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My Kingdom and My Queen.
My kingdom has no dazzling throne,
No palace grand upon it,
Yet *tis as bright as e’er was known,
Or sung in loyal sonnet.
I’ve traveled east, I’ve traveled west,
But ’jfld scenes of wealth and splendor,
this one spot I love the best,
With all its joys so tender;
No place so dear I’ve ever seen,
For peace reigns here and Love is queen.
Two subjects in my kingdom dwell;
<5ne has an eye of azure,
And smiles upon her fair face tell
Of pure and perfect pleasure;
And one has hair of raven hue
And eyes of hazel beauty,
And whate’er he may strive to do
He always does his duty.
And faithful they have ever been
To her who is my household queen.
And as life yields me newer joy
And hope divine and human,
I see one now no more – boy
And one almost a woman.
The bright days come, the bright days gc\
And each brings some new pleasure,
And no spot on the earth I know
Is richer with heart-treasure.
Nor happier subjects ne’er were seen
Than in my home where Love is queen.
By no high-sounding royal name
Or tide they address her,
As cheerily, their eyes aflame
With love, they kiss and bless her
But with a voice of gentle tone
Which joy gives to each other,
They call her by one name alone,
The hallowed name of mother.
A name the sweetest known to man
Since time and love their course began.
— Youth's Companion.
11 1 PROMISE."
! BY BOSE TERRY COOKE.
f
“Viva,! Viva, ! I must go!”
“You shall not! You shall not. You
belong to me!”
The beautiful little creature stamped
her tiny foot on the turf, as she spoke;
her eyes flamed with anger, a fiery flush
shot up into her dark cheek.
“I belonged to my country before I
•ver saw you, Viva,” answered Tom
Creighton, in a sad but steady tone.
“You shall not go, tho! Ah! dear,
dear, darling Tom, can you leave your
little lassie to die of fear? Don’t you
love me?”
u She gathered the tall fellow’s hands
close to her heart and clasped them
there with strange passionate strength.
Tom stooped and lifted her to his bosom
as if she had been a tiny child.
“I could not love thee, dear, so much
Loved I not honor more.”
he said, slowly, bending his head to her
car. A splendid head it was, crowned
with close curls soon to fall before the
■hears, and its symmetry to be hidden
by a forage-cap; and the face did not
belie the head; its strong, regular fea
tures, its cleft chin, and resolute lips
all “gave the world assurance of a man,”
while the expressive gray eyes revealed
humor, tenderness, pathos, passion, and
a possible flash of rage.
“Don’t talk to me about honor!”
sobbed Viva, hiding her face on his
shoulder. ‘ l I shall die if you go away
from me' I cau’t—I cau’t bear itl”
1” There was no heroism about Genevieve
L’Estrange; her French descent had
given her inexpressible charms of aspect
and manner; she was as slight as a girl
of ten years, and no higher than her
over’s shoulder, but the contours of her
exquisite figure showed the roundness
and grace of womanhood, and her
piquant, glowing face was alight with
all the fire of an intense feminine nature.
There was nothing childish in the red
mobile lip*, the delicate irregular fea
tures, the brilliant dark eyes that
sparkled or melted according to her
mood, the abundant silky black hair
that fell to her feet when it escaped from
tho heavy coils that seemed too weighty
for the lovely little head they covered.
She was spoiled from her babyhood,
being the only child of wealthy parents;
not a wish had tho wilful creature ever
been denied; never had she wanted a
luxury, or failed to indulge a caprice;
indeed, it was but a caprice
that this very summer had taken her to
the "White Mountains before the great
hotels were opened, to a small house near
the village of Franconia. She wanted
to sec the spring blossoms of the North,
to gather the dawn-pink arbutus she
had so often bought in Broadway,
from its lurking-places under the pine
needles of the forest; she had heard of
“the shy Linnaia, ” the white winter
green, and many another early flower
that fades before fashion comes to ex
plore its haunts, from a school-friend
who lived in northern New Hampshire;
and so, weary of the early terrors of the
jfrom par looming blackly in the distance, tired
the two years in Europe that fol-
lo^d her school days, and the long
winter of dissipation in the city, she
had intimated to her obedient parents
her desire to visit Franconia; and they
took her to the Pine Hill House accord
ingly.
Here she met Tom Creighton; his
father and mother lived on a farm near
by and the handsome young lawyer from
New York had come up to say good-by
to them; for he had enlisted in a volun
teer regiment and daily expected orders
to the front.
Viva had met him often in society,
and the two opposite natures, in a meas
ure counterparts, had been mutually
attracted. Tom Creighton was a typi
cal New Englander, strong, obstinate,
enduring, with a rigid sense of duty as
his dominant trait. He did not entire
ly approve of the war, for he was
naturally conservative; but he considered
that he ought to go, and go he would.
It was a thorough surprise to both the
pair, this meeting among the mountains;
and it was the last thing Ton Creighton
intended, to fall in love with Miss
JFMstrange, much less to let her know
it, but he could not help himself; with
characteristic impetuosity she lost her
heart in these solitudes, where all the
real character of the young man showed
itself, no longer overlaid by the customs
of society. She saw how true, how
tender, how brave he was, how superior
to the society men who had only bored
her in New York. She had indeed
distinguished him even there from a
certain superiority of aspect, but now
she knew and loved him and showed
it with such naive simplicity that Tom,
for ali his good resolutions, broke down
and fell at her feet. Only a day had
their engagement been made known,
when the summons Tom expected,
came. Viva was almost frantic, it was
the first time in her life that her will
had been useless; but now it beat against
a rock. Tired with the vain struggle
repeated till Tom’s heart ached to its
depths, she at length recognized that his
strength of character must dominate
hers; and after a long wild flood of tears
and a convulsion of sobs she said at
last:
I 4 If you will go—if you must— prom
ise me to live, to corno back!”
“ I promise to come back if Ido live,
Viva. How can I say I wall live? That
is the chance of war and the will of
God.” “Promise, promise!” she
shrieked. “You must promise me to
live! I shall die here, right iu your
arms, unless you do!”
Her pallid face, her streaming eyes,
the sobs that seemed to rend her slight
shape, the piteous curve of her red lips,
took him by storm. The lovely, uu
reasoning, willful creature, torn by a
passion of love and grief all for him,
shook his strong soul to its center. What
man ever resisted such overwhelming
passion, or thought it foolish when
he was its object? Tom Creighion’s
soul blazed in his eyes as he held that tiny
figure closer to his breast.
“I promise!” he said.
So be went and she stayed. The for
tunes of war befell him; but in battle
he seemed to dodge the bullets that
rained about him, manfully as he
fought, for he felt Viva’s imploring eyes
upon him. “Creighton’s luck” was the
jest of the decimated regiment; but no
man charged him with cowardice. The
thrill and splendor of this new life had
swept off his conservatism; the war justi
fied itself by its dash and valor. lie
rejoiced in the clangor of its trumpets,
the roar of its guns, the rush of its
charges; and when the miasma of the
marshes where he lay encamped defied
his will and seared his flesh with fever,
when he lay half-conscious for many a
week in the hospital, tho will to live,
the intent to keep liis word to Viva,
saved him. The nurses wondered to
hear but two words in tbe low mutter of
his delirium: “I promise— I promise!”
but those words were his talisman.
When his heart and flesh failed he
seemed to see Viva’s upturned, woeful
face, and he said to himself, “I prom
ise,” with fresh strength each time; for
he had learned faith in himself. At last
the war was over; but thoroughly wed
ded to a soldier’s life, and become a
proverb among nen for courago and
quick resource, he was transferred to
the ranks of the regular army, given a
furlough of six months, and flow at
once to Viva.
“Viva,” he said to her, as he drew on
his gloves after an hour at her bedside,
and as soon as the nurse, hurriedly
called in, had left the room on some
needful errand.
“Viva, you must tell Captain Creigh
ton.”
SCHLEY COUNTY NEWS.
“I will not!” she answered angrily.
. “But you must!”
“I never will! After all these wretch
ed years of waiting, do you think I will
throw my life away, Dr. Sands?”
“If you do not, I shall.”
“You won’t! you can’t!”
“But I shall. It is my duty. If you
do not tell him before Saturday—this is
Tuesday—I shall.”
The doctor’s voice was stern, but the
nurse came in; he said no more.
Next day came Tom with startling
news; he was ordered at once to Fort
Stilling; the garrison there was needed
in a struggle with the Indians; fresh
troops must man the fort; there was not
a day to spare.
“Viva, will you go with me!”
She sprang up from the sofa where
she lay, pale and sweet after her brief
illness; here was her way of escape from
Dr. Sands.
“Yes, indeed, I will. You shall not
leave me again, Tom!”
So the next morning early, like a pair
of eloping lovers, they were married in
the nearest church and took the morning
train for the far West; on and on the
rushing wheels bore them; day after
day they endured the separation of the
crowd, till at last they arrived at St. ;
George one winter night in January,
The snow was deep, but Tom must report
as soon as possible, and Viva -would not
let him go alone.
“It is too cold, dearest,” he said.
“Not with you, Tom.”
11 Forty below zero, Viva!”
“If you can live in it I can. ‘I pro
mise,’ Tom.”
Ho could not refuse her after that
word with all its memories. Rolled in
fars, veils, scarfs, with hot bricks at her
feet, they set out on their twenty-mile
journey. Warned not to speak, for the
air was not fit for delicate lungs to ad
mit in all its chill, silently they sped
along. The glittering fields of spark
ling snow, on which the moon made a
long -wake of glory, the black shadows,
the creak of their swift runners, the
snorting of the horses, whose nostrils
were hung with icicles, all added a
strange terror to the drive—a drive
that seemed endless; but at last it was
over.
“Come in!” said Tom, holding out
his arms, as the driver drew up before
the officers’ quarters, where the light of
a fire blazed through the deep-frosted
windows; but Viva neither spoke nor
moved.
Mad with terror, Tom lifted her from
the sleigh and rushed into the door,
making his way by instinct to the fire,
Viva stirred not an atom. Hasty hands
unrobed her; kind hands laid her on the
sofa. Her face was set and white, her
lips parted, her eyes glazed. The post
surgeon hurried in; he lifted one hand,
it fell back; he put a finger on her pulse.
“My God! she is dead!” he said, with a
look of dreadful pity.
Tom dropped beside her.
Was it a year? Was it a life-timel
Was he in Heaven when he woke out of
that trance?
She was there, warm, sweet,rosy.
“You made me promise, Tom, I
would not die.”
Tom turned on his very face and wept
like a very child; his heaven had come
on earth.
Post surgeons do not know every
thing any more than other men. The
fact was that Viva had developed in
the last two years a tendency to cata
lepsy—the result of an over-worn and
over-excited nervous system; and when
Dr. Sands told her she must tell Tom
about it, she had just come out of a se
rious attack wherein she had lain for
hours as one dead; but she woul,d not
tell him, having an idle fear that Tom
might cease to love her.
The long journey and the cold drive
had brought on a severe seizure, and she
certainly, in appearance, justified the
post-surgeon’s opinion; but before
morning she had come back to herself,
and was heart-broken to find Tom de
lirious with grief and as unconscious of
her presence as she had been if his.
“Viva,” he said, a few days after
they were fairly settled in the new life,
“my darling! my wife! think what
might have happened if I had nevw
known about this. Promise me, Viva,
hereafter to trust me. Tell me every
thing!”
She looked up in his troubled, tendei
' face with a divine smile, and softly said
over his talisman, “I promise. ”
“What’s tho matter in the sitting
room, Tommy?” “Oh, the usual con
test between pa and rna over the speaker*
ship of the house.”
j BARK PEELERS.
,
A Day Among the Woodsmen
of the Catskill.
'
The Work of the Choppers,
■ Fixers and Spudders.
The men were at work some distance
up the side of the mountain, which was
a spur of great Peakamoose, and I was
guided by a man who was taking them
some addition to their dinners. The
road ceased altogether, soon after we
left the shanty, aud it was not long be
fore even the path disappeared, so that
we had to force our way through the
thick woods up the steep slope, guided
only by the sounds of chopping and the
crash of falling trees which came to our
ears.
Most of th e men were young fellows,
with tall, strong, active frames and
frank, honest face. One or two of them
wore red flannel shirts which looked
ver T picturesque among the green trees,
anc * °f them made so merry over
their hard work that the felling of huge
trees aud lopping of stout branches
seemed rather than labor.
When bark-peelers go into the woods
they divide themselves into parties of
lour or five who work together, Each
one of these parties contains choppers,
fixers and spudders.
The beginning of operations belongs
to the first class. The chopper chooses
the first good-sized hemlock that is
seen, and it is attacked near the root
with sharp and skilful axe until it turn
bles headlong in just the desired direc
tion. The fail of one of these trees, es
pecially if it be a large one, is an im
pressive sight. The chopper cuts a
broad opening on one side fully half
through the great trunk, yet the tree
stands firm and pays no attention to the
Wows, nor to the heavy chips that con
tinually fly away from its dark, red
heart-wood. Then the chopper goes
around on the other side, and cuts a new
gash, a little lower than the first one,
since he intends the tree to fall to that
6ide. Here, too, he cuts deep in before
there are any signs of conquest. As the
axe begins to touch the center, how
ever, the topmost limbs are seen to
tremble, then to sway, and a cracking
ff>und follows the repeated blows which
'warn the poor tree that its time has
come. Then there is a tottering, a lit
tie leaning toward the weaker side,
which has the lower cut, and the wood
man, keeping his eye upward and his
feet ready to jump, hurls one Last pow
erful stroke into the overstrained fibers.
They fly apart with a loud noise, the
great crown bows toward the earth,
gains swifter motion as it descends, and
comes crashing down upon the weak
and resistless brushwood with a noise
like the muffled roar of a whole battery
and a force which shakes the earth.
Now comes the work of the “fixers.”
They leap upon the but of the fallen
giant, and, striking at the lowest limbs,
first cut off every branch until all are
lopped away to where the trunk grows
too narrow to be worth trimming. As
fast as a little space of the trunk is
cleared, one of the men cuts a notch
through the bark and around the trunk
— “rings” it, as he would say. Four
feet further on ho cuts another rin^,
and then glitg tho bark lcngtbwise from
oae ring to the other) on three or four
gide3 of the tree. This goea on every
four feet a3 fast as the tree is trimmed,
’
until tho wholo length ha3 beeQ thu 3
t‘fixed ”
Last of all comes the “spudder,”
whose duty it is to pry off the great
flakes of bark which have been notched
and split for him. He takes his name
from the tool ho uses, which is a sort of
small, heavy, sharped-edged spade,
with a short handle; perhaps to call it
a round blado chisel would describe it
more nearly. To pry off the bark iu
this way seems very easy, but they told
mo it was the hardest work of all, and
that it required considerable skill to do
it properly,
When tho bark has been removed it
must be made up into regular piles so
a9 Be measured, for it is estimated
an ^ sold by tho cord. This is hard
w ork, for the green and juicy bark is
very heavy and rough to handle. Some
times a tree will bo found so large as to
furnish a cord, or oven more, alone; but
the average rate of yield is much less,
so that experts calculate that four trees
must be cut down to obtain a cord of
Bark.
It is only when tho new wood is form
tug just underneath, and tho cells are
soft and full of sap, that the bark can
be stripped from the log in large pieces.
Peeling, therefore, can be carried on
only during May and June. The cords
of bark piled then are left to dry all the
summer and fall, and are hauled out i a
winter by ox-teams with sleds, when
the deep snow makes a smooth track
over even so terribly rough a road as
the one I have mentioned.
The bark-peelers were a very jolly lot
of fellows, singing and joking as they
worked, and at dinner there was one
incessant rattle of stories and fun.
They work hard, eat heartily, go to bed
as soon as it is dark, and rise at dawn.
It is interesting work, but it leaves a
ruined forest behind.— St. Nicholas.
Odd Kinds of Leather.
It has been demonstrated that all
sorts of skins may be tanned. Beasts,
birds, fishes and reptiles have been alike
brought to the tan yard, and the prices
of their skins are regularly quoted in the
price current of the Shoe and Leather
Reporter. Alligator skins have long
been a favorite material for the manu
facture of pocketbooks and satchels.
The high price which the first product
commanded soon induced manufacturers
to produce imitations. These are merely
embossed leather. The peculiar scaly
nature of the alligator’s* hide is success
fully imitated by means of steel dies,
which leave a durable impression upon
the leather, so perfect a resemblance to
the genuine alligator skin that only ex
perts can tell the difference. The same
process is used to imitate other fancy
skins, so that there is no novelty that is
not imitated within three months of its
first appearance. The alligator skins
were first put on the market in 1876.
Kangaroo skins have only been on the
market about three years. The skin
of the porpoise has lately been
used for shoes, and is well
considered because of its fine grain,
making it waterproof. It resembles a
goat skin. The skin of the seal has also
been made into leather, and sells for
about $40 a dozen skins.
One of the latest novelties is rattle
snake leather, w’hich is used chiefly for
making pocketbooks. The skin of the
monkey has also been tanned and used
for making pocketbooks. Bear skins
lave long been used with the hair on
for caps and coats, and the hides have
also been used for leather. Of course
these novelties are not made in large
quantities, and are mostly used for fancy
trade. During the past few years the
hides of horses have been successfully
tanned and put upon the market as a
standard article of leather.
American kid is now taking a prom
inent place in the leather market, and is
even preferred to French kid by many
manufacturers, who find it quite as soft,
iliable and durable, and much cheaper.
It is declared that American kid at
twenty-five cents a foot is equal to
French kid at forty cents. Pig skins
are yet in demand for saddles.
Origin of 0. K.
Moses Folsom of Port.Townsend sends
the following sketch of the origin of the
use of the letters “O. K.” which, he
states, was furnished him personally by
James Parton:
W bile at Nashville in search of mate
rial for his history, Mr. Parton found
among the records of the court of which
General Jackson had been judge a great
many legal documents endorsed “O.R.”
which meant “Order recorded,” but
often so scrawlingly written that one
could easily read it as O. K. If “Major
Downing” noticed a bundle of papers
thus marked upon President Jackson’s
table, documents, perhaps, from bis
former court, in which he still had in •
terest, it is very easy to see how a pun
ster could imagine it to be “0. K.” or
( 4 oil korrect.”
No doubt Seba Smith, who wrote un
der the nom do plume of “Major Jack
Downing,” had much to do with creat
ing the impression that President Jack
son was unlettered and illiterate, where
as many existing personal letters,
military reports, court opinions and
state papers show to the contrary. He
lived before the day of stenographers
and typewriters, and yet carried on a
voluminous correspondence. Hundreds
of his personal letters to old soldiei
friends arc still preserved as heirlooms
in the south, and his handiwork is
numerous in Washington. He was evi
dently a rapid penman, and made
greater use of capital letters than is the
present custom, but misspelled words
and stumbling sentences were few and
far between. — Portland Oregonian.