[to be continued.]
[THE MAN WHO CARED FOR NOBODY.]
BY LILLIE E. BARR.
This is the song the miller sang,
The selfish miller of Dee:
"I care for nobody, no, not I,
And nobody cares for me."
He ate and drank, and worked and slept,
Money and land had he,
But never a poorer mortal slept
Than the selfish miller of Dee.
The village maids grew good and fair,
But they grew not near his life;
His hearth-stone only held one chair—
He had no room for a wife.
No woman's footstep, quick and light,
Came down the silent stair
To bless him every morn and night
With kisses unaware.
The village lads and lasses knew
The charm of the old mill-race;
Oh, what a happy little crew
Oft made it their playing-place!
But none of them climbed the miller's knee
When the evening shades fell dim;
He cared for nobody, no, not he,
And nobody cared for him.
So he lived alone, he had no kin;
And in all the country-side
There wasn't a mortal cared a pin
Whether he lived or he died.
The women gave him never a smile,
The men had nothing to say,
No friend e'er crossed his garden stile,
No stranger wished him good-day.
He lived alone, and he died alone,
So his selfish life was sped;
They found him cold on his cold hearth-stone—
The miller of Dee was dead.
And no one cared to see his face,
No eye for him grew dim;
He cared for nobody, no, not he,
And nobody cared for him.
To share our life is to double our life;
And what if it double its care?
Loving can lighten the hardest strife,
Loving can make it fair.
Better to love, though love should die,
Than say, like the miller of Dee,
"I care for nobody, no, not I,
And nobody cares for me."
"THE TWO FAMILIES."—From the Painting by Michael Munkacsy.
[BITS OF ADVICE.]
BY AUNT MARJORIE PRECEPT.
ABOUT USING ODD MINUTES.
I have a friend who is a very busy woman, but she reads many good books, knows what is going on in the world, and manages to do a great deal of very beautiful fancy-work. One day I asked her how it happened that she accomplished so much more than some other people could, and she said, "Oh, I look out for the odd minutes."
I have no doubt that among my readers there are girls and boys who have so much real work to do that they have not a great deal of leisure. Johnny finds weeding and hoeing very tiresome, and as for wood-chopping and the running of errands, he has his full share of both. Sophy, too, would have good times if it were not that there is always the baby to be taken care of, the old sheets to be turned, the parlors to be dusted, or the messages to be carried to the minister's wife.
How both John and Sophy, and ever so many other young people, dislike kind old ladies and gentlemen, who have a way of glaring at them through their spectacles, and observing: "Dear, me! how you grow, to be sure! You must be quite a help to your mother by this time." Or, worse still, they inquire about the school and the studies, and propose some problem or other in mental arithmetic quite different from anything in the book. Now please don't think Aunt Marjorie is that sort of an old lady, or has any greater liking for that sort of old gentleman than you have, children. But listen to her advice. Suppose for the next month you keep a definite bit of work on hand just for odd times. Let it be a volume of history, and read it in the nows and thens when you are waiting for father to finish a note; let it be a piece of embroidery or crochet-work, and take it up when there is time for only a few stitches at once. At the end of the month you will be surprised to see how much you have gained by using these odd minutes.