moment when the axe was coming down with all its force. It was too late to stop the blow. Down came the axe. I screamed, and my father fell to the ground in terror. He could not stay the stroke, and in the blindness which the sudden horror caused he thought he had killed his boy. We soon recovered—I from my fright, and he from his terror. He caught me in his arms and looked at me from head to foot, to find out the deadly wound which he was sure he had inflicted. Not a drop of blood nor a scar was to be seen. He knelt upon the grass and gave thanks to a gracious God. Having done so, he took up his axe and found a few hairs upon its edge. He turned to the log he had been splitting. and there was a single curl of his boy's hair sharply cut through and laid upon the wood. How great the escape! It was as if an angel had turned aside the edge at the moment it was descending upon my head.

"That lock he kept all his days as a memorial of God's care and love. That lock he left to me on his deathbed. I keep it with care. It tells me of my father's God and mine. It rebukes my unbelief and alarm. It bids me trust Him forever. I have had many tokens of fatherly love in my threescore years and ten, but somehow this speaks most to my heart. It is the oldest and perhaps the most striking. It used to speak to my father's heart; it now speaks to mine."

THE OWL-CRITIC.-JAMES T. FIELD.

"Who stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop;
The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop;

The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
The Daily, the Herald, the Post, little heeding

The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;

And the barber kept on shaving.

"Don't you see, Mister Brown,"
Cried the youth, with a frown,
"How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,

How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is-
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis!

I make no apology;

I've learned owl-eology.

I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And cannot be blinded to any deflections

Arising from unskilful fingers that fail

To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown! Mister Brown!

Do take that bird down,

Or you'll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!"

"I've studied owls,

And other night fowls,

And I tell you

What I know to be true:
An owl cannot roost

And the barber kept on shaving.

With his limbs so unloosed;
No owl in this world
Ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted,
Ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed
Into that attitude.

He can't do it, because
'Tis against all bird laws.
Anatomy teaches,

Ornithology preaches,
An owl has a toe

That can't turn out so!

I've made the white owl my study for years,

And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!

Mister Brown, I'm amazed

You should be so gone crazed

As to put up a bird

In that posture absurd!

To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness;

The man who stuffed him don't half know his business!

And the barber kept on shaving.

"Examine those eyes.
I'm filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass
Off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem
They'd make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff.
Do take that bird down;
Have him stuffed again, Brown!"

And the barber kept on shaving.

"With some sawdust and bark

I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that.
I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl
Than that horrid fowl,

Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about him there's not one natural feather."

Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say:
"Your learning's at fault this time, anyway;
Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray.

I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good-day!”

And the barber kept on shaving.

THE LOVER'S SACRIFICE.

"Hark! the minute gun is booming,
And the storm rolls loud and high.
See the breakers to the leeward!"
Then the lightning in the sky
Shows with lurid glare and brightness,
To the watchers on the sand,
A good ship, all wrecked and broken,
Lying helpless on the strand.

And amid the trembling watchers,
Gazing forth upon the tide,
There is one, a bright-eyed maiden,

Now with arms outstretched and wide.

Ah, among the fated hundreds

Who will die ere break of day

Stands her lover! "Oh, God help him!"
She may well in terror pray.

"For my sake, oh, Ronald, save him!"
To a youth who watches there.
And with folded arms he listened-
Will he hearken to her prayer?
Rescue from the roaring breakers
One who robbed him of his love-
From the ocean save a rival?
No! Forbid it, God above!

Hark! another peal of thunder-
Dark destruction's victory-cry.
No man dares to launch the life-boat,
And the fated crew must die.
Once again the lightning flashes,
And the watchers see at last;
All are lost-the ship is shattered-
Save a broken hull and mast.

No! One figure still is clinging

To the stern.

Hear that low wail!
Tis a woman's shriek. Her lover,
Now alone amidst the gale,
Waits the awful doom so certain-
Death beneath the roaring wave.
"Save him? Marie, yes, I'll save him,
For your sake, e'en from the grave!"
Plunging through the foaming breakers,
With a cord clasped in his hand-
See! 'tis Ronald, striving madly-
Will he gain the rock-bound strand?
Yes! For, as the last frail timbers
Vanish 'neath the raging tide,
And a form sinks in the breakers,
Ronald then is at his side-

Binds the saving rope around him,
While the watchers on the sand
Draw him landward, Ronald faintly
Falls and dies upon the strand!
On the morrow fair, a lover

Wakes to joy upon the shore,
And his rival, 'neath the waters,
Calmly sleeps forevermore!

ONE DAY SOLITARY.-J. T. TROWBRIDGE.

I am all right! Good-bye, old chap!

Twenty-four hours, that won't be long; Nothing to do but take a nap,

And-say! can a fellow sing a song?

Will the light fantastic be in order

A pigeon-wing on your pantry floor?

What are the rules for a regular boarder?

Be quiet? All right! Cling-clang goes the door.

Clang-clink the bolts, and I am locked in;
Some pious reflection and repentance

Come next, I suppose, for I just begin

To perceive the sting in the tail of my sentence"One day whereof shall be solitary."

Here I am at the end of my journey,
And-well, it ain't jolly, not so very-
I'd like to throttle that sharp attorney!

He took my money, the very last dollar,
Didn't leave me so much as a dime,
Not enough to buy me a paper collar

To wear at my trial; he knew all the time
'Twas some that I got for the stolen silver
Why hasn't he been indicted, too?
If he doesn't exactly rob and pilfer,
He lives by the plunder of them that do.

Then didn't it put me into a fury,

To see him step up, and laugh and chat With the county attorney, and joke with the jury, When all was over, then go back for his hat While Sue was sobbing to break her heart,

And all I could do was to stand and stare!
He had pleaded my cause, he had played his part,
And got his fee-and what more did he care?

It's droll to think how, just out yonder,
The world goes jogging on the same;
Old men will save, and boys will squander,
And fellows will play at the same old game
Of get-and-spend-to-morrow, next year-
And drink and carouse, and who will there be
To remember a comrade buried here?

I am nothing to them, they are nothing to me.

And Sue-yes, she will forget me, too,
I know; already her tears are drying.
I believe there is nothing that girl can do
So easy as laughing, and lying, and crying.
She clung to me well while there was hope,
Then broke her heart in that last wild sob;
But she ain't going to sit and mope

While I am at work on a five years' job.

They'll set me to learning a trade, no doubt,
And I must forget to speak or smile

I shall go marching in and out,

One of a silent, tramping file

Of felons, at morning, and noon, and night-
Just down to the shops, and back to the cells,

And work with a thief at left and right,

And feed, and sleep, and-nothing else.