"I will be a good girl, Bennie,"
Said I, feeling the reproof;
And straightway recalled poor Harney,
Mewing on the gallery roof.
Soon the anger was forgotten,
Laughter chased away the frown,
And they gamboled round the fireside,
Till the dusky night came down.
In my dim, fire-lighted chamber,
Harney purred beneath my chair,
And my playworn boy beside me
Knelt to say his evening prayer;
"God bess Fader, God bess Moder,
God bess Sister," then a pause,
And the sweet young lips devoutly
Murmured, "God bess Santa Kaus."
He is sleeping; brown and silken
Lie the lashes, long and meek,
Like caressing, clinging shadows,
On his plump and peachy cheek,
And I bend above him, weeping
Thankful tears, O defiled!
For a woman's crown of glory,
For the blessing of a child.
Annie C. Ketchum.
* * * * *
SLANDER.
'Twas but a breath—
And yet a woman's fair fame wilted,
And friends once fond, grew cold and stilted;
And life was worse than death.
One venomed word,
That struck its coward, poisoned blow,
In craven whispers, hushed and low,—
And yet the wide world heard.
Twas but one whisper—one—
That muttered low, for very shame,
That thing the slanderer dare not name,—
And yet its work was done.
A hint so slight,
And yet so mighty in its power,—
A human soul in one short hour,
Lies crushed beneath its blight.