.
So I'll send back the tears of a mother's love,
I will crush out a mother's fear,
And push you with tender, trembling hands
Out into Life's highway, dear.
Yet strongly armored by truth, my boy,
And shod by your mother's prayer,
I'll know that your Heavenly Father's love
O'ershadows you everywhere.
And that sometime, after life's battle is o'er
In the land of our promised rest--
I shall meet you, my baby, to part never more,
And hold you once more on my breast.

The Fairy's Motto

A family of Fairies lived under the ground,
And search as they might no place co'd be found,
Where a home they could make, a snug little nest,
A refuge from harm when by foes they were pressed.
Day in, and day out they skurried about,
Putting fish worms, and beetles, and such like to rout.
At length one, the most energetic of all,
Found something quite large and round like a ball,
So calling the family, with pickaxe and spades
They soon in the wonder an opening made.
And what do you think they found it to be?
A turnip so large it might have been three.
So they hollowed it out as fast as they could,
Not pausing a moment for rest or for food.
A part of the contents they hurled from the door,
And trampled the rest to thicken the floor,
And ere through the holes the sun 'gan to peep,
The turnip was empty, the Fairies asleep.
The gardener on passing his turnip bed saw,
'Midst the flourishing green a queer looking flaw:
"Why, how can this be? I'm sure yester-e'en,
That turnip, as any, was thrifty and green.
There may be a grub at its root, or perhaps,
A bug at its top, they are meddlesome chaps;
I'll wait until morning, the heat of the sun
May have proven too much for a delicate one."
In the meantime the Fairies waked up by his words,
Laughed and chuckled together as happy as birds.
"Before he comes round, we'll have finished and done,
And he'll find that his turnip is not worth a bun.
He will leave it and we will hold revelry high,
For that some may have life, why, something must die."
So they cut a small hole through the top, for a door,
The tiniest roots from the outside they tore,
And made them a ladder, so firm and so fair
It answered their purpose and served as a stair.
A cabbage leaf carpet, a bedstead so neat
They made in a minute, just out of a beet,
A table and chairs were made out of roots,
Suppo