Once Upon a Time and Other Child-Verses

THE TITHING-MAN

BONNY sweet-marjoram was in flower,
The pinks had come with their spices
sweet;
Thro' the village sounded the Sabbath-bell,
And the reverent people flocked down the
street.

Little Elizabeth, prim and pale,
A decorous little Puritan maid,
Walked soberly up the meeting-house hill,
With a look on her face as if she prayed.

Her catechism was in her hand,
Unvexed was she by the scholar's art;
Her simple lesson she simply learned,
And loved the Father with all her heart.

Her little kerchief was white as snow,
Like a rose she looked in her Sunday gown

As she soberly climbed the meeting-house
hill,
With her pretty eyes east meekly down.

Little Elizabeth sat alone
In the queer old-fashioned oaken pew,
And earnestly on the parson bent
Her modest, innocent eyes of blue.

But, ah! the sermon was deep and long,
The parson spoke with a weary drone;
And she heard the honey-bees out of doors
Hum, in a drowsy monotone;

The very wind had a sleepy sound —
Little Elizabeth began to nod,
Though she told herself 'twas a dreadful thing
To fall asleep in the house of God.

"My fourthly is," the parson droned; —
"I pray the Lord my soul to keep,"
Mused little Elizabeth in a maze —
And then – ah me! she fell asleep.

The tithing-man crept down the aisle
In solemn state, with his awful rod,
To chide the folk in the meeting-house
Who dared to whisper, or smile, or nod.

Little Elizabeth soundly slept,
All by herself, in the oaken pew,
With the heavy gold-fringed eyelids drooped
Over her innocent eyes of blue.

Close to her tiptoed the tithing-man,
And over her reached his awful rod,
And poked the little Puritan maid
For falling asleep in the house of God.

Dear little Elizabeth, prim and pale!
How her poor heart jumped when she
woke and found
The dreaded tithing-man at her side,
And the queer poke-bonnets all turning
round!

Then she sat straight up in the old oak pew,
Grave and pale as a lily-flower;
But she thought the people all looked at her,
While all their eyes did lower and glower;

And, going home, she fancied the birds
Called back and forth, with a knowing nod:
"There's the little maid whom the tithing-
man
Caught fast asleep in the house of God."

THE BARLEY-CANDY BOY

O THE Barley-Candy Boy! O the Bar-
ley-Candy Boy!
Who lived in the toy-man's window, 'tis little
he had of joy!
For he could not eat a bit of sweet, nor any
sugar at all,
Unless he ran a fearful risk of being a can-
nibal.

DOWN IN THE CLOVER

( A Duet, with Sheep Obligato.)

MID feeding lambs and springing grass
There sat a little lad and lass,
A green umbrella overhead,
The flickering shade of boughs instead,
And read a book of fairy rhyme,
All in their gay vacation time.