THE ST. NICHOLAS TREASURE-BOX OF LITERATURE. ALL who live in this favored land know the wealth of such writers is James Russell Lowell. He is poet, of its lavish summer and rejoice that its "June may be essayist, critic, humorist, all in one. For a long time, had of the poorest comer "-June, with its songs, its he was a professor in Harvard University; but, as many roses, and its warm, swift breezes-and they will be of you know, he is now-to the honor of his country ready to echo in their hearts every word of Lowell's-serving as American minister to England. beautiful verses which the Treasure-box offers you this month. You will find, as you see more and more of literature, that almost every good writer has his special line or style of writing, and has won fame by excelling in that special line. For instance, of modern authors, we speak of Thackeray, George Eliot, and Dickens as great novelists; of Ruskin and Carlyle as great essayists or critics; of Scott and Hawthorne as romancers; and of Tennyson and Longfellow as poets. But now and then we find a man who, writing in all these ways, proves himself a master in each. Among the foremost Although Lowell has written almost entirely for grownup readers, there is many a page of his works that would help you to appreciate good literature, and many a description or poem that would charm and delight you. For Lowell, with all his learning and deep thought, keeps himself forever young at heart,-as, indeed, do all true poets, and his writings are full of the spirit and joy of youth and of youthful delight in life. This is shown clearly enough in the following short extract describing the sights and sounds of the happy month of June. It is taken from his noble poem, "The Vision of Sir Launfal": A JUNE DAY.-BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWEll. AND what is so rare as a day in June? An instinct within it that reaches and towers, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; Now is the high tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well That skies are clear and grass is growing; That maize has sprouted, that streams are That the river is bluer than the sky, He sings to the wide world, and she to her And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? Warmed with the new wine of the year, JUST before June comes in with her peerless days, and while May still is awaiting her arrival, our people unite in doing grateful service to the many soldiers who fell in the late terrible national struggle known as our Civil War. They deck the crowded graves with flowers, and, while they recognize and mourn over the War as a great calamity, they love to remember the brave and true hearts who yielded up life for their country's honor and best prosperity. We cannot go into the story of the War, here. It is written in the great book of Human Life, with which you all shall, day by day, grow more familiar, and which even now you are reading in the light of your own homes. Enough for the Treasure-box, to say that every great country, at some period of its history, has had to fight for its existence; and that, at such times, when the whole land is aglow with zeal and excitement, songs and utterances spring from the very heart of the hour and become forever a part of the nation's literature. Such an utterance is the selection we give you this month,-the in November, 1863, of the soldiers' burial-ground, on the renowned speech of Abraham Lincoln at the dedication, battle-field of Gettysburg: PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG. FOURSCORE and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now, we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, consecrated it far above our power IN connection with this grand and simple speech, you may fitly read, on "Decoration Day," the beautiful poem written by Judge Finch. It was inspired by a newspaper paragraph stating that, two years after the to add or to detract. The world will little note close of the War, the women of Columbus, Mississippi, had shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead, strewing flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers. THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.*-BY F. M. FINCH. By the flow of the inland river, Under the sod and the dew, Under the one, the Blue; Under the other, the Gray. These in the robings of glory, Under the willow, the Gray. From the silence of sorrowful hours So, with an equal splendor, With a touch impartially tender, On the blossoms blooming for all; Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day;- Mellowed with gold, the Gray. So, when the summer calleth, Sadly, but not with upbraiding, The generous deed was done; Under the garlands, the Gray. No more shall the war-cry sever, * The Union or Northern soldiers wore blue uniforms; the Confederate soldiers wore gray. JIM SWAYNE did not fail to make a full report to Fanny of his talk with Mr. Ayring. "I can bring along boys enough, too,” he added, confidently; "but it wont do to be in too great a hurry. There are all sorts of talk about it among Madame Skinner's girls." Fanny would hardly have told even her brother how keen an interest she was beginning to take in the matter. She was a tall, showy-looking young lady, of full sixteen, and the slightly haughty expression of her mouth might have made some people think she would be above mingling with such an affair of mere boys and girls as a "May-Day Festival." She had been present the previous year, however, and had now before her mind's eye a vivid picture of the crowded hall, with its brilliant lights, its hanging flags, its festooned evergreens, and its prodigal display of flowers. She remembered, too, the music, the applause, and how very beautiful Belle Roberts looked, marching in upon the stage with her maids of honor and her bowing retinue of young gentleman attendants, and she was sure in her heart that she could herself exceed the triumphant success of that or any other "crowning." It was to be a "public appearance," as the central figure, the observed of all observers, the mark for, perhaps, two thousand pairs of admiring eyes, and the prospect of it thrilled her from head to foot. She had great confidence in James and his zeal and energy. Nothing could be better devised than the little plot of Mr. Ayring. The result seemed as sure as anything could be, but the flush of hope and gratified pride faded away from her cheeks as she muttered: "There 's nearly a week for something to happen in. I may not be elected, after all." The Park girls were not planning her election, when so many of them gathered, after school, in the parlor of the Roberts's dwelling. They talked of many candidates, but there was one street, not far below the Park, beyond which no suggestion of theirs had big enough wings to fly. Beyond that," as one of them said, "all the girls go to Madame Skinner's." 66 for such a misfortune, as long as there were any Park girls to choose from. There did once rise a faint voice with: "What if they should set up Fanny Swayne?" "She?" exclaimed Dora Keys. "Why, she 's too old. She was graduated from boarding-school last year. She'll be out in society in a season or two." Belle Roberts had been barely fourteen when the May diadem had fallen upon her glossy brown hair, but she was a year older now, and her friends seemed still to regard her as a sort of queen-model to go by. It was not long, therefore, with Dora's help, before a second line of exclusion was formed, as fatal to candidates as was the cross street this side of Madame Skinner's school. The number "fifteen" began to have a kind of magic, and the girls who could not show a birthday with those figures upon it were pitilessly set aside as too young. Half of the present company and a larger fraction of their absent school-mates were under the mark, and the problem was made more simple by having just so many girls less to pick from. 66 Old age was as fatal as extreme youth, and sixteen, going on seventeen" was also ruled out by common consent. Dora had a kind heart, and she could but put her plump, white hand on the shoulder of pretty Jenny Sewell, and whisper: "You may have a chance next year, darling." Belle Roberts overheard it, and added, in her frank, smiling way: "Yes, Dora dear, and you'll be a year too old, then." "I'm just barely fifteen now." “But you could pass for more and not half try." "I don't mean to try." The young lady "caucus" was even more animated than that of the boys had been, but there is an old proverb in the army that “a council of war never fights." They could not and did not agree upon any one candidate, and so Belle had to tell Jack after they had gone. "No candidate!" he exclaimed. "Now that 's funny. It must be that they all want it." "She did n't, eh? She would n't make a bad queen, if once she were upon the platform. The No amount of grace or beauty could make up trouble is, she 'll never get there." "You could n't make her believe that." my running. They'll have to vote for me or else "She 'd better, then. She's a year too old and it'll be one of Madame Skinner's girls." a head too tall." "How would Jenny Sewell do?" "Capitally, if Bob Sewell were not so high and mighty. The boys 'd vote for her, may be, but they wont want to set him up any higher." "Making her queen would n't make him king." "He'd look at it that way. He feels bigger than the mayor now, and he is n't twenty." "I don't see whom you can take, then, unless it 's Sarah Dykeman." "She'd do splendidly, if you could get her to take it." "Don't you think she would?" That night, Dora had as vivid a dream as had Fanny Swayne, herself, of standing on a brilliantly lighted platform, before a vast, enthusiastic crowd, and with a crown of roses on her head. Fanny, indeed, had gone one step farther, for she had dreamed so vividly, while she was yet wide awake, that she had pulled out from its hidingplace the pretty white dress she had worn at her "graduation," and had decided upon what it would need to turn it into a royal "coronation robe." "The train will be the main thing," she said. "It must be long enough for six maids of honor to hold it up,-three on a side. The end of it must fall to the floor behind them, with lilies on it. Yes, the skirt can be lengthened, easily, and it is n't very expensive stuff. I'll have a prettier scepter, too, than Belle had. Hers was far too big and clumsy. It looked as if it weighed a pound." Jim had been hard at work, and he had made his report. "Candidates? Oh, they 're all talking about everybody. They don't seem to have fixed on any one name yet." "But the Park set?" asked Fanny. "Not a word. Some of our boys think they must have heard of what Mr. Ayring said, and mean to give it up. They know they can't do anything against him, with all the town to help him." CHAPTER V. THE ELECTION. ""THE TRAIN WILL BE THE MAIN THING,' SHE SAID." "Did n't she say she would n't?" "Well, yes; she said so "Then she wont. That's just the difference between her and the rest. She and Dora Keys are honest." "She's worth ten of Dora." JEFF CARROLL was a quiet, near-sighted, careless sort of fellow, with a strong tendency to chuckle over the things close up to which his short vision compelled him to bring his face. It was not often, however, that his chuckle seemed to have a deeper meaning in it than when he and Will Torrance came together, half an hour before school-time, in the morning. Will was a character, in some respects, combining a queer disposition to write poetry with a liking for fancy poultry, and an ambition to be the champion athlete of his set. He was, as yet, a good deal more of a wrestler than of a poet. He and Jeff were great cronies, and his entire "Of course she is, but Dora can't keep in any- boy rose within him to inquire the meaning of that thing she thinks about herself." chuckle. "Can you keep a secret, Will?" "I can try. What's up?" "Old Ayring's going to have the May Queen election come off next Tuesday evening." "Everybody knows that." "And I know whom he 's going to have elected." "How did you find out?" "He's having some voting tickets printed in our office, on the sly. I saw the proof this morning, on Father's desk." "You don't say!" "Guess who it is." "Can't do it. girls, I suppose." That worthy did but blink at him in a most barbarous way and keep himself surrounded by a perpetual body-guard of the other boys, in whose quick-eared presence no secret could be safely hinted at. They were all "talking May Queen" but not one of them spoke of Milly Merriweather. "We shall be like a pair of mittens," growled Some one of Madame Skinner's Will. "Only just two of us. It'll take more Guess again." Unless he 's chosen me?" "It's Fanny Swayne!" than that to elect her." Nothing unusual occurred in school, that afternoon, but the moment he reached the sidewalk at the close of it, all of Jeff Carroll's indifference "She's pretty enough, and would make a good vanished. queen. Is n't she too old, though?" "He does n't care, as long as his show goes off to suit him." "But Jim would be proud as a peacock." "We wont let him, Will. Let you and I elect a May Queen of our own. "You and I? Why, we count but two votes. Some of the boys might go with us, if the girls would let 'em; but I don't believe you and I have much influence with the girls." "We don't need any. But I've picked out our queen, if you 're agreed to try it.” "One 's as good as another, for me, if it is n't Dora Keys, or Bob Sewell's sister, and if she 's pretty enough and is n't too old." "Did you ever see Milly Merriweather, Pug's sister?" "Lots of times, but I never spoke to her. It seems to me the girls rather snub her." "She's a quiet little thing, and the older girls just lord it over one of that kind. I tell you what, Will, that's the very reason we ought to elect her. But we must n't breathe it." "We must ask her if she 'll consent. "Not a word of it. She'd say no, of course, and spoil it all. The first thing she knows of it must be her election. It must be a regular surprise, all around.” "It'll be a tre-mendous surprise to me, for one." "No it wont. You come down town with me, after school. I'll show you. It's time to go in, Not a word to any of the boys." now. The young politician blinked his gray eyes merrily and walked away in a fit of chuckles that seemed almost to choke him. Will Torrance not only scribbled no poetry that morning, but he actually earned a bad mark in geometry, which was his especial stronghold, next after chickens. It was dreadfully severe on a boy of fourteen to have a big secret to keep and only know one-half of it, himself. Even when the hour of noon recess came, Will was unable to obtain any consolation from Jeff. "Come on, Will. I've got it all worked out. Let's get away before any of the rest hang on." Will was ready, and away they went, down town, at a pace that was almost a trot. All the answer Jeff would give to any questions, was: "It's all right. You'll see." He paused, at last, before the shop of a thriving dealer in cheap literature and stationery. That is, he did not so much pause as plunge in, and in half a minute more he was asking Will's opinion of a large assortment of embossed "cards" of staring colors, such as were greatly used for advertising purposes. "Don't they blaze?" 66 'They 're as big as my hand." "Well, pretty nearly," said Jeff, chuckling. "But they're four times as big as the tickets old Ayring is having printed for Fanny Swayne's election. Don't you see the dodge, now?" "I begin to. Every single small boy in the chorus will take one of these for a ticket, sooner than one of the little white ones." "That's it." "And that is n't all of it, Jeff." "Every one of them 'll keep your pretty card," objected Will, "and put Ayring's ugly one in the ballot-box." "We must make them trade with us, where we can. They'll do it. And every chick and child of 'em must have two. One to vote and one to keep." Jeff's electioneering powers were fit to make an alderman of him, some day, and he and Will divided between them the not very heavy cost of three hundred of the most extraordinary pasteboards in the stationer's stock. 'Now where, Jeff?" "Where? Why, to our job-printing office. Old McGee, the foreman, is a pet of mine. He'll print Milly's name on the cards in bronze-gilt letters, bright enough to dazzle the little fellows." |