A MEMORY

From buckwheat fields the summer sun

Drew honeyed breezes over

The lanes where happy children run

With bare feet in the clover.

The schoolhouse stood with pines about

Upon the hill, and ever

A creek, where hid the speckled trout,

Ran past it to the river.

And rosy faces gathered there,

With rustic good around them;

With breath of balm blown everywhere,

Pure, ere the world had found them.

Behind sweet purple ambuscades

Of lilacs, laws were broken;

And here a desk with knives was frayed,

There passed forbidden token.

One slipped a butternut between

His pearly teeth; a maiden

Dove-eyed, caressed her cheek;‘ twas e'en

With maple sugar laden —

A flock that caught at wiles, because

The shepherd's hand that drove them,

Reached little toward wise human laws,

And less to God above them.

With eyebrows bent and surly look

He only saw before him,

The rule, the lesson, and the book,

Not nature brooding o'er him.

One day through drone of locusts fell

The wood-bird's fitful tapping,

And in his chair at “dinner-spell,”

The teacher grim sat napping.

An urchin creeping in beholds

The tyrant slumber-smitten,

And in his pocket's ample folds

He thrusts the school-yard kitten.

At length the master waked, and clanged

His bell with anger fitting;

His sleep had made it double-fanged,

And crossed like needles knitting.

Slow to their seats the children file,

And wait “Prepare for classes,”

A score of lads across the aisle

From twice a score of lasses.

But two within the throng betray

A mirth suppressed; the sinner,

And Rafe Ridall, the chief at play,

At books the easy winner:

The wildest boy in all the school,

In mischief first and ever,

His daily seat the penance-stool,

Disgraced for weeks together.

Just sound of bone and strong of heart,

Staunch friend and noble foeman;

In life to play the kingly part,

True both to man and woman.

Joe's secret now he holds; a deed

With just enough of danger,

To win his — ah, what's that?‘ Tis freed,

The pocket-prisoned stranger!

A moment's riot laughter-filled,

Then fear, white-visaged, follows;

And through the silence there is trilled

The shrill note of the swallows.

And now a fierce form fronts them all,

Two fierce eyes search their faces,

Then flash their fire on Rafe Ridall,

Whose mirth no peril chases.

“You did it, sir!” “Not I!” “You did!”

“No!” “You've one chance for showing

Who in my coat the kitten hid,

Or be well thrashed for knowing.”

The master paused, the birch he grasped

Against his trousers flicking;

Rafe said, with hands behind him clasped,

“I'd rather take the licking.”

Full many a year has passed since then,

The lilacs still are blooming,

Awaiting childish hands again,

But they are long in coming.

Now wandering swallows build their nests

Where doors and roofs decaying,

No more shut in the master's zest,

Nor out the children's playing.

All, all are gone who gathered there;

Some toil among the masses,

Some, overworn with pain and care,

Wait Death's “Prepare for classes.”

And some — the sighing pines sway on

Above them, dreamless lying;

And‘ mong them sleeps the master, gone

His anger and their crying.

And Rafe Ridall, brave then, brave now,

Amid the jarring courses

Of man's misrule, still takes the blow

For those of weaker forces.