Here’s his ragged “roundabout,” Turn the pockets inside out; See: his pen-knife, lost to use, Rusted shut with apple-juice; Here, with marbles, top and string, Is his deadly “devil-sling,” With its rubber, limp at last, As the sparrows of the past! Beeswax—buckles—leather straps— Bullets, and a box of caps,— Not a thing of all, I guess, But betrays some waywardness— E’en these tickets, blue and red, For the Bible verses said— Such as this his memory kept— “Jesus wept.” * * * * * * Here’s the little coat—but O! Where is he we’ve censured so! Don’t you hear us calling, dear? Back! come back, and never fear. You may wander where you will, Over orchard, field and hill; You may kill the birds, or do Anything that pleases you! Ah, this empty coat of his! Every tatter worth a kiss; Every stain as pure instead As the white stars overhead; And the pockets—homes were they Of the little hands that play Now no more—but, absent, thus Beckon us. XXIV A Farm Boy Who Devoured Books Writes One of the Greatest Poems of the Century. THE international discussion of “The Man with the Hoe” had hardly subsided, when popular interest was revived by the remarkable declaration of the author, Mr. Edwin Markham, that he had spent ten years in its production. Who is this magician of the pen, this man of mystery, who carries his readers, in a single sentence, through “a storm of stars,” and, in another, kneels with them in dreamy sympathy beside “the brother to the ox,”—who mixes up the critics in a hopeless tangle of doubt, and puzzles the public by the erratic chronology of his mental processes? The widespread interest in the personality of the poet may justify the attempt of the writer to get at the “true inwardness” of his life-story. This has not yet been told. This handsome dreamer, whose eyes are softer than a fawn’s, and whose gray-tinged locks give an unwonted majesty to his mien, is only about fifty years old. Yet, in his span of life, he has been engaged in half a score of vocations, ranging from the exciting and strenuous to the peaceful and poetic. The discovery that he was once a village blacksmith promises to lend interest to a new phase of his distinguished career. THE MAN WITH THE HOE. (Written after seeing Millet’s World-Famous Painting.) _“God made man in His own image, in the image of God made He him.”—Genesis._