But all they’re faultin’ Sifers far, there’s none of ’em kin say
  He’s biggoty, er keerless, er not posted anyway;
  He ain’t built on the common plan of doctors now-a-days,
  He’s jes’ a great, big, brainy man—­that’s where the trouble lays!

AT NOON—­AND MIDNIGHT.

  Far in the night, and yet no rest for him!  The pillow next his own
  The wife’s sweet face in slumber pressed—­yet he awake—­alone!
    alone! 
  In vain he courted sleep;—­one thought would ever in his heart
    arise,—­
  The harsh words that at noon had brought the teardrops to her eyes.

  Slowly on lifted arm he raised and listened.  All was still as death;
  He touched her forehead as he gazed, and listened yet, with bated
    breath: 
  Still silently, as though he prayed, his lips moved lightly as she
    slept—­
  For God was with him, and he laid his face with hers and wept.

A WILD IRISHMAN.

Not very many years ago the writer was for some months stationed at South Bend, a thriving little city of northern Indiana, its main population on the one side of the St. Joseph river, but quite a respectable fraction thereof taking its industrial way to the opposite shore, and there gaining an audience and a hearing in the rather imposing growth and hurly-burly of its big manufactories, and the consequent rapid appearance of multitudinous neat cottages, tenement houses and business blocks.  A stranger, entering South Bend proper on any ordinary day, will be at some loss to account for its prosperous appearance—­its flagged and bowldered streets—­its handsome mercantile blocks, banks, and business houses generally.  Reasoning from cause to effect, and seeing but a meager sprinkling of people on the streets throughout the day, and these seeming, for the most part, merely idlers, and in no wise accessory to the evident thrift and opulence of their surroundings, the observant stranger will be puzzled at the situation.  But when evening comes, and the outlying foundries, sewing-machine, wagon, plow, and other “works,” together with the paper-mills and all the nameless industries—­when the operations of all these are suspended for the day, and the workmen and workwomen loosed from labor—­then, as this vast army suddenly invades and overflows bridge, roadway, street and lane, the startled stranger will fully comprehend the why and wherefore of the city’s high prosperity.  And, once acquainted with the people there, the fortunate sojourner will find no ordinary culture and intelligence, and, as certainly, he will meet with a social spirit and a wholesouled heartiness that will make the place a lasting memory.  The town, too, is the home of many world-known notables, and a host of local celebrities, the chief of which latter class I found, during my stay there, in the person of Tommy Stafford, or “The Wild Irishman” as everybody called him.