on of his little life! How sweet is
the dream of the covert in the deep mountain gorge, to the trembling,
panting deer in his flight before the hunter's horn and the yelping
hounds! How dear to the heart of the weary ox is the vision of green
fields and splashing waters! And down on the farm, when the cows come
home at sunset, fragrant with the breath of clover blossoms, how rich
is the feast of happiness when the frolicsome calf bounds forward to the
flowing udder, and with his walling eyes reflecting whole acres of "calf
heaven" and his little tail wiggling in speechless bliss, he draws his
evening meal from nature's commissariat. The snail lolls in his shell
and thinks himself a king in the grandest palace in the world. And how
brilliant is the horizon of the firefly when he winks his "other eye!"

The red worm delves in the sod and dines on clay; he makes no after-dinner
speeches; he never responds to a toast; but silently revels on in his
dark banquet halls under the dank violets or in the rich mould by the
river. But the red worm never reaches the goal of his visions and dreams
until he is triumphantly impaled on the fishhook of the barefooted boy,

Who sees other visions and dreams other dreams,
Of fluttering suckers in shining streams.

And Oh, there is no thrill half so rapturous to the barefooted boy as
the thrill of a nibble! Two darkies sat on a rock on the bank of a
river, fishing. One was an old darkey; the other was a boy. The boy got
a nibble, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong into the surging waters
and began to float out to the middle of the stream, sinking, and rising,
and struggling, and crying for help. The old man hesitated on the rock
for a moment; then he plunged in after the drowning boy, and after a
desperate struggle, landed his companion safely on shore. A passer-by
ran up to the old darkey and patted him on the shoulder and said: "Old
man, that was a noble deed in you, to risk your life that way to save
that good-for-nothing boy." "Yes boss," mumbled the old man, "I was
obleeged ter save dat nigger, he had all de bate in his pocket!"

THE HAPPY LONG AGO.

Not long ago I wandered back to the scenes of my boyhood, on my
father's old plantation on the bank of the river, in the beautiful land
of my native mountains. I rambled again in the pathless woods with my
rifle on my shoulder. I sat on the old familiar logs amid the falling
leaves of autumn and heard the squirrels ba