I took Bridge on my knee, but he said. "Don't mind me: Fill Well! all would not do. From Rumford, from There were men good as new Saugus, from towns far away Who filled up quick and well for each soldier that fell, And we drove them, and drove them, and drove them all day. We knew, every one, it was war that begun When that morning's marching was only half done. In the hazy twilight, at the coming of night, I crowded three buck-shot and one bullet down. 'Twas my last charge of lead, and I aimed her and said: "Good luck to you, lobsters, in old Boston town.” In a barn at Milk Row, Ephraim Bates and Thoreau, And Baker and Abram and I made a bed; We had mighty sore feet, and we'd nothing to eat, But we'd driven the Red-Coats; and Amos, he said: "It's the first time," says he, "that it's happened to me To march to the sea by this road where we've come; But confound this whole day but we'd all of us say, We'd rather have spent it this way than to home.” The hunt had begun with the dawn of the sun, And night saw the wolf driven back to his den. And never since then, in the memory of men, Has the old Bay State seen such a hunting again. EDWARD EVERETT HALE THE A RAILWAY MATINEE. HE last time I ran home over the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy we had a very small, but select and entertaining party on the train. It was a warm day, and everybody was tired with the long ride and oppressed by the heat. The precise woman, with her hat swathed in an immense blue veil, who always parsed her sentences before she uttered them, utterly worn out and thoroughly lonesome, was glad to respond to the pleasant nod of the big rough man who got on at Monmouth, and didn't know enough grammar to ask for the mustard so that you could tell whether he wanted you to pass it to him or pour it on his hair. The thin, troubled-looking man with the sandy goatee, who stammered so dreadfully that he always forgot what he wanted to say before he got through wrestling with any word with a "W" in it, lit up with a tremulous, hesitating smile, as he noticed this indication of sociability, for, like most men who find it extremely difficult to talk at all, he wanted to talk all the time. And the fat old gentleman sitting opposite him, who was so deaf he couldn't hear the cars rattle, and always awed and bothered the stammerer into silence by saying "Hey?" in a very imperative tone, every time he got in the middle of a hard word, cocked his irascible head on one side as he saw this smile, and after listening intently to dead silence for a minute, suddenly broke out with such an emphatic, impatient, "Hey?" that everybody in the car started up and shouted, nervously and ungrammatically: "I didn't say nothing!" with the exception of the woman with the blue veil, who said: "I said nothing!" The fat old gentleman was a little annoyed and startled by such a chorus of responses, and fixing his gaze more intently upon the thin man, said defiantly: "Wha' say?" “I-I-I I w-w-wuh-wuh-wasn'-wasn' speak-" "Hey?" roared the fat man. still -I wasn' s-s-sp-~ "He wa'n't sayin' nauthin'," shouted the big rough man, nodding friendly encouragement to the thin man; "he hain't opened his mouth!" Soap in the South?" queried the fat old gentleman, impatiently. "Wha' for?" "Mouth, mouth," explained the precise woman, with impressive nicety. "He said, ' opened his mouth.' The gentleman seated directly opposite you was-" "Offers to chew,' what?" cried the fat old gentleman, in amazement. 66 I made no reference You certainly misunderstood "Sir," said the precise woman, whatever to chewing. me." The thin man took courage from so many reinforce ments, and broke in: "I-I-I-I ch-ch-ch-" d-d-d-dud-d-u-d-d-u-d-don't-don't-I don't "Hey?" shouted the fat gentleman. "He don't chaw nauthin'!" roared the big rough man, in a voice that made the car windows rattle. "He wa'n't a talkin' when you shot off at him!" "Who got off?" exclaimed the fat old gentleman. "Wha' d' he get off for?" "You don't appear to comprehend clearly what he stated," shrieked the precise woman. "No person has left the train." “Then wha' d' he say so for?" shouted the fat man. "Oh?" said the thin man, in a surprising burst of fluency; "he-he-de d-d-did-did—” "Who did?" queried the fat man, talking louder than any one else. "Num-num-num-num-n-no-nobody nobody. He hel d-d-d-dud-didn't didn't s-" “Then wha' made you say he did?" howled the deaf man. "You misunderstand him," interrupted the precise woman. "He was probably about to remark that no reference whatever had been intentionally made to the departure of any person from the train, when you interrupted him in the midst of an unfinished sentence, and hence obtained an erroneous impression of the tenor of his remarks. He meant no offense-" "Know a fence?" roared the fat man. know a fence !" "Of course I "He hain't got middlin' good hearin'," yelled the big man, as apologetically as a steam whistle could have shrieked it. "Y'ears kind of stuffed up!" "Time to brush up?" cried the fat man. "Wha' for?" "No," shrieked the precise woman; "he remarked to the other gentleman that your hearing appeared to be rather defective." "His father a detective?" hooted the fat gentleman, in amazement. "N-n-n-n-nun-nun-no!" broke in the thin man; "h-hh-h-huh-huh-he-s-s-sa-sa-said-said you w-w-w-wuh was a little dud-dud-was a little deaf!" "Said I was a thief!" howled the fat man, a scarlet tornado of wrath; "said I was a thief! Wha' d'ye mean? Show him to me! Who says I'm a thief? Who says so?" "Now," shouted the big rough man, "nobody don't say ye ain't no thief. I jest sayed as how we didn't git along very well. Ye see he," nodding to the thin man, "he can't talk very well, an' "Wh-wh-wh-why c-c-can't I t-t-t-tut-tut--tut-talk?” broke in the thin man, white with rage. "I-I-I-I'd like t-t-to know wh-wh-wh-what's the reason I c-c-can't tuttut-talk as w-w-w-well as any bub-bub-body that's bubbub-bub-been tut-tut-talking on this car ever s-s-s-since the tut-tut-tut—” 66 'Hey?" roared the fat man, in an explosion of indignant suspicion. "I was sayin'," howled the big rough man, "as how he didn't talk middlin' well-" "Should say so," growled the fat man, in tones of intense satisfaction. "And," the big rough man went on, yelling with delight at having made the old party hear something, "and you can't hear only tollable-" "Can't hear?" the fat old gentleman broke out in a resonant roar. "Can't hear! Like to know why I can't hear! Why can't I? If I couldn't hear better than half the people on this train I'd cut off my ears! Can't hear? It's news to me if I can't. I'd like to know who-” "Burlington!" yelled the brakeman. "Chag car f'r Keokuk, Ceed Rap's an' For' Mad'son! This car f’r Omaha? Twen' mints f'r supper!" And but for this timely interruption, I don't think our pleasant little party would have got out of that snarl this side of San Francisco. ROBERT J. BURDETTE. |