Street goes winding afar,
And away to the Hudson, almost, we shall find
A lone-seeming tenement cuddled behind
Huge heaps of fresh lumber so piney and sweet,
While everything round there is charmingly neat.--
Yes, the children are home and as gay as a lark,
While the good mother greets us with pleasure;--but hark!
A baby-cry comes from the bedroom beyond,
And Jenny brings forth a sweet, sunny-haired blonde,
Saying: "This is the something we wanted to show you,
This two-years-old baby-girl--why, does she know you?
She holds out her hands to go to you so soon!"
"Ah! she feels we are friendly;--hear now her soft croon.
But how came she here, child?" "We found her just over
The lumber-yard fence, with a board for a cover,
Wrapped up in a blanket marked Bertha." "But why
Do you not to the charity mission apply?"
"O, we want her ourselves! And the good Lord, through you, {336}
Has given us this home, so what else should we do,
Than to keep what He sends? And we're sure He sent Berty,
In place of our baby that died, little Myrtie!"

And here these poor people, so poor they were starving
When I found them a few months ago, were now halving
Their food and their home with this waif and with Benny--
For he was an orphan child left by his granny,
Who died in an attic just over their room,
In the tumble-down house they before-time called home;
Though they've four of their own, and the eldest is Jenny,
The little street-sweep who would not take the penny,
Yet they say, "Benny seems quite as much to belong here,
And be one of our children, as if he were born here."

O, how many rich homes where no child is given,
Might be made, for poor orphans, an opening to Heaven! {337}
And how many, poorer, might seem to be rich,
With a benny or Bertha to fill up the niche
That is left 'neath the hundreds of home-roofs all over.
Which the Lord has designed some poor orphan shall cover;
For He makes His home where His children are moored,--
And brings in His wealth where they live by His word;
And the meal and the oil there shall never be spent;--
What we give to the poor, to the Lord we have lent.
A baby to feed, is a baby to love,
A child in the house, "a well-spring" from above,--
And never forsaken, and ne'er begging bread,
Shall be those who take care that His lambs are well fed.

{338}

_THE HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE FAMILY._

Z