ind him,
And make a sketch of his bier.
Oh shame on the Funkstown spirit
That in Maryland does dwell!
_He_ wouldn't consent to be buried
Where you can keep a hotel.'"

III.

"There's John Stocklager, daddy,"
Said young Nick, thinking much;
"A hundred years he's settled
Amongst the mountain Dutch.
Ask _him_!" "Nay, young Nick Hammer,
You young fellows run too fast:
I shall set out here a thinking,
And maybe Funk'll go past!"

IV.

He drank and smoked and pondered,
And deep in the mystery sunk;
And the more Nick Hammer wondered
The duller he grew about Funk.
The wagoners talked it over,
And a new idea to trace
Enlivened the dead old village
Like a new house built in the place.

V.

One day in June two wagons
Came over Antietam bridge
And a tall old man behind them
Strode up the turnpike ridge.
His beard was long and grizzled,
His face was gnarled and long,
His voice was keen and nasal,
And his mouth and eye were strong.

One wagon was full of boxes
And the other full of poles,
As the weaver's wife discovered
While the weaver took the tolls.
Two young men drove the horses,
And neither the people knew;
But young Nick asked a question
And that old man looked him through.

A little feed they purchased,
And their teams drank in the creek,
And to and fro they travelled
As silently for a week--
Went southward laden heavy,
And northward always light,
And the gnarled old man aye with them,
With the long beard flowing white.

From Sharpsburg up to Cavetown
The story slowly rolled--
That old man knew the mountains
Were filled with ore of gold.
The boxes held his crucibles;
'Twas haunted where he trod;
And every shafted pole he brought
Was a divining rod!

And none knew whence he came there,
Nor they his course who took,
Down the road to Harper's Ferry,
In a shaggy mountain nook;
But Nick the Sire grew certain,
While from his eye he shrunk,
That old man was none other
Than the missing Mr. Funk:

The famous city-builder
Who once had pitched upon
The sunny ledge of Funkstown,
And the site of Washington.
Again he was returning
To the Potomac side,
To found a