The Universal Reciter Part 47

"It won't do any good!" she shouted after him; "we don't want no prepared food for infants--no piano music--no stuffed birds! I know the policemen on this beat, and if you come around here again, he'll soon find out whether you are a confidence man or a vagrant!"

And she took unusual care to lock the door.

THE BELL OF THE "ATLANTIC."

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

Toll, toll, toll!

Thou bell by billows swung, And, night and day, thy warning words Repeat with mournful tongue!

Toll for the queenly boat, Wrecked on yon rocky-sh.o.r.e!

Sea-weed is in her palace halls-- She rides the surge no more.

Toll for the master bold, The high-souled and the brave, Who ruled her like a thing of life Amid the crested wave!

Toll for the hardy crew, Sons of the storm and blast, Who long the tyrant ocean dared; But it vanquished them at last.

Toll for the man of G.o.d, Whose hallowed voice of prayer Rose calm above the stifled groan Of that intense despair!

How precious were those tones, On that sad verge of life, Amid the fierce and freezing storm, And the mountain billows strife!

Toll for the lover, lost To the summoned bridal train Bright glows a picture on his breast, Beneath th' unfathomed main.

One from her cas.e.m.e.nt gazeth Long o'er the misty sea: He cometh not, pale maiden-- His heart is cold to thee?

Toll for the absent sire, Who to his home drew near, To bless a glad, expecting group-- Fond wife, and children dear!

They heap the blazing hearth, The festal board is spread, But a fearful guest is at the gate:-- Room for the sheeted dead!

Toll for the loved and fair, The whelmed beneath the tide-- The broken harps around whose strings The dull sea-monsters glide!

Mother and nursling sweet, Reft from the household throng; There's bitter weeping in the nest Where breathed their soul of song.

Toll for the hearts that bleed 'Neath misery's furrowing trace; Toll for the hapless orphan left, The last of all his race!

Yea, with thy heaviest knell, From surge to rocky sh.o.r.e, Toll for the living--not the dead, Whose mortal woes are o'er.

Toll, toll, toll!

O'er breeze and billow free; And with thy startling lore instruct Each rover of the sea.

Tell how o'er proudest joys May swift destruction sweep, And bid him build his hopes on high-- Lone teacher of the deep!

THE OWL--A SMALL BOY'S COMPOSITION.

ANON.

Wen you come to see a owl cloce it has offle big eyes, and wen you come to feel it with your fingers, wich it bites, you fine it is mosely fethers, with only jus meat enuf to hole 'em to gether.

Once they was a man thot he would like a owl for a pet, so he tole a bird man to send him the bes one in the shop, but wen it was brot he lookt at it and squeezed it, and it diddent sute. So the man he rote to the bird man and said Ile keep the owl you sent, tho it aint like I wanted, but wen it's wore out you mus make me a other, with littler eyes, for I spose these eyes is number twelves, but I want number sixes, and then if I pay you the same price you can aford to put in more owl.

Owls have got to have big eyes cos tha has to be out a good deal at nite a doin bisnis with rats and mice, wich keeps late ours. They is said to be very wise, but my sisters young man he says any boddy coud be wise if they woud set up nites to take notice.

That feller comes to our house jest like he used to, only more, and wen I ast him wy he come so much he said he was a man of sience, like me, and was a studyin arnithogaly, which was birds. I ast him wot birds he was a studyin, and he said anjils, and wen he said that my sister she lookt out the winder and said wot a fine day it had turn out to be. But it was a rainin cats and dogs wen she said it. I never see such a goose in my life as that girl, but Uncle Ned, wich has been in ole parts of the worl, he says they is jes that way in Pattygong.

In the picture alphabets the O is some times a owl, and some times it is a ox, but if I made the picters Ide have it stan for a oggur to bore holes with. I tole that to ole gaffer Peters once wen he was to our house lookin at my new book, and he said you is right, Johnny, and here is this H stan for harp, but hoo cares for a harp, wy don't they make it stan for a horgan? He is such a ole fool.

THE FLOWERS.

HOWITT.

[In reciting this sweetly beautiful little poem its n.o.ble truths should be uttered with emphatic, but not noisy elocution. There is sufficient variety in the different stanzas for the speaker to display much taste and feeling.]

G.o.d might have bade the earth bring forth Enough for great and small, The oak-tree and the cedar-tree, Without a flower at all.

We might have had enough, enough For every want of ours, For luxury, medicine and toil, And yet have had no flowers.

The one within the mountain mine Requireth none to grow; Nor does it need the lotus-flower To make the river flow.

The clouds might give abundant rain; The nightly dews might fall, And the herb that keepeth life in man Might yet have drunk them all.

Then wherefore, wherefore were they made, All dyed with rainbow-light, All fashioned with supremest grace Upspringing day and night:--

Springing in valleys green and low, And on the mountains high, And in the silent wilderness Where no man pa.s.ses by?

Our outward life requires them not-- Then wherefore had they birth?-- To minister delight to man, To beautify the earth;

To comfort man--to whisper hope, Whene'er his faith is dim, For who so careth for the flowers Will much more care for him!

THE HYPOCHONDRIAC.

Good morning, Doctor; how do you do? I haint quite so well as I have been; but I think I'm some better than I was. I don't think that last medicine you gin me did me much good. I had a terrible time with the ear-ache last night; my wife got up and drapt a few draps of Walnut sap into it, and that relieved it some; but I didn't get a wink of sleep till nearly daylight. For nearly a week, Doctor, I've had the worst kind of a narvous head-ache; it has been so bad sometimes that I thought my head would bust open. Oh, dear! I sometimes think that I'm the most afflictedest human that ever lived.

Since this cold weather sot in, that troublesome cough, that I have had every winter for the last fifteen year, has began to pester me agin.

(_Coughs._) Doctor, do you think you can give me anything that will relieve this desprit pain I have in my side?

Then I have a crick, at times, in the back of my neck so that I can't turn my head without turning the hull of my body. (_Coughs._)

Oh, dear! What shall I do! I have consulted almost every doctor in the country, but they don't any of them seem to understand my case. I have tried everything that I could think of; but I can't find anything that does me the leastest good. (_Coughs._)