FAME. 
‘I don’t wish to discourage you, but lately I’ve been 
filled 
With certain strong misgiving, son, that somehow 
won’t be stilled; 
There’s something tells me plain as words, that you, 
with all your wit, 
Have erred in marking out your course, and you’ll 
repent of it. 
“The time will come when you will sigh ‘had I but 
only known 
What I do now, the good, old farm, with all its hills 
and stone, 
Would not have driven me away to find, when hope 
is dead, 
That Fame does not bestow her wreath on any sort 
of head.” 
“I’m talking plainly, that I know, but, Reuben, mind 
you this, 
That Fame's a far off target that a million marksmen 
miss, 
Then, some fine day a shot is heard that rings 
throughout the land, 
And Genious pops the bull’s eye, square,with steady 
eye and hand. 
“You may turn out a genious, Rube; I really hope 
you will; 
You know Fame’s temple crowns the top of an enor¬ 
mous hill, 
.And tens of thousands bound that way, with resolu¬ 
tion stiff, 
Have found their way completely blocked by a stu¬ 
pendous IF.” 
“Now, Reuben, when you reach that ‘if’ you’ll show 
good judgment, son, 
By striking ’cross lots for the farm and home here on 
a run; 
3 tay here and toil as I have done, and you may get 
to be 
A Deacon in the Church, perhaps, or, may be, a 
School Trustee. 
“All that be blawed!” Well, go your way, you’lj 
have my earnest prayers; 
We’ll always keep in order, son, your cozy room up¬ 
stairs. 
For you may yet return, convinced that wreaths of 
F ame are rare, 
And that your old straw-hat best suits the color of 
your hair.” 
- —- 
T3ie Vacation Month. 
Yet there are good things about August. 
The schools are shut up, the everlasting 
process of education is eased a 
chance is given for the mind to stretch 
itself and grow a little naturally. People 
forget that the mind needs those periods of 
semi-doze in which to ripen. We under¬ 
stand all about the convolutions and the 
gray matter of the brain, and know just 
where the memory cells are, and where lie 
the coils of imagination and ideality, can 
put our finger on the spot that, if excited, 
makes a man willing to pay his debts, and 
on the spot where exists the impulse to 
forgive our debtors if our creditors will 
forgive us, but no one caif tell how it is 
that if a thought is dropped into the brain 
overnight, and left to simmer there, and, 
indeed, remains for a time wholly unheed¬ 
ed, it will be found, when again called up, 
to have blossomed into a sermon, or an es¬ 
say, or a magazine paper worth ten dollars 
a page. The little idea seems to be yeast, 
and that furnished, the brain will go on 
unconsciously, and work out the rest itself. 
Perhaps August, which seems so stupid, 
is the yeast month of the year, and perhaps 
this is the reason that so many authors find 
September the most fruitful month of the 
year. 
August is also lawyers’ vacation, and 
their clients have a rest, and an opportunity 
to settle up their differences in an amicable 
way. When the lawyers quit the ship it is 
a sign that everybody else ought to go—to 
be off to the Rockies, to the North woods, 
to Norway, to the rocks by the sounding 
sea, if there is by that time a rock anywhere 
on our thousands of miles of coasts that has 
not a young lady sitting on it, with a spread 
parasol and a novel in her hand, and still a 
more interesting work of nature and art at 
her feet, talking to her languidly about 
friendship, and how you can know if two 
people are suited to each other, don’t you 
know. It is the harvest month of the nov¬ 
elist, for then, if ever, one wants a novel,— 
to put in the pocket in the woods, or to car¬ 
ry down to the beach, or to leave lying 
around with the split zephyr. People will 
buy novels in August, if they can not bor¬ 
row them, and if they are in cheap editions. 
It is a nice holiday, August, just because 
it has no vitality in it. Pity it can not be 
more of a holiday to more people. For the 
shops ought to be shut, and the banks, and 
the life-insurance men ought to go off into 
the wilderness with the lightning-rod men, 
and the canvasser ought to cease from can¬ 
vassing, and the weary be at rest. It would 
be a good tiling if the politicians would 
clam-bake and barbecue, and make no 
