And old folks seem tickled

And keep a looking at each other,

and then at Zekie and Sally, as if they knew a thing or two.

The old man pulls his boots
And travels off to bed,
The old lady's yawning
And tying up her head.
Zekiel's feeling tickled,

Feeling kinder funny:
He thinks the time has come

For him to pop the question, get a wife, and com

mence a layin' up the money.

Now the old folks are gone,
But Sal is still knittin;

Zeke fidgets all around
And steps on a kitten.

She asks him why so mum?

And Zekiel hems and haws:

He gives an awful cough.

Then he crosses his legs, then he uncrosses them,

and then he says, "Because!"

Zekiel clears his throat,

Then hitches up his chair;

Sally looks slantin' like

As if she didn't care.

Zeke clears his throat again,

Again hitches near;

And Sal, the little pet,

After knitting to the "middle of the needle," lays

away her stocking and looks as if she wouldn't "skeer."

Zeke at once "pitched right in,"

Flung his arms around her:

Said that she must be his,

She'd not get a sounder.

Zeke kept a holdin' on

And swore his fate he'd know;

While Sal could but utter,

"Zeke Jones, I'll tell you what it is, I can't stand

it, and I won't let you hug me so !"

But Zeke vowed and declared,
By all things good and bad,
He never would "leave go,'
Till an answer he had:
He declared he loved her,

And his love was growin';

She modestly replied:

"Zeke Jones, I would like mighty well to believe

you; but I'm most awfully afraid you're blowin'!"

"I'll be dogged if I am!"
Shouts Zekiel, all in joy;
66 Do you think I would lie-
Think I'm a lyin' boy?
Oh, won't you have me, Sal,
I'll tell you what it is—
If you won't have me Sal,

I'll go right off to the wars, and some day there will a big cannon ball come along and take off my head cher biz!"

"Oh, yes, I'll have you Zeke,
Can't let you go away;
But, Zeke, you'll have to see
What pa and ma will say."
When Zeke this answer got,
He trotted off "to hum,"
And tickled was so much,

He couldn't sleep a wink that night, without dreaming of the good time to come.

EXTRACT FROM SENATOR BAKER'S SPEECH AT UNION SQUARE, N. Y., April 20th, 1861.

FELLOW-CITIZENS, what is this country? Is it the soil on which we tread? Is it the gathering of familiar faces? Is it our luxury, and pomp, and pride? Nay, more than these, is it power, and might, and majesty alone? No, our country is more, far more than all these. The country which demands our love, our courage, our devotion, our heart's blood, is more than all these. Our country is the history of our fathersour country is the tradition of our mothers-our country is past renown-our country is present pride and power-our country is future hope and destiny-our country is greatness, glory, truth, constitutional liberty-above all, freedom forever! These are the watchwords under which we fight; and we will shout them out till the stars appear in the sky, in the stormiest hour of battle. Young men of New York-young men of the United States-you are told this is not to be a war of aggression. In one sense that is true; in another, not. We have committed aggression upon no man. In all the broad land, in their rebel nest, in their traitor's camp, no truthful man can rise and say that he has ever been disturbed, though it be but for a single moment, in life, liberty, estate, character, or honor. The day they began this unnatural, false, wicked, rebellious warfare, their lives were more secure, their property more secure, by us-not by themselves, but by

us-guarded far more securely than any people ever have had their lives and property secured from the beginning of the world. We have committed no oppression, have broken no compact, have exercised no unholy power; have been loyal, moderate, constitutional, and just. We are a majority of the Union, and we will govern our own Union, within our own Constitution, in our own way. We are all democrats. We are all republicans. We acknowledge the sovereignty of the people within the rule of the Constitution; and under that Constitution and beneath that flag, let traitors beware. I would meet them upon the threshold, and there, in the very State of their power, in the very atmosphere of their treason, I propose that the people of this Union dictate to these rebels the terms of peace. It may take thirty millions; it may take three hundred millions. What then? We have it. It may cost us seven thousand men; it may cost us seventy-five thousand men in battle; it may cost us seven hundred and fifty thousand men. What then? We have them. The blood of every loyal citizen of this Government is dear to me. My sons, my kinsmen, the young men who have grown up beneath my eye and beneath my care, they are all dear to me; but if the country's destiny, glory, tradition, greatness, freedom, government, written constitutional government-the only hope of a free people-demand it, let them all go.

Let no man underrate the dangers of this controversy. Civil war, for the best of reasons upon the one side, and the worst upon the other, is always dangerous to liberty-always fearful, always bloody; but, fellow-citizens, there are yet worse things than fear, than doubt and dread, and danger and blood. Dishonor is worse. Perpetual anarchy is worse. States forever commingling and forever severing are worse. Traitors and Secessionists are worse. To have star after star blotted out to have stripe after stripe obscured-to have glory after glory dimmed-to have our women weep and our men blush for shame throughout generations to come-t -that and these are infinitely worse than blood. When we march, let us not march for revenge. As yet we have nothing to revenge. It is not much that where that tattered flag waved, guarded by seventy men against ten thousand; it is not much that starvation effected what an enemy could not compel. We have as yet something to punish, but nothing, or very little, to revenge. The President himself, a hero without knowing it-and I speak from knowledge, having known him from boyhood-the President says:- There are wrongs to be redressed, already long enough endured. And we march to battle and to victory because we do not choose to endure this wrong any longer. They are wrongs not merely against us-not against you, Mr. President-not against me--but against our

sons and against our grandsons that surround us. They are wrongs against our Union; they are wrongs against our Constitution; they are wrongs against human hope_ and human freedom; and thus, if it be avenged, still, as Burke says: "It is a wild justice at last;" only thus we will revenge them. The national banners, leaning from ten thousand windows in your city to-day, proclaim your affection and reverence for the Union. You will gather in battalions

"Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms,

Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms;"

and as you gather, every omen of present concord and ultimate peace will surround you. The ministers of religion, the priests of literature, the historians of the past, the illustrators of the present, capital, science, art, invention, discoveries, the works of genius-all these will attend us in our march, and we will conquer. And if, from the far Pacific, a voice feebler than the feeblest murmur upon its shore may be heard to give you courage and hope in the contest, that voice is yours to-day; and if a man whose hair is gray, who is wellnigh worn out in the battle and toil of life, may pledge himself on such an occasion and in such an audience, let me say, as my last word, that when, amid sheeted fire and flame, I saw and led the hosts of New York as they charged in contest upon a foreign soil for the honor of your flag, so again, if Providence shall will it, this feeble hand shall draw a sword, never yet dishonored-not to fight for distant honor in a foreign land, but to fight for country, for home, for law, for Government, for Constitution, for right, for freedom, for humanity; and in the hope that the banner of my country may advance, and wheresoever that banner waves, there glory may pursue and freedom be established.

THE FAMINE.-By H. W. Longfellow.

O THE long and dreary Winter!
O the cold and cruel Winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Froze the ice on lake and river;
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper

Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.
Hardly from his buried wigwam
Could the hunter force a passage;
With his mittens and his snow-shoes
Vainly walk'd he through the forest,

Sought for bird or beast and found none,
Saw no track of deer or rabbit,
In the snow beheld no footprints,
In the ghastly, gleaming forest

Fell, and could not rise from weakness,
Perish'd there from cold and hunger.

O the famine and the fever!
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever!
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!
All the earth was sick and famish'd;
Hungry was the air around them,
Hungry was the sky above them,
And the hungry stars in heaven
Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!

Into Hiawatha's wigwam

Came two other guests, as silent
As the ghosts were, and as gloomy,
Waited not to be invited,

Did not parley at the doorway,
Sat there without word of welcome
In the seat of Laughing Water;
Looked with haggard eyes and hollow
At the face of Laughing Water.
And the foremost said: "Behold me!
I am Famine, Bukadawin!"

And the other said! "Behold me!
I am Fever, Ahkosewin!"
And the lovely Minnehaha
Shudder'd as they look'd upon her,
Shudder'd at the words they utter'd,
Lay down on her bed in silence,
Hid her face, but made no answer;
Lay there trembling, freezing, burning
At the looks they cast upon her,
At the fearful words they utter'd.

Forth into the empty forest
Rushed the madden'd Hiawatha;
In his heart was deadly sorrow,
In his face a stony firmness,
On his brow the sweat of anguish
Started, but it froze and fell not.

Wrapp'd in furs and arm'd for hunting,
With his mighty bow of ash-tree,
With his quiver full of arrows,
With his mittens, Minjekahwun,
Into the vast and vacant forest

On his snow-shoes strode he forward.