WHAT DARK DAYS DO

A real man does not want all his barriers leveled. He of course welcomes easy tasks, but he welcomes hard ones also. The difficult or unpleasant thing puts him on his mettle, throws him on his own resources. It gives him something of

"The stern joy which warriors feel

In foemen worthy of their steel."

Moreover as a foil or contrast it enables him to value more truly the good things he constantly enjoys, perhaps without perceiving them.

I

SORTER like a gloomy day,

Th' kind that jest won't smile;
It makes a feller hump hisself
T' make life seem wuth while.
When sun's a-shinin' an' th' sky
Is washed out bright an' gay,
It ain't no job to whistle-but
It is-

When skies air gray!

So gloomy days air good fer us,
They make us look about

To find our blessin's-make us count
The friends who never doubt,
Most any one kin smile and joke

And hold blue-devils back

When it is bright, but we must work
T' grin-

When skies air black!

That's why I sorter like dark days,
That put it up to me

To keep th' gloom from soakin' in

My whole anatomy!

An' if they never come along

My soul would surely rust

Th' dark days keeps my cheerfulness
From draggin'
In th' dust!

From "The Quiet Courage,"

Stewart & Kidd Co., Cincinnati, Ohio.

Everard Jack Appleton.

GLADNESS

A coal miner does not need the sun's illumination. He carries

his own light.

HE world has brought not anything

TH

To make me glad to-day!

The swallow had a broken wing,
And after all my journeying
There was no water in the spring-
My friend has said me nay.

But yet somehow I needs must sing
As on a luckier day.

Dusk falls as gray as any tear,
There is no hope in sight!
But something in me seems so fair,
That like a star I needs must wear
A safety made of shining air
Between me and the night.
Such inner weavings do I wear
All fashioned of delight!

I need not for these robes of mine
The loveliness of earth,
But happenings remote and fine
Like threads of dreams will blow and shine
In gossamer and crystalline,

And I was glad from birth.

So even while my eyes repine,
My heart is clothed in mirth.

Anna Hempstead Branch.

From "The Shoes That Danced, and Other Poems,"
Houghton Mifflin Co.

IT WON'T STAY BLOWED

It is easier to fail than succeed. It is easier to drift downstream than up. But just as pent steam finds an escape somewhere, so will the man who persists break at one point or another through confining circumstance.

To the sniffing pickaninny once his good old mammy

said,

"Yo' lil' black nose am drippin' from de cold dat's in yo' head,

An' yo' sleeve am slick and shiny like de hillside when it snows.

Why doan' you pump de bellers from de inside ob yo' nose?"

"Ain't I been," the child replied to her, "a-doin' ob jes' dat Twel I's got a turble empty feel right whur I wears muh

hat?

De traffic soht o' nacherly keeps gittin' in de road.
I blow muh nose a-plenty, but

it

won't

stay

blowed.

"What's de use ob raisin' chickens ef dey won't stay riz? What's de use ob freezin' sherbet ef it won't stay friz? What's de use ob payin' debts off ef dey's gwine stay

owed?

What's de use ob blowin' noses ef dey won't stay blowed ?"

This old world is sometimes jealous of the chap who means to rise;

It sneers at what he's doing or it bats him 'twixt the eyes; It trips him when he's careless, and it makes his way so hard

What's left of him is sinew, not a walking tub of lard; But it's only wasting effort, for by George, the guy

keeps on

When his hopes have crumbled round him and you'd think his faith was gone,

Till the world at last knocks under and it passes him a

crown:

Once, twice, thrice it has upset him, but

he

won't

stay

down.

What cares he when out he's flattened by the cruel blow

it deals?

He has rubber in his shoulders and a mainspring in his

heels.

Let the world uncork its buffets till he's bruised from toe to crown;

Let it thump him, bump him, dump him, but he won't stay down.

St. Clair Adams.

THE RAINBOW

Our lives are not a hodge-podge of separate experiences, though they sometimes seem so. They are held together by simple things which we behold again and again with the same emotions. Thus the man is what the boy has been; the tree is inclined in the precise direction the twig was bent.

The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth.

THE FIRM OF GRIN AND BARRETT

It has been said that when disaster overtakes us, we can do one of two things-we can grin and bear it, or we needn't grin. The spirit that keeps a smile on our faces when our burden is heaviest is the spirit that will win in the long run. Many men know how to take success quietly. The real test of a man is the way he takes failure.

N°

financial throe volcanic

Ever yet was known to scare it;
Never yet was any panic

Scared the firm of Grin and Barrett.
From the flurry and the fluster,

From the ruin and the crashes,

They arise in brighter lustre,

Like the phoenix from his ashes.

When the banks and corporations

Quake with fear, they do not share it;
Smiling through all perturbations

Goes the firm of Grin and Barrett.

Grin and Barrett,

Who can scare it?

Scare the firm of Grin and Barrett?

When the tide-sweep of reverses

Smites them, firm they stand and dare it,
Without wailings, tears, or curses,
This stout firm of Grin and Barrett.
Even should their house go under
In the flood and inundation,
Calm they stand amid the thunder

Without noise or demonstration.
And, when sackcloth is the fashion,
With a patient smile they wear it,
Without petulance or passion,

This old firm of Grin and Barrett.
Grin and Barrett,

Who can scare it?

Scare the firm of Grin and Barrett?