Puslapio vaizdai
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"A bill!-Squire Bodkin!" echoed Pimpkin, aghast. "Yes," smiled the Sheriff, "a bill for professional services in the case of 'Pimpkin versus Bodkin.' He says you sought The bill is advice upon legal points bearing on the case. five dollars, sir-expense of officer, one dollar-total, six dollars."

Pimpkin scratched his head vigorously, but he could scratch no path out from the trouble. He paid the bill, and from that time he was never heard to speak boastingly of his legal acumen.

THE LEAK IN THE DIKE.-PHOEBE CARY.

A STORY OF HOLLAND.

The good dame looked from her cottage
At the close of the pleasant day,
And cheerily called to her little son
Outside the door at play:

"Come, Peter, come! I want you to go,

While there is light to see,

To the hut of the blind old man who lives

Across the dike, for me;

And take these cakes I made for him,

They are hot and smoking yet;

You have time enough to go and come
Before the sun is set."

Then the good-wife turned to her labor,
Humming a simple song,

And thought of her husband, working hard
At the sluices all day long;

And set the turf a-blazing,

And brought the coarse black bread;

That he might find a fire at night,

And find the table spread.

And Peter left the brother,

With whom all day he'd played,

And the sister who had watched their sports
In the willow's tender shade;

And told them they'd see him back before
They saw a star in sight,

Though he wouldn't be afraid to go

In the very darkest night!

For he was a brave, bright fellow,

With eye and conscience clear;

He could do whatever a boy might do,
And he had not learned to fear.
Why, he wouldn't have robbed a bird's nest,
Nor brought a stork to harm,
Though never a law in Holland
Had stood to stay his arm!

And now, with his face all glowing,
And eyes as bright as the day

With the thoughts of his pleasant errand,

He trudged along the way;

And soon his joyous prattle

Made glad a lonesome place—

Alas! if only the blind old man

Could have seen that happy face-
Yet he somehow caught the brightness
Which his voice and presence lent;
And he felt the sunshine come and go
As Peter came and went.

And now, as the day was sinking,
And the winds began to rise,

The mother looked from her door again,
Shading her anxious eyes;

And saw the shadows deepen,

And birds to their homes come back,

But never a sign of Peter

Along the level track.

But she said, "He will come at morning,
So I need not fret or grieve-

Though it isn't like my boy at all

To stay without my leave."

But where was the child delaying?

On the homeward way was he,

And across the dike while the sun was up

An hour above the sea.

He was stopping now to gather flowers,
Now listening to the sound,

As the angry waters dashed themselves
Against their narrow bound.

"Ah! well for us," said Peter,

"That the gates are good and strong, And my father tends them carefully, Or they would not hold you long!" "You're a wicked sea," said Peter; "I know why you fret and chafe; You would like to spoil our lands and homes: But our sluices keep you safe!"

But hark! Through the noise of waters
Comes a low, clear, trickling sound;

And the child's face pales with terror,
And his blossoms drop to the ground.
He is up the bank in a moment,

And, stealing through the sand,
He sees a stream not yet so large
As his slender, childish hand.

'Tis a leak in the dike! He is but a boy, Unused to fearful scenes;

But, young as he is, he has learned to know
The dreadful thing that means.

A leak in the dike! The stoutest heart
Grows faint that cry to hear,

And the bravest man in all the land

Turns white with mortal fear.

For he knows the smallest leak may grow To a flood in a single night;

And he knows the strength of the cruel sea
When loosed in its angry might.

And the boy! He has seen the danger,
And, shouting a wild alarm,

He forces back the weight of the sea
With the strength of his single arm!

He listens for the joyful sound

Of a footstep passing nigh;

And lays his ear to the ground to catch
The answer to his cry.

And he hears the rough winds blowing,

And the waters rise and fall,

But never an answer comes to him,

Save the echo of his call.

He sees no hope, no succor,

His feeble voice is lost;

Yet what shall he do but watch and wait,
Though he perish at his post.

So, faintly calling and crying
Till the sun is under the sea,
Crying and moaning till the stars
Come out for company;

He thinks of his brother and sister,
Asleep in their safe, warm bed;
He thinks of his father and mother,
Of himself as dying-and dead;
And of how, when the night is over,
They must come and find him at last:
But he never thinks he can leave the place
Where duty holds him fast.

The good dame in the cottage
Is up and astir with the light,

For the thought of her little Peter
Has been with her all night.

And now she watches the pathway,
As yester-eve she had done;

But what does she see so strange and black
Against the rising sun?

Her neighbors are bearing between them
Something straight to her door;
Her child is coming home, but not
As he ever came before.

He is dead!" she cries; "my darling!
And the startled father hears,

And comes and looks the way she looks
And fears the thing she fears:

Till a glad shout from the bearers

Thrills the stricken man and wife

"Give thanks, for your son has saved our land,
And God has saved his life!"

So, there in the morning sunshine
They knelt about the boy;

And every head was bared and bent
In tearful, reverent joy.

'Tis many a year since then; but still,
When the sea roars like a flood,
Their boys are taught what a boy can do
Who is brave and true and good.
For every man in that country
Takes his son by the hand,
And tells him of little Peter,
Whose courage saved the land.

They have many a valiant hero
Remembered through the years;
But never one whose name so oft
Is named with loving tears.

And his deed shall be sung by the cradle,
And told the child on the knee,

So long as the dikes of Holland

Divide the land from the sea.

THE SINGER'S ALMS.

In Lyons, in the mart of that French town,
Years since, a woman, leading a fair child,
Craved a small alms of one who, walking down

The thoroughfare, caught the child's glance and smiled

To see behind its eyes a noble soul;
He paused, but found he had no coin to dele.
His guardian angel warned him not to lose
This chance of pearl to do another good;
So, he waited, sorry to refuse

The asked-for penny, then aside he stood,
And, with his hat held as by limb the nest,
He covered his kind face and sang his best.

The sky was blue above, and all the lane

Of commerce where the singer stood was filled,

And many paused, and, listening, paused again

To hear the voice that through and through them thrilled; I think the guardian angel helped along

That cry for pity woven in a song.

The singer stood between the beggars there
Before the church; and overhead the spire,

A slim, perpetual finger in the air

Held toward heaven, land of the heart's desire,
As though an angel, pointing up, had said,
"Yonder a crown awaits the singer's head."

The hat of its stamped brood was emptied soon
Into the woman's lap, who drenched with tears
Her kiss upon the hand of help. 'Twas noon,

And noon in her glad heart drove forth her tears.
The singer, pleased, passed on, and softly thought
"Men will not know by whom this deed was wrought."

But when at night he came upon the stage,

Cheer after cheer went up from that wild throng,
And flowers rained on him. Nought could assuage
The tumult of the welcome, save the song

That for the beggars he had sung that day
While standing in the city's busy way.

Oh! cramped and narrow is the man who lives
Only for self, and pawns his years away
For gold, nor knows the joy a good deed gives,
But feels his heart shrink slowly, day by day,
And dies at last, his band of fate outrun;
No high aim sought, no worthy action done.

But brimmed with molten brightness like a star,
And broad and open as the sea or sky,
The generous heart. Its kind deeds shine afar,
And glow in gold in God's great book on high;
And he who does what good he can each day

Makes smooth and green, and strews with flowers, his way.

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