. It's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping on living that's hard.

_Robert W. Service._

From "Rhymes of a Rolling Stone."

[Illustration: ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE]

FRIENDS OF MINE

We like to be hospitable. To what should we be more hospitable than a
glad spirit or a kind impulse?

Good-morning, Brother Sunshine,
Good-morning, Sister Song,
I beg your humble pardon
If you've waited very long.
I thought I heard you rapping,
To shut you out were sin,
My heart is standing open,
Won't you
walk
right
in?

Good-morning, Brother Gladness,
Good-morning, Sister Smile,
They told me you were coming,
So I waited on a while.
I'm lonesome here without you,
A weary while it's been,
My heart is standing open,
Won't you
walk
right
in?

Good-morning, Brother Kindness,
Good-morning, Sister Cheer,
I heard you were out calling,
So I waited for you here.
Some way, I keep forgetting
I have to toil or spin
When you are my companions,
Won't you
walk
right
in?

_James W. Foley._

From "The Voices of Song."

THE WOMAN WHO UNDERSTANDS

"Is this the little woman that made this great war?" was Lincoln's
greeting to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Often a woman is responsible for
events by whose crash and splendor she herself is obscured. Often too
she shapes the career of husband or brother or son. A man succeeds and
reaps the honors of public applause, when in truth a quiet little woman
has made it all possible--has by her tact and encouragement held him to
his best, has had faith in him when his own faith has languished, has
cheered him with the unfailing assurance, "You can, you must, you will."

_Somewhere she waits to make you win, your soul in her firm, white hands--
Somewhere the gods have made for you, the Woman Who Understands!_

As the tide went out she found him
Lashed to a spar of Despair,
The wreck of his Ship around him--
The wreck of his Dreams in the air;
Found him and loved him and gathered
The soul of him close to her heart--
The soul that had sailed an uncharted sea,
The soul that had sought to win and be free--
The soul of which _she_ was part!
And there in the dusk she cried to the man,
"Win your battle--you can, you can!"

Broken by Fate, unrelenting,
Scarred by the lashings of C