MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
275 
FOR AN HOUR. 
BY RUNE IJLCFF. 
I've wandered from the busy, crowded highway. 
Where hearts an>1 heads alike will weary gro w; 
My feet hare strayed into this quiet by-way, 
And cares seem few again and time mares slow. 
The winds among the grand old trees above me 
Seem whispering as they softly fan my brow. 
Like voices from the friends who used to love tne , 
Dear friends they were; alas, where are they now! 
The birds whose songs I loved, when in ray childhood 
I passed the hours In happy, careless play 
Along the broot or In the tangled wild-wood. 
Not blither sang than those 1 hear to-day. 
The gleaming sun-rays through i he branches quiver. 
As bright, as golden as in days gone by. 
Gemming with light the ripples of the river. 
Sunning my soul where grief’s dark shadows He. 
My blood flows quick again with youthful vigor, 
l half forget life’s crowd and emptiness. 
Its harrowing toil aud all its chill and rigor. 
Such tender memories round about mo press. 
1 hear from lips long mute, that use ! In bless me, 
Love-words; l clasp again dear hands in mine.— 
Strong hands that oft have lingered to caress me,— 
I look in eyes where tender love-lights shine. 
Alas t I know tt is but idle dreaming,— 
The morn will bring its toll, perhaps its pain ; 
And then, despite this one hour’s grateful seeming, 
’Twill find me lone aud stern and gray again. 
PRISON WALLS. 
BY SARA FRANKIE ATWOOD. 
The twilight shadows were fast, deepening 
when I stole away font the ( infusion of the 
great hotel to the rocks by the sen, which seem¬ 
ed like a prison wall around it. “Rise, rise 
above them, Oh, thou great, surging sea, and 
bs no longer like my soul—imprisoned !" 
Had I spoken my thoughts aloud, and was 
thi j an echo'? No; a few feet distant, sat a 
female figure clad in white, with wonderful, 
wonderful golden hair fulling like a ray around 
the perfect shoulders and snowy bosom, from 
which had dropped her mantle, like a ray of 
glory. 
“Thou art calm and unruffled now, bat yes¬ 
ternight thou didst murmur greatly, and angri¬ 
ly dash against each hard, unyielding rock.” 
Asain I started ; surely, this was an echo. Not 
so; the voice came from the same white-clad 
figure with Its halo of golden hair. 
The stately night queen, the beautiful full 
moon, now appeared to view and shed its soft, 
silvery light upon land and sea; and countless 
starry hosts came peeping out until they filled 
the arching' canopy ; some, majestic-like, shed¬ 
ding their light unwaveringly,—others winking 
and blinking merrily. 
“Mysoul is unlike thee,to-night,but as thou 
wast yesternight,—rustless, turbulent,—beating 
vainly against its prison walls for release." 
“Another echo,’’ I murmured softly. “My 
own sex envy me, and no suitor loves me for 
myself alone—only for the wealth that I would 
bring him. Oh, If someone would love me,— 
love me, with no thought of wealth; oh, if 1 
could have a mother’s love, the prison walls 
would be endurable." 
“ Almost an echo! Fifteen yearsagone I was 
a loving but unloved wife. A daughter was 
given me, but she, with her father, have passed 
over on the other side. Had she boon left these 
prison walls would have been endurable." 
When by the sea side oftentimes we uncon¬ 
sciously utter our thoughts aloud and, like the 
beautiful being so llttlo distant from me, my 
last thoughts were audibly spoken. 
She arose suddenly, her eyes soon resting 
upon me, I opened my arms aud she came into 
them. “Mother and daughter,” I said, “shall 
it not be so ?” 
“Aye,"she replied, “and we will cheerfully 
await God’S own time to free our souls from 
their prison walls.” 
“ We must do our good before we leave them,” 
I said. 
“ Ah, yes,” she replied, “ and we shall be bet¬ 
ter enabled to do it with each other’s love." 
-4-V-*- 
ANOTHER “RURAL” REMINISCENCE. 
Mr. Moore Congratulations seem to be in 
order now, this being the “Silver Anniversary” 
of your paper. * Allow mine to be added to the 
long list already given. Florence B., In the 
issue of March 21st, says they have taken the 
Rural twenty-one years. My father tells me 
he tried to form a club the first year of us 
existence, but it being something new, and 
rather high priced, he did not succeed. The 
following year, however, he commenced to take 
the paper and has continued to do so. This Is 
the twenty-fourth year it has been his weekly 
visitor, and a visitor we could not well spare. 
The papers were always saved, so when I had 
learned to read there was a goodly pile of “ Old 
Rurai.S” for mo to look over, and leisure mo¬ 
ments were usually spent away in some quiet 
corner, reading the Story Teller, Lidles’ Port- 
Follo, or studying the architectural plans, and 
dreaming what my house should be. Yes, I 
have read this paper all my life, and it has been 
a safe counselor and true friend. The Educa¬ 
tional Department was a special favorite as 
long as it appeared, and after I began teaching 
would often refer to old papers for advice on 
subjects that puzzled me. Am almost sorry 
we do not have that column now. Are there 
not teachers enough, readers of the Rural, 
who could write scraps of experience and kind 
suggestions that would be interesting, not only 
to teachers but to parents and children ? 
What has become of Pen BkNNIS and M. A. 
E. \V., or Mi.vrwoon, as l like to call bee? 
Many of those old contributors seem almost 
like personal friends, I have learned to know 
them so well through their writings. 
Now, Mr. Editor, I am quite sure some one 
who is reading this lias taken the Rural for 
the whole twenty-live years of its existence. 
Won't they please let us hear from them? or 
else we shall claim the palm. Long may you 
live aud prosper. Mary. 
Lyons, N. Y., March 31st, is; 1 . 
NEWSPAPER BORROWERS. 
Mr. Editor; I am a “ Rurai.ist, ” if six 
years’ subscription to the Rural constitute 
tne such, and t love ir as I do no other paper I 
ever took. 1 am not very young, but young 
enough to feel exceedingly interested in the 
letters to and from “Young Rural ists." Dear 
“Cousin Johnnie,” how I wish f could see 
you! You will never know the pleasure I ex¬ 
perience in reading your very entertaining and 
instructive letters to the little folks. And such 
a sight of recipes for cheap ornaments as we 
have, too, In tha good paper. I wonder il any 
of the little Rur al girls ev3f made the follow¬ 
ing? It is very pretty’ when neatly done, to 
set on the sitting-room shell';-Take a widc- 
moulhed glass bottle -not colored—got pieces 
of llannel, or any bright colored cloth, cut in 
tasteful figures, wet. in clear water, and with a 
needle in the end of ;t stick, fasten all around 
the Inside of the bottle ; begin at the bottom, 
and as fast as you work up 1111 the bottle with 
clean white sand. When full, pub on top a 
flat, short-stemmed bouquet of dried, or arti¬ 
ficial flowers; run ti sharp wire through the 
bouquet into the sand to steady it and you 
have It finished. 1 never saw this in print. 
I have just been reading what “ Daily Rural- 
ist” says about newspaper borrowers. 1 have 
got a neighbor who beats his “relative” to 
death. In the six years I have taken the Ru¬ 
ral, she has borrowed every number of it. If I 
refuse to lend the men folks will not, and if I 
grumble about it they say, “ O, we must be 
neighborly" (!) Often and often before 1 am 
half through reading It comes the squeaking 
voice of Miss lb, “ Has tho Rural come yet?” 
Mr. B. owns a. farm of splendid land. You 
should go on It. All is managed in tho saute 
style “my grandfather" did a century ago. 
The lings are killed and beans planted accord¬ 
ing to the law; of the “ Man in the Moon,” for 
fear the pork will shrink In the pot or the beans 
refuse to climb tho poles. This man is called 
well oif. I have noticed one thing—a habitual 
newspaper borrower never profits any by what 
he reads. If he Is too poor to take a paper and 
pay for it, depend upon it he is too poor to 
make Improvements on a farm or anywhere 
else. I often hear it said wo have too many 
laws. 1 f I was “ in the business," my first move 
would be to provide one for the punishment of 
perpetual newspaper plunderers. It would be 
a wise law, no question about it. m. w. 
-♦--♦-+- 
TRUE LOVELINESS. 
It is not your neat dress, your expensive 
shawls or your golden lingers that attracts the 
attention of men of sense. They look beyond 
these. It is your character they study. If ,you 
are trifling and loose in your conversation—no 
matter if you are beautiful as an angel—you 
have no attraction for them. It is the true 
loveliness of your natures that win and contin¬ 
ue to retain the affections of the.heart- Young 
ladies sadly miss it who labor to improve their 
outward looks while they bestow not a thought 
on their minds. Fools may bo won by gewgaws, 
and the fashionable by showy dresses; but the 
wise and substantial are never caught by such 
traps. Let modesty be your dress. Use pleasant 
and agreeable language, and though you may 
not be courted'by the fop and the sap, the good 
and truly great will love to linger in your steps. 
—-♦ ♦ »■ ■ ■ 
Be Buoyant.—A mong the gifts which have 
been made to humanity none. In the lower 
sphere of virtues, should call forth our thank¬ 
fulness more than the gifts of cheerfulness and 
wit and humor. They civilize life. They carry 
with them a perpetual blessing. If any man 
have buoyancy, if he find himself given to wit, 
in the name of heaven do not suppress It. Mul¬ 
tiply the drops which spring out of that pre¬ 
cious fountain. There is life |u it. 
--—■ 
Man. — A wealthy gentleman who owns a 
country seat nearly lost his wife, who fell into 
a river which flows through his estate. He 
announced the narrow escape to his friends, 
expecting their congratulations. One of them 
—art old bachelor—wrote a< follows. “ I always 
told you that river was too shallow!” 
-♦-*-*- 
Is This True? —A girl who looks like a 
“fury" or a sloven in the morning, is not to be 
trusted, however finely she may look in the 
evening. No matter how humble your room 
may be, there are eight things it should con¬ 
tain, viz.,—a mirror, wash-stand, soap, towel, 
comb, hair, nail and tooth brushes. 
^failing for the fjJoung. 
OBEDIENCE. 
If yott’re told to do a thing, 
And mean to do it, really, 
Never let it be hr halves: 
Do it Fully, freely! 
Do not make a poor excuse, 
Watting, weak, unsteady; 
All Obedience worth tho name 
Must be prompt and ready. 
[Plithc Cary. 
- - 
LETTERS FROM BOYS AND GIRLS. 
From a Rhode Island Girl Florist. 
DEAR Mr. Rural; I am about; to write my 
first letter. I am a litt le girl ten year- old, and 
very fond of flowers and plants, i was quite 
rejoiced to see a column headed “Gardening 
for Gliildren " in the Rural New-Yorker of 
March 17th. f thought we wore going to have 
something on tho subject every week. I only 
wish Mint, could bo done. I have got a nice, 
little collection of plants, and make a nice 
flower bed in tho summer with them. J propa¬ 
gate them and pot them all myself when I 
come home from school on Saturday. I have 
a nice plant of srnilax, several kinds of fish 
geranium, single and double and ivy-leaf ger¬ 
anium, helltropos, cigar plant, violets, tulips, 
Gorman Ivy, Maneira vines, fuchsia, lobelia, a 
wandering Jew, musk plan t, and a nice lot of 
ferns arid cactus, 1 am going to put a thick 
iicdge of zinnia around my garden this year. 1 
hope you will not think this too long, audit 
you print it I hope all bad spelling and gram¬ 
mar will l>o corrected. 1 hope we shall hear 
from other hoys and girls ns to what t hey are 
going to do with their plants and gardens.— 
Mary A. D., Ferry I fill, BrW.nl, It. 1. 
From a Live Wisconsin School Boy. 
Mr. Editor: I am a. farmer's boy fourteen 
years old and live four miles from Ellthorn, I 
have been to school there for the last seven 
months, and have not been tardy or absent 
during thatttme. I have boon studying Rhetoric 
Higher Arithmetic, Physiology, and have just 
got a Botany. One of tho teachers that 1 used 
to go to, is now teaching in Oregon, and I have 
corresponded with iter over since she has boon 
there. She sent me a sea-crab from there. It 
is as large as tho palm of ray hand and has ten 
legs. It is of an oval shape, with one edge 
scolloped. The color is of a pinkish white. It 
was packed In moss from Puget Sound. I am 
now making a collection of different coins. 1 
havoSi) different. kinds, I have Japanese, French, 
German and English pennies. I have some 
relics of tho Chicago lire and a small cabinet. I 
have some silver ore, some petrified moss, and 
petrified milk weed pod, and several other 
kinds. I have also a collection of stamps. 
Theft) are about seventy different kinds. 1 
have four brothers and otto sister. I have 
read several of tho letters from boys and girls 
in the Rural and thought I would try. In my 
next 1 will tell you something of my farming, 
that is, if tills one is accepted.—S eymour D., 
FAkhorn , fy is, _ 
From a Virginia Farmer’s Son. 
Dear Mr. Editor : As my father has been 
a subscriber to your paper for more than two 
Veal’S, and hearing my mother read those nice, 
little interesting letters from tho boys and girls, 
I thought I would just write you a letter my¬ 
self, hoping you will pardon my presumption 
in doing so. I am a real little Virginian boy, 
and have lived in the country nearly all my 
life. I will bo nine years old next May. I have 
only one sister, who is ,a year and a half old; 
site la my only playmate. The farm we live on 
Is a beautiful place, about one mile from the 
City of Norfolk on tho Elizabeth River. My 
father carries it on very largely, lie has just 
finished planting tlfty-two barrels of potatoes. 
When the weather permits, mother and I take 
a long walk ; our favorite walk is a point on the 
farm called Ohio, a noted swimming place. 
There we sit and rest, and gather moss and 
wild grass and bushes which wo carry home 
and decorateour house with. Now, Mr. Editor, 
I hope you will pardon me if I itave written too 
long a letter for my first. I have a great deal 
to write about but will close now, hoping you 
will accept this and oblige a little Norfolk boy. 
Johnnie IL F., Holly point Form, Vo. 
From an Ohio! Girl. 
Dear Mr. Editor:— The boys and girls have 
all been telling about tlicir pets, but I cannot 
boast of any except some canary birds which 
were presented to me for a birthday present. 
And now a word to my young friends who write 
for the Rural. Dear Dew Drop, we will say 
all we want to, if Young Bach does think we 
have long tongues. I guess wo can take out- 
own part, aud ho can too, by the way lie writes. 
You were telling about your quills. I have 
pieced several, and have commenced another, 
which Is called the “ Medley.” It takes eight 
hundred piooos, each piece being of a different 
color. 
Anri now a word to you, Youxo Bach ; 
I hope you will some nice girl catch. 
That will scrub, and clean, and bake your bread, 
And pull every hair right out of your head. 
I hope we will hear from Wild Rose soon 
again. As I have not soon any of her letters 
lately I thought I would speak of it, and per¬ 
haps she would favor us with another of her 
wished-for letters.— Biddie, New Way, Ohio. 
From a Virginia School Ctrl. 
Dear Editor:- I have been tit in king seri¬ 
ously about writing a letter to your paper lor 
the first time. J am a girl ten years of age, the 
daughter of a farmer of Lincoln, London Go., 
Va. My father has taken your valuable paper 
for ten years and thinks lie could not get along 
without it. We live on a farm of Mil acres. I 
am tho sister oi two boys, one of them a little 
baby two weeks old. T also have on older sis¬ 
ter. J’ho and l go to school nearby. There is 
a little girl who comes there who said, “ Are 
those the carpet books?" for copy hooks. The 
other day we were studying In our Geography 
that wo once belonged to England, and that 
she was our mother country, and that little 
girl that I have mentioned before said, “ Did I 
belong to England, too ?" I enjoy reading tho 
Story Toller and the Children's Column in your 
Rural a great deal. Now, as I have written 
enough for tho first, time, I will close.— Sarah 
II. S,, Lincoln, Loudon Co., Vo. 
From a Central New York Boy. 
Mr. Editor:—! havo been thinking about 
writing for the Rural for some time, so now 
1 will try and write my first letter. I have a 
little brother eight years old whose name is 
Fred. We study at. home this winter; our 
mother teaches us. I read in “Tho Analytical 
Fourth Reader,” and study “ Miinl.cith’a No. 3 
Geography," “Thompson's Mental Arithme¬ 
tic’* and the “Analytical Speller.” My brother 
reads In the “ Third Header,” and studies “ No. 
I Geography,” “ Davies' Primary Arithmetic,” 
and “Samlets’ Now Speller." We arc both 
nearly through our Arithmetic, and Fit ed is 
going through his Geography tho second time 
this winter. We have twelve liens and a Game 
rooster. Fred feeds thorn one week and 1 do 
the next. 1 guess my letter is long enough, 
and when I am older I hope to write better.— 
Clio E. B., Tally, Unmnlaya Go,, N. F. 
A Boy Wnnta White Mice. 
Mr. Editor:— Will some one please tell me 
whore I can got white mice. I would like to 
havo some very much, anil if any of the boys 
arid girls know where they are to be bought, 
please answer, and oblige Wit ,lie A. Hoyt, 
Galway, N . Y, 
From an Iowa (Hawk-Eye) Girl. 
Dear Mr. Editor;— My grandpa takes the 
Rural, and I like it very much. I am a little 
girl twelve years old. I have just been churn¬ 
ing. 1 can cook, sew, knit and crochet. I 
have not any brothers or sisters. My grandpa 
has got eighteen sheep, and they are so tame 
that I can put my arms around their necks. I 
am what you might call a traveler, for I have 
been in Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan,Can¬ 
ada, and am now in New York. If you think 
this worth printing I will write again. I have 
never written before to a paper.—A Hawk-Eye 
Girl. 
@fce Ipusder. 
We are always glad to receive contributions 
for this Department. 
CROSS-WORD ENIGMA. No. 6. 
My first is in row but not in line. 
My second is in cow but not in kine; 
My third is in much but not in little, 
My fourth is in chop but not in whittle ; 
My fifth 1 b in ride but not. in walk. 
My sixth is in sigh but not in talk ; 
Mv seventh is in tune hut not in song, 
My eighth is iri fetch but not in bring; 
My ninth is In Rose but not in Kate, 
My whole is a city in Now York State. 
1ST' Answer i n two weeks. b. f. 
- >♦« - 
ANAGRAMS OF CITIES.-No. 3. 
1. Mad tors. 2. He tans. 3. He bid G run. 
4. Sit on bar. 5. K Roy. 6. Red Dens. w. l. 
Answer in two weeks. 
-- 
PUZZLER ANSWERS-April 11. 
Acrostic Enigma No. 1.—1. Hannah. 2. Og. 
3. Peter. 4. Esau. 5. Daniel. 6. Elijah. 7. 
Felix. 8, Enoch. 9. Ruth. 10. Rehoboam. 11. 
Entyohus. 13. Delilah. Answer“ Hope De¬ 
ferred.” 
Word Puzzle No. 2.—Four. 
From a Connecticut Boy. 
Dear Air;. Editor: We have just com¬ 
menced to take your paper, which 1 think Is a 
very valuable one. i think the most interest¬ 
ing pact, is the Poultry Notes, i have never 
noticed the column of “ Letters from Roys mid 
Girls” till to-day, which I think are very nice. 
I live on a small farm, near Danbury, Conn., 
and attend school at that place. My principal 
amusements are playing on the violin In the 
winter time, and hunting in the summer. I 
have a great desire to ho a writer for some 
story paper, but I cannot punctuate a manu¬ 
script. very well. As this is my first letter I will 
not make it very lengthly, so 1 will stop.—G. 
W. D., Danbury, Conn, 
