Their weeping was all the answer
That the famishing throng could give
To the the million voices calling,
"Look unto us and live!"

Destruction wasted the city,
But the burning curse that came
Enkindled in all the people
Sweet Charity's holy flame.
Then still to our God be glory!
I bless Him through my tears,
That I live in the grandest nation
That hath stood in all the years.

CRAPE ON THE DOOR.

SOMEBODY's dead; there's crape on the door,
The blinds are half-closed on the neighboring store,
Some one in sorrow, of a loved one bereft,
Somebody taken, and somebody left.

Gone from this world, its care and its strife,
Gone from the dear ones beloved during life;
Gone to a home with the ransomed above,
Gone to a Saviour whose fulness is love.

Closed be the eyes of the sleeper to-day,

Silent the home where the loved one doth lay;
There is a season of weeping for one

Whose troubles are ended, whose labors are done.

Heavy the footfall as each on his way

Treads the brick pavement, light-hearted, to-day;
Little they heed the half-blinded store,
Little they care for the crape on the door.

Little care they in the battle of life,
Ardently fighting 'mid turmoil and strife;
Little care they who never look back,

With eyes firmly fixed on life's beaten track.

Onward they rush till in reaching life's bound,
They slacken the footstep and quiet the sound;
Ceasing their efforts, their labors give o'er,
Pass them by gently, there's crape on the door.

MARK TWAIN'S ACCOUNT OF "JIM SMILEY,"

As related by Simon Wheeler, Esq., of Angel's Camp, Calaveras County, fal, on being asked for information concerning a certain Rev. Leonidas W smiley.

There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49,-or may be it was the spring of '50,-I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp; but any way, he was the curiosest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him,-any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solitry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a campmeeting, he would be there reg'lar, to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him, he would bet on anything,-the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't a goin to save her. But one morning he come in, and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable better,-thank the

Lord for his inf'nit merey, and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk twoand-a-half that she don't, anyway."

This-yer Smiley had a mare, the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that, and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow, and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose, and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.

And he had a little small bull pup, that to look at him you'd think he wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him he was a different dog; his under jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson,which was the name of the pup,-Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else,-and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it not chaw, you understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other

dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared sur prised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece, and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius; I know it, because he hadn't had no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.

Well, this-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chickencocks, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut,-see him turn one summerset, or may be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flatfooted and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything; and I believe him. Why, I've seen him 'set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor, Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog,and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies," and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again, as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doing any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fai:

and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had travelled and been every. wheres, all said he laid over any frog that ever they see. Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town sometimes, and lay for a bet. One day a feller,-a stranger in the camp, he was, —come across him with his box, and says:

What might it be that you've got in the box?"

And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, "It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, may be, but it ain't,— it,s only just a frog."

And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, "H'm! so 'tis. Well, what's he good for?"

"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for one thing, I should judge, he can outjump ary frog in Calaveras county."

The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."

"May be you don't," Smiley says. "May be you understand frogs, and may be you don't understand 'em; may be you've had experience, and may be you an't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump ary frog in Calaveras county."

And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I an't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you."

And then Smiley says, "That's all right, that's all right; if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait.

So he set there a good while, thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open, and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot,