SAMUEL WALTER FOSS.

SAMUEL WALTER Foss, a New England writer of dialect and domestic poems, born in New Hampshire, in 1858, resides at Somerville, Mass. He has published "Back Country Poems" (1894); "Whiffs from Wild Meadows" (1895); "Dreams in Homespun."

THE FATE OF PIOUS DAN.

"RUN down and get the doctor, quick!"
Cried Jack Bean with a whoop.
"Run, Dan; for mercy's sake be quick!
Our baby's got the croup."

But Daniel shook his solemn head,
His sanctimonious brow,

And said, "I cannot go, for I

Must read my Bible now;

For I have regular hours to read
The Scripture for my spirit's need."

Said Silas Gove to Pious Dan,

"Our neighbor, 'Rastus Wright,
Is very sick; will you come down
And watch with him to-night?"
"He has my sympathy," says Dan,
"And I would sure be there,
Did I not feel an inward call

To spend the night in prayer.

Some other man with Wright must stay;
Excuse me while I go and pray."

"Old Briggs has fallen in the pond!"
Cried little Bijah Brown;

"Run, Pious Dan, and help him out,

And nothing merely temporal ought
To interrupt my holy thought."

So Daniel lived a pious life,

As Daniel understood,

But all his neighbors thought he was
Too pious to be good;

And Daniel died, and then his soul,
On wings of hope elate,
In glad expectancy flew up
To Peter's golden gate.

"Now let your gate wide open fly;
Come, hasten, Peter! Here am I."

"I'm sorry, Pious Dan," said he,
"That time will not allow;
But you must wait a space, for I
Must read my Bible now."
So Daniel waited long and long.
And Peter read all day.

"Now, Peter, let me in," he criea.
Said Peter, "I must pray;
And no mean temporal affairs
Must ever interrupt my prayers."

Then Satan, who was passing by,
Saw Dan's poor shivering form,
And said, "My man, it's cold out here,
Come down where it is warm."

The angel baby of Jack Bean,
The angel 'Rastus Wright,

And old Briggs, a white angel too,
All chuckled with delight;

And Satan said, "Come, Pious Dan,
For you are just my style of man."

THE CALF-PATH.

I.

ONE day through the primeval wood

A calf walked home as good calves should;

But made a trail all bent askew,

A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled, And I infer the calf is dead.

II.

But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,

And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell-wethers always do.

And trom that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.

III.

And many men wound in and out,

And dodged and turned and bent about,

And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path;

But still they followed- do not laugh—
The first migrations of that calf,

And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

IV.

This forest path became a lane,

That bent and turned and turned again;

This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load

Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.

And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

V.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;

And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare.

And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.