ily creep
Through the dust o'er the winding hill.

"Oh! the coward crowd!" cried Jamie;
"There's Brindle! I'll teach them now!"
And with headlong stride, at the captain's side,
He called for his mother's cow.

"Who are _you_, and who is your mother?--
I promised she should not miss?--
Well! upon my word, have I never heard
Of assurance like to this!"

"Is your word the word of a soldier?"--
And the young lad faced his foes,
As a jeering laugh, in anger half
And half in sport, arose.

But the captain drew his sabre,
And spoke, with lowering brow:
"Fall back into line! The joke is mine!
Surrender the widow's cow!"

And a capital joke they thought it,
That a barefoot lad of ten
Should demand his due--and get it too--
In the face of forty men.

And the rollicking Rebel raiders
Forgot themselves somehow,
And three cheers brave for the hero gave,
And three for the brindle cow.

He lived in the Cumberland Valley,
And his name _was_ Jamie Brown;
But it changed that day, so the neighbors say,
To the "Bravest Boy in Town."

MRS. EMILY HUNTINGTON NASON.

THE WOLF AND THE GOSLINGS.

An old gray goose walked forth with pride,
With goslings seven at her side;
A lovely yellowish-green they were,
And very dear to her.

She led them to the river's brink
To paddle their feet awhile and drink,
And there she heard a tale that made
Her very soul afraid.

A neighbor gabbled the story out,
How a wolf was known to be thereabout--
A great wolf whom nothing could please
As well as little geese.

So, when, as usual, to the wood
She went next day in search of food,
She warned them over and over, before
She turned to shut the door:

[Illustration]

"My little ones, if you hear a knock
At the door, be sure and not unlock,
For the wolf will eat you, if he gets in,
Feathers and bones and skin.

"You will know him by his voice so hoarse,
By his paws so hairy and black and coarse."
And the goslings piped up, clear and shrill,
"We'll take great care, we will."

The mother thought them wise and went
To the far-off forest quite content;
But she was scarcely away, before
There came a rap at the door.

"Open, open, my children dear,"
A gruff voice cried: "your mother is here."
But the young ones answered, "No, no, no,
Her voice is sweet an