t Mother's waked me up
to say--
"Jest listen, David!--listen!--Johnny's beat the birds
to-day!"

High-sperited from boyhood, with a most inquirin' turn,--
He wanted to learn ever'thing on earth they was to learn:
He'd ast more plaguy questions in a mortal-minute here
Than his grandpap in Paradise could answer in a year!

And READ! w'y, his own mother learnt him how to read
and spell;
And "The Childern of the Abbey"--w'y, he knowed that
book as well
At fifteen as his parents!--and "The Pilgrim's
Progress," too--
Jest knuckled down, the shaver did, and read 'em through
and through.

At eighteen, Mother 'lowed the boy must have a better
chance-
That we ort to educate him, under any circumstance;
And John he j'ined his mother, and they ding-donged and
kep' on,
Tel I sent him off to school in town, half glad that he was
gone.

But--I missed him--w'y, of course I did!--The Fall and
Winter through
I never built the kitchen-fire, er split a stick in two,
Er fed the stock, er butchered, er swung up a gambrel-pin,
But what I thought o' John, and wished that he was home
ag'in.

He'd come, sometimes--on Sund'ys most--and stay the
Sund'y out;
And on Thanksgivin'-Day he 'peared to like to be about:
But a change was workin' on him--he was stiller than
before,
And didn't joke, ner laugh, ner sing and whistle any
more.

And his talk was all so proper; and I noticed, with a sigh,
He was tryin' to raise side-whiskers, and had on a striped
tie,
And a standin'-collar, ironed up as stiff and slick as bone;
And a breast-pin, and a watch and chain and plug-hat of
his own.

But when Spring-weather opened out, and John was to
come home
And he'p me through the season, I was glad to see him
come,
But my happiness, that evening, with the settin' sun went
down,
When he bragged of "a position" that was offered him in
town.

"But," says I, "you'll not accept it?" "W'y, of course I
will," says he.--
"This drudgin' on a farm," he says, "is not the life fer
me;
I've set my stakes up higher," he continued, light and
gay,