Five years at school the students spent;
Then into business each one went.
John learned to play the flute and fiddle,
And parted his hair, of course, in the middle;
While his brother looked rather higher than he,
And hung out a sign, "H. Brown, M. D."
Meanwhile, at home, their brother Fred
Had taken a notion into his head;
But he quietly trimmed his apple trees,
And weeded onions and planted peas,
While somehow or other, by hook or crook,
He managed to read full many a book.
Until at last his father said
He was getting "book larnin'" into his head;
"But for all that," added Farmer Brown,
"He's the smartest boy there is in town."
The war broke out and Captain Fred
A hundred men to battle led,
And when the rebel flag came down,
Went marching home as General Brown.
But he went to work on the farm again,
And planted corn and sowed his grain;
He shingled the barn and mended the fence,
Till people declared he had common sense.
Now, common sense was very rare,
And the State House needed a portion there;
So the "family dunce" moved into town—
The people called him Governor Brown;
And his brothers, who went to the city school,
Came home to live with "mother's fool."
AN HOUR OF HORROR.
It was close upon the hour of midnight.
A man sat alone in an upper room in a tumble-down tenement—a man whose face showed by his furrowed brow, glaring eyes and pallid lips the effects of a terrible mental struggle going on within him.
Before him were several pages of manuscript, and his nervous hand convulsively clutching a pen, was rapidly adding to them.
Close to his right hand and frequently touched by it as he plied his pen, was a gleaming, glittering object—ivory, silver and steel—a loaded revolver.