“Bad,” you say:  Well, who is not? 
  “Brutal”—­“with a heart of stone”—­
  And “red-handed.”—­Ah! the hot
  Blood upon your own!

  I come not, with downward eyes,
  To plead for him shamedly,—­
  God did not apologize
  When He gave the boy to me.

  Simply, I make ready now
  For His verdict.—­You prepare—­
  You have killed us both—­and how
  Will you face us There!

KISSING THE ROD.

  O heart of mine, we shouldn’t
        Worry so! 
  What we’ve missed of calm we couldn’t
        Have, you know! 
  What we’ve met of stormy pain,
  And of sorrow’s driving rain,
  We can better meet again,
        If it blow!

  We have erred in that dark hour
        We have known,
  When our tears fell with the shower,
        All alone!—­
  Were not shine and shadow blent
  As the gracious Master meant?—­
  Let us temper our content
        With His own.

  For, we know, not every morrow
        Can be sad;
  So, forgetting all the sorrow
        We have had,
  Let us fold away our fears,
  And put by our foolish tears,
  And through all the coming years
      Just be glad.

HOW IT HAPPENED.

  I got to thinkin’ of her—­both her parents dead and gone—­
  And all her sisters married off, and none but her and John
  A-livin’ all alone there in that lonesome sort o’ way,
  And him a blame old bachelor, confirmder ev’ry day! 
  I’d knowed ’em all from childern, and their daddy from the time
  He settled in the neighborhood, and had n’t ary a dime
  Er dollar, when he married, far to start housekeepin’ on!—­
  So I got to thinkin’ of her—­both her parents dead and gone!

  I got to thinkin’ of her; and a-wundern what she done
  That all her sisters kep’ a gittin’ married, one by one,
  And her without no chances—­and the best girl of the pack—­
  An old maid, with her hands, you might say, tied behind her back! 
  And Mother, too, afore she died, she ust to jes’ take on,
  When none of ’em was left, you know, but Evaline and John,
  And jes’ declare to goodness ’at the young men must be bline
  To not see what a wife they ’d git if they got Evaline!

  I got to thinkin’ of her; in my great affliction she
  Was sich a comfert to us, and so kind and neighberly,—­
  She ’d come, and leave her housework, far to be’p out little Jane,
  And talk of her own mother ’at she ’d never see again—­
  Maybe sometimes cry together—­though, far the most part she
  Would have the child so riconciled and happy-like ’at we
  Felt lonesomer ’n ever when she ’d put her bonnet on
  And say she ‘d railly haf to be a-gittin’ back to John!