Brings back the days when mother's hair

Had never a silver thread,

And the life still fair in its beauty rare

When the snows had crowned her head.

[Pg 18]

[Pg 18]

THE OLD SPINNING WHEEL

A cabin! It nestled amid the green hills

Where grew no bramble or thistle,—

Mid meadows melodious with music and trills

And song that the wild-throated mocking bird spills

On the air from his marvelous whistle.

No carpets were seen on the broad puncheon floors,

No paintings that wealth would reveal;

But a statue was there that Art can not know,

That filled the rude room with a musical glow,—

'Twas Ruth at the Old Spinning Wheel!

Long years have passed by; its music was stilled

At rattle and whirr of machinery.

And the pea-fowl now screams where the mocking bird trilled,

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