Dick's Pleasant Dream

BY BIDE DUDLEY.

[From Lippincott's Magazine.]

I HAD a dream the other night.
I wisht it would come true.
I'd git revenge fer lots of things;
That there's jist what I'd do.
I dreamed I got to be a king,
An' say-the things I did

Wus so derned fine it broke my heart
To wake up jist a kid.

I dreamed I set there on my throne,
All dressed in garments glad,
When in there came a dook an' prince,
An' with 'em wus my dad.

"Ah, ha!" I says. "I got you now.
Look here, old boy!" says I.
"You made yer son work, didn't you?

Jail fer you till you die!"

My mother wus the next one in.
She says, "Hello, my son!"

Says I, "Jist call me 'Majesty.'"

Then I sure had some fun.

"You spanked me, Mrs. Smith," says I; "You recollect it well."

An' then I had her spanked six times.
She left there with a yell.

Then next my sister happened in.
I had her grabbed right quick.
"I'm glad yer here," I says to her.
"Bow down; this here's King Dick.
You slapped me one day, didn't you?"
An' then, in spite of tears,

I had a lord er some big guy
Jist box my sister's ears.

My sister's beau got in somehow,
An', my! but I wus glad.

"Don't smile, old boy," I says to him;
"It's time you got real sad.

You called me worthless-recollect?
Well, things has changed a bit;"
An' then I had 'em kick him out.
Gee! how that feller fit!

Well, I wus 'bout to fine Bill Link,
The kid who stoled my girl,

When some guy chanced to drop his sword,-
I think it wus a earl,-

It woke me up, an', dern it all!

I found it wusn't real.

Gee whiz! I'm disappointed bad;
You don't know how I feel.

The Going of the White Swan

BY GILBERT PARKER.

[Arranged by Katherine L. Mereness. Copyright 1892 by Gilbert Parker. From "Pierre and His People.]

HY don't she come back, father?"

The man shook his head, his hand fumbled with the wolf-skin robe covering the child, and he made no reply.

"She'd come back if she knew I was hurted, wouldn't she?"

The father nodded, and then the big body shivered a little and the uncouth hand felt for a place in the bed where the lad's knee made a lump under the robe. He felt the little heap tenderly, but the child winced. "S-sh, but that hurts! This wolf-skin's most too much on me, isn't it, father?"

The man softly, yet awkwardly too, lifted the robe. folded it back, and slowly uncovered the knee. The leg was worn away almost to skin and bone, but the knee itself was swollen with inflammation. He bathed

it with some water, mixed with vinegar and herbs, then drew down the deer-skin shirt at the child's shoulder, and the same with it. Both shoulder and knee bore the marks of teeth-where a huge wild-cat had made havoc and the body had long red scratches.

The place was a low hut. Bare of the usual comforts as the room was, it had a sort of a refinement, joined to an inexpressible loneliness; you could scarce have told how or why. They sat there for a long time, not speaking, each busy in his own way.

last the boy lay back on the pillow, his eyes closed, and he seemed about to fall asleep, but presently looked up and whispered: "I haven't said my prayers, have I?"

The father shook his head in a sort of rude confusion.

"I can pray out loud if I want to, can't I?"

"Of course, Dominique."

Making the sign of the cross, he lay back, and said: "I'll go to sleep now, I guess."

The man sat for a long time looking at the pale, shining face, and the longer he sat, the deeper did his misery sink into his soul. His wife had gone he knew not where, his child was wasting to death, and he had for his sorrows no inner consolation.

When she fled from their hut one bitter day, as he roared some wild words at her, it was because her nerves had all been shaken from threatened death by wild beasts (of this he did not know), and his violence drove her mad. She ran out of the house, and onand on--and on-and she had never come back. That was weeks ago, and there had been no word nor sign of her since.

Hours passed. All at once, without any other motion or gesture, the boy's eyes opened wide with a strange intense look.

"Father," he said slowly, and in a kind of dream, "I saw a white swan fly through the door over your shoulder when you came in to-night."

"No, no, Dominique, it was the flurry of the snow blowing over my shoulder."

"But it looked at me with two shining eyes."

"That was two stars shining through the door, my son."

The man's voice was anxious and unconvincing, his eyes had a hungry, hunted look. The legend of the White Swan had to do with the passing of the human soul. The Swan had come in-would it go out alone? He touched the boy's hand-it was hot with fever; he felt the pulse-it ran high; he watched the face-it had a glowing light, he got to his feet, and, with a' sudden blind humility, lit two candles, placed them on a shelf in a corner before a porcelain figure of the Virgin, as he had seen his wife do. After a moment, standing with his eyes fixed on the face of the crucified figure, he said, in a shaking voice:

"Pardon, good Jesus, save my child and leave me not alone!"

The boy slept. The father stood still by the bed for a time, but at last slowly turned and went toward the fire.

Outside, two figures were approaching the huta man and a woman.

The man passed quickly to the door, and tapping very softly, opened it, entered, and closed it behind him not so quickly, however, but that the woman outside caught a glimpse of the man and the boy. In her eyes there was the divine look of motherhood.

"Peace be to this house!" said the man gently, as he stepped forward from the door.

The father, startled, turned shrinkingly on him, as if he had seen a spirit.

"M'sieu', Father Corraine."

The priest's quick eye had taken the lighted candles at the little shrine, even as he saw the painfully changed aspect of the man.

"The wife and child, Bagot? Ah, the boy! Dominique is ill?"

Bagot nodded, and then answered: "A wildcat and then fever, Father Corraine."

The priest felt the boy's pulse softly, and then with a close personal look he spoke hardly above his breath, yet distinctly too:

"Your wife, Bagot?"

"She is not here, m'sieu'". The voice was low and gloomy.

"Where is she, Bagot?"

"I do not know, m'sieu' ".
"When did you see her last?"
"Four weeks ago, m'sieu'".

"That was September, this is October-winterBagot, you have been a rough, hard man, and you have been a stranger to your God, but I thought you loved your wife and child!"

The hunter's hands clenched, and a wicked light flashed up into his eyes; but the calm, benignant gaze of the other cooled the tempest in his veins. The priest sat down on the couch where the child lay, and took the fevered hand in his very softly.

"Stay where you are, Bagot, just there where you are, and tell me what your trouble is, and why your wife is not here. . . . Say all honestly-by the name of Christ!" he added, lifting up a large iron crucifix that hung on his breast.

Bagot sat down on a bench near the fireplace, the light playing on his bronzed, powerful face, his eyes shining beneath his heavy brows like two coals of fire. After a moment he began:

"I don't know how it started. I-I laid my powderhorn and whiskey-flask-up there!"

He pointed to the little shrine of the Virgin, where now his candles were burning.

"I didn't notice it, but she had some flowers there. She said something with an edge, her face all snapping angry threw the things down, and called me a heathen and a wicked heretic-and I don't say now but she'd a right to do it. I said something pretty rough, and made as if I was going to break her in two. She threw up her hands to her ears with a wild cry, ran out of the house, down the hills, and away. I went to the door and watched her as long as I could see her, and waited for her to come back-but she never did. I've hunted and hunted, but I can't find her." Then with a sudden thought, "Do you know anything of her, m’sieu’?”

The priest turned for a moment toward the boy who