CHIQUITA

BEAUTIFUL! Sir, you may say so. Thar isn't her match in the

county;

Is thar, old gal,- Chiquita, my darling, my beauty?

Feel of that neck, sir,

will you, you vixen !

thar's velvet! Whoa! steady, — ah,

Whoa! I say, Jack, trot her out; let the gentleman look at her paces.

!

Morgan she ain't nothing else, and I've got the papers to

prove it.

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Sired by Chippewa Chief, and twelve hundred dollars won't buy her.

Briggs of Tuolumne owned her. Did you know Briggs of Tuolumne ?

Busted hisself in White Pine, and blew out his brains down in 'Frisco !

Hedn't no savey, hed Briggs. Thar, Jack! that'll do, — quit that foolin'!

Nothin' to what she kin do, when she's got her work cut out before her.

ΤΟ

Hosses is hosses, you know, and likewise, too, jockeys is jockeys :

And 'tain't ev'ry man as can ride as knows what a hoss has got in him.

Know the old ford on the Fork, that nearly got Flanigan's leaders?

Nasty in daylight, you bet, and a mighty rough ford in low

water!

Well, it ain't six weeks ago that me and the Jedge and his nevey Struck for that ford in the night, in the rain, and the water all

round us;

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Up to our flanks in the gulch, and Rattlesnake Creek jest a-bilin'
Not a plank left in the dam, and nary a bridge on the river.
I had the gray, and the Jedge had his roan, and his nevey,

Chiquita ;

And after us trundled the rocks jest loosed from the top of the cañon.

5

Lickity, lickity, switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita Buckled right down to her work, and, afore I could yell to her

rider,

Took water jest at the ford, and there was the Jedge and me standing,

And twelve hundred dollars of hoss-flesh afloat, and a-driftin' to thunder!

Would ye b'lieve it? That night, that hoss, that 'ar filly,

Chiquita,

Walked herself into her stall, and stood there, all quiet and

dripping:

ΙΟ

Clean as a beaver or rat, with nary a buckle of harness,
Jest as she swam the Fork, - that hoss, that ar' filly, Chiquita.

That's what I call a hoss! and - What did you say?— Oh, the nevey?

Drownded, I reckon, — leastways, he never kem back to deny it. Ye see the derned fool had no seat, ye couldn't have made him a rider ;

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And then, ye know, boys will be boys, and hosses—well, hosses is hosses!

THE AGED STRANGER

AN INCIDENT OF THE WAR

"I WAS with Grant " the stranger said;
Said the farmer, "Say no more,
But rest thee here at my cottage porch,

For thy feet are weary and sore."

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"I was with Grant"

the stranger said;

Said the farmer, "Nay, no more,

I prithee sit at my frugal board,
And eat of my humble store.

"How fares my boy, my soldier boy,
Of the old Ninth Army Corps?
I warrant he bore him gallantly

In the smoke and the battle's roar!"

"I know him not," said the aged man,
"And, as I remarked before,

I was with Grant". "Nay, nay, I know,"
Said the farmer, "say no more:

"How fell he, with his face to the foe, Upholding the flag he bore?

Then the farmer spake him never a word,
But beat with his fist full sore
That aged man, who had worked for Grant
Some three years before the war.

5

ΙΟ

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EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

1841-1887

A GRADUATE of Yale, a professor of English literature at the University of California, a man of unusual poetic gifts, Sill died when he seemed on the threshold of a more than ordinary literary career. He ieft behind a volume of essays and several volumes of verse. The Venus of Milo is his longest and best-known poem. He was born at Windsor, Connecticut, and died at Cleveland, Ohio.

THE FOOL'S PRAYER

THE royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile

Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart

From red with wrong to white as wool:
The rod must heal the sin; but, Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

""Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

པ་

ΙΟ

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"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heartstrings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept —
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!
The word we had not sense to say

Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders — Oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!”

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,.
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

THE FUTURE

WHAT may we take into the vast Forever?

That marble door

Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor,
No fame-wreathed crown we wore,
No garnered lore.

What can we bear beyond the unknown portal?

No gold, no gains

Of all our toiling: in the life immortal

No hoarded wealth remains,

Nor gilds, nor stains.