ok after baby now and then, when I was hangin' out clothes or
makin' garden, and he got to like her in the end on't near as well as
Simon.

After a while there come more settlers out our way, and we got a
church to go to; and the minister, Mr. Jones, he come to know if I was
a member, and when I said I wa'n't, he put in to know if I wasn't a
pious woman.

"Well," says I, "I don't know, Sir." So I up and told him all about
it, and how I had had a hard lesson; and he smiled once or twice, and
says he,--

"Your husband thinks you are a Christian, Sister Potter, don't he?"

"Yes, I do," says Russell, a-comin' in behind me to the door,--for
he'd just stepped out to get the minister a basket of plums. "I ha'n't
a doubt on't, Mr. Jones."

The minister looked at him, and I see he was kinder pleased.

"Well," says he, "I don't think there's much doubt of a woman's bein'
pious when she's pious to home; and I don't want no better testimony'n
yours, Mr. Potter. I shall admit you to full fellowship, sister, when
we have a church-meetin' next; for it's my belief you experienced
religion under that blowed-down barn."

And I guess I did.

LE MARAIS DU CYGNE.[1]

[1: The massacre of unarmed and unoffending men in Southern Kansas
took place near the Marais du Cygne of the French _voyageurs_.]

A blush as of roses
Where rose never grew!
Great drops on the bunch-grass,
But not of the dew!
A taint in the sweet air
For wild bees to shun!
A stain that shall never
Bleach out in the sun!

Back, steed of the prairies!
Sweet song-bird, fly back!
Wheel hither, bald vulture!
Gray wolf, call thy pack!
The foul human vultures
Have feasted and fled;
The wolves of the Border
Have crept from the dead.

From the hearths of their cabins,
The fields of their corn,
Unwarned and unweaponed,
The victims were torn,--
By the whirlwind of murder
Swooped up and swept on
To the low, reedy fen-lands,
The Marsh of the Swan.

With a vain plea for mercy
No stout knee was crooked;
In the mouths of the rifles
Right manly they looked.
How paled the May sunshine,
Green Marais du Cygne,
When the death-smoke blew over
Thy lonely ravine!

In the homes of their rearing,
Yet warm with their lives,
Ye wait the dead only,
Poor children and wives!
Put out the red forge-fire,
The smith shall not come;
Unyoke the brown oxen