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EUDORA BUMSTEAD.

UDORA STONE BUMSTEAD is a native of Bedford, Michigan, and was born August 26, 1860. However, she may well be called a daughter of Nebraska, as her parents removed to that state, where she has since resided, when she was but two years of age. Her earliest recollections, therefore, are of the great West, with its billowy prairies and seas of green, its grasshoppers, snow-storms and howling blizzards. Having for her monitor the voice of the winds and for inspiration the magnificence of the limitless plains, it is not to be wondered at that she early sung of nature in poetic numbers. But she had more than these incentives to literary tendency and growth. She had, in addition, parents who, though not college-bred, were well educated and highly cultured, and by their own literary taste and force gave her every possible encouragement to make hers a literary career. She began writing rhymes in childhood, and when ten years old was paid two dollars for a poem entitled, "Signs of Spring," which was published in Our Young Folks, then edited by J. T. Trowbridge. Receiving a good common-school education, she was for a time a successful school teacher. In 1878-9 she attended the Nebraska State University, where, becoming acquainted with William T. Bumstead, she became his wife in 1880. Their only child, a bright boy of two-and-a-half years, left them, but the sadness occasioned by his loss has not been sung to the world, as the mother believes that it is better to spread light and gladness than clouds and sadness.

Devoted to her husband to a rare degree, Mrs. Bumstead is the very personification of contentment. Living at Beatrice in a simple home overlooking the beautiful Blue River, she never seems to permit a care or trouble to cross her threshold. A non-conformist in matters of religion, she finds fault with none because of their convictions. Being of Quaker descent, she is the perfect type of that people, having all their antipathy for show and sham. Except to a congenial few, she is almost as much a stranger in her own city as abroad. Remarkably well informed and having an analytic mind, she is a keen, though kindly, disputant, accepting nothing as proven which does not stand the test of reason. Devoting but a small portion of her time to literary work, she yet manages to keep up a continuous publication of poetry and stories in the leading periodicals of the country, chief among which are the Youth's Companion and St. Nicholas. As a writer of lines for children she has but few equals, and will yet gain, if indeed she

has not already won for herself, in the world's heart, the title of "The Children's Poet."-N. K. G.

THE CORN.

WHILE Walter goes to plant his corn, Says Mina to the fair May morn,

'How tall, and strong, and blithe is he! O may the fertile grains of gold Yield him twice a hundredfold,

For he is all the world to me!"
The morning breeze is fresh and strong;
The corn-bird sings his planting song;

The robin answers from the hill;
But not a note does Mina hear
Of all the music far and near,

Save Walter's whistle sweet and shrill.
His prairie farm is new and wide,
But he has naught on earth beside,
And in a tiny hut he dwells;
And so, except in smiles and sighs,
And gentle deeds and wistful eyes,

His love for her he never tells.
But if the year should go aright,
Nor drought nor hail the corn should blight,
What happy wonders then might be!
So saith the maid, "O grains of gold,
Yield him twice a hundredfold,

For he is all the world to me!"
While Walter goes to husk his corn
He smiles upon the frosty morn,

For Mina, smiling, sits beside.
Since first the stalks in summer spread
Their rank green blades above her head

He claims a precious promised bride.
The spot is chosen where shall stand
The cottage, oft and gravely planned

In summer noons and Sabbath eves, And trees are named to shade the day, And charm the twilight hours away

With mystic murmurs of their leaves. "Dear girl," he says, "before we knew What hail, or drought, or frost might do, Our happy goal seemed far away; But now, so blest our fields have been That when the last great load comes in,

Oh, then should be our wedding day!"

And Mina answers soft and low;
She husks with him the first long row,
The sweet, sere blades above her head;
And if he stops her here and there,
The corn itself gives license fair,

For more than once the ear is red.

219

SAITH MY HEART.

WHILE the clouds hang low and the night-winds

moan,

The Earth is weary, and dark, and lone.

(0, sad Earth, thy pain I know.) His heart of sorrow will not foresee

How the white moon cometh, his bride to be. (And there is but one more fair than she, Saith my heart in whispers low.)

The storm is ended; the winds are whist;
But the moon is masked in a shining mist.
(0, fond Earth, thy doubt I know.)
She parteth her veil-of silver spun-
And glory and joy the Earth o’errun.

(0, Love, behold what a smile hath done,
Saith my heart in whispers low.)

Crieth my soul, O list! O hear!
She that I love is near-is near!

(0, glad Earth, thy hope I know.) Celestial glory the sky hath spanned; My lips are mute, but they touch her hand. (She that I love will understand, Saith my heart in whispers low.)

Ah, that smile! 'Tis a silent vow.
Her pure heart flameth up to her brow.

(0, strong Earth, thy bliss I know.) All that was bitter is turned to sweet; All that was lacking is made complete. (Heaven hath followed my darling's feet, Saith my heart in whispers low.)

THE QUEST.

THERE once was a restless boy
Who dwelt in a home by the sea,
Where the water danced for joy

And the wind was glad and free;

But he said, "Good mother, oh, let me go; For the dullest place in the world I know Is this little brown house,

This old brown house

Under the apple tree.

I will travel east and west;

The loveliest homes I'll see; And when I have found the best,

Dear mother, I'll come home for thee, I'll come for thee in a year and a day, And joyfully then we'll haste away

From this little brown house,
This old brown house

Under the apple tree.

So he traveled here and there,
But never content was he.
Though he saw in lands most fair
The costliest home there be,

He something missed from the sea or sky
Till he turned again, with a wistful sigh,
To the little brown house,

The old brown house
Under the apple tree.

Then the mother saw and smiled,
While her heart grew glad and free.
"Hast thou chosen a home, my child?
Ah, where shall we dwell?" quoth she.
And he said, "Sweet mother, from east to west
The loveliest home and the dearest and best
Is a little brown house,

An old brown house

Under an apple tree."

BLOW, WIND, BLOW.
(Monosyllables.)

Now the snow is on the ground,
And the frost is on the glass;
Now the brook in ice is bound,

And the great storms rise and pass,
Bring the thick, gray cloud;

Toss the flakes of snow;
Let your voice be hoarse and loud,
And blow, wind, blow!

When our day in school is done,

Out we come with you to play. You are rough, but full of fun,

And we boys have learned your way.

All your cuffs and slaps

Mean no harm, we know.

Try to snatch our coats and caps,

And blow, wind, blow!

You have sent the flowers to bed;

Cut the leaves from off the trees; From your blast the birds have fled; Now you do what you may please. Yes; but by and by

Spring will come, we know,

Spread your clouds then, wide and high, And blow, wind, blow!

INTEMPERANCE.

They were drawn to a path of pain and shame,
As the moth is drawn to the torturing flame,
Though they knew there were paupers, and men
insane,

And prisons, and graves at the end of the lane.
-Duzhupleze.

GEORGE NEWELL LOVEJOY.

THIS

HIS writer of historic ballads and popular sympathetic verse, whose name is familiar to American hearts and homes, is a descendant of one of the earliest New England families - the Massachusetts. Adams Lovejoy, the martyr to the cause of emancipation, and the famous Owen Lovejoy were relatives on his father's side of the family. He was born at Riga, Monroe county, New York. Music became his early passion, and his song, “O, Love in the West," is the ripe fruit of his early musical culture. At ten years of age he became a pupil at the Conservatory, Lyons, N. Y., conducted by Prof. Hinsdale Sherwood, father of the eminent pianist, Wm. H. Sherwood. In 1858 Mr. Lovejoy's parents removed to Ann Arbor, Mich., where the son attended the public schools of that University town, and later graduated from the law department of the University before the age of twenty-one.

His father died suddenly in 1865, and the life of Mr. Lovejoy was terribly saddened for months after. He and his mother always lived together, each bound up in the affection of the other. She died near Rochester in August, 1888. Into his mother's grave went the joy of his life. For years he has given his attention to music and literary work. He has published several songs, has written for Lippincott's Magazine, St. Nicholas, one of the Harper publications, The Current, the American Magazine, Youth's Companion, and other prominent periodicals as well as newspapers. "Disappointment," a poem appearing in Lippincott's Magazine in April, 1883, attracted much attention. He has spent much time on varied occasions in the larger eastern cities, but he has a distaste for great cities and prefers a retired life. At present he resides in Rochester, N. Y.

A RECOLLECTION.

H. B.

THE rose looked fairer as it lay
On her cold breast that summer day,
And sweeter smelled its guileless breath
Above the heart so still in death.
Beholding her the eye could trace
A tender smile on her calm face,
While on her lips one could not miss,
As e'en n life, the waiting kiss!

She seemed as one fast fallen asleep,
Like one in blissful dreamland deep,
Or, like an angel in repose,
Breathing the breath of a white rose;

And yet her quiet loveliness
A deeper meaning did express,
One full of that mysterious power
Which makes one dumb in such an hour!

We bended down and kissed the face
So white and sad, yet full of grace,
And felt the lily hands that pressed,
As in fond prayer, the silent breast,
And dropped the tears of sad regret
O'er one whose lovely bloom had set
In rarer hues and sweeter scent,
In God's blest garden of content!

THE OLD HILL-PATH.

'Tis true, it is as graceful as when, in other days, It wound along in beauty to the top; but as I gaze 'This musing hour upon it, sad tears my eyelids fill, For something's gone forever from the old path up the hill.

The sunlight and the shadows rest upon it with the same

Dear benedictive presence as in the days when

came

No aching care to haunt me, from morn till eve at will

Ere something passed forever from the old path up the hill.

The breezes, as they loiter, the old airs fondly croon,

The blithe birds in the tree-tops sing as in my life's lost June;

And, as then, the myriad blossoms all around their wealth distill

But something's gone forever from the old path up the hill.

Something a face-a touch of hand-a voice-a presence-lo!

A world that brought me heaven, all vanished with the flow

Of pauseless time, and, slowly, along I wander still

With something gone forever from the old path up the hill.

Would ye might come again-again-oh, days so

dear to me,

And give me back the glory of my life's sweet Arcady!

For, though summer reigns a goddess, in my heart lives winter's chill,

Since something's gone forever from the old path up the hill.

ARTHUR JOHN LOCKHART.

RTHUR JOHN LOCKHART was born May 5,

AR1850, in the Village of Lockhartville, Kings

county, Nova Scotia. It is a very picturesque country, overlooking the yellow waters of Avon river, and a little farther off Minas basin, with Cape Blomidon and Five Islands and the Cumberland shore in sight. About four miles away lies the valley of the Gaspereau river, and beyond that the Grand-pré, a beautiful stretch of level hayland, dyked in from the tides of Minas basin. There is no more beautiful scenery in Nova Scotia than this. A good description of the charming pastoral landscape of Gaspereau may be found in Mr. Lockhart's poem by that name. How the love of nature grew in him and sought poetic expression is told in the same poem.

Mr. Lockhart is of Scotch descent on his father's side, and of Huguenot on his mother's. His father was a shipmaster, and his long voyages and absences gave a touch of pathos and romance to the boy's life. He inherited a deeply religious temperament, and after trying for some years the printer's trade in Cambridge, Mass., he found his congenial life-work in the Christian ministry. For sixteen years he has been an acceptable preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church of Maine. While stationed at East Corinth, Penobscot county, he published a volume of poems entitled, "The Mask of Minstrels." This volume was received with favor. He has done some very acceptable essay-work in the Portland Transcript, under the nom de plume of "Pastor Felix." Stray poems of his find their way into various papers of the Dominion and of the United States. He has had his full share of labor and sorrow, which accounts for the minor strain in many of his poems. A brother was lost at sea in early manhood, and it is in his memory he writes the sweet elegy, "To Thee, the Love of Woman Hath Gone Down." Mr. Lockhart's best work has a singing quality, a lyrical spirit and a natural ease and charm which distinguish it from mere rhetoric, however cunningly devised. His poems have numerous quotable lines, which are full of the very fragrance and essence of beauty. It will be found that many of them will bear close acquaintance and will yield more fragrance the closer they are pressed. B. W. L.

SILENT SPEECH.

THE green leaves twinkled overhead, And lightly on the turf beneath She walked, but not a word we said; She braided me a daisy wreath,

With clover and grasses blent,
While toward the sea we smiling went.

The glossy buttercups were there,
Sprinkling the waysides with their gold;
And in the west hung splendors rare
Of sunset that are never told;
And, on white waters glorified,
The quiet ships did brightly ride.

The charm of silence was not broken
With words that softly fill the ear-
Affection's sweet, responsive token-
Accents the spirit leaps to hear;

And as we walked I vainly sought
To plume with speech my fluttering tho't.

We sat to rest beside the way;

She raised her sweet eyes up to mine; Her inmost soul had risen to say,

"And dost thou question I am thine?" No need that she or I should speak; For love is strong when words are weak.

ANGELS.

IN THE chill autumn night, when lone winds grieve,
I musing sat, where on my cottage wall
The flickering shadows of the fire-light fall,
Shuttles that Fancy's silver web doth weave;
Lonely and worn, I thought upon the dearth
Of heavenly influence; for our dull earth
No longer may her plumy guests receive
From regions where divinest things have birth.

Wandering in dream, I saw the new-risen Eve,
Prime of all human beauty, human worth,
Sitting upon a flower-besprinkled mound

Of Paradise; and felt the charm, the grace,
The pure content that harmonized her face.
She moved not, but a tranquil rapture found
In gazing upward, rapt with wondrous view
Of gold-winged angels softly breaking through,
Or melting in the deep of evening blue-
Fleet couriers, messaged from a world afar-
And on the brow of each a lucent star!
"Strange!" thought I, wondering at the things I

saw,

Like him at Bethel, waking, filled with awe Of this great vision: "Surely, I behold The angels tarrying with us as of old!"

And though the fire-lit embers had not died, They made not the sweet face my chair beside, The form of light-and fair as Eden's brideWatching each sparkle with her quiet smile.