is seen.
Through all the bright June weather,
Like a jolly little tramp,
He wanders o'er the hillside, down the road;
Around his yellow feather,
Thy gypsy fireflies camp;
His companions are the wood lark and the toad.

But at last this little fellow
Doffs his dainty coat of yellow,
And very feebly totters o'er the green;
For he very old is growing
And with hair all white and flowing,
A-nodding in the sunlight he is seen.
Oh, poor dandy, once so spandy,
Golden dancer on the lea!
Older growing, white hair flowing,
Poor little baldhead dandy now is he!

_Nellie M. Garabrant._

The Inventor's Wife

It's easy to talk of the patience of Job, Humph! Job hed nothin' to try
him!
Ef he'd been married to 'Bijah Brown, folks wouldn't have dared come
nigh him.
Trials, indeed! Now I'll tell you what--ef you want to be sick of your
life,
Jest come and change places with me a spell--for I'm an inventor's wife.
And such inventions! I'm never sure, when I take up my coffee-pot,
That 'Bijah hain't been "improvin'" it and it mayn't go off like a shot.
Why, didn't he make me a cradle once, that would keep itself a-rockin';
And didn't it pitch the baby out, and wasn't his head bruised shockin'?
And there was his "Patent Peeler," too--a wonderful thing, I'll say;
But it hed one fault-it never stopped till the apple was peeled away.
As for locks and clocks, and mowin' machines and reapers, and all such
trash,
Why, 'Bijah's invented heaps of 'em but they don't bring in no cash.
Law! that don't worry him--not at all; he's the most aggravatin'est man--
He'll set in his little workshop there, and whistle, and think, and plan,
Inventin' a jew's-harp to go by steam, or a new-fangled powder-horn,
While the children's goin' barefoot to school and the weeds is chokin'
our corn.
When 'Bijah and me kep' company, he warn't like this, you know;
Our folks all thought he was dreadful smart--but that was years ago.
He was handsome as any pictur then, and he had such a glib, bright way--
I never thought that a time would come when I'd rue my weddin' day;
But when I've been forced to chop wood, and tend to the farm beside,
And look at Bijah a-settin' there, I've jest dropped down and cried.
We lost the hull of our turnip crop while he was inventin' a gun
But I counted it one of my marcies when it bu'st before 'twas done.
So he turned it into a "burglar alarm." It ought to give thieves a fright--
'Twould scare a