Late that night the door of the "back stoop" opened softly, and a little figure glided out, and down the footpath that led to the road by the mill. She seemed rather flying than walking, turning her head neither to the right nor the left, looking only now and then to heaven, and folding her hands as if in prayer. Two hours later, the same young girl stood at the Mill Depot watching the coming of the night train; and the conductor, as he reached down to lift her into the car, wondered at the tear-stained face that was upturned toward the dim lantern he held in his hand. A few questions and ready answers told him all; and no father could have cared more tenderly for his only child than he for our little Blossom. She was on her way to Washington, to ask President Lincoln for her brother's life. She had stolen away, leaving only a note to tell her father where and why she had gone. She had brought Bennie's letter with her: no good, kind heart, like the President's, could refuse to be melted by it. The next morning they reached New York, and the conductor hurried her on to Washington. Every minute, now, might be the means of saving her brother's life. And so, in an incredibly short time, Blossom reached the capital, and hastened immediately to the White House.

The President had but just seated himself to his morning's task of looking over and signing important papers, when, without one word of announcement, the door softly opened, and Blossom, with downcast eyes and folded hands, stood before him. "Well, my child," he said, in his pleasant, cheerful tones, "what do you want so bright and early in the morning?" "Bennie's life, please, sir,' faltered Blossom. "Bennie! Who is Bennie?" "My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post."

"

"Oh yes," and Mr. Lincoln ran his eye over the papers before him. "I remember. It was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was at a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost for his culpable negligence."

So my father said," replied Blossom, gravely; "but poor Bennie was so tired, sir, and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it was Jemmie's night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about himself, that he was tired too."

"What is this you say, child? Come here; I do not understand;" and the kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justification of an offense.

Blossom went to him; he put his hand tenderly on her

shoulder, and turned up the pale, anxious face toward his. How tall he seemed, and he was President of the United States too! A dim thought of this kind passed through Blossom's mind, but she told her simple and straightforward story, and handed Mr. Lincoln Bennie's letter to read. He read it carefully; then, taking up his pen, wrote a few hasty lines, and rang his bell. Blossom heard this order given: "Send this dispatch at once."

The President then turned to the girl and said, "Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence, even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back; or-wait until to-morrow; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death; he shall go with you.

"God bless you, sir!" said Blossom; and who shall doubt that God heard and registered the prayer?

Two days after this interview the young soldier came to the White House with his sister. He was called into the President's private room, and a strap fastened "upon the shoulder." Mr. Lincoln then said "The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the act so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country." Then Bennie and Blossom took their way to their Green Mountain home. A crowd gathered at the Mill Depot to welcome thein back; and, as Farmer Owen's hand grasped that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he was heard to say fervently, "The Lord be praised!"

N. Y. Observer.

268. ONCE TO EVERY MAN AND NATION.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or
blight,

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,

And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

For humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast with Truth;

Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.

269.-DICKENS IN CAMP.

BRET HARTE.

Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;

The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.

The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
The ruddy tints of health

On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce race for wealth;

Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure

A hoarded volume drew,

And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure
To hear the tale anew.

And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,
And as the firelight fell,

He read aloud the book wherein the Master

Had writ of "Little Nell.'

"

Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,-for the reader
Was youngest of them all,-

But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall;

The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
Listened in every spray,

While the whole camp, with "Nell" on English meadows,
Wandered and lost their way.

And so in mountain solitudes-o'ertaken

As by some spell divine

Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine.

Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire:
And he who wrought that spell?-

Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills

With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.

And on that grave where English oak and holly
And laurel wreaths entwine,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,-
This spray of Western pine!

270.-POEMS FROM WHITTIER.

THE PUMPKIN.

O, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,
And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,
Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,
While he waited to know that his warning was true,
And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold
Through orange leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;
Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,
Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,
And the sun of September melts down on his vines.

Ah! on Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New-Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie ?

O,-fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

When we laughed round the corn heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin,-our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam,
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!
Then thanks for thy present!-none sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own pumpkin pie!

GONE.

Another hand is beckoning us,
Another call is given;

And glows once more with angel steps
The path which reaches heaven.

Our young and gentle friend, whose smile
Made brighter summer hours,

Amid the frosts of autumn time

Has left us with the flowers.

The light of her young life went down,
As sinks behind the hill

The glory of a setting star,

Clear, suddenly, and still.

As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed
Eternal as the sky;

And like the brook's low song, her voice,-
A sound which could not die.

And half we deemed she needed not

The changing of her sphere,

To give to Heaven a Shining One,
Who walked an angel here.

The blessing of her quiet life

Fell on us like the dew;

And good thoughts, where her footsteps pressed,
Like fairy blossoms grew.

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds

Were in her very look;