Young as she is, her hair is whitening, She has ploughed thro' years of sorrow deep, She looks at her boy, and her eyes are brightening, Shame if ever you make them weep! Come along. Bravo! See how the brown cheek flushes! Ready to work as hard as you can? I have always faith in a boy that blushes, None will blush for him, when he's a man. Come along. THREE COMPANIONS WE go on our way together, Baby, and dog, and I; Three merry companions, 'Neath any sort of sky; Blue as her pretty eyes are, Or gray, like his dear old tail; Be it windy, or cloudy, or stormy, Our courage does never fail. Sometimes the snow lies thickly, Under the hedge-row bleak; Then baby cries "Pretty, pretty," The only word she can speak. Sometimes two rivers of water Run down the muddy lane; Then dog leaps backwards and forwards Barking with might and main. Baby's a little lady, Dog is a gentleman brave: If he had two legs as you have He'd kneel to her like a slave; As it is he loves and protects her, As dog and gentleman can; I'd rather be a kind doggie I think, than a brute of a man. THE MOTHERLESS CHILD SHE was going home down the lonely street, A widow-woman with weary feet And weary eyes that seldom smiled: She had neither mother, sister, nor child. She earned her bread with a patient heart, And ate it quietly and apart, In her silent home from day to day, No one to say her "ay," or "nay." She was going home without care to haste; What should she haste for? On she paced Through the snowy night so bleak and wild, When she thought she heard the cry of a child, A feeble cry, not of hunger or pain, But just of sorrow. It came again. She stopped--she listened--she almost smiled-- "That sounds like a wail of a motherless child." A house stood open--no soul was there-- Her dull, tired feet grew light on the stair; She mounted--entered. One bed on the floor, And Something in it: and close by the door, Watching the stark form, stretched out still, Ignorant knowing not good nor ill, But only a want and a misery wild, Crouched the dead mother's motherless child. What next? Come say what would you have done Dear children playing about in the sun, Or sitting by pleasant fireside warm, Hearing outside the howling storm? The widow went in and she shut the door, She stayed by the dead an hour or more-- And when she went home through the night so wild, She had in her arms a sleeping child.