o see that everything is right;
Yet Lizzie thinks that gran'ma's care
Ain't good enuff f'r baby, quite.
Yet what am I to answer when
She kind uv fidgets at my side,
An' asks me every now an' then,
"I wonder ef the baby cried"?

Seems like she seen two little eyes
A-pinin' f'r their mother's smile;
Seems like she heern the pleadin' cries
Uv one she thinks uv all the while;
An' so she's sorry that she come.
An' though she allus tries to hide
The truth, she'd ruther stay to hum
Than wonder ef the baby cried.

Yes, wimmin folks is all alike--
By Lizzie you kin jedge the rest;
There never wuz a little tyke,
But that his mother loved him best.
And nex' to bein' what I be--
The husband uv my gentle bride--
I'd wisht I wuz that croodlin' wee,
With Lizzie wonderin' ef I cried.

LITTLE HOMER'S SLATE.

AFTER dear old grandma died,
Hunting through an oaken chest
In the attic, we espied
What repaid our childish quest:
'Twas a homely little slate,
Seemingly of ancient date.

On its quaint and battered face
Was the picture of a cart
Drawn with all that awkward grace
Which betokens childish art.
But what meant this legend, pray:
"Homer drew this yesterday"?

Mother recollected then
What the years were fain to hide:
She was but a baby when
Little Homer lived and died.
Forty years, so mother said,
Little Homer had been dead.

This one secret through those years
Grandma kept from all apart,
Hallowed by her lonely tears
And the breaking of her heart;
While each year that sped away
Seemed to her but yesterday.

So the homely little slate
Grandma's baby's fingers pressed,
To a memory consecrate,
Lieth in the oaken chest,
Where, unwilling we should know,
Grandma put it years ago.

ALWAYS RIGHT.

DON'T take on so, Hiram,
But do what you're told to do;
It's fair to suppose that yer mother knows
A heap si