Dying Gertie. 
BY W. B. FOX. 
O, mother, when will the morning come? 
The night’s so lonely, drear and long, 
I can not rest; your work is done, 
Come sing to me a lullaby song. 
I know you’re weaiy, mother dear, 
Your cheeks are haggard, pale and wan; 
But sing; — tis the last I’ll ever hear, — 
My eyes will never see the dawn. 
At eve, as I watch’d the fading sun 
Go out ’mong the clouds in the golden west, 
My heart grew fill’d with a strange unrest, 
And I long’d, oh! I long’d for the morn to come! 
SiDg softly, mother, soft and low, 
The song you sung in the long ago 
When I, a child, in your arms was borne, 
Let it soothe my heart so pierced and torn. 
Bast night I dreamed of our dear old home, 
’Mong the sunny mountains, far away, 
Where oft in the spring I used to roam 
For the flower that grew where the fountain’s 
play. 
But I’ll never see them bloom again, 
Ah, no! I’ll be gone from you long ere then; 
In the soft spring winds, now I see them wave, — 
Next year they’ll blossom o’er my grave. 
Mother, as I look’d o’er the fields to-day, 
So full of life, so full of bloom, 
O! it seemed so hard I must pass away 
And sleep alone in the silent tomb! 
But you’ll come often, mother dear, 
Where ’neath the soil I’m laid to rest; 
And when the earth _rrows cold and sear. 
You’ll keep the spot in verdure dress’d. 
Sweet mother, on my aching brow, 
Come place your band, the pain to stay, 
Of the fever’s flame there burning now, 
As slowly it wears my life away. 
And kiss the fevered lips once more, 
Of her your wayward dying one: 
A light shines out, death’s waters o’er — 
Sweet mother, now the morning’s come. 
Seeds that will Grow. 
Twenty-five years ago, when I was a very 
little girl, father sent me into the cornfield 
one morning to drop pumpkin seeds. 
“A seed in every other hill in every other 
row,” was the injunction called after me as 
I crossed the chip yard, seed-box and dip¬ 
per in hand, on my way to the cornfield. 
At first my task seemed nothing but play. 
The corn had already been planted, and the 
fiat hoe-mark on the top of each hill plainly 
marked where I was to crowd the pumpkin 
seeds into the mellow earth. 
Row after row I followed up and down 
the field, skipping one, planting one, and 
still the box of seeds did not become empty. 
‘ ‘Drop the field as far as the seeds will 
go, ” was another command I had received, 
and many a longing look did I cast at the 
cool farmhouse in the distance and then at 
the contents of that box, as the forenoon 
wore away and the sun grew hot. 
Ten times had I replenished my little tin 
dipper from the seed-box, a wooden box in 
which window glass had been packed, nar¬ 
row and deep—so deep it did not seem to 
have any bottom, as I shook up the pump¬ 
kin seeds again and again, to see if they 
were not almost gone. 
Fourteen more rows, seven of them to be 
planted, and the opposite limits of the corn¬ 
field would be reached—and every reason 
to believe that the seeds would last till the 
whole field was planted. 
“Father didn’t expect me to drop so many. 
I heard him tell mother he should plant half 
the field with pumpkins and half with beans. 
I really don’t believe he wants me to drop 
these last seven rows,” I argued with my¬ 
self. “I am so warm and tired I believe I 
will go home,” and keeping a sharp lookout 
on the porch door, that opened toward the 
field, and a guilty glance around the prem¬ 
ises, to be sure no one was looking, I kicked 
a deep hole in the mellow soil with my bare 
feet, and poured into it the remaining seeds 
in the box, packing dirt over them firmly 
and deep. 
“If father questions me, I can tell him I 
dropped them all; and those in the hole will 
never show their heads again aboveground, 
I am positive, they are buried so deeply,” 
I thought as I retraced my steps toward the 
kitchen threshold. 
Father was sick with a slow fever, and 
calling me to his bedside as I came in, he 
minutely questioned me in regard as to how 
the “seeds held out.” 
With guilty, downcast eyes, I told him I 
had planted the entire field as he directed, 
excepting the last seven rows. 
“And you dropped all the seed ?” he asked, 
his wan face looking up from the white 
pillows. 
“Yes,” I answered in alow tone, and then 
moved to the window. 
