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THE EXAMWIMER: =~

A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF POLITICS, LITERATURE AND NEWS.

EDWARD WHELAN]

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Literature.

LOVE'S MEMORY. A sweet poem by Mary Ann Browne.

I wore a wreath; "twas fresh an@ fair—

Rich roses in their crimson pride, And the blue harebell flowers were there—

I wore and flung the wreath aside; Too much did these bright blossoms speak Of thy dear eyes and youthful cheek.

I took my Jute methought its strain Might wile the heavy hours alon 1 strove to fill my heart and brain With the sweet of ancient song ; In vain; what’er [ made my choice Was fraught with thy bewitching voice.

ao: a?

And down T laid the restless lute, And turned me to the poet’s page; And vainly deem'd that converse mute, Unm'ngled might my heart engage ; But in the poet’s work I find The fellow essence of thy mind.

I wander'd ‘midst the silent wood,

And sought the greenest, coolest shade, Where not a sunbeam might intrude;

Aud in a chesnut’s quiet shade 1 sat, aad in that leafy gloom ‘Taought of the darkuess ef the tomb. And strove to lead. my heart to drink

At the deep founts of wandering thought; To ponder on the viewless link

Between our souls and bodies wrought ; To quench my passionate dreams of theo Awhile in that philosophy.

Yet all the while thine image bright Still fitted by, my mind to win, Casting through dreamy thoughts its light Like a sunshine tha: would enter in; And every leaf and every tree Seem'd quivering with beams of thee,

Belov'd! I will strive no more!

‘thine image lm vice-regal power Shall ruling sit, all memories o’er ‘Lhrowed in my heart, until the hour

When thou thyself shalt come again, iiestoring there thine olden reign. ——— FP Se - S

The Teachor’s Trial and Reward.

~

BY MARY IRVING. ‘OR! it is a thankless task to teach,’ exclaimed Mary, as | she drew off her schoo! bonnet, after a sumwer's day's bard | tuil. ‘What now, Mury ?' asked her hostess, gently, looking up | n inquiving simile, | herself iuto the beckoning arms of the crimson- i ‘king chair, aud shook down her curls over her; flushed cheeks. ‘ Nothing so very new nor strange, to be sure. A teach- iais are like—like these troublesome mosquitoes,’ she ushiin: spoke, one of the melodious insects | pon her hand, impatieutly; + they are little to meet and conquer sing'y, but, coming in swarms, aud without cessation, they sing one’s nerves to distraction !’ She grew cloquent as she reeovered breath, and went on: ‘Tuere is a floc drapery of romance thrown about the ideal teaching, that wil! bear I'ttle of the rough handling of re- ft is delightful in perspective—this enthroniug your-| sclfon a pyramid of young hearts, whose upgushings are tc waft you into a seventh heaven of self-complaceney.

ai3TY LOSSC

\ ] ! eysn'oned To

1: ' ehincg <« 7 ine. aS sic

It is de- liclous to fumvy yourself the prime mover of an electrical | battery, whose wires shall vibrate simultaneously in a hun-

dred siaall breasts, at your lightest touch. But delusion is

written on all those day-dreams! You seat yourself on that iwagic platform, a queen, and you are diseuchanted into a eervant of servants. The eyes which you pictured turning to you, as the sunflower to the sun, are wandering over desk and bench in search of paper balls, quill ends, or whatnots of mischievous contrivance. The ‘ young affections’ are be- stowed upon jack-knives and long tailed kites; and the youthful ambition werks itself out through heels and hands, | iustead uf head. You hammer away upon your own lungs, with little enough impression upon pebbly souls before you ! T'on’t shake your head so eagerly, Aunt Hannah! I know my duty, aud I will not shrink from it for these obstacles ; but somctimes they do swell mountain bigh !”

‘Aunt Hannah,’ as’ Mary called her by the relationship of

affection, not of kindred blood, was a strong-hearted spinster | —yes, a veritable ‘old maid’—of fifty years or more. She was calm and Quaker-like in her manners and in her dress; but her apartments were furnished in a style of comfortable evczence, that made them peculiarly attractive to young eyes. Buing » ‘lone woman,’ and a woman of fortune, she usually bound to her hearth some glad, warm, young heart, and kept her own sou! bathed in its fountain of fresh life. Her house was a home for the homeless; and who is so homeless as a young teacher in a strange city? So thought the kind old lady, at least when she took Mary to her heart and home as a daughter. ; Mary was @ sunny-spirited creature, not often shadowed by an eclipse of discouragement ; but when the cloud came, the shower must follow. So, she suddenly dropped her face on her hands, at the last sentence of her little oration, and burst into tears, like a homesick child. |

Auat Hannah quietly laid aside her darning-needle and basket, pushed her spectacles up on her forehead, and sat looking at the crying girl with a smile, half arch, half sym- pathizing.

‘Cheer up, my bird: she exclaimed, at Jast, leaning for-

ward. * Why you should toss off your burden at the school- rvom door,’

‘Ll know Is dear aunt. while

hould not bring it home, to plague you with it, But do let me ery; it does me good, once in a

* Not a moment ""

‘or I will write to insisted the old lady, good humoredly,

laughing in spite of herself’, as she bit the corner of her hand- Bat the |

kerehief. ‘1 will be more of a woman, there! childish feeling will come-over me in some moments. You don’t know anything about the trials of publie schools, aunt. Really, you cannot understand this ‘ continualy drooping’ of vexations, that would wear out the patience of a stone school mistress, [ believe.’

‘And what if you were mistaken, Mary? said Aunt Hannah, laying her hand on her shoulder.

‘Why? Did you ever teach, Aunt Hannah ? there was no deed of it, you were rich sure’— —

She glanced around her without finishing her sentence.

‘And you think teaching a penance, which none but the penniless would go through,’ said the lady, laughing.

She grew grave as she-added—

‘Shall I give you a leaf of my life’s experience,Mary ? You may distill some balsam from it.’

‘Oh! yes, auut,’ answered Mary, with deep interest, bending over until her curls rested on the old lady's brown silk apron. ‘ But first tell me how you came to teach? If it was from the love of teaching, you never can sympathise with me.’

Aunt Hannah stroked Mary’s soft hair, and looked stead- ily, almost sadly, into her hazel eyes for a few minutes without speaking.

‘I see a dream within these eyes, Mary,’ she said, at last, in a low deep tone—-’ a dread that lies in your heart’s core ! No, do not drop the lashes; let me read, and recollect-thus the dream that budded and grew in my heart, once,—trans- planted the heaven long ago!”

‘I did not mean to pain you, aunt’, whispered Mary, pressing her lips to the withered hand that rested on her aunt’s lap. ‘ Forgive my inquisitiveness.’

‘It does not pain me, Mary,’ she answered cheerfully ; ‘for why should the ‘thought of that which is immortal, pain ? But | will not sadden you with what your young, loving and loved heart would call a sad story to-night. I will only say that at the age of nineteen I found myself, by one stroke, cut aloof from lite’s joys and hopes, and driven to life's duties for the support of an existence that was long like a withered rose-leaf.’

She drew herself up, took out her knitting and commenced her story with animation.

‘I became in short, Mary, a district school ma’am, in a smal] country village, actually from choice. But it was in none of your romantic little country school houses that I found myself eusconced—no white, green blinded elm-shaded nouk of scieuce — nor even a neat corn-field. No; a bare, bleak, and weather-blackened establishment, unshaded by shrub, tree, or blind, in the exact triangle formed by three

Iam sure

j dusty roads, was my seat of empire.

‘It was a summer school—ladies, at that day, taught only in the melting season. My scholars were generally the ‘lesser fry,’ whose brothers and sisters were detained at home, meanwhile, to cultivate domestic science in the cheese- room or hay-field. Small as they were, however, they were large enough to embody the imps of mischief that always lurk about the walls of the sciool-house. Bat I pass them and their pranks, long since remembered only to be smiled at. The two largest of my pupils shall be the heroes of my story. They were only sizable seions in my nursery of shooting ideas, and, as such, naturally assumed importance.

‘One was the minister’s son—a high browed and high souled boy of fifteen—pale and precocious, enthusiastic in his love of the beautiful and his love of his books. He was a boy among a thousand. The snows of the ‘ Jungfrau,’ whose legend you were last night reading, cannot be purer of con- tamination from the world beneath, than was his young soul of that world’s debasing influences. But he was not a cold- hearted paragon of perfection, carved in ice — my gentle, loving Eddie! His blue eye—I can see it now, looking up at me from his brown pine desk, over which he was bending closely; —alas too closely! and always poured a brighter gleam from its inner fountain of light as it met mine. His faults, if they could be ealled faults—were all involuntary. If I felt constrained, by cousistency, to reprove him for the work of some musing moment my voice unconsciously took a softer tone, and my. eye catching the reflection of his winning glance, contradicted the reprimand. Such was Eddie Carroll — my prodigy, my pride. :

‘A very different youngster was Master Walter Raleigh R———-, a year the senior of Eddie, but scarcely towering above the tall, slender boy. Walter was the only child of the widow of a naval officer, who was passing the summer in the country air for the restoration of her health, and who wished to have her wilful but darling boy cultivating the talents which he was disposed to squander. He had been reared among city influences, and indulged, as I then thought, to his ruin. I scarcely wondered at this, for his face was one stamped by nature beautiful and noble, and his turbulent wil! was quict enough to bear down the judgment of a grief-bowed invalid like his mother. He had, as the saying is, ‘seen a little of the world’ -— quiet too much for his years — and fancied himself equa] to all exigencies, superior to all authori- ty. Yet, when his cloak of obstinacy was thrown off, he could be as generous and gallint as his namesake of old.

‘Of course, ‘Sir Walter’ was not going to surrender, un- conditionally, his citadel of pride and perverseness to a coun- try school mistress—one, too, upon whom he eould literally, ‘look down.’ He was a most provoking thistle in my cheer- fully tended garden, springing up every where to annoy and bafile me. Was a caricature chalked on the black board—I knew the hand at a glance. Was an unfortunate puppy tethered to my desk, or a sign of ‘ Blacksmithing’ posted over the school room door — each bore witness to my own mind of the perpetrator, although he managed adroitly to elude provf. 1t a laugh wentaround the schoolwoom, I could never turn my eyes so quickly to the corner where it com- menced, as not to find Master Walter bending with most imperturbable gravity over his slate or book, buried in ab- truse science. And when ‘called up,’ for taese or other offences, he would swagger impertinently, though ‘not un- gracefully, to my desk, and look me in the face with.an air that said, as plainly as words, ‘I am a lord of ereation— who are you?’ Reasoning and reproof fell on him like hail stenes on an Alpine glacier ; they slid off, leaving the same unhumbled smile upon his half-curved lips. With a cool nod he would toss back his. dark curls, toss a wink to the school, and stalk to his seat.

‘He became a sort of omnipresent nuisance to my 3 I was ashamed to complain of him, and thus confess that I bad failed in management; but he baunted my dreams at

Frerk to-morrow, telling him that you | night and my thoughts by day. 1 used, at last, fairly trem-

are tired of school-life in New England, and would prefer a, ble at his entrance, and almost fear to lift my eyes to him.

touch of life in the West’ ‘Oh, nonzenge!”

‘ At length he ventured upon a trick of more consequence.’

satcrrupted Mary locking up,blushing, and = Qu the morning after fourth of July, when I walked into

of fragments of fire works, on the hearth. They had evi- dently been tossed down the low chimney, and had flown hither and thither, at no little risk, blackening the walls and desks in many places.’

‘Who did this? I exclaimed, in dismay, tho’ with little hope of any answer.

‘It was Walter R , ma’am,’ exclaimed two of the little boys together; ‘1 saw him climb the roof, and fire down the squibs and crackers,’ added one, ‘and said, too ‘Who cares tor that little Miss Willis ? :

‘My womanly dignity and indignation were fully aroused. At the instant, Walter entered, whistling ‘ Yankee Doodle,’ as he moved to his seat. I called the school to order and silence.

‘The boy that caused this disorder, will please to remove the fragments,’ said I.

‘ Not a muscle stirred.

‘I turned deliberately to the offender,and facing his daring look, said— ,

‘Walter, you sit convicted of this act, by the testimony of your school mates. Have you any excuse to give ?

‘ There was a woment’s pause in which Walter studied the expression of my fixed eye; then clear and calm as a bell, his voice rang out—

‘No, ma’am

‘Then your sense of honor will tell you what is expected of you, Walter! No one else is to remove this rubbish,’ I added, turring to the other scholars.

‘ His lips pressed each other more firmly, but he turned with apparent iudifference to his books, with something, now and then, between a smile anda sneer. I took note of all, but took no notice, by word, of him or of his lessons. Dur- ing the noon intermission, J thought he might relent. But no—the hour of two brought us both to our places in the yet untidy sehool room. I grew desperate. I felt that a crisis had come in my reign, and it must be met.

‘Walter R will please stop a moment afterschool,’ said I, as I disbanded my little army for the night,

‘He kept his seat while the others walked way. Hddie was the last to leave, and as he passed through the doorway, he sent back to me a look of mingled anxiety and sympathy, that soothed and strengthed my heart. My culprit came up boldly ta my side, and confronted me with his wilful black eyes.

‘Waker,’ I began, quietly, ‘this is worthy of a hero! A mighty chevalier a boy of sixteen must be, who undertakes to dispute the authority of a young lady, shorter than bim- self and mistress of some thirty little country children !’

‘ His assurance was rather taken back by this unexpected tone, and the first shade of a blush marked a momentary confusion,

‘I would be your friend, if I could, Walter. You see. very well, that in this room I must and shall be obeyed. If you ehoose to absent yourself from tfis room, very well. I have nothing to do with boys too old to be gentlemen !’

‘I saw his lips arch slightly, and added—

‘If you really wish my assistance in your studies, Walter, should you not make some return ?

‘No answer. His hand playel with the leaves ef my Atlas.

‘Do you not owe me the assistance of your example, ip maintaining law aud order among the younger ones? What would you doin my place, Walter? Would you think litile of the obedieuce an/ respect of your oldest scholar? I leave this to your conscience and to your honor!’

‘We parted without another word.

‘I was uot surprised, although I was greatly relieved, on entering my premises the next morning, to find them ‘ swep: and garnished.’ The scholars had assembled. I rang the bell immediately, to prevent all needless observations. Walter was soon in hisseat, with a bright spot under each eye, and lips that seemed struggling to regain their usual expression of pride. I saw and pitied the conflict, especially when I took a sealed paper from my desk and read—

‘I beg pardon, Miss Willis, for my offence against law and order. You shall find me a supporter of both.’

‘ At the first moment of recess,the boys sprang tumultuously out. I stepped near the door to listen.

‘Ha! so you had to clear up after all, sir!’ cried the boy who had been my first informer.

‘ What's that to you, picaninny Pete?’ retorted the sharp tone of Walter; ‘babies may mind their own business.’

‘ And big boys better mind théir own brag!’ drawied the other, with a hectoring chuckle.

‘ Harsh words followed fast, and blows were already on the way. I called suddenly from the stone step— ~

‘Walter! will you bring me a sprig of that wild honey- suckle in the field yonder? I want it for my herbarium.’

‘ Nothing restores self-respect and good humor to a culprit so effectually as the commission of an errand, be it ever so slight. Walter came back with a countenance almost.cleared, bringing a quantity of fragrant flowers. I opened my Bot- any, and wiled him to stay while I found the description of the plant, and explained the hard, dry terms that defined it. Then, as [ laid it between papers to press, his wondering eyes followed every motion.

‘I don’t think [ should like a herbarium,’ he said, bluntly, at last looking down ata fresh flower which he was yet twirling in his fingers.

‘Why not? said I. The flower you are holding will fade —the flowers which you left on the stalks, will fade. This ‘one, though it is crushed for a little while, will not fade, but will keep its form and remnant of its beauty.

‘ Weil, I think I should like to study flowers, at any rate,’ he said with earnestness.

«I will teach you as far as I can, with a great deal of pleasure,’ I said as I arose to ring the bell. When I passed | him in returning to my seat, 1 whispered, ‘is it hard to keep good resolutions, Walter? He started, and blushed deeply, for the first time, but took his seat in silence. ,

‘From that day 1 found little to trouble my peace in Wal- ter. He redeemed his pledge most honorably, and still he kept aloof from me, as though ashamed of bis former conduct, and yet afraid to show that shame. He did not grow to my heart as did Kddie. But I mourned the day of his return to the distant city of snares and temptations, and sighed, as I said to myself—

‘ Would that noble boy could be saved.’

‘Three years later found me in the sunny South. I was

ing the winter in the uplands of Georgia, when I received a letter from Mr. Carroll, Eddie’s fataer. He informed me that bis poor boy had left college, apparently ‘far gone in a consumption,’ and that he had been ordered South, as a

'

(EDITOR axp PUBLISHER

| the school room, I fourd the children clustered about a heap ‘ran, ‘ and pillow his head on a father's breast, in the strug-

gle which I fear is too near. But you know why that can- not be. It is a great consolation to feel that he will be in the neighbourhood of one kind friend. I know how you have befriended my precious boy, and I am sure you will not with- draw your kind offices now, when they will be his only solace in a strange land.’

‘A few weeks later I met the invalid himself. He sat propped up by sofa cushions, with the lurid hectic on bis cheeks, and that unnatural light in his eyes which seems to pierce the shadow of death. ‘Was it my Eddie, indeed? that tall, emaciated spiritualized being? His voice was all that reminded me of the school boy, as he started up with feve- rish animation, and exclaiming, ‘ Miss Willis!’ sank back on his couch of cushions. I did not thea ask him many quest- ions; for evidently the sight of my face had awakened thoughts which distressed him. These he afterwards confided to me, in one ef the many eveuings that I spent in soothing his suffering and restlessness.

‘Oh, Miss Willis!’ he exclaimed, seizing my hand, and pressing it against his burning forehead —‘ to die so young.”

‘Words of comfort would have done no good, and I only pressed his thin hand in token of sympathy.

‘ Do you remember,’ and he smiled sadly as he looked up, ‘what an ambitious boy I was, when I used to sit upon that bench just before your desk, in that old school house at home ¥ You did not know half the dreams that dazzled me, half the plans that I had formed, and have since formed for my life —and now. my life is ended !

‘Did not your plan 1each beyond your life, Edward?’ I whispered. A spasm shook his slight frame, as he again covered his face, and was silent.

‘ Ambition had been the idol to which poor Eddie had givea himself a living sacrifice. It was hard te say ‘ They will be done !’ 7

‘ But he did say it as ho lay iu child-like helplessness, not many days after, waiting patiently for the Angle of Death to unlock the gate of a new life that has no sickness, no dis- appointment, no end!

‘I planted a laurel on Eddie’s grave, and a sensitive plant beside it—mute emblems of the spirit that had struggled ia the frail form below. ‘ Why was hetaken? I asked, with tears, as I turned from it the last time: ‘had the wicked world no need of his pure spirit? How many hundreds it might have spared before him !—Thus we complain, short- sighted gropers along the shore of eternity.’

Aunt Hannah paused for the first, and sat poising hor needles upon her idle fingers, as though buried in reverie. Mary drew a deep breath and asked softly, at last—

‘And what of your self-willed boy, aunt, your Walter ? Did he never cross your track again ?’

‘My Walter!’ exclaimed the old lady, brightening up. ‘ Youshall hear! 1 was thinking how many years had passed sizce my first journey to the Western country. It seems more than twenty; and yet it can hardly be,’ she said, as if reckoning, with her eyes fixed on Mary. .

“« Well! twenty years ago I was floating down the Qhio, in & fine steamboat ; that is, fine for those days. I was alone and rather adventurous. But I had an unconquerable curi- osity to sce the grand old woods of * the West’ in their glory. Tuey were all around me then. I suppose I should be forced to sail many a long mile beyond the Ohio, uow-a-days to find the West.” I was standing by the railing of the guards enjoying the waving panorama, when a little boy, about four years old, came running by me. Tis soft hair streamed back on the wind, and his cheeks glowed with the ‘delight of having escaped from his nurse in the cabin.

‘Franky!’ called a shrill voice, and a wolly head was thrust through the cabin doorway.—‘ Come here, Franky, rogue.’

* No, no! don’t want to’ exclaimed ‘ Franky rogue,” in high glee, backing toward the railing of the boat, as she pur- sued him. All at once he knocked a part of the guard, close by the gangway, that had been carelessly fastened. It gavo way, and stumbling back, he was just felling over the boat’s side, when I caught his velvet frock by the skirt, and held him hanging over the dark blue waters.

‘ Nurse and child each gave a scream lond enough to bring crew and: passengers in a body to our assistance. Among them was # young woman ina white dressing gown, with her long hair half braided, half streaming, to her waist. She looked more like a startled sunbeam than anything else, at that moment, as she bounded through the crowd with a mother’s energy, aud caught her yescucd boy in her arms. ‘Oh! she breathed, folding him to her heart. The nurse soon told her the story, and, turning to me, she caught my hand, and looking up tearfully, she said, ‘ His father will bless you for this! Oh! could [have met him with one child wanting? Then seeming to recover consciousness of ber dishabille, she glided back into her stateroom, carrying her treasure.

‘ About an hour afterwards, asI sat studying the counten- ances that moved up and dowa the cabin, Master Franky’s head peeped from behind a curtain, and soon he made hia appearance in full, and fastened by one finger to his mother, who had regained her composure. Now, in 2 neat travelling dress, with a face above the order of a common beauty, she seeined a petite embudiment of graceful dignity. The nurse followed with a year old baby with peachy checks, dark blue eyes afd dimpled hands.

‘I lured the little boy to my side, and asked his mother's permission to take him upon deck, as he seemed restless from confinement. '

‘Certainly. I can trust him with you, if you will take the trouble of watching him,’ she replied. ‘Franky isa sad rogue!’ The smile that dimpled her face as she said this, an- nuiled the shake of the head that accompanied it.

‘So you are a.minister’s boy, are.you?’ I asked of the little fellow, after some remark from iim about his father, whom he expected to meet at L———ia 2 few Lours.

‘No,’ said he, shaking his curls archly.

‘ What then—a doctor’s boy?’

‘ No—no!’ ke shouted gleefully ; that’s what I am! want to sit still.’

‘I found my task of guardian no very easy one, for the little fellow insisted on being escorted over the whole boat, and getting answers to a thousand and one droll questions.

‘ The supper ball rang, and I saw the young motner escorted to the head of the long table by the geutlemanly captaia, who, with a knot of gentlemen, seemed assiduous in attentions to her. Franky was called to her side, and 1 Jost him for a time.

‘I'm a professor's boy, I want toclimb that rope tree. I don’t

forlorn hope.

‘I next caught sight of his round, curly pate, cased in a

‘My beart bleeds that I cannot go with him,’ the letter ; blae cap, wits gold tassel, as be ran to my side, where I was

b.

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