'Tis but the tuneful nightingale. Is it his step upon the hill That brings the bloom to Cynthia's cheeks? Heaven help thee in thy piteous plight, For in the midnight's solemn hush He breathes a vow that smells of wine- And dallies with a bobtail flush THE LANGUAGE OF THE RAIL. BILL NYE. The fact that every business has its particular lingo, which is a dead language to people of other professions, was never more clearly shown than in the following article by Bill Nye. One night, about half after twelve, I judge, I heard somebody step along to the window of my boudoir. Hearing it that time of night I reckoned that something crooked was going on, so I slid out of bed and got my Great Blood Searcher and Liver Purifier, with the new style of centre fire and cartridge-ejector, and slid out to the window, calculating to shove a tonic into whoever it might be that was picknicking around my claim. I looked out so as to get a good idea of where I wanted to sink on him, and then I thought before I mangled him I'd ask if he had any choice about which part of his vitals he wanted to preserve, so I sings out to him: "Look out below there, pard, for I'm going to call the meeting to order in a minute. Just throw up your hands, if you please, and make the grand hailing sign of distress, or I'll have to mutilate you! Just show me about where you'd like to have the fatal wound, and be spry about it, too, because I've got my brief costume on, and the evening air is chill!" He didn't understand me, apparently, for a gurgling laugh welled up from below, and the party sings back : "Hullo, Fatty, is that you? Just lookin' to see if you'd fired up yet. You know was to come around and flag you if second seven was out. Well, I've been down to the Three is two hours There's two sevens out old man's to see what's on the board. late, and four is reported on time. and two sections of nine. Skinney'll take out first seven and Shorty'll pull her with 102. It's you and me for second seven, with Limber Jim on front end and Frenchy to hold down the caboose. First five is wrong side up in a washout this side of Ogallala, and old Whatshisname that runs 258 got his crown sheet caved in and telescoped his headlight into the New Jerusalem. "You know the little Swede that used to run extra for Old Hotbox on the emigrant for a while? Well, he's firing on 258, and he's under three flats and a coal-oil tank, with a break beam across his coupler, and his system more or less relaxed. He's gone to the sweet subsequently, too. Rest of the boys are more or less demoralized and sidetracked for repairs. Now you don't want to monkey around much, for if you don't loom up like six bits and go out on the track, the old man will give you a time check and the Oriental Grand Bounce. You hear the mellow thrill of my bazoo." Then I slowly uncorked the Great Blood Purifier, and moving to the footlights where the silvery moonbeams could touch up my dazzling outlines, I said: "Pardner, I am pleased and gratified to have met you. I don't know the first ding busted thing you have said to me, but that's my misfortune. I am a plain miner, and my home is the digestive apparatus of the earth, but for professional melody of the chin you certainly take the cake. You also take the cake basket and what cold pie there is on the dumb. My name is Woodtick Williams. I discovered the Feverish Hornet up on Slippery Ellum. I am proud to know you. Keep right on getting more and more familiar with your profession, and by and by, when nobody can understand you, you will be promoted and respected, and you will at last be a sleeping-car conductor, and revel in the biggest mental calm and wide, shoreless sea of intellectual stagnation that the world ever saw. You will-"} But he was gone. Then I took the pillow-sham and wiped some of the pulverized crackers off the soles of my feet, and went to bed in a large gob of gloom. THE OLD MAN GOES TO SCHOOL. JOHN H. YATES. I know I'm too old to learn, wife; my lessons and tasks are done; The dews of life's evenin' glisten in the light of life's setting sun. To the grave by the side of my fathers they'll carry me soon away; But I wanted to see how the world had grown, so I hobbled to school to-day. I couldn't a told 'twas a school-house; it towered up to the skies; I gazed on the noble old structure till dimmer grew these old eyes. My thoughts went back to the log-house-the school-house of long ago, Where I studied and romped with the merry boys who sleep where the daisies grow. I was startled out of dreamin' by the tones of its monstrous bell; On these ears that are growin' deaf the sweet notes rose and fell. I entered the massive door, and sat in the proffered chairAn old man, wrinkled and gray, in the midst of the young and the fair. Like a garden of bloomin' roses, the school-room appeared to me The children were all so tidy, their faces so full of glee ; They stared at me when I entered, then broke o'er the whisperin' rule, And said, with a smile, to each other, "The old man's a-comin' to school." When the country here was new, wife-when I was a scholar lad, Our readin' and writin' and spellin' were 'bout all the studies we had, We cleared up the farm through the summer, then traveled through woods and snow To the log-house in the openin', the school house of years ago. Now boys go to school in a palace, and study hard Latin and Greek; They are taught to write scholarly essays; they are drilled on the stage to speak; They go into the district hopper, but come out of the college spout; And this is the way the schools of our land are grindin' our great men out. Let 'em grind ! let 'm grind, dear wife! the world needs the good and the true; Let the children out of the old house and trot 'em into the new. I'll cheerfully pay my taxes, and say to this age of mine, All aboard! all aboard! go ahead! if you leave the old man behind! Our system of common schools is the nation's glory and crown; May the arm be palsied, ever, that is lifted to tear it down. If bigots cannot endure the light of our glowin' skies, Let them go to Oppression's shore, where Liberty bleeds and dies. I'm glad I've been to-day to the new house, large and grand; To the grave by the side of my fathers they'll carry me soon away, Then I'll go to a higher school than the one I've seen to-day; Where the Master of masters teacheth-where the scholars never grow old From glory to glory I'll climb to the beautiful college of gold. THE OLD MAN GOES TO TOWN. J. G. SWINERTON Well, wife, I've been to 'Frisco, an' I called to see the boys,— As soon's I reached the city, I hunted up our Dan Ye know he's now a celebrated wholesale business man. I walked down from the depo'-but Dan keeps a country seatAn' I thought to go home with him, an' rest my weary feet. All the way I kep' a thinkin' how famous it 'ud be To go 'round the town together-my grown-up boy an' me- I never thought a minit that he wouldn't want to see I walked in without knockin'-but the old man was too bold. Dan was sittin' by a table, an' a-writin' in a book; He knowed me in a second, but he gave me such a look I didn't stay a great while, but inquired after Rob; |