nence, and carried his fame across the Atlantic. So popular did he become in England, that in 1871 and 1872, two London book-sellers republished his works and placed them on sale. His most popular writings are East and West, That Heathen Chinee, Truthful James, Luck of Roaring Camp, and a prose work, Condensed Novels, being a travesty of some popular works of fiction. Later, in 1876, appeared Gabriel Conroy, his first complete novel, in the regular three-volume shape. Critics find greater faults in this than in his earlier sketches. His great reputation was won by his poems and sketches descriptive of life among the California miners. These are mostly in the peculiar dialect of the miners, and they show the romance and the roughness, the crime and the tenderness, of the peculiar phase of American life in the mines of the west. His sketches command universal admiration, and by common consent he is ranked among the most popular of living writers. At present he resides in New York. Entertaining Her Big Sister's Beau. Y sister'll be down in a minute, and says you're to wait, if you please, And says I might stay till she came if I'd promise her never to tease, Nor speak till you spoke to me first. But that's nonsense, for how would you know What she told me to say if I didn't? Don't you really and truly think so? "And then you'd feel strange here alone! And you wouldn't know just where to sit; For that chair isn't strong on its legs, and we never use it a bit. We keep it to match with the sofa. But Jack says it would be like you To flop yourself right down upon it and knock out the very last screw. "S'pose you try! I won't tell. You're afraid to-Oh, you're afraid. they would think it was mean? Well, then, there's the album-that's pretty, if you're sure that your fingers are clean. For sister says sometimes I daub it, but she only says that when she's cross. There's her picture. You know it! It's like her; but she aint as good-looking, of course! "This is ME. It's the best of 'm all. Now, tell me, you'd never have thought That once I was little as that? It's the only one that could be bought For that was the message to pa from the photograph man where I sat That he wouldn't print off any more till he first got his money for that. "What? Maybe you're tired of waiting? Why, often she's longer than this; There's all her back hair to do up, and all of her front curls to friz. But it's nice to be sitting here talking like grown people, just you and me; Do you think you'll be coming here often? Oh, do! But don't come like Tom Lee. "Tom Lee? Her last beau. Why, my goodness! He used to be here day and night, Till the folks thought he'd be her husband; and Jack says that gave him a fright. You won't run away then, as he did? for you're not a rich man, they say, Pa says you're as poor as a church-mouse. Now are you? And poor are they? how "Ain't you glad that you met me? Well, I am; for I know now your hair isn't red; But what there is left of it's mousey, and not what that naughty Jack said. But there! I must go. Sister's coming. But I wish I could wait, just to see If she ran up to you and she kissed you in the way that she used to kiss Lee." The Song of the Shirt. ITH fingers weary and worn, W With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Stitch-stitch-stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the "Song of the Shirt!" "Work-work-work! While the cock is crowing aloof; And work-work-work! Till the stars shine through the roof; Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save,If this is Christian work! "Work-work-work! Till the brain begins to swim; Till the eyes are heavy and dim! "Oh! men with Sisters dear! Oh! men with Mothers and Wives! Stitch-stitch-stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, Sewing at once with a double thread, A shroud as well as a Shirt! "But why do I talk of Death! |