I served my sentence—a bitter pill
Some fellows should take who never will;
And then I decided to go "out West,"
Concludin' 'twould suit my health the best;
Where, how I prospered, I never could tell,
But Fortune seemed to like me well,
An' somehow every vein I struck
Was always bubbling over with luck.
An' better than that, I was steady an' true,
An' put my good resolutions through.
But I wrote to a trusty old neighbour, an' said,
"You tell 'em, old fellow, that I am dead,
An' died a Christian; 'twill please 'em more,
Than if I had lived the same as before."
But when this neighbour he wrote to me,
"Your mother's in the poor house," says he,
I had a resurrection straightway,
An' started for her that very day.
And when I arrived where I was grown,
I took good care that I shouldn't be known;
But I bought the old cottage, through and through,
Off some one Charley had sold it to;
And held back neither work nor gold,
To fix it up as it was of old.
The same big fire-place, wide and high,
Flung up its cinders toward the sky;
The old clock ticked on the corner-shelf—
I wound it an' set it agoin' myself;
And if everything wasn't just the same,
Neither I nor money was to blame;
Then—over the hill to the poor-house!
One blowin', blusterin', winter's day,
With a team an' cutter I started away;
My fiery nags was as black as coal;
(They some'at resembled the horse I stole);
I hitched, an' entered the poor-house door—
A poor old woman was scrubbin' the floor;
She rose to her feet in great surprise,
And looked, quite startled, into my eyes;
I saw the whole of her trouble's trace
In the lines that marred her dear old face;
"Mother!" I shouted, "your sorrows is done!
You're adopted along o' your horse-thief son,
Come over the hill from the poor-house!"
She didn't faint; she knelt by my side,
An' thanked the Lord, till I fairly cried.
An' maybe our ride wasn't pleasant an' gay,
An' maybe she wasn't wrapped up that day;
An' maybe our cottage wasn't warm an' bright,
An' maybe it wasn't a pleasant sight,
To see her a-gettin' the evenin's tea,
An' frequently stoppin' an' kissin' me;
An' maybe we didn't live happy for years,
In spite of my brothers and sisters' sneers,
Who often said, as I have heard,
That they wouldn't own a prison-bird;
(Though they're gettin' over that, I guess,
For all of them owe me more or less;)
But I've learned one thing; an' it cheers a man
In always a-doin' the best he can;
That whether on the big book, a blot
Gets over a fellow's name or not,
Whenever he does a deed that's white,
It's credited to him fair and right.
An' when you hear the great bugle's notes,
An' the Lord divides his sheep and goats;
However they may settle my case,
Wherever they may fix my place,
My good old Christian mother, you'll see,
Will be sure to stand right up for me,
With over the hill from the poor-house.
Will Carleton.
* * * * *
THE WORLD FROM THE SIDEWALK.
Did you ever stand in the crowded street,
In the glare of a city lamp,
And list to the tread of the millions feet
In their quaintly musical tramp?
As the surging crowd go to and fro,
'Tis a pleasant sight, I ween,
To mark the figures that come and go
In the ever-changing scene.
Here the publican walks with the sinner proud,
And the priest in his gloomy cowl,
And Dives walks in the motley crowd
With Lazarus, cheek by jowl;
And the daughter of toil with her fresh young heart
As pure as her spotless fame,
Keeps step with the woman who makes her mart
In the haunts of sin and shame.
How lightly trips the country lass
In the midst of the city's ills,
As freshly pure as the daisied grass
That grows on her native hills;
And the beggar, too, with his hungry eye,
And his lean, wan face and crutch,
Gives a blessing the same to the passer-by
As they give him little or much.