Then say not he is dead,
The friend we honor so,
But lift a grateful voice instead
And say: He lives, we know.

THE HIGHEST GOOD

WRITTEN FOR A HIGH-SCHOOL ANNUAL

To attain the highest good
Of true man and womanhood,
Simply do your honest best--
God with joy will do the rest.

MY CONSCIENCE

Sometimes my Conscience says, says he,
"Don't you know me?"
And I, says I, skeered through and through,
"Of course I do.
You air a nice chap ever' way,
I'm here to say!
You make me cry--you make me pray,
And all them good things thataway--
That is, at _night_. Where do you stay
Durin' the day?"

And then my Conscience says, onc't more,
"You know me--shore?"
"Oh, yes," says I, a-trimblin' faint,
"You're jes' a saint!
Your ways is all so holy-right,
I love you better ever' night
You come around,--tel' plum daylight,
When you air out o' sight!"

And then my Conscience sort o' grits
His teeth, and spits
On his two hands and grabs, of course,
Some old remorse,
And beats me with the big butt-end
O' _that_ thing--tel my clostest friend
'Ud hardly know me. "Now," says he,
"Be keerful as you'd orto be
And _allus_ think o' me!"

MY BOY

You smile and you smoke your cigar, my boy;
You walk with a languid swing;
You tinkle and tune your guitar, my boy,
And you lift up your voice and sing;
The midnight moon is a friend of yours,
And a serenade your joy--
And it's only an age like mine that cures
A trouble like yours, my boy!

THE OBJECT LESSON

Barely a year ago I attended the Friday afternoon exercises of a
country school. My mission there, as I remember, was to refresh my
mind with such material as might be gathered, for a "valedictory,"
which, I regret to say, was to be handed down to posterity under
another signature than my own.

There was present, among a host of visitors, a pale young man of
perhaps thirty years, with a tall head and bulging brow and a highly
intellectual pair of eyes and spectacles. He wore his hair without
roach or "part" and the smile he beamed about him was "a joy forever."
He was an educator--from the East, I think I heard it rumoured--anyway
he was introduced to the school at last, and he bowed, and smiled, and
beamed upon us all, and entertained us after the most delightf