small skirt went up over a curly head and the
avenging slipper, in lightning strokes, kept time to the music in the
air. And I said: _There_ is "_Paradise Lost_." The sympathizing, half
angry old nurse bore her weeping, sobbing charge to the nursery and
there bound up his broken heart and soothed him to sleep with her old
time lullaby:

[Illustration: PARADISE LOST.]

"Oh, don't you cry little baby, Oh, don't you cry no mo',
For it hurts ol' mammy's feelin's fo' to heah you weepin' so.
Why don't da keep temptation frum de little han's an' feet?
What makes 'em 'buse de baby kaze de jam an' zarves am sweet?

Oh, de sorrow, tribulations, dat de joys of mortals break,
Oh, it's heb'n when we slumber, it's trouble when we wake.

Oh, go to sleep my darlin', now close dem little eyes,
An' dream uv de shinin' angels, an' de blessed paradise;
Oh, dream uv de blood-red roses, an' de birds on snowy wing;
Oh, dream uv de fallin' watahs an' de never endin' spring.

Oh, de roses, Oh, de rainbows, Oh, de music's gentle swell,
In de dreamland uv little childun, whar de blessed sperrits dwell."

"Dar now, dar now, he's gone. Bless its little heart, da treats it like
a dog." And then she tucked him away in the paradise of his childish
slumber.

[Illustration: OLD BLACK "MAMMY."]

The day will come when the South will build a monument to the good old
black mammy of the past for the lullabies she has sung.

I sometimes wish that childhood might last forever. That sweet fairy
land on the frontier of life, whose skies are first lighted with the
sunrise of the soul, and in whose bright-tinted jungles the lions, and
leopards, and tigers of passion still peacefully sleep. The world is
disarmed by its innocence, the drawn bow is relaxed, and the arrow is
returned to its quiver; the AEgis of Heaven is above it, the outstretched
wings of mercy, pity, and measureless love!

THE PARADISE OF THE BAREFOOTED BOY.

[Illustration]

I would rather be a barefooted boy with cheeks of tan and heart of joy
than to be a millionaire and president of a National bank. The financial
panic that falls like a thunderbolt, wrecks the bank, crushes the
banker, and swamps thousands in an hour. But the bank which holds the
treasures of the barefooted boy never breaks. With his satchel and his
books he hies away to school in the morning, but his truant feet carry
him the other way, to the mill pond "a-fishin'." And