THE ENGINEER'S STORY.

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Everyman stamps his value on himself.The price we challenge for ourselves is given us.Man is made great or littleby his own will.SCHILLER

SCHILLER

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Itwas a noble Roman,In Rome's imperial day,Who heard a coward croaker,Before the Castle say:"They're safe in such a fortress;There is no way to shake it!""On—on," exclaimed the hero,"I'll find a way, or make it!"JOHN G. SAXE.

JOHN G. SAXE.

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NNo, children, my trips are over,The engineer needs rest;My hand is shaky, I'm feelingA tugging pain i' my breast;But here, as the twilight gathers,I'll tell you a tale of the road,That will ring in my head forever,Until it rests beneath the sod.We were lumbering along in the twilight,The night was dropping her shade,And the "Gladiator" labored—Climbing the top of the grade;The train was heavily laden,So I let my engine rest,Climbing the grading slowly,Till we reached the upland's crest.I held my watch to the lamplight—Ten minutes behind the time!Lost in the slackened motionOf the up grade's heavy climb;But I knew the miles of the prairieThat stretched a level track,So I touched the gauge of the boiler,And pulled the lever back.Over the rails a-gleaming,Thirty an hour, or so,The engine leaped like a demon,Breathing a fiery glow;But to me—ahold of the lever—It seemed a child alway,Trustful and always readyMy lightest touch to obey.I was proud, you know, of my engine,Holding it steady that night,And my eye on the track before us,Ablaze with the Drummond light.We neared a well-known cabin,Where a child of three or four,As the up-train passed, oft called me,A-playing around the door.My hand was firm on the throttleAs we swept around the curve,When something afar in the shadow,Struck fire through every nerve.I sounded the brakes, and crashingThe reverse lever down in dismay,Groaning to Heaven,—eighty pacesAhead was a child at its play!One instant—one awful and only,The world flew around in my brain,And I smote my hand hard on my foreheadTo keep back the terrible pain;The train I thought flying forever,With mad, irresistible roll,While the cries of the dying, the night-windSwept into my shuddering soul.Then I stood on the front of the engine,How I got there I never could tell,—My feet planted down on the cross-barWhere the cow-catcher slopes to the rail,One hand firmly locked on the coupler,And one held out in the night,While my eye gauged the distance and measured,The speed of our slackening flight.My mind, thank the Lord! it was steady;I saw the curls of her hair,And the face that turning in wonder,Was lit by the deadly glare.I know little more—but I heard it—The groan of the anguished wheels,And remember thinking—the engineIn agony trembles and reels.One rod! to the day of my dying,I shall think the old engine reared back,And as it recoiled with a shudderI swept my hand over the track;Then darkness fell over my eyelids,But I heard the surge of the train,And the poor old engine creaking,As racked by a deadly pain.They found us, they said, on the gravel,My fingers enmeshed in her hair,And she on my bosom a climbing,To nestle securely there.We are not much given to crying—We men that run on the road—But that night, they said there were faces,With tears on them, lifted to God.For years in the eve and the morning,As I neared the cabin again,My hand on the lever pressed downwardAnd slackened the speed of the train.When my engine had blown her a greeting,She always would come to the door;And her look with a fullness of Heaven,Blessed me evermore.

No, children, my trips are over,The engineer needs rest;My hand is shaky, I'm feelingA tugging pain i' my breast;But here, as the twilight gathers,I'll tell you a tale of the road,That will ring in my head forever,Until it rests beneath the sod.We were lumbering along in the twilight,The night was dropping her shade,And the "Gladiator" labored—Climbing the top of the grade;The train was heavily laden,So I let my engine rest,Climbing the grading slowly,Till we reached the upland's crest.I held my watch to the lamplight—Ten minutes behind the time!Lost in the slackened motionOf the up grade's heavy climb;But I knew the miles of the prairieThat stretched a level track,So I touched the gauge of the boiler,And pulled the lever back.Over the rails a-gleaming,Thirty an hour, or so,The engine leaped like a demon,Breathing a fiery glow;But to me—ahold of the lever—It seemed a child alway,Trustful and always readyMy lightest touch to obey.I was proud, you know, of my engine,Holding it steady that night,And my eye on the track before us,Ablaze with the Drummond light.We neared a well-known cabin,Where a child of three or four,As the up-train passed, oft called me,A-playing around the door.My hand was firm on the throttleAs we swept around the curve,When something afar in the shadow,Struck fire through every nerve.I sounded the brakes, and crashingThe reverse lever down in dismay,Groaning to Heaven,—eighty pacesAhead was a child at its play!One instant—one awful and only,The world flew around in my brain,And I smote my hand hard on my foreheadTo keep back the terrible pain;The train I thought flying forever,With mad, irresistible roll,While the cries of the dying, the night-windSwept into my shuddering soul.Then I stood on the front of the engine,How I got there I never could tell,—My feet planted down on the cross-barWhere the cow-catcher slopes to the rail,One hand firmly locked on the coupler,And one held out in the night,While my eye gauged the distance and measured,The speed of our slackening flight.My mind, thank the Lord! it was steady;I saw the curls of her hair,And the face that turning in wonder,Was lit by the deadly glare.I know little more—but I heard it—The groan of the anguished wheels,And remember thinking—the engineIn agony trembles and reels.One rod! to the day of my dying,I shall think the old engine reared back,And as it recoiled with a shudderI swept my hand over the track;Then darkness fell over my eyelids,But I heard the surge of the train,And the poor old engine creaking,As racked by a deadly pain.They found us, they said, on the gravel,My fingers enmeshed in her hair,And she on my bosom a climbing,To nestle securely there.We are not much given to crying—We men that run on the road—But that night, they said there were faces,With tears on them, lifted to God.For years in the eve and the morning,As I neared the cabin again,My hand on the lever pressed downwardAnd slackened the speed of the train.When my engine had blown her a greeting,She always would come to the door;And her look with a fullness of Heaven,Blessed me evermore.

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I donot know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble, or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

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Oh, many a shaft, at random sent,Finds mark, the archer little meant!And many a word, at random spoken,May soothe, or wound, a heart that's broken.WALTER SCOTT.

WALTER SCOTT.

FROM PRITT'S BORDER LIFE.

Duringthe early pioneer days of Ohio, there lived on the Ohio river, not far from Cincinnati, a family named Johnson.

The two sons, John and Henry, aged respectively thirteen and eleven years, were one day seated on an old log some distance from the house. Presently they saw two men coming toward them, whom they supposed to be white men from the nearest settlement. To the great dismay of the boys, they discovered when too late for escape, that two Indians were beside them.

They were made prisoners and taken about four miles into the deep forests, when, after eating some roasted meat and parched corn, given them by their captors, they arranged for the night, by being placedbetween the two Indians and each encircled in the arms of the one next him.

Henry, the younger, had grieved much at the idea of being carried off by the Indians. John had in vain tried to comfort him with the hope that they should escape and return to their parents; but he refused to be comforted. The ugly red man, with his tomahawk and scalping-knife, which had often been called in to quiet his cries in infancy, was now actually before him; and every scene of torture and cruelty of which early settlers knew so much, rose up to terrify his mind.

But when the fire was kindled in the forest, that night, the supper prepared and offered to him, all idea of his future fate was forgotten, and Henry soon sank to peaceful sleep, though he was enclosed in the arms of a red savage.

It was different with John. He felt the reality of their situation; he was alive to the fears which he knew would possess his dear mother when night came and her boys did not return. His thoughts of how to restore his brother and himself to their friends drove sleep from his eyes.

Finding all others locked in deep repose, he gently slipped from the arms of his captor and walked to the fire. To test the soundness oftheir sleep, he rekindled the dying fire and moved freely about it. All remained sound asleep—now was the time to escape. He gently awoke Henry and told him to get up; he obeyed and both stood by the fire.

"I think," said John, "we had better go home now."

"Oh!" replied Henry, "they will follow and catch us."

"Never fear that," replied John, "we'll kill them before we go."

The idea was for some time opposed by Henry, but when he beheld the savages so soundly asleep, and listened to his brother's plan of executing his wish, he finally consented to act the part prescribed him.

The only gun which the Indians had was resting against a tree, at the foot of which lay their tomahawks. John placed it on a log, with the muzzle near to the head of one of the savages, and, leaving Henry with his finger on the trigger, ready to pull on the signal being given, he repaired to his own station. Holding in his hand one of their tomahawks, he stood astride of the other Indian, and, as he raised his arm to deal death to the sleeping savage, Henry fired, and, shooting off the lower part of the Indian's jaw, called to his brother, "Layon; for I've done for this one," seized up the gun and ran off. The first blow of the tomahawk took effect on the back of the neck and was not fatal. The Indian attempted to spring up, but John repeated his strokes with such force and so quickly that he soon brought him again to the ground, and leaving him dead proceeded on after his brother.

They presently came to a path which they recollected to have traveled the preceding evening, and, keeping along it, arrived at the station awhile before day. The inhabitants were, however, all up, and in much uneasiness for the fate of the boys; and when they came near, and heard a well-known voice exclaim, in accents of deep distress, "Poor little fellows! they are either killed or taken prisoners," John called aloud, "No, mother, we are here again."

When the tale of their captivity and the means by which they escaped, were told, they did not receive full belief, upon which John said, "You had better go and see." "But can you again find the spot?" said one; "Yes," he said, "I hung my cap up at the place where we turned into the path." So, with a number of men, John led the way, and when they came to the fire they found the Indian who had been tomahawked, dead, whilethey tracked the one who had been shot, by his blood, until they found him, not quite dead yet, but so weak that he would die, so they left him.

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I ampositive I have aSoul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world ever convince me to the contrary.

STERNE.

BIRD ON NEST

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GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

GGone! gone for ever!—like a rushing waveAnother year has burst upon the shoreOf earthly being—and its last low tones,Wandering in broken accents on the air,Are dying to an echo.The gay SpringWith its young charms, has gone—gone with its leaves—Its atmosphere of roses, its white cloudsSlumbering like seraphs in the air—its birdsTelling their loves in music—and its streamsLeaping and shouting from the up-piled rocksTo make earth echo with the joy of waves.And Summer, with its dews and showers, has gone—Its rainbows glowing on the distant cloud

Gone! gone for ever!—like a rushing waveAnother year has burst upon the shoreOf earthly being—and its last low tones,Wandering in broken accents on the air,Are dying to an echo.The gay SpringWith its young charms, has gone—gone with its leaves—Its atmosphere of roses, its white cloudsSlumbering like seraphs in the air—its birdsTelling their loves in music—and its streamsLeaping and shouting from the up-piled rocksTo make earth echo with the joy of waves.And Summer, with its dews and showers, has gone—Its rainbows glowing on the distant cloud

ITS PEACEFUL LAKES SMILING IN THEIR SWEET SLEEP.

"ITS PEACEFUL LAKES SMILING IN THEIR SWEET SLEEP."

Like Spirits of the Storm—its peaceful lakesSmiling in their sweet sleep, as if their dreamsWere of the opening flowers and budding treesAnd overhanging sky—and its bright mistsResting upon the mountain tops, as crownsUpon the heads of giants.Autumn tooHas gone, with all its deeper glories—goneWith its green hills like altars of the worldLifting their rich fruit-offerings to their God—Its cool winds straying 'mid the forest aislesTo wake their thousand wind-harps—its sereneAnd holy sunsets hanging o'er the WestLike banners from the battlements of Heaven—And its still evenings, when the moonlit seaWas ever throbbing, like the living heartOf the great Universe—Aye—these are nowBut sounds and visions of the past—their deep,Wild beauty has departed from the Earth,And they are gathered to the embrace of Death,Their solemn herald to Eternity.Nor have they gone alone. High human heartsOf Passion have gone with them. The fresh dustIs chill on many a breast, that burned erstwhileWith fires that seemed immortal.Joys, that leapedLike angels from the heart, and wandered freeIn life's young morn to look upon the flowers,The poetry of nature, and to listThe woven sounds of breeze, and bird, and stream,Upon the night-air, have been stricken downIn silence to the dust.Yet, why museUpon the past with sorrow? Though the yearHas gone to blend with the mysterious tideOf old Eternity, and borne alongUpon its heaving breast a thousand wrecksOf glory and of beauty—yet, why mournThat such is destiny? Another yearSucceedeth to the past—in their bright roundThe seasons come and go—the same blue arch,That hath hung o'er us, will hang o'er us yet—The same pure stars that we have loved to watch,Will blossom still at twilight's gentle hourLike lilies on the tomb of Day—and stillMan will remain, to dream as he hath dreamed,And mark the earth with passion.Weep not, that TimeIs passing on—it will ere long revealA brighter era to the nations.

WHICH WILL GET IT?

AIRY NOTHINGS.—— Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air — into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with sleep.—— SHAKESPEARE.

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