Our Maude was dancing with her doll,
In childhood's chattering glee;
A brimming bucket standing by,
The maiden failed to see,
And skipping, tripped; the bucket tipped;
The water, cool and clear, [{237}] Was rudely swayed, but, undismayed,
And quickly kneeling near,
Both little hands she spread above
The water's merry surge.
"And what's she doing there," we ask?
No answer, till we urge,
And then, "Why mamma, don't you know
God stilled the waves so wild,
With His great hand? And so I thought,
Although I'm but a child,
That I might still these little waves
With my two hands so small;
And mamma, see, they're quiet now!
But where's my baby-doll?"
* * * * *
HEALTH AND HAPPINESS.
Mamma keeps her children
In the happiest mood
When she feeds them only
With the simplest food.
Viands clog and pain them,
Then they fret and cry,
And then when she whips them,
Everything's awry.
THE MEADOW QUAILS.
Over in the meadow where the men make hay,
In an elm-tree shadow on a bright summer day,
Two speckled quails ponder as to what will be best,
Should the stout mower blunder on their pretty home-nest.
But a cloud in a minute from her great white bed
Threw a big silver bonnet o'er the sun's golden head
And the quails, though they wondered would their home be beset,
Cried aloud, and it thundered: "More wet! more wet!" [{239}]
Then the great sturdy yeoman coming close to the nest,
With the heart of a true man beating soft in his breast,
Saw the parent-quails watching, with what fear who can tell?
Saw the baby-quails hatching, hardly out of the shell.
And who knows but he thought of his own precious baby
His dear little daughter in her mother's arms, maybe?
For he quickly made over that portion of meadow
With the sweetest of clover, and the softest of shadow.
To the quails who all summer lived alongside the lane,
Ever warning the farmer of the forth-coming rain;
For long ere it thundered and I hear the cry yet
They would call as they wandered, "More wet! More wet!"
* * * * *
DIDN'T-THINK is a heedless lad
And never takes the prize:
Remember-well wins every time.
For he is quick and wise.
THE LITTLE HOUSEWIFE.