"My father should wear a broadcloth coat, My brother should sail a painted boat.

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day.

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door."

The judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still :

"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-dav. Like her, a harvester of hay.

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

"But low of cattle, and song of birds, And health, and quiet, and loving words."

But he thought of his sister, proud and cold, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love tune.

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead,

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms;

And the proud man sighed with a secret pain, Ah, that I were free again!

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"Free as when I rode that day

Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with a timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned ;

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only," It might have been."

Alas for maiden, alas for judge,

For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been !"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may

Roll the stone from his grave away!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

BUCK FANSHAW'S FUNERAL.

Somebody has said that in order to know a community, one must observe the style of its funerals and know what manner of men they bury with most ceremony. I cannot say which class we buried with most éclat in our "flush times," the distinguished public benefactor or the distinguished rough-possibly the two chief grades or grand divisions of society honored their illustrious dead about equally; and hence, no doubt, the philosopher I have quoted from would have needed to see two representative funerals in Virginia before forming his estimate of the people.

There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when he died. He was a representative citizen. He had killed his man, not in his own quarrel to be sure, but in defense of a stranger beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing helpmeet, whom he could have discarded without the formality of a divorce. He had held a high position in the fire department, and had been a very Warwick in politics. When he died there was great lamentation throughout the town, but especially in the vast bottom-stratum of society.

On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw, in the delirium of a wasting typhoid fever, had taken arsenic, shot himself through the body, cut his throat, and jumped out of a four-story window and broken his neck, and, after due deliberation, the jury, sad and tearful, but with intelligence unblinded by its sorrow, brought in a verdict of "death by the visitation of Providence." What could the world do

without juries !

Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral. All the vehicles in town were hired, all the saloons were put in mourning, all the municipal and fire-company flags were hung at half-mast, and all the firemen ordered to muster in uniform and bring their machines duly draped in black.

Now let us remark in parenthesis-as all the peoples of the earth had representative adventurers in the Silverland, and as each adventurer had brought the slang of his nation or his locality with him, the combination made the slang of Nevada the richest and the most infinitely varied and copious that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps, except in the mines of California in the "early days." Slang was the language of Nevada. It was hard to preach a sermon without it, and be understood. Such phrases as "You bet!" Oh, no, I reckon not!" "No Irish need apply," and a hundred others, became so common as to fall from the lips of a speaker unconsciously— and very often when they did not touch the subject under discussion and consequently failed to mean anything.

Regretful resolutions were passed and various committees appointed; among others, a committee of one was deputed to call on the minister- a fragile, gentle, spiritual new fledgling from an eastern theological seminary, and as yet unacquainted with the ways of the mines. The committeeman, "Scotty" Briggs, made his visit.

Being admitted to his presence, he sat down before the clergyman, placed his fire-hat on an unfinished manuscript sermon under the minister's nose, took from it a red silk handkerchief, wiped his brow, and heaved a sigh of dismal impressiveness, explanatory of his business. He choked and even shed tears, but with an effort he mastered his voice, and said, in lugubrious tones :

"Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill next door?'' "Am I the pardon me, I believe I do not understand.' With another sigh and a half sob, Scotty rejoined:

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Why, you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the boys thought maybe you'd give us a lift, if we'd tackle you, that is, if I've got the rights of it, and you're the head clerk of the doxology works next door.'

"I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose fold is next door."

"The which?"

"The spiritual adviser of the little company of believers whose sanctuary adjoins these premises."

Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and then said:

“You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can't call that card. Ante and pass the buck."

“How? I beg your pardon. What did I understand you to say?”

Or maybe You don't smoke me

"Well, you've ruther got the bulge on me. we've both got the bulge, somehow. and I don't smoke you. You see one of the boys has passed in his checks, and we want to give him a good send off, and so the thing I'm on now is to roust out somebody to jerk a little chin-music for us, and waltz him through handsome.

Can

"My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your observations are wholly incomprehensible to me. you not simplify them some way? At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would it not expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical statements of fact unincumbered with obstructing accumulations of metaphor and allegory?"

Another pause and more reflection. Then Scotty said: "I'll have to pass, I judge.

"How?"

"You've raised me out, pard."

"I still fail to catch your meaning."

Why, that last lead of your'n is too many for me

the idea. I can't neither trump nor follow suit."

- that's

The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed. Scotty leaned his head on his hand and gave himself up to reflection. Presently his face came up, sorrowful, but confident. "I've got it now, so's you can savvy," said he.

we want is a gospel-sharp. See?"

"A what?"

"Gospel-sharp-parson."

"What