a-thinkin' here, 'y gravy! till my eyes is wringin'-wet! Tho' I still kin see the trouble o' the present, I kin see—   Kindo like my sight was double—all the things that used to be; And the flutter o' the robin, and the teeter o' the wren Sets the willer branches bobbin "howdy-do" thum Now to Then! The deadnin' and the thicket's jes' a bilin' full of June, Thum the rattle o' the cricket, to the yallar-hammer's tune; And the catbird in the bottom, and the sap-suck on the snag, Seems ef they cain't—od-rot'em!—jes' do nothin' else but brag! They's music in the twitter of the bluebird and the jay, And that sassy little critter jes' a-peckin' all the day; They's music in the "flicker," and they's music in the thrush, And they's music in the snicker o' the chipmunk in the brush! They's music all around me!—And I go back, in a dream—   Sweeter yit than ever found me fast asleep—and in the stream That used to split the medder whur the dandylions growed, I stand knee-deep, and redder than the sunset down the road. Then's when I' b'en a-fishin'!—and they's other fellers, too, With their hickry poles a-swishin' out behind 'em; and a few Little "shiners" on our stringers, with their tails tiptoein' bloom, As we dance 'em in our fingers all the happy journey home. I kin see us, true to Natur', thum the time we started out With a biscuit and a 'tater in our little "roundabout!"   I kin see our lines a-tanglin', and our elbows in a jam, And our naked legs a-danglin' thum the apern of the dam. I kin see the honeysuckle climbin' up around the mill; And kin hear the worter chuckle, and the wheel a-growlin' still; And thum the bank below it I kin steal the old canoe, And jes' git in and row it like the miller used to do. W'y, I git my fancy focussed on the past so mortal plain I kin even smell the locus'-blossoms bloomin' in the lane; And I hear the cow-bells clinkin' sweeter tunes 'n "money musk"   Far the lightnin'-bugs a-blinkin'and a-dancin'in the dusk. And so I keep on musin', as the feller says, till I'm   Firm-fixed in the conclusion that they hain't no better time, When you come to cipher on it, than the old times,—and, I swear, I kin wake and say "dog-gone-it!" jes' as soft as any prayer! 

  

  

       HAS SHE FORGOTTEN.     

       I.     

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