274
DO YOU THINK I HAVE FORGOTTEN THEE?
the medder hoeing corn. He was alters sneakin'
out te git nigh her somehow. Didn’t seem to be
contented if he wan’t putty close.
“I was a-spinnin’ stocking yarn to foot yer uncle Joshua’s mixed stockings—they was all good but the heels, and them was kinder wore through, and I thought it was best to foot ’em. Some folks would a heeled ’em, I ’spose, but I don’t think much of heeled stockings; they’re kinder hard to yer feet, especially if you’re trou¬ bled with corns.
“Wall, I was spinnin’ away, and hummin’ a tune at the same time. I’m a master hand to hum tunes, it helps my work along ’mazingly to have it sot to music, so. All to once, right in the middle of the tone—Cornation, I believe it was; no, I won’t be certain but what it was Lennox— or it might have been Bileston—I ain’t railly denied which ’twas—I hurd a scream! It made my hair stan’ rite up. Then there was another, and another—every one, ns Ichabod sez, ‘nearer, clearer, awfuller than before!' I knowed well euuff it was somebody somewhere! In a minnit I thought of Scraphina. She was etarnally git- tin’ into difficulty of some kind, and I thought ’twas jest as likely as not she’d been and done it wuss than ever! I dropt my yarn and run as fast as I could in the direction of the sound. On, on, I went like an offended comio, a-streamin’ of it for dear life, for the critter hollered so heart-broken like, that I knowed she must be in an awful perdicament somewhere*!
“ ‘Hold on a minnit! Seraphina!’ sez I, * don’t die jest yet! I’m a most there! and on I went!’
“Cum to git there, I thought I should a’ killed
myself a-laffin’! The ter’ble scene of the per¬
formance was the frog-pond in our pastur’, and
rite in the middle of the pond was Seraphina,
perched up on a rock, as peart as Nathan’s pig!
She’d hollered till she was putty nigh used up,
and looked more like a wilted cabbage-plant
than anything I ever seed. Rite on the edge
of the pond was Squire Dobb’s big, grey gobbler,
a-gabblin’ and stretchin’ out his neck like all
possest! Seraphina had on a wide, red scar
and turkeys can’t bear red, ye know; and so the
gobbler had run after her and her sash, till he’d
skaired her nigh about out of her wits! She’d
scampered till she’d pretty well killed herself
and when she cum to the frog-pond, she never
minded, she said, but put rite ahead, thinkin’
Satan hisself was after her! The gobbler das-
sent trust hisself in the water, but he wouldn’t
give up the chase, and there he stood bristling
his feathers and scoldin’ away, jest for all the
worl<f like Squire Dobb’s wife! She’s the awful-
lest scolder that ever lived! It’s well the squire
is deaf—I should be glad and thankful for it if
I was in his place!
“I took a stick and lambed that gobbler out of sight, and then I cum back to Seraphina. Ichabod got there jest as I did, and he made no fuss at all, but took off his coat, rolled up his trousis, and waded rite in after her! He lugged her out as keerful as could be, and sot her down on the grass to dry.
“I do believe that kind a skeered Ichabod. After that he sed little to Seraphina. So she fell in love with Jim Grannie, and ’sloped with him.”
DO YOU THINK I HAVE FORGOTTEN THEE?
BY IRS. HARB‘ET BOOKSH- BARBER.
Do you think I have forgotten thee,
Old mansion, far away?
Where thou stnndest in brooding stillness
Looking sadly on the day—
Looking darkly on its sunlight,
Till the gladdt-st ray that falls
Flits wnnly as some spirit
Within thy echoing halls—
Thy halls, that once with music rang,
And voices young and free,
Ohl their melody comes back to me
Across the sounding see.
In my dreumings oft I see then now,
As in the days gone by,
When I looked upon thee proud and fond,
With cliildhood’s reverent eye;
When I thought no world without could be
Like the bright world lived within,
Where my young life blossomed like thy flowers,
And my heart know little sin;
Oh! thy roses and thy glories bright,
I have watched with ardent eye
To see them up thy dear, old walls
Creep lovingly and high;
They sleep forgotten and alone
Within a scentless bed,
Like the sweet, youngI human blossoms
That dear old home has shed.
Those pictured forms and faces dear,
All radiant with mirth,
Just as in life‘s dissolving view
They faded from the earth.
How often in the quiet hush
Thoy steal upon my sight,
With a sweet and trembling hrightnen,
Like the stars upon the night;
Then my spirit eyes look upward,
Though the foolish heart will stray
To a dear, old, silent mansion,
I remember far away.
