your strange eyes gleam as they pass me by,And seem to dream of a warmer sky,
Far over the sea.
THE SONG OF THE ROSE
I COME not when the earth is brown, and gray
The skies; I am no flower of a day,
No crocus I, to bloom and pass away;
No cowslip bright, or hyacinth that clings
Close to the earth, from whence it springs;
Nor tulip, gay as song birds’ wings.
I am the royal rose, and all things fair
Grow fairer for my sake; the earth, the air,
Proclaim the coming of the flower most rare.
Green is the earth, and beautiful the sky,
And soft the breeze, that loves to linger nigh;
I am the rose, and who with me shall vie?
The earth is full of gladness, all in tune
With songs of birds; and now I come, O June,
To crown thee, month of beauty, with my bloom.
RICH AND POOR
MY dear little girl, with the flowers in your hair,
Stop singing a moment, and look over there;
While you are so safe in the sheltering fold,
With treasures of silver, and treasures of gold,
Just a few steps away, in a dark, narrow street,
With no pure, cooling drink, and no morsel to eat,
A poor girl is dying, no older than you;
Her lips were as red, and her eyes were as blue,
Her step was as light, and her song was as sweet,
And the heart in her bosom as merrily beat.
But now she is dying, so lonely and poor,
For famine and fever crept in at the door.
While you were so gay, in your beautiful dress,
With music and laughter, and friends to caress,
From the dawn to the end of the weariful day,
She was always at work, with no moment for play.
She saw you sometimes, but you seemed like a star
That gleamed in the distance, so dim and afar.
And often she wondered if God up above
Remembered the poor girl, in pity and love.
Ah, yes, He remembered, ’mid harpings and hymns,
And loud alleluias, and waving of wings,
He heard in His heaven the sound of her tears,
And called her away while the sun of her years
Was yet in the east; now, she never will need
From you any more a compassionate deed.
Nay, some time, perhaps, from her home in the skies,
She will look back to see you with tears in your eyes,
For sooner or later we quiver with pain,
And down on us all drops the sorrowful rain.
She never will need you; but many bereft,
Hungry, and heart-sore, and homeless are left.
You can, if you will, from the place where you stand,
Reach downward to help them; the touch of your hand,
The price of one jewel, the gift of a flower,
May waken within them, with magical power,
A hope that was dying. O, don’t be afraid
The poor and the desolate spirit to aid.
The burdens are heavy that some one must bear,
You dear little girl with the flowers in your hair.
LACE-MAKING
SEE, mamma what is the woman doing? She looks as if she was holding a pin-cushion in her lap and was sticking pins in it.”
“So she is, my dear,” Ellen’s mother remarked. “But that is not all she is doing. There is a cluster of bobbins hanging down one side of the cushion which are wound with threads, and these threads she weaves around the pins in such a manner as to make lace.”
“I never saw anybody make lace that way. I have seen Aunt Maria knit it with a crochet-hook.”
“This is a different kind of lace altogether from the crocheted lace. They do not make it in the United States. The woman whom you see in the picture lives in Belgium in Europe. In that country, and in some parts of France and Germany, many of the poorer people earn a living at lace-making. The pattern which in making the lace it is intended to follow is pricked with a pin on a strip of paper. This paper is fastened on the cushion, and then pins are stuck in through all the pin-holes, and then the thread from these bobbins is woven around the lace.”
“Can they work fast?”
“An accomplished lace-maker will make her hands fly as fast as though she were playing the piano, always using the right bobbin, no matter how many of them there may be. In making the pattern of a piece of nice lace from two hundred to eight hundred bobbins are sometimes used. In such a case it takes more than one person – sometimes as many as seven – at a single cushion.”
“It must be hard to do.”
“I dare say it would be for you or me. Yet in those countries little children work at lace-making. Little children, old women and the least skilful of the men make the plainer and coarser laces, while experienced women make the nicer sorts.”
“What do they do with their lace when it is finished?”
“All the lace-makers in a neighborhood bring in their laces once a week to the ‘mistress’ – for women carry on the business of lace-making – then this ‘mistress’ packs them up and takes them to the nearest market-town, where they are peddled about from one trading-house to another until they are all sold.”
“Do they get much for them?”
“The poor lace-makers get hardly enough to keep them from starvation for their fine and delicate work; but the laces, after they have passed through the hands of one trader after another, and are at last offered to the public, bring enormous prices. A nice library might be bought for the price of a set of laces, or a beautiful house built at the cost of a single flounce.”
“I think I should rather have the house, mamma.”
“So should I. But the people who buy these laces probably have houses already. There is over four million dollars’ worth of lace sold every year in Belgium alone.”
Ellen thought she should never see a piece of nice lace without thinking of these wonderful lace-makers, who produce such delicate work and yet are paid so little for it; and while she was thus thinking over the matter, mamma went quietly on with her sewing.
HELP YOURSELVES
MANY boys and girls make a failure in life because
