GRANDMOTHER'S STORY.
A Rhyme For Young Readers. We children were playing round grandmother's chair, And grannie joined in with so cheerful an air, We forgot that she wasn't just one of ourselves, And wildly ran round her like frolicksome elves. At last she besought us to pause in our riot, And quick, at her bidding, we dropp'd calm and quiet, Some four at her feet, and some three at her
knee, " Now, grandmother, tell us a story," say wo. She smil'd, laid her spectacles down in her lap, And we saw she'd put on her consid'ring cap ; While, to prompt her, a little one artlessly cried, " Just tell us about your wee Johnnie who died." "Nay, childer, there's one I've ne'er told you
afore, It happened within a few yards of the door, Over there in the field at the head of the lane_, I can see it from where I am sitting quite plain. "I worked in those days for my little one's
bread, There was nobody else, for her father was dead ; And the cutting was on, and our new harvest
man Drove the roaping machine in the place of my
Dan. "A great hulking fellow that none of us knew (Here grandfather smiled, as he sat full in view), But somehow it came that the child got to know That he hadn't a friend in the place, hadn't Joe. "So it seemed, as she took him right under her
wing, And she sat on his knee, and the two used to ' sing ; She lisping her hymns in her clear little voice, And he joining by times or listening by choice. " I carried her out to the field every day — For we working women must do as we may, And not as we would— and she totted around ; Or I spread her a shawl, and she sat on the
ground. " Arranging her posies — she doted on flowers — A few in her hand, she'd be happy for hours ; And I oft fell a-thinkiug of him that was gone, And forgot little Mary was left all alone. "The team rattled past me, and there was a
shout ; Can you uuess what I saw when I turned me
about ? There was no time to reach her, my baby ! just three, And God only knew what the child was to me. " She had wander'd right up to the edge of tho land To show off the posy she held in her hand ; The sharp knives were gleaming amid the ripe
gr.un, And the reaper Jcalled Death followed hard in their train.
'"Twaß useless to call her, my innocent lamb i Were her poor little flowers to be chang"d for 'The Palm'? No, Joe saw her danger, and lept from his seat, And I fainted for joy as she fell at my feet. "But the keen kuife had caught him— they carried him here AU maimed as he was, for the cottage was near { I nurs'd him to health, with lny brain in a whirl, Aud Joe lost his foot, but lie saved me my girl. " "Why, it's grand-dad andmammie," we children cried ; "Yes, grandfather saved her," dear grannie replied ; " And from that day we knew, that though silent and slow, The heart of a hero was hidden in Joe." -A.L. 0. S.
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