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PRAIRIE roses. --- pA bedjje of roses, pink and sweet, lean soft cheeks together there, smile at love, with faces fair— keeps the sunshine glinting near? Young love, perchance. A hedge grown dim with autumn's haze, Tendrils that cling in loving maze, jjT Through drear, the or cold, or cloudy days; Across great expanse Comes on the fierce September sun, When rosy flush and perfume’s done; The rays the faded flowers shun * Without a glance. Oh, homely loves that clasp her round. May you enough for her be found— | (Like sister roses on one mound Amid a great expanse)— May no gay wooer ask a smile— Too lightsome wight with winsome wile! But gaining love to hold awhile, Then lose, perchance. ' M —Eli Shepherd in Boston Transcript. THE SHOES OF BREAD. p^n to toib story ~ tnrv that that the the gram irramb • 'aotiiers of Germany tell to their grand children; Germany, a beautiful country of legends and of reveries, where the light, playing on the mists of old |fthinc, creates a thousand fantastic vis ons. Jl poor woman lived alone at the far r village in humble little k! o the a se; the dwelling was miserable enough nd contained only the most necessary urniture. An old bed with wreathed oliimns, from which luing curtains of flowed serge, a kneading trough to put be bread in, a walnut chest shining with leanness, but whose numberless worm pies, filled up with wax, showed long Lrvice; a stuffed arm chair, faded and /orn by the shaking head of the randam, a wheel polished smooth by jittch using; that was all. [ We were going to forget a child’s kudle, quite new, O! so softly lined, and bided down with a pretty flowered pverlitl worked by a loving needle—that if a mother decorating the manger of fcr little Jesus. FA11 the riches of 4 he poor house were entered there. The child of a burgo ■raster or of an Aulic councilor would Lot have been more tenderly' cradled, l.fyly prodigality! Sweet folly of the bother, who denies herself everything to lake a little luxury, in the midst of her rant, for her dear n £ rsling. This cradle gave gave cs holiday air to the k\che<l and small and dirty lodging, and | 'iture, ever compassionate to those who Ire unfortunate, brightened its bareness fUth Ihpsses. tufts of house leek and with velvety While seeming to be buf para IKes these good, pitiful plants purposely |rew [I in the holes in the roof, fillingthem dent p and transforming them into resplen¬ lianging baskets which also served ± keep the rain from falling on the pTadle; even the pigeons flattened them Ulves gainst the windows and cooed intil the child fell asleep. A tiny bird, whom little Hanz had fed tlth bread crumbs in the winter when B file he snow whitened the ground, now, in spring, let fall a grain from his beak U &ung the foot of the wall, brier and from weed it vine had jXiich, a beautiful fastening itself to the stones with 'its green claws, had entered the room through a broken pane, and crowned the l ffd’s cradle with its garlands, so that the morning the blue eyes of little E efently e and at the at the each same blue other. time bells and of looked the vine in Ab dwelling was, the then, poor, but not ly. The mother of Hanz, whose ind had died far away in the wars, 1 as best she could upon the few Rubles _ and her garden yielded, , that ™“what little she made from spinning; ^\*tle indeed, but Hanz wanted for n F &. that was enough. and believing she was a pious woman, this mother of Hanz. She said her prayers, worked and was virtuous; but she committed one sin; she took too much pride in her son. It happens some times that mothers, seeing their beaut i ful, rosy babies with their tiny, dimplevl hands, and their white skin and their pretty pink nails; imagine that they are theirs forever; but God gives nothing, ho lends only; and like a forgotten creditor he comes sometimes suddenly to claim w* due. Because this fresh hud had been grafted from her stem, the mother of Har.z thought she had caused it to be bora: and God—who from the depth of his blue vaulted paradise that is studded with golden stars Observes all that hap pens on earth, and hears from the end of infinity the noise that a blade of grass makes in growing—saw not this with pleasure. that Hanz greedy He saw, too, was and Hint hi:; mother was too indulgent with him in this evil habit; often this naughty child would cry when, alter eating grnpi s and apples, ho would have to finish hi, bread, that so many poor people are in need of, and his mother would let him throw away the piece he littcn . ’ would linish it herself, Nmv it , ned thal Hallz fell ill; fever burned him, his throat was choked, and bis breath came heavily with a rat tling sound; ho has the croup, a terrible disease that lias made the eyes of many mothers and of many fathers red with weeping. this sight felt The poor woman at a horrible pain at her liQart. Without doubt you have seen in some church the image of Our Lady clothed in mourning and standing beneath the cross, with her breast torn open showing the bleeding heart in which are plunged seven silver blades—three on one side and four on the other. The meaning of this is that there is no move frightful agony than that of a mother who sees her child die; and : this although the Holy Virgin believed in the divinity of Jesus and knew that her ; Son would rise again, Now the mother of Hanz had no such hope. During the last days of his illness, while she watched him, the mother me chanically continued spinning, and the hum of ‘her wheel mingled with the child’s labored breathing, If there are those—rich—who think it strange that a mother should spin beni.ie the dying bed of her child, it is that they do not know what torture poverty holds in its grasp for the soul. Alas! it doesn’t alone destroy the body, it breaks the heart also. What she was spinning thus was the thread for the shroud of her little Han*. She did not wish to wrap his preciouj body in linen that had been used, and she had no money; and it was for this reason that she made her wheel rumble with such funereal activity; but she did not moisten the thread with her lips, as was her custom; enough team fell from her eyes to wet it. At the close of the sixth day Hanz died. Whether it was from chance, or whether from sympathy, the wreath of the brier weed vine that caressed his cradle languished, faded, dried and let fall its last crisped blossom on his bed. When the mother was convinced that breath had flown forever from the lips where death violets had replaced the roses of life, she covered the beloved dead, took her package of thread under her arm, and directed her steps to the weaver’s. “Weaver,” said she, “here is some verv even thread, very fine and without knots. The spider does not spin thinner between the rafters of the ceiling. Let your shuttle come and go; with this thread must you make for me a yard of p nen ^ goft as the linen from Frise and » f rorn Holland.” The weaver took the skein, adjusted ; t j ie u - arp an( ] the busy shuttle, drawing , thread after it, began to fly back and j forth. The hatchel tightened the woof and •». -------- -- --- ------------- ----—-------- ~ *--------------------T -------- “ the linen grew on the frame without un evenness, without hmik, as tine as the chemise of an archduchess, or the linen with which a priest dries the chalice at the altar. When the thread was all used the weaver gave back the linen to the poor mother and said to her, for lie had un dendood all from the unhappy creature’s look.of lixed despair: . he nnant *on o. tho em]H'ror, w ho died last year, m lus 1 title ebony co hn with its silver nails, was not wrapped in linen that softer finer. ’ was or Having folded the linen the poor mother pulled from her wasted linger a thin ring of gold, quite worn. “Good weaver," she said, “take this ring—my marriage ring—the only gold I have ever possessed." wish The worthy weaver did not take it. but she said to him; “I have no need of a ring there where I am / oha\ iV;\ ! fool it, my little boy’s arms dvr;: me underground." Then s; went to the carpenter's. “Master, in kindness take some oak that will not rot and that the worms cannot destroy; cut from it five large planks and two that are smaller and make will, them a coffin of this mens lire. 1 1 Ihe r.„ carpenter took Ms •'»’* «"<> h i, “ ia plane, arranged the planlta, etrock «s so, Ilyas be could with lna mallet, 80 tw not to force the iron point, into the pool woman’s heart Ixifore they entered the " c ™ W hen the . work . was completed one would have thought it, bo carefu ly a 1 well made it was. a 1 k>x to put jo and lace in. Carpenter, who have ma , le „„ _ a 4 4 su beaut 1 ful cofhn for my little IJ. uz, I p^ e you my house? at the end of tho ullage and the little garden which » bohirnl and the well vdh lts^vinc. Aoi 11 Hhe held under her arm, it waa so small she went her way through the tillage streels. and the children who do not know what death is, cn.-d out » t See what a beautiful l*>x or toys from Nuremberg Ilaiiz s mother carries to him; without doubt it is a city with its houses in painted mul varnished wood, its steeple surrounded with lead, its battlements and belfry and the trees, for the promenades, all frizzed and green: or else it is a pretty fiddle, carved, with a bow like a horse s mane. Oh! if we only had such a lx)x. And the mothers, growing pale, kissed them and made them still. “Impudent ones that you are, do not say so; do not envy her her jewel box, the violin case which one carries under the arm weeping. You will have it soon enough, poor chil¬ dren!” When the mother of Hanz reached home she took the tiny and still lovely body of her son and began to dress him for the last time, a toilet which must be a very careful one, as it will last through eternity. She dressed him in Ids Sunday clothing, in his silken dim. and his pelisse, trimmed with fur, so that he would not lie cold in the damp place where he was going. She placed beside him bis doll with the enameled eyes that he had loved so much that it had always slept beside him in Ins cradle. How she lingered over the task! IIow many thousand times she gave him his last kiss! At the moment of smoothing down the shroud, she perceived that she had forgotten to put on tin? dead child his pretty little red shoes. She sought for them in the room, for it hull her to see liare those feet that, be* fore so mi)i t and so rosy, were now icy and pale;, but during her absence the rats, 1laving found the shoes under the bed, for want of better food, had nibbled and gnawed them, and had torn the kid. It was a great grief for the poor mother that her Ilanz was forced to go into the other world with bare feet; for when the heart is one great wound it is sufficient to touch it to make it Heed. She wept be fore these shoes; from those dry, in flamed eyes a tear could btill gu&h forth. she some shoes for Hanz, £ne j j u:d givell awav j ier ,i n .r tim \ j ier lou ^ e t ^ uc h was the thought that tor men ted her. Bv dint of dwelling on it, t j, cro caln0 j, ar an j,} ea . In the hut there remained still an en¬ tire loaf of bread, for the unhappy one. nourished * by her grief, had eaten noth¬ ing. y, remembering that he l(rok(i tllia lou g formerly, out of the sol t part, Hi > had ^ j . on;; Rucks, liens, sabots, boats . rl|iwMl l!)in , s to orau8e R a; . wiUl Ptoci, H( the soft bread in the hollow of por j ^ ialu j an( j ; ine a('.ing it with her thum and m0 :8tening it with her tears, b1m , ma( j t , pa j r c f s i loeH with which she t iu> eol<l and blue feet of the dead n , )(1 j. rr } i0i , rt comforted, she smoothed down the shroud and closed the while she was kneading the u i K >ggar had come to her thresh t<Ki timid, asking for bread: but with her band she had motional to him to bo gone. f take the box, The grave diggercaxnr? of to the ,- ia d buried it in a comer cemetery ua der a clump cf •.Into kuse hushes; tlw ait was sweet it dl l not rain, and the cav th was not wet; this was a source cf consolation to the mother, who thought that her little Hanz would not be too un vaHy j, is (irs ; n j K ht in the tomb, aaok in her liougo. she placed the cliilil's cradle next to her bod, lay Exhausted nature Sleeping, she had a dream, or at least ^ it waa dream . Hanz up peaml U) her (lreH8e d, as in his coffin, in his Sunday clothing, his pelisse trirmiu tl?o ) with swansdown, holding in his mms d()il >vith the enameled eyes, and wea" on llig f (H , t the slux-s made of bread, “ Ho HC(line(1 m \. Around his head was t lhat aurooJ() wilh which death should rightly crown little innocents; for who a ‘ that death h d W()0ii| on ,thite; c ., lreks { . ^ W) tears fell from hi. Jomfc , , ash( . a , si ,, U , ,,,nt his liltlo breas( T1 ,p vWon dUtpjwand and tbs mo ther awoke, cold and shivering, over j ov(H j ( () i uiv(i seen her son again, dir hecausr* he was so sad; but sh i reassured herself, saving; “Poor Hanz. | own m p aru( p K0 } l(< CUJ mot forget me.” T]w follow . ing n j,rh t the apparition came onoe Iuore> ]| anz was still mow Wld 8tiU immJ pa le. His mother, stretching out her arms to him, said; “Dear child, console thyself, and do not become weary in heaven, I am going there to join thee," The third night Hanz came again; he groaned and cried more than on the two preceding nights, and he disappeared clasping his little hands ns if in supplication; lie did not carry his doll, but he wore, as always, the tiny shoes made of bread. The anxious mother went to consult jk venerable priest, who «uid to her: , will watch with you to-night and I will ; qu «, tion the little ghost. .. Ho will an* j HU . t , r Infl . j knovv (jio words that one , use to innocent as well as to wicked > Hanz appeared at the usual hour and ^ challenged him, using the Con¬ secrated words, to tell him what it was t | mt tormented him in the other world, ..jt j H the shoes of bread that eau e my torment and iirevent me from n cendiug ^ diamond stairs of paradise; tin y an? heavier to my feet than a po ‘ihon * boots, and I cannot get beyond the tir.-H ! t wo or three steps, and that gin nie sc j much grief, for 1 !«*<.* uti there a cloud ^ beautiful el,end v r *■ h rosv .wing* w ho roll to me toe me and \ by, and who show me their silver toys and theii p 0 j t } 1>n ( 0 ys.** words, he vnnLhcd. 1 Having raid thm-e ti 1( . holy father, to whom the mother ol j Hanz hod confessed, now said to her; | ; “You have commitUxl a grievous f au ]t. You have \ :v » • : sc l the ‘<bi!y bread,’ the bread that D sacred, the bread , if { Hie good God; the* bread that Jesus Christ, at his last supper, chose to reprr-