the hard waters on earth are only drugs in solution. About Kerosene. none the less sensitive to cold on that with such a quantity of foreign mateaccount-if she fills the child's stomach rial. with bon bons, and its head with knowledge intended for riper years, and the child dies, as of course it will, then everybody sympathizes with her and urges her to be resigned to the will of Providence. And the afflicted mother weeps and wonders what has she done to deserve such an afflicting stroke. Men who are brought up to know right from wrong, cheat and lie and swindle and speculate and build up fortunes, and invest them in fancy stocks which rise into existence like soap bubbles, and by-and-by the bubbles burst, the fine things are swept away, and these men will have the assurance to say that God dealt harshly with them, and the punishment is more than they can bear. In nine cases out of ten the world is just what we make it. If we do our duty to God and man, regard the natural laws of health, and indulge in no habits that work death and ruin, we shall find plenty in life worth living for, and have little cause to complain of the cruelty of our Heavly Father. Health Hints. If men should dress as the majority of women in fashionable life do, there would be ten cases of consumption among them where there is only one now. Not one growing child in ten can be confined in school more than three hours a day without suffering more or less debility and endangering life. Most of the scholars in our cities and not a few in the country, are pesthouses, very much in the sense that tenement houses are. Coal oil will not explode on very slight provocation. The trouble is not in the oil itself, but in the gas which rises from it, and the oil is always dangerous or safe in proportion to the amount of gas it gives off. There is a "fire test" standard for determining the relative safety of the illuminating oils offered in the market, and everything under 110 degrees fire test is considered unsafe. Three simple rules, if faithfully observed, will make coal oil as safe as gas. Buy from a merchant, whom you can depend on for having the oil he sells properly tested; keep the oil in your lamp above the middle of fills all the channel designed for it, the chamber, and be sure that the wick then you can carry the lamp around the house, blow down the chimney, or do anything else you please with it. The only remaining chance of becoming a martyr to kerosene is to attempt to help the kitchen fire with it. That seldom fails. WHEN there is a quiet, sensible little girl, with brains, she gets no encouragement. Even the best of people seem to prefer a gabbling, troublesome little idiot, who is certain to bring somebody to grief if the measels don't come along and take her off before she reaches her teens. Just think of that good woman, Emily Faithful, writing such words as these for people to read: "We like unladylike girls. We dislike to hear a chit of ten or eleven praised for being 'such a lady-like The most prevalent complaint among little girl.' We would far rather hear ladies at the present day is headache; the complaint, 'Mary is so boistrous; and careful investigation will prove she never comes down the stairs, but that this trouble has rather increased always down the banisters; she tears than diminished since the present style about like a mad thing, and is never so of wearing hair came in vogue-involv- happy as when she is after some lark, ing, as it does, the loading of the head as she calls it.'" Perhaps no country furnishes such multitudes of peevish, fretful, nervous women as the United States. |