always call that one "the old stager.")
I wasn't frightened, except just the tiniest bit; but he says he was
dreadfully frightened. So I said, "Then you ought to be
ashamed of yourself, considering all your medals, and that
you're a Major."
He likes me very much, and I like him, and when my fifth birthday
comes, he says I'm to choose a donkey, and he'll buy it for
me, but the saddle and bridle shall be quite new;
So I've made up my mind to choose the one Brother Bill had for his
charger at Mother's Birthday Review;
And Maggie is so glad, she says her life is quite miserable with
thinking how miserable other lives are, if only we knew.
Maggie loves every creature that lives; she won't confess to black
beetles, but she can't stamp on them (I've stamped out lots
in my winter boots), and she doesn't even think a donkey
ugly when he brays;
And she says she shall buy a brush, out of her pocket-money, and brush
my donkey every day till he looks like a horse, and that it
shan't be her fault if there isn't one poor old brute beast
who lives happily to the end of his days.

JACK ASS.

The dew falls over the Heath, Brother Donkeys, and the darkness falls,
but still through the gathering night
All around us spreads the Heath Bed-straw[6] in glimmering sheets of
white.
Dragged and trampled, and plucked and wasted, it patiently spreads
and survives;
Kicked and thwacked, and prodded and over-laden, we patiently cling
to our lives.
Hee-haw! for the rest and silence of darkness that follow the labours
of light.
Hee-haw! for the hours from night to morning, that balance the hours
from morning to night.
Hee-haw! for the sweet night air that gives human beings cold in
the head.
Hee-haw! for the civilization that sends human beings to bed.
Rest, Brother Donkeys, rest, from the bit, the burden, the blow,
The dust, the flies, the restless children, the brutal roughs, the
greedy donkey-master, the greedier donkey-hirer, the
holiday-maker who knows no better, and the holiday-makers
who ought to know!
When the odorous furze-bush prickles the seeking nose, and the sh