With—_my dear mother-in-law!_”
—_Harper’s Weekly._
CONCERNING MOSQUITOES.
BY MISS ANNA A. GORDON.
Skeeters have the reputation
Of continuous application
To their poisonous profession;
Never missing nightly session,
Wearing out your life’s existence
By their practical persistence.
Would I had the power to veto
Bills of every mosquito;
Then I’d pass a peaceful summer,
With no small nocturnal hummer
Feasting on my circulation,
For his regular potation.
Oh, that rascally mosquito!
He’s a fellow you must see to;
Which you can’t do if you’re napping,
But must evermore be slapping
Quite promiscuous on your features;
For you’ll seldom hit the creatures.
But the thing most aggravating
Is the cool and calculating
Way in which he tunes his harpstring
To the melody of sharp sting;
Then proceeds to serenade you,
And successfully evade you.
When a skeeter gets through stealing,
He sails upward to the ceiling,
Where he sits in deep reflection
How he perched on your complexion,
Filled with solid satisfaction
At results of his extraction.
Would you know, in this connection,
How you may secure protection
For yourself and city cousins
From these bites and from these buzzin’s?
Show your sense by quickly getting
For each window—skeeter netting.
THE STILTS OF GOLD.
BY METTA VICTORIA VICTOR.
Mrs. Mackerel sat in her little room,
Back of her husband’s grocery store,
Trying to see through the evening gloom,
To finish the baby’s pinafore.
She stitched away with a steady hand,
Though her heart was sore, to the very core,
To think of the troublesome little band,
(There were seven, or more),
And the trousers, frocks, and aprons they wore,
Made and mended by her alone.
“Slave, slave!” she said, in a mournful tone;
“And let us slave, and contrive, and fret,
I don’t suppose we shall ever get
A little home which is all our own,
With my own front door
Apart from the store,
