ace, slow and ca'm,
Slidin' on to Huston's mill--
Where, I 'spect, "The Freeport crowd"
Never _warmed_ to us er 'lowed
We wuz quite so overly
Welcome as we aimed to be.

Still it peared-like ever'thing--
Fur away from home as _there_--
Had more _relish_-like, i jing!--
Fish in stream, er bird in air!
O them rich old bottom-lands,
Past where Cowden's Schoolhouse stands!
Wortermelons--_master-mine!_
Up and down old Brandywine!

And sich pop-paws!--Lumps o' raw
Gold and green,--jes oozy th'ough
With ripe yaller--like you've saw
Custard-pie with no crust to:
And jes _gorges_ o' wild plums,
Till a feller'd suck his thumbs
Clean up to his elbows! _My!_--
_Me some more er lem me die!_

Up and down old Brandywine!...
Stripe me with pokeberry-juice!--
Flick me with a pizenvine
And yell "_Yip!_" and lem me loose!
--Old now as I then wuz young,
'F I could sing as I _have_ sung,
Song 'ud surely ring _dee-vine_
Up and down old Brandywine!

JONES

BY LLOYD OSBOURNE

I

I could have taken "No" like a man, and would have gone away decently
and never bothered her again. I told her so straight out in the first
angry flush of my rejection--but this string business, with everything
left hanging in the air, so to speak, made a fellow feel like thirty
cents.

"It simply means that I'm engaged and you are not," I said.

"It's nothing of the kind," she returned tearfully. "You're as free as
free, Ezra. You can go away this moment, and never write or anything!"

Her lips trembled as she said this, and I confess it gave me a kind of
savage pleasure to feel that it was still in my power to hurt her.

It may sound unkind, but still you must admit that the whole situation
was exasperating. Here was five-foot-five of exquisite, blooming,
twenty-year-old American girlhood sending away the man she confessed to
care for, because, forsooth, she would not marry before her elder
sister! I always thought it was beautiful of Freddy (she was named
Frederica, you know) to be always so sweet and tender and grateful about
Eleanor; but sometimes gratitude can be carried altogether too far, even
if you _are_ an orphan, and _were_ brought up by hand. Eleanor was
thirty-four if a day--a nice enough woman, of course, and college bred,
and cul